A57966:291
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.
10 Christ took them in his arms, laid his hands on them, blessed them. Now this was a personal real favour bestowed upon infants, had infants been mere symbolic and doctrinal resemblances of the humility of real converts, and the young ones as much without the Covenant as Pagans,1 and as uncapable of Covenant grace and Covenant seals, because void of actual faith now under the new Gospel administration, as horses or beasts, let the opposites of their Baptism show what sort of blessing it was, that Christ bestowed upon them, if it be not: 1. Of more value then Jacobs blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, 2or at least as real, and certain, Christ the Lord from heaven must as Sovereign, who had power to curse the fig tree and it withered, by his Sovereign power have blessed, in them, the whole race of infants in the Visible Church, and declared them Covenanted Church members under the New Testament in this eminent act of blessing the children and in commanding that all such might have free access to him as King, since the young ones were Subjects of the Kingdom of God, as well as the aged, and expressly forbids, that in time to come, they be hindered to come to him, Mark 10.14. Luk. 18.16. Math. 19.14. and three Evangelists are three sufficient witnesses. (2.) Christ the Lord is the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of blessing and cursing: ⟨p. 103⟩for in him all the Nations of the earth, and with them, young ones a considerable part of the Covenanted Nations, must be blessed. (3.) If Isaac blessed Jacob, and he must be blessed, Gen. •7.29.33. and Jacob blessed the twelve Tribes, Gen. 49.28. and Moses the man of God blessed Israel, before his death, Deut. 33.1, 2. &c. with Covenant blessings, and they were really blessed, Christ must as really with Covenant blessings, have, in this, blessed the whole race of infants of Covenanting parents, except Anabaptists say that it was some complementall salutation, for the fashion that Christ bestowed upon infants, when the Evangelists say, he blessed them,