A57976:473
A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbytery in Scotland, or, A modest and…A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbyterie in Scotland, or, A modest and…
A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbytery in Scotland, or, A modest and brotherly dispute of the government of the Church of Scotland wherein our discipline is demonstrated to be the true apostolic way of divine truth, and the arguments on the contrary are friendly dissolved, the grounds of separation and the independency [sic] of particular congregations, in defence of ecclesiastical presbyteries, synods, and assemblies, are examined and tried / by Samuel Rutherfurd ...A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbyterie in Scotland, or, A modest and brotherly dispute of the government of the Church of Scotland wherein our discipline is demonstrated to be the true apostolick way of divine truth, and the arguments on the contrary are friendly dissolved, the grounds of separation and the indepencie [sic] of particular congregations, in defence of ecclesiasticall presbyteries, synods, and assemblies, are examined and tryed / by Samuell Rutherfurd ...
London: printed for John Bartlet, 1642London: printed for Iohn Bartlet, 1642
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.
2. This argument doth either proceed according to this meaning, that these infants only are to receive the seal of the covenant whose parents are within the covenant by an inward ingrafting and union by true faith, besides the external professing thereof; or then there is no other thing required, but only external profession, that the Church without sin may confer the ⟨p. 173⟩seals; if the former be said, it will follow that God speaketh, Gen. 17. only to Abraham and his sons by faith, according to the promise, and only to believers; but God speaketh to all Abraham's sons according to the flesh. 2. Because God should speak an untruth, that he were a God by real union of faith to all that are commanded to be circumcised; for he commanded thousands to be circumcised to whom he was not a God by real union of faith: therefore these words must import, that nothing is more required, that the Church without sin may confer the seal of the covenant, but the children to be descended of parents professing the truth and faith, although the parents indeed, as concerning any real union of faith, be plain strangers to the covenant, and members of the Church only as an arm of wood is a member of the body, which being true, as it must be said, the assumption is weak and sick. •or the question is, what it is to be externally within the covenant, it is not to slay all known sins, to be a chosen people, a people taught of God (for then God would not have commanded Joshua Chap. 5. to circumcise all Israel, because their fathers externally were within the covenant) as this argument would say; for their fathers were a generation of unbelievers who knew not God, who tempted him and grieved his holy Spirit in the wilderness, and professed themselves by their murmuring never to be truly within the covenant. Then to profess the doctrine of the covenant is but to be borne Jews, and avow the Lord in external profession, and Deut. 29. swear a covenant with him, when the heart is blinded and hardened, v. 4. And so by this it is clear Joshua had commandment of God to give the seal of the covenant to their children, who were as openly wicked against the Lord, as murderers, drunkards, swearers, &c. 3.
2. This argument doth either proceed according to this meaning, that these infants only are to receive the seale of the covenant whose parents are within the covenant by an inward ingrafting and union by true faith, besides the externall professing therof; or then there is no other thing required, but only externall profession, that the Church without sinne may conferre the