The due right of presbyteries, or, A peaceable plea for the government of the…

Ans. 1. There is no churching here of strangers and Eunuchs ¹by Church-Oath, but as ^cCalvin, Musculus, Gualter, ^dJunius, observe, the Eunuch and stranger are comforted that under the Messiahs Kingdom, they shall have no cause to complain of their ceremonial separation from Gods people and the want of some ceremonial privileges of that kind, because the stranger and Eunuch shall have. v. 5. an everlasting room, and honour in Gods House, and the Son of the stranger a place in the Catholic Church v. 6. 7. so being, they believe and obey. But 1. v. 6. to lay hold on my covenant is not to lay hold on the Church-covenant; give us precept, promise, practise, or one syllable in Gods Word for this interpretation. 1. v. 4. to take hold on the covenant is to believe the covenant, and not to swear a vocal Oath. 2. To lay hold on the covenant, saith ^eMusculus, is to keep the covenant, and not to depart from it, to live according to it, ^fsaith Junius) and to rest on God, to do what is Gods will commanded in the covenant (saith) ^gCalvin, and ^hGualter) and so all who spake sense on that place, and never one dreamed of a Church-covenant before. 3. God saith of it (my covenant) there is no reason then to call it a Church-covenant here more then Jerome. 31. 32. 33. Psal. 25. 10. Isai. 55. 3. Jerem. 50. 5. Zach. 2. 11. 4 Laying hold on the covenant is not an external, professed, vocal, visible and Church embracing of the covenant, for then the Lord promiseth to the Eunuch the name of a faithful visible fellow member, in a congregation, if he shall lay hold on the covenant, and swear it in the Church assembly, this Church-swearing is not rewarded so, for how is it proved that a name, even an everlasting name, better then the names of sons and daughters, is the name of a fellow-member in some obscure congregation or parish? is this better then the name of a borne Jew, who was also a member of the visible Church, and if he believed in Christ, had also the everlasting name of a member of the Jewish Church? Surely there is no ground for this in Gods Word, the everlasting name must be some spiritual remembrance and some invisible honour beyond the external honour of being named the son or daughter of a Jew, and by what warrant also of Gods word is Gods holy mountain and his house of Prayer. v. 7.