A57966:238
The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace
The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace containing something of the nature of the covenant of works, the sovereignty of God, the extent of the death of Christ ... the covenant of grace ... of surety or redemption between the by Samuel Rutherford ...The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace containing something of the nature of the covenant of works, the soveraignty of God, the extent of the death of Christ ... the covenant of grace ... of surety or redemption between the by Samuel Rutherford ...
Edinburgh: printed by Andro Anderson for Robert Brown, 1655
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Q. 5. What holiness is it that is called federal, or Covenant holiness which is in Infants?
Ans. It is not so much personal holiness (though it may so ⟨p. 83⟩be called, because the person is a Church member,1 separated from the world to God) as holiness of the seed, Society, Family, or Nation, which is derived from father to son, as if the father be a free man of such a City, that privilege is so personal, as it is by the Law hereditary freedom derived from father to son, if the father have jus ad media salutis right to the means of salvation, so hath the son. Hence this was first domestical, God made the Covenant with Abraham and his family: I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed, Gen. 17. it was extended to him, not as a father only, but as to the head of the family; the children of Servants born in Abraham's family were to be circumcised and to be instructed as having right to the means of salvation. Gen. 17.12. He that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your Generations (so it is Generation-holiness) he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, that is not of thy seed. So God shows clearly that in Abraham he chosed the Nation and the house, Gen. 18.19. I know Abraham, that he will command his children (that is too narrow a Church Visible) and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord. 2. Afterward he chose the Nation to be a peculiar people holy to himself, 2Deut. 7.6, 7. but not with another new distinct Covenant, but in the same Covenant. 8. But because the Lord loved you, and would keep the oath that he had sworn to your fathers, to wit, to Abraham.