Thirdly: And what is principally to be insisted on, the persons to whom there was addressed the commission, taken as it is either in St. Matthew or in St. Mark, would naturally, and from the influence of habits of thinking prevailing in their country and sanctioned by their religion, consider the introduction of parents to the Christian covenant, as carrying with it the right of their children to be partakers of that benefit. These points were associated under the Jewish economy, and would therefore be presumed to be thus continued, unless the contrary were expressed. And it is a consideration to be taken in, that had such a severance been understood, no one can account for its not becoming a stumbling block to the entering into a new covenant, so much less beneficent than the old one in this particular. St. Paul had on his hands the task of counteracting many of the Jewish prejudices, sticking close to Christian converts from among the Jews. But he has never adverted to this point; on which they would have had more to say for themselves, than in respect to any of the elements, under which they were desirous of being kept in bondage.

The only expedient for the evading of the force of this argument, has been to deny that any spiritual privilege was involved in the Abrahamick covenant: which, it is alleged, respected merely the inheritance of the promised land, with the temporal benefits attached to it. Here is the hinge, on which the present branch of the controversy turns. For if the promises of God to Abraham respected spiritual as well as temporal mercies; and if infants might be parties to a covenant, in which there was a stipulation of the former; it will undeniably follow, that in the case of incapacity for this under the Christian covenant, the disqualification must consist in some other circumstance than that of infancy; or an inability to promise and to believe.

When it was said to Abraham-" I will establish my covenant between me, and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant,

to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee;"* it is a low sense to be annexed to the words, to conceive of all the subjects of such a covenant, as aliens from the divine favour in any respect, further than as they may be made so by their own wicked works. If there could be any reasonable doubt of this; it might be removed by the promise soon afterwards engrafted on the same covenant-"In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed: "+ words confessedly referring to the Messiah, in whom both Jews and Gentiles were to have an interest. There is a plain comment on this covenant, in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. The apostle speaks of Isaac and Jacob as "heirs with Abraham of the same promise:" that is, what he had received in person, had become their property by inheritance. Was this of temporal benefit only? certainly not: for the apostle goes on to say of those patriarchs, and of others celebrated before"They died in faith, not having received the promises"-that is, the fulfilment of them" but having seen them afar off," in this respect. And lest the distant prospect of good should still be construed to have for its end the earthly Canaan; it is further added concerning the characters discoursed of" confessing themselves strangers and pilgrims on earth they desired a better country, that is an heavenly." In the remainder of the chapter, other worthies are introduced; all as partakers of the promise to Abraham their ancestor. And in the conclusion of the chapter, it is said" these all having obtained a good report through faith, receiv ed not the" [fulfilment of the] "promise;" God having provided "some better thing for us, that they without us, should not be made perfect." Here is a perfecting of the promise, in the better enjoyment of the completion of it: so that whatever benefits are involved in the Christian dispensation, are nothing more than the matter which the prior promise-that of the Abrahamick covenant-had respect to.

* Gen. xvii. 7.

† xxii. 15.

+ Verse 9.

The token of the said covenant was circumcision. But St. Paul remarks, that this was "the seal of the righteousness of the faith which he" (Abraham) "had, being yet uncircumcised." And that the apostles perceived spiritual benefit in the promise, is evident: because contemplating it as prior to and broader than the law, he makes Abraham "the father of them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also." This would have been foreign to the subject of the apostle; had the promise of God, the faith of Abraham, and the circumcision which was the seal of its righteousness, looked no further than to mere temporal blessings.

In Ephes. ii. 12, we find the Gentile brethren addressed as follows-" At that time"-meaning before their conversion-"ye were *** aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise:" And it is added afterwards-"Ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." There are evidently contemplated two covenants of promisethe original Abrahamick covenant, to which the Mosaick was an addition, confessedly peculiar to the people of Israel; and the Christian. If the former respected merely temporal benefit, the Gentile believers had no interest in it after their conversion, any more than before this event: which renders the address of the apostle inapplicable to their condition. It is added in the next verse-"He" (Christ) is our peace, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." In the sense of the enjoyment of temporal privileges, and especially the possession of the promised land, the wall was not then broken down, nor is it at this day: there remaining promises to be fulfilled in favour of the Jews, and peculiar to them.

On the ground of the system here contradicted, the whole of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is unintelligible. The attention shall be

confined to the metaphor of the olive tree and its branches. The stock of the tree is evidently the Jews, in their collective capacity. The branches severed from the stock, are the unbelieving Jews; and the branches grafted in and wild by nature, are the believing Gentiles. These branches partake of the root and the fatness of the olive tree: certainly not in respect to any temporal benefit; and therefore only in respect to that of the evangelical promise, which began with Abraham, was continued through the legal economy, and was perfected by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. Accordingly it is intimated, that if the severed branches " abide not still in unbelief, they shall be grafted in again:" that is, "into their own olive tree;" or admitted to the participation of spiritual privileges, which had been theirs from the origin of their nation; and not to them as to the Gentiles, having a beginning with the Christian dispensation.

Many passages might be produced, of the same spirit and tendency. When taken collectively, they amount to no more, than what Christ himself had given warning of, to some principal characters among the Jews; when, after the delivery of the parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen, he made the application of it-" The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." This can never be interpreted in any other way, than of the casting away of the Jews and the bringing in of the Gentiles. But although this change involved the destruction of the Jewish polity; yet there was no renewal of it, in any temporal dominion of the Gentile Church. It was therefore in respect to spiritual blessings, that the one possessed what was wrested from the other.

The result, and the application of it to the present point, is as follows. The Abrahamick covenant involved more than the possession of the promised land, and any other temporal benefits; ex

tending to the full enjoyment of the favour of God: which is the matter denied on the other side of the question. Circumcision was the sign of that covenant, which is not denied by any. And hence it happens, that of all the pious persons of whom we read under the Old Testament dispensation, there is not an instance of conversion to God, unless it be from a life of sin: the favour before spoken of being supposed to continue, until forfeited by such a life. If these things be so; the children of the members of the Jewish Church were brought within the covenant; although not capable of believing and of promising themselves: which takes away the plea, that the condition of infancy is a disqualification for that transaction. Finally, under the Christian covenant, if infants are debarred from the benefits of it, there must be some other reason for this, than their unconsciousness of their concern in what is transacted in their behalf. On the contrary, they come in under a right involved in the relation of their parents to the Church, and under a general commission to baptize; which, being not restricted to adults, must be considered as extending to the others; agreeably to the common use of language, and to the received and familiar customs of those to whom the commission was addressed, and of those for whose benefit it was primarily designed.

These sentiments derive increase of evidence, from the custom which was stated in the fifth dissertation to have prevailed among the Jews in the gospel age, of admitting proselytes from heathenism by baptism, in addition to circumcision. The custom was extended to the infants of the proselytes, as the talmuds testify. It is here again recollected, that some learned men have denied the reality of this practice; which essentially interferes, in one way or in another, with their theological systems. In the dissertation above referred to, there have been briefly assigned the reasons, on the ground of which the recorded fact is here received.