Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection…Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion…

1. When God extended the Covenant to their Parents, He extended it to them at the same time; though as to us who are Children of Time, we must have an existence before we be actually in Covenant; yet as to God, who dwells in Eternity, He engrosseth all Generations in one view, and so He takes Fathers and Children together: Though the Fathers may be possibly considered as Agents, and Trustees for their Children, whiles in their Loins: God did not say to Abraham, I make a Covenant with thee now, and will make one with thy Children hereafter: But He puts them both together, Gen. 17. 7. And hence they are called God's Children, Ezek. 23. 37. Sons whom they bare to me.

2. The Covenant comes to each upon equal terms or propositions. The Covenant stands visibly under the very same respects to the Father and to the Child: The Text is clear for this, Fathers, and Children's children if they keep Covenant have a promise of Mercy: If they keep it the blessing is theirs, if they keep it not they cannot expect it, or challenge it: Those therefore that object from such Scriptures, that the Children are not in Covenant, but only conditionally if they keep it, are to remember, as was hinted before, that keeping of Covenant necessarily presupposeth a Covenant to be kept, and the Person that so keeps it, to be related to it, for none can keep Covenant but one that ⟨p. 71⟩is first in Covenant, nor yet can any but such break Covenant: He only breaks his Promise that first made one: He only neglects his duty, that was first obliged. It is not the Covenant it self, but the blessing of the Covenant, which is the happiness of those that keep it. We read also of those that dealt falsely in the Covenant, i. e. promised, and so were in Covenant, but performed not, Psal. 78. 37.