The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace

3. Arg. They must be brought in. These who are holy separated ⟨p. 113⟩from the world, for the Covenant-call of God, must be brought in again: But so is Israel. The Assumption he proves by p•rts. 1. The mass and root of Israel is holy, the Fathers were the Covenanted visible stock, line, root, as all the Old Testament sayeth: then the posterity, the first fruits, the branches partly born, partly to be born, must be holy Covenant-ways: The tree, root and branches are holy and of the same nature; Therefore the branches have right to Christ, to the Covenant, to Baptism and the seals. Hence Anabaptists, without all reason, say that he speaks not of federal and external holiness, but of real, internal and true holiness, only of the invisible body predestinated to life: for though invisible holiness cannot be excluded, except we exclude the holiness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were without doubt a part of the root: yet he must be taken to speak of that holiness of the Covenant and Church, as made visible and of the visible collective body of the Jews, not of only real and invisible holiness. 1. Because this was true in the days of Elijah, ¹If the root be holy the branches are holy; And it is a New Testament-Truth of perpetual verity, If the Fathers be holy so must the Sons. The Fathers have Church-right to Circumcision, to Baptism, to the Passover, and to the Lords Supper, so have the Children: but it is most false of the invisible mystical body and root only, and of real and internal holiness; For neither in Old or New Testament is it true, If the Fathers be predestinated to life, justified and sanctified and saved, so must the Children be. Ishmael, Esau, Absalom, and all the world of Hypocrit•• called from their profaneness Sodom and Gomorrah, Isai. 1.10. uncircumcised in heart, as Egypt, Moab and Ammon, Jerem. 9.26. as the Philistines, Amos 9.7. Then should that (2.) Distinction of Jews in the heart, and inward, and of Jews in the flesh,