A57966:250
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.
But tho the Anabaptists ignorantly confound the promise, and the thing promised; the Covenant, and benefits Covenanted. The promise is to you, and so are the commands, & threatenings, whether ye believe or not, the command is to you, and lays an obligation on you, whether ye obey or obey not, and the threatenings are to you, whether ye transgress, or transgress not. It is true, indeed, the promise, that is, the blessing promised, righteousness and eternal life is not given to you, until ye first believe. Object. Is not the promise made the same way to the aged as to the children, and the same thing required of both: The promise is to you and to your children. But the promise is made to the aged only, if they actually believe. Ergo, the promise is made to the children only, if they actually believe, and so not to Infants. Answ. Neither proposition nor assumption can bear weight. For the proposition, when God saith, I will be thy God O Abraham, and the God of thy seed. Is it needful ⟨p. 91⟩that God require the same conditions, that is actual believing, that he may save Father Abraham, and also actual believing from hearing the word of the Covenant Preached from all Infants born of Abraham and dying in Infancy, or then all these Infants so dying must be eternally damned? Nay. We believe many Infants (we reserve to the Holy and Glorious Lord his liberty of election and reprobation, Rom. 9.11, 12.) among the Jews were saved by the Covenant of Grace, though they died Infants. And this we condemn in Anabaptists, that they show no revealed way of God of saving Infants of believing Parents dying in Infancy, more then of saving Pagans and their Infants,1 for to them both are alike without the Covenant of Grace and without Christ; and therefore believing Parents have no word of faith or of the Gospel to pray for the salvation of their Children dying in Infancy, for such prayers have neither warrant in the Covenant of Works, nor in the Covenant of Grace, by their way. And yet that we are to pray, is to be gathered from Gen. 19.•8. 2 Sam, 12.16. Job 1.5.