Another essay for investigation of the truth, in answer to two questions, concerning I.…

Reply. All that they have here expressed, doth not supply ⟨p. 40⟩what is wanting to little children, to invest them with an actual, complete, proper, absolute, and immediate membership. For, though they are in Covenant, which is the formalis ratio of their Membership, yet it is mediately, (i. e. mediante Parentum foedere) and so their Membership is mediate. 2. Divine Institution giants unto the little children of his people such a portion in his Church as they are capable of, during their minority, and appoints them to be such Members, as such covenanting of Parents for them can make them. 3. This Divine Institution makes their Parents Undertakers for such children, and them bound, by their Parents acting, to perform that Covenant, when they shall become capable, and when they grow fit, to covenant with the Lord and his people for themselves and theirs, and so to be regularly, in their own persons, by their personal act, immediate Members. So that there is wanting unto children in minority, to make them actual, complete, proper, absolute, and immediate Members, A personal fitness in themselves, to act in orderly covenanting for themselves, which is required in all adult persons unto immediate Membership. When one comes to be in Covenant in one way, an […] her in another way; though both are in Covenant, yet these different ways makes their being in the Covenant different, and so their Membership. He that comes to be in the Covenant by his own immediate acting, is an immediate Member: He that comes into it by another's acting for him, is a mediate Member. For, though we are as truly, personally, and immediately Members of the Body of fallen Mankind, and by Nature Heirs of Condemnation, as Adam was, though he came to it by his own personal act, and we by the act of our public person; yet that doth not suit the case of Infants in question: for, 1. Adam stood as a public person, in whose loins all Mankind were under the first Covenant, and to be happy or condemned, by his standing or falling. No Parent is such a public person covenanting for all his Posterity, but for his Infants, and children in minority, while they are such, leaving his adult children to Covenant for themselves, if he hath any such children, when himself enters into Covenant. 2. Adams Covenant was only with the Lord, not with any Church, as the Covenant ⟨p. 41⟩of confederate Parents is;

Reply. All that they have here expressed, doth not supply