Profession of such a Faith and Repentance as is saving in order to his Admittance to the Church or Sacraments though he on his own part be required to examine himself and to see that his Grace be sound when he comes to them The Reason being because if his Faith be but true so far as makes him Willing to Come in and Joyn with us it gives him title to the Ordinances when unless his Faith be so True also as to be Saving he is like to reap no other Fruit by it but the Outward Enjoyment And this is the very Vse we are to make of this Doctrine That no Person be discouraged in his attending on the Means seeing Regenerate and Vnregenerate may have Title and yet none be Secure but Piously sollicitous how they Come as knowing that it is One thing that gives a Man title to the Ordinances and Another to the Effectual Benefits which can be attain'd by the Sincere only It may be askt by the way But what then is That I count Necessary to the Government and Covenant which I press taken Precisely I mean what is the Terms or Conditions thereof If the Covenant for Life and This Covenant be distinguished the Terms of them must be diverse Now the Terms of this Covenant may be discovered by knowing what That was chiefly which God accounted the Breach thereof And this we find very frequent both in regard to the Single Jew and the Whole Body If there be found within thy Gates a Man or Woman that hath wrought Wickedness in the Sight of the Lord in transgressing his Covenant and hath gone and served other Gods then let that Person be stoned Deut. 17.2 7. You see what God calls Transgressing his Covenant He was their King and the serving Another God was Crimen laesae Majestatis and therefore Capital Let us look into 2 King 17. and we shall find there the whole Ten Tribes at once carried away and given up of God for being any longer his People And what is the matter They Rejected it is said his Statutes and his Covenant and followed Vanity What Vanity Why they Went after the Heathen concerning whom they were charged not to do like them and they made them molten Images and worshipped Baal c. and therefore God was angry with them and removed them out of his Sight Vers 10 12 15 16 18. They did many other things which was Against their Covenant and He bare with them but Idolatry and False-Worship was such Breaking of it as Whoredom and caused their Divorce and his writing Loammi upon them And this Event we find Prophesied of even so long before as Moses who tells of the Nations asking why God dealt thus with his People Then Men shall say Because they have forsaken the Covenant of the Lord which he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt Here we have Our Covenant and Government And what was the Forsaking of it Why they Served other Gods and worshipped them Vers 24 25. So again Chap. 31. Vers 20. Jer. 22.19 with other Places Well now if going after other Gods and false-False-Worship was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breaking this Covenant then must the Terms of this Covenant be mainly the Owning the True God and his Worship in opposition to all False Gods and False Religion and consequently a Subjection to the Ordinances of that Worship Himself hath appointed unto which they were admitted under the Old-Testament by Circumcision and Now by Baptism Upon what is already said I know the Way I go is not the Road when yet there are Some that go the Road do seem to me to seek Mine but Miss it The Church with them is the Company of the Faithful and the understand by the Faithful such only whose Faith is Saving that engrasis them in Christ makes them his Members or Members of his Mystical Body For Others whom they call Members of the Church Visible if they be Visible Members only are Christians but in Appearance not Members of Christ indeed and so no Church-Members with them but in Shew or the Account of Men. And the Result of this Divinity which goes for the Orthodox comes to This That nothing less than such a Faith that is Saving gives a Man Right as to his Own Part to come and the Profession of no less than of a Faith and Repentance which is Such gives a Man Right of Reception on the Part of the Admitter into the Church and unto Baptism I have several Arguments to add therefore to what I have said already against this Opinion Only I will yet say a little more to the Explaining my Own before I give them The Church according to the common Opinion must be taken for a Corporation of Regenerate Persons that is of such Believers only as are already all Sincere Converts But I would have it rather in my Opinion be lookt on as a School wherein such Persons as are Wrought upon by the Gospel to Believe so far only as to be Willing to Come into it and be Baptized may There by the Use of the Ordinances as the Means of Grace be brought up to that Sincerity of Heart and Life which yet they have not and which God hath made the Condition of their Salvation There is a Conversion from Heathenisme to Christianity that brings Men into the Church must be One thing and a Conversion unto the Life and Power of Grace called Effectual Conversion is Another That the Latter of these Conversions is wrought in the Church ordinarily though not Confined to it is to be doubted of no Body Let the Commission of our Lord which ordinarily I think is overlookt be consulted Go ye and disciple all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you I pray mark it They are here to Call by their Preaching all them that will Come in and make them Disciples by Baptism and then after they are Discipled they are to be Instructed in the Things that Christ hath Commanded that is they are to Learn in his School when they are there their farther Duty which is the walking up Fully to the Precepts of the Gospel And in the first sixt sound Act of Resolution thereof I mean of doing so in Sincerity whensover a Man is wrought up to it does lie the Essence of that Work which we call Effectual Conversion If the School of all Christ's Disciples the Church of all Believers the Kingdom of all God's People were so narrow as to hold the Regenerate only how comes there to be a Proclamation for all the World to come into it even all that Will for it is not a Kingdom of such as are brought in by Force but of a Willing People Psal 110.3 over whom the Word prevails from one end of the Earth to the other If any Man will have Christ this is certain God offers Him Whosoever Will May have Him
Soul It is not so easie a thing with every Good Man as with So good a One to assume to himself so much as but amounts to All that is necessary to make a Man a Christian when he speaketh but as he thinks upon faithful Endeavours to avoid Deceit There may be Thousands of the Temper of Holy Mr. Bradford who the more tender they are of their Duty the more sensible they are of their Defects and more fearful of Hypocrisie And God forbid but many of them whose Consciences do condemn them should yet be acquitted by Him who is Greater than their Consciences and who Does and Will do it while they are secretly yet borne up in their Desponding Dependence on his Goodness and Mercy It was more fairly said once to me by a Chief Pastor of the Anabaptists That the Way they went was not Thus but the Person that offers himself to their Church said he was only to declare what Work of God there is on his Heart and the Church are to make Judgment of it So that though the Man himself should profess he did Not believe his own Sincerity and yet the Church Did they could Receive him This I told him I liked well but it was to depart so much from the received Rule of Profession and to verge towards Mine that is towards an Admission of the Willing who are to come as I cannot chuse but think to the Vse of the Means for Grace if they have it Not as well as for farther Edification if they Have In the Last place to come home I have in my fore-going Discourse delivered my Thoughts about the Church and Covenant And though it be true that no Man can Enter or be in Covenant with God in that Sense which signifies the Performing the Condition but he must be Regenerate and a Member of Christ's Mystical Body or Church taking the Covenant whether Abstractly or Complexly for the Covenant of Life Yet as for Admitting Men and Women into the Society of Christians which is the Congregate Church or Christ's Political Body and Entring them into the Covenant of Peculiarity whereby they obtain only the Advantage of the Ordinances as Means for the bringing them up to the Terms of Salvation if they are not Effectually Converted already whereof I have all the way before been speaking I apprehend the Scene is as it were quite changed and I must stand still upon this That if any one Receives the Gospel and Believes it but so far Let not any one then say foolishly That when I let those That Will come into the Church I let in Turks Jews Infidels for by Receiving the Gospel i. e. the Doctrine or Creed of it I do suppose them turn'd Christians as to be Willing to come in and be Baptized whether he makes any other Profession or not This is sufficient hereunto and there is nothing Else I find required of him unless we doubt whether a Man be In Earnest and a Christian in his Heart when he comes and then are we to Put the Question to him and he is to own the Faith Or unless he be a Profligate Scandalous Sinner who then must make his open Confession and declare his Repentance or be kept out I see not but the Owning the True God in opposition to all false Religions and other Gods was the main Intendment of the Jews Covenant and that a Common Faith left the word Dogmatical be too short which is less than Saving did suffice to the Entring it or Taking hold of it and that the Vnregenerate consequently as well as the Regenerate were in the Intention of God to be Members of that Church And I do think that the same Latitude ought to be maintained in regard to the same Kingdom as it is now Enlarged over the Nations and put into Christ's Hands which belonged to it before when a Theocracy of the Jews Indeed it must be confessed lest I seem Deficient in waving That before though once touch't upon which was needless till Now That besides their taking God to Worship Him only there was a Consent in the Generality likewise to all that Political Ceremonial Moral External Obedience which was required in that Covenant according to those Words of theirs All things that the Lord hath commanded we will do Only this must be known withal that these All Things which they were to do as the Matter of that Covenant in Observing all the Commandments thereof was short of the Righteousness of a Regenerate Man or of that Righteousness that justifies a Christian This appears expresly by St. Paul who was a Pharisee of the chiefest Sect of the Jews and Touching the Righteousness of the Law he says blameless but yet in point of Justification he tells us He Counted it but Loss desiring to be Found in Christ not having his own Righteousness but the Righteousness which is of God by Faith The Apostle by his Own Righteousness understands the Righteousness which he had as a Jew the Righteousness of Moses's Covenant described by him thus And it shall be our Righteousness if we observe to do all these Commandments Deut. 6.25 24.13 It shall be Our Righteousness that is so as the Law hath nothing against Such but that they shall live in the Land and be Blessed or that God as Rector shall Reward them with the Temporal Blessings promised in that Covenant But it was never intended by God for such a Righteousness as should Justifie a Man to Life Everlasting for how then should Enoch Job Melchisedeck and those Good Men that lived before the Law have been Justified Were they Justified any other ways than we If Righteousness come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain The Jews indeed generally that were not Saducees thought to obtain Salvation by their Works according to this Covenant which proved so deadly to them For they being ignorant of God's Righteousness and going about to Establish their own Righteousness did not submit to the Righteousness of God This Righteousness of Theirs and Paul's Own which he calls so I say as a Jew for his Own as a Christian he must have and be Judged according to it is that Righteousness whereof Christ speaks when He tells his Disciples that were Jews Vnless your Righteousness exceeds the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you cannot be saved There is a Conformity to the Law or Covenant of Moses which is the Righteousness of the Jew and so of the Scribes and Pharisees And there is a Conformity to the Law or Covenant of Grace and This is the Christian Righteousness that exceeds the Other The One consists in External Obedience in the Political Ceremonial Moral External Obedience I say of That Covenant The Other in Sincerity of Heart and Life accepted through Christ which is That which exceeds the Former As Abraham's Walking Vprightly before God exceeded his being Circumcised This Righteousness is called the Righteousness of God as of his Inventing Appointing Accepting instead of
how the Jews in their Rejection or Vnbelief of Christ were broken off That Kingdom which God before had over them as a Peculiar People appears plain For God having given up this Kingdom to Christ He expects that the Jews as all other Men should come in and give the same Faith and Allegiance to his Son as they did by their Covenant give before to Him Ye believe in God says Christ believe also in Me. But these Jews rejecting the Gospel and refusing to be Baptized in his Name do as it were openly say We will not have this Man rule over us and so are these Children of the Kingdom cast out and the Gentiles that receive Him Grasted in And so long as it is that Olive Covenant Kingdom or Church-State wherein the Vnregenerate if Such as may be cast out are or may be let Men have but such a Faith as makes them Willing and such a Life as is free from Scandal that would turn them Out of the Church again if they were In or make a Confession of their Sin with professing their Repentance if it be notorious this is sufficient to their Admittance upon the Account thereof For what is the Advantage Priviledge or Benefit of this Covenant Olive or Church-State but the Enjoyment only of the Ordinances which are the Means for the Bringing People up to the Terms of the Covenant of Life if they have not Entred the same already as well as to Confirm them in it if they Have In the Twelfth place This Rule is not agreeable to those many Glorious Texts and Prophecies of the Times of the Gospel which we read in Scripture When the Heathen the Gentiles the Nations the Isles the Vtmost Ends of the Earth Kindreds People from the Rising of the Sun to the Going down thereof are to be brought into the Church or Christ's Kingdom it is not to be imagin'd that it is Christ's Will and Appointment that none but the Regenerate should Come in and none but such as Can make such a Profession should be Admitted When the Prophets tell us of Kings and Queens becoming Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers in regard I count of bringing their People â—â—â—o and upholding them In the Christian Religion How does the Selecting a few People out of other Christians to be here and there a Gathered Congregation agree with such Prophecies I pray turn to these Texts Isa 52.15 55.5 60.3 Isa 42.4 10. 49.7 23. Psal 2.8 22. â—7 Aeâ—h 2.11 9.10 Mal. 1.11 Matth. 21.13 28.19 Rom. 11.15 Revel 11.15 and let the Reader make his own farther Improvement How is it for the Honor of our Lord to paucifie his Subjects and narrow his Dominions When to be a Christian and Profess it was indeed certain Death and Martyrdom it is no wonder if the Entrance was by a Renunciation of the World But Profession now is not a thing so dear nor is it the Will of our Good Lord to call us to so much Cost And This I count hath been hid from the Independent that he could never yet so wise as he is Frame his Church but according to the Times of the First Calling of the 〈◊〉 and not according to the Fulness of them Come in That is according to the Times of Nero and Dioclesian and not those of Constantine which makes him shrivel it up into its First Beginnings I do yet wonder how These Men can read the Parable of the King that makes a Marriage for his Son how Serious and in Earnest he is to have his House to be Filled so that not only the Streets and Lanes in the City are searched for the Poor the Halt and the Blind but the Hedges and the High ways for all they Can get and their Hearts not Relent at their own Practice Is the Kingdom of Heaven which is the Church to be likened to their Gleanings O what a blessed thing would it have been thought by Justin Martyr Athenagoras Origen Clemens Tertullian Cyprian if they might have enjoyed the Times we do when the Chief Magistrate and all the People can Vnite and Meet in the Service of the Same God and the True Religion And is this the Fruit of our Thankfulness that the Largeness of God's Goodness and Facility of our Assemblings should make us the more Scanty and Willing to be reduced to the Model of those Primitive Persecutions In the Thirteenth place Let us suppose upon this the Gospel Preached to a Country a Kingdom a Nation and the Prince thereof and many of his Nobles and Multitudes of the People convinced of the Evil of their Idolatry or Falsness Wickedness and Delusion of the Religion they profess who therefore are Willing to become Christians and Desire to be Baptized Suppose the Ministers that have Preached to them should consider that if they should immediately press upon them the Great Duties of Christ's Disciples Self-denyal and Mortification which would be putting New Wine into Old Bottles and tell them accordingly That they must not only Forsake their False Religion but every Lust Prosit or Plâ—asure that is Sâ—â—â—ul or else they can neither be Saved or Baptized If they should proceed in Faithfulness and rip up all their Ill Customs and Practices wherein they place the Delight of their Lives at present and let them know that they must come to a Perfect Resolution never to use them any more while they live or else they will not Admit them to Baptism If they fore-see upon this that the Prince and the Great Ones will never Consent to it but Go off and so Carry the People along with them I would fain know of any Man that is wise and can be concern'd about the Thought of such a Case what he would do in it Whether he would not rather follow Christ's Rule which is to make them Disciples by Baptizing them and then Instruct them further by little and little as they could pear it in what Christ hath commanded them It is no Scruple to a good Man in the Case where we are all Christians and Baptized in our Infancy to suppose no Hurt in it to stand here upon a Profession as Strict as this to be the Rule of Admission But if his Practice should answer his Disputation in such a Case or the like as now mentioned and he thereby should be a Cause or Occasion of hindring Christ his Lord of so many Subjects nay of the Apostasie of a whole Country that were Coming-in to Him and of the Loss of Salvation to their Posterity whereof they would have been under the Means if their Parents had been Baptized I see little Reason for him to be Stiff in such an Opinion For my part if any Person or Persons among us whose Parents being Anabaptists are grown up and not yet Baptized should desire Baptism of me I do think I should be apt to tell him of his Duty that he should first sit down and cast up his Accounts what Christianity will cost him
that Righteousness of Innocent Nature from whence we are fallen and it is called also the Righteousness of Faith whereby we are Justified in opposition to the Works of the Law that is both of the Law of Nature because no Man hath those Works and therefore cannot be Justified by them and of the Law of Moses because if a Man had them he could not be Justified thereby as hath been now said So that here being a Righteousness of One Covenant which is Justifying for Jesus Christ by his Merits procured this Covenant that we might be Justified by it but He died not for the Redemption of Israel out of Aegypt or the Procuring Moses's Covenant and the Righteous of Another that is Not Justifying it does appear that these Covenants must be Distinguished and that So as a Faith Short of Saving must be made to suffice for a Man to enter One when a Saving One is necessary to the Other and consequently that the Vnregenerate as well as the Regenerate may be brought in to be Members of the Charch or Subjects of God's and Christ's Kingdom by being capable of Entring this Covenant belonging thereunto a Covenant of Allegiance when none can be Members of Christ's Myspical Body by Entring the Covenant of Life but the Regenerate only If our Church then instead of the Three Questions at Baptism letting the First stand supposing a Dogmatical Faith sufficient for Answer to That should for the other Two ask Do You renounce the Heathenism Idolatry Mahometism or This or That False Religion which you Separate from when you Joyn with us And do you intend to live such a Christian Life in your whole Conversation as not to Leven the Society by your Being of it I must confess the Answer to these Questions supposing we doubt of the Persons when else there is no necessity of any in the Affirmative were a Qualification plainly necessary to a Man's being Admitted and proper to a Covenant of this Nature which is made for Receiving Men into such a Society But when these Covenants are confounded and the Baptismal Covenant advanced into the Covenant of Life so that there are no less Conditions required of a Person unto his Coming into the Church and being Baptized than unto his Entrance into Everlasting Blessedness What shall we say to these things but that for a through Satisfaction to the whole Objection these Interrogatories therefore and Responses of the Church which have been brought into Baptism by Men I will suppose for good Reason at the time but not by Christ's Commandment are to be lookt on by none I hope as Essential or Necessary to the Institution but may be Omitted Altered or Relaxed at her Will at least when better Reason appears for it And they were Omitted we know of late at Home under the Directory and are I suppose in most of the Reformed Churches Abroad Nevertheless if the Church when She can require no more of a Person but what is necessary to the Conventional Government of God and Covenant of Peculiarity I mean can require of him to do no more than Consent to the Terms Thereof so as to Refuse his Admittance Without It shall in regard to the Complex Consideration of God's Government and Covenant require an Engagement further unto the Terms that are necessary even to Life and Salvation also so long as it be not made by a Profession de praesenti which must draw Regeneration along with it but by a Covenant-Engagement understood aright and Authenticated by an Interpretation of the Church I shall humbly give way Thereunto both out of Reverence to what She hath hitherto prescribed as also and rather for the Good Vse which Is especially in our Catechistical Divinity and May still be made of it Only as for the Abrenuncio in the Liturgy I must lodge my Opinion That either the Engagement should be declared to be Conditional or the Question only be imposed and the Baptized left to make his own Answer If after This you be not satisfied as judging that no Person Vnregenerate can say I Engage into which I confess I would have the word chang'd but it is a Lie as much as if he said Abrenuncio Let the Church make her Interpretation with the Change of the Word and I am not of your Mind Nevertheless I will Answer you also otherwise If the Church were willing to turn her Abrenuncio to a Polliceor and That Won't serve then may She turn it into some other Words God grant I may as Will serve And I doubt not but if the Person that is tender of the Form imposed makes his Answer in such Words as he can with a good Conscience and without Doubting it were better than in those Prescribed seeing it is not Words nor Works but a Man's Will as I humbly understand or a Man's Consent a Believing Consent or a Consent upon Believing that is Believing the Gospel Preached and Consent to come in and be Baptized that no Body may mistake my Meaning upon the Account of General Grace is the Gospel's Christ's and his Apostle's Rule of Admission Suffer them to come unto Me and forbid them not In the Going Off I cannot but take notice how the Want of a more Timely or more Through Consideration of what I have Insisted upon to wit this Distinction of the Covenants and Government of God and the Necessity thereof hath led some Eminent Divines into the Particular Opinion That Children are to be held in the Same State with their Parents in regard to Salvation as well as in regard to their Outward Priviledges as they were Jews or Christians But I will humbly offer it to their Consideration whether there be any Places in Scripture that speak of the Parents entring Covenant for their Children or of the Covenant being made With them or To them and their Children after them but it is to be understood of the Covenant of Peculiarity and not of the Covenant for Salvation The Covenant God Establishes between Him and Abraham and his Seed after him is manifestly the Covenant of Circumcision Gen. 17. v. 7. with v. 10. And that Covenant He Enters with the Jews for Posterity Deut. 29.9 15. is but the same Covenant enlarged and expresly Distinguished from the New Covenant which is the Covenant of Grace or Covenant for Life in Heb. 8. v. 9 10. When therefore a Right to the Priviledges of that Covenant is soundly argued for Children from their Parents being in it and the Baptizing our Children as Christians as the Jews Circumcised theirs stands firm on the same Bottom because the Covenant of Peculiarity takes in the Children with the Parent by God's Ordination I will Establish my Covenant between Me and Thee and thy Seed after thee it follows not that we may argue the same thing as to the Covenant for Life In Ezek. 18. All Souls are Mine says God as the Soul of the Father so the Soul of the Son The Son shall not bear the