Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XIII.

The argument for the baptism of infants grounded on the interest which they are supposed to have in the promise of the Abrahamick covenant, considered and refuted.

ALTHOUGH the Abrahamick covenant was not properly the covenant of grace; yet it is confessedly important to consider its provisions as a dispensation thereof, or as a covenant of grace.

The argument in question is based upon the following declaration, viz. "And 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."

This promise is supposed to belong to believing parents in common among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews. And as circumcision was a token of it formerly, so baptism is considered a token of it now. Hence the former warrant to apply circumcision to the infants of believers, is viewed as a warrant for applying baptism to them now.

But if I shall succeed in showing that the promise in question does not belong to believing parents in common, and their seed, not even to Jewish parents and theirs, but was peculiar to Abraham and his, and consequently, that baptism is not a token of it as circumcision was formerly, then the warrant for infant baptism, grounded thereon, will disappear.

It is of great importance to understand correctly what God did, in fact, promise to Abraham, and then we shall be prepared to determine whether his was a peculiar case, or whether the same be promised to all believing parents.

The argument in question, as generally managed, limits the term seed to Abraham's immediate children, and either holds that the promise was conditionally to him and also to them, or that it was conditional to him and absolute as it respected them, i. e. if Abraham was faithful, they should be called and saved.

Hence the warrant to circumcise infants is supposed to be limited to his immediate household; and that the covenant was to be transmitted to each successive parent and his immediate

children, on the same condition, or in the same sense, with the right and duty of applying the seal to them, and to be limited in the same manner as to Abraham and his family. So that the right of circumcision to succeeding generations, rested not on their connexion with Abraham, their great progenitor, but on the faith of their immediate parents.

But this limiting of the seed, and consequently the right of circumcision, to Abraham and his immediate children, and this notion of the descent of the covenant singly or separately to each believer and his immediate seed, are manifestly erroneous.

The real truth is, God made a covenant with Abraham, including both himself and his posterity, indefinitely, remote as well as immediate, particularly in the line of Isaac and Jacob; and this covenant embraced both temporal and spiritual blessings. Hence both himself and his seed after him, in their generations, were required to be circumcised. The whole nation was thus divided and separated, according to God's free and sovereign pleasure, from the rest of the nations, and a line of distinction formed between Jews and Gentiles which has hitherto continued, and will, without doubt, hereafter continue down to the end of the world.

I say his posterity were included with him indefinitely, by which I mean that God did not promise that all his descendants in every generation should become pious like himself, but that some of them should, and the aggregate number should be very great, as before explained, and that his posterity, in-definitely, should inherit the land of Canaan.

Hence, whatever might be the character of any succeeding parent, his children's right to circumcision remained clear and undiminished, because they were the descendants of Abraham, and God had expressly ordered that they should be circumcised. His words were, "Thou shalt keep my covenant_therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. Every man child among you shall be circumcised." This, therefore, was a sufficient warrant for the application of this rite to all succeeding generations of his seed. Every man child, whether of the immediate or remote posterity, was manifestly to be circumcised. And this rite might be administered by the father or the mother of the child, or by the physician, the nurse, the king, the priest or the common citizen-only it must be done.

But the ordinance of Christian baptism is to be administered by a regular minister of the gospel, and it would be impious in any other person to undertake to administer it, which circumstance shows a very great dissimilarity in the two cases.

That this view of the seed, as embracing remote posterity as

well as near; and consequently this extended view of circumcision, are correct, will appear abundantly evident as we proceed.

Rightly to understand the clause, "to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee," it must be taken in connexion with what immediately precedes, and with other declarations elsewhere relative to the same subject. The whole sentence runs thus: "And 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, hence, plain that "the seed after him" was not, merely, his children of the first generation, but of successive generations, however remote. The words are plural; not his seed in their generation; but in their generations," which undeniably include remote as well as immediate posterity. The fifth, tenth and fiftieth generation were as truly included with him in the covenant as the first.

And they were thus included, not upon any condition to be performed by their immediate parents; but on the ground of the free and gracious engagement which God made with Abraham personally.

I do not think that even Abraham's faith and piety were a proper condition, upon which the blessing descended to his posterity, although God manifestly testified his love to him in blessing his descendants. But the whole that he did, from his call in the land of the Chaldees, for himself and posterity, was of free and sovereign mercy.

Though the scriptures sometimes speak as though there were a condition; the fulfilment thereof was secured by God's free promise. So that the covenant, considered as a whole, is presented in an absolute form, securing to Abraham the several items which it contained.

But so far as there was any condition in the case, i. e. so far as the descent of the blessing to his posterity in their generations, depended on parental faithfulness, it was evidently on condition of his own faithfulness as the father and head of the nation, and not on the faithfulness of parents in subsequent gen

erations.

God might, indeed, hear the prayers and bless the instructions of subsequent parents to the spiritual good of their children; but this is not the thing which he engaged to do in this covenant, or upon the condition of which the blessing engaged was suspended. He here made a covenant with Abraham himself and his seed after him in their generations, remote as well as near, specifying positively what he would do for him and them.

So far therefore as any condition was required in the case, it was required of, and performed by, Abraham.

Hence the promise was absolute that God would do thus and thus for his posterity in their generations.

It is not said, neither is it intimated, that God would establish the covenant and be a God to his posterity, provided each successive parent, or any class or number of parents, would practise faithfulness; but the whole engagement was with himself, all was then settled, ratified and secured.

God did, indeed, renew the covenant in part with Isaac and Jacob; and in his gracious dealings with the nation, he sometimes refers to the love which he bore to them as well as to Abraham.

Nevertheless, every thing engaged to Isaac and Jacob and their posterity was, in the first place, freely and absolutely engaged to Abraham. To them it was only renewed and repeated.

But after the branches spread from the stock, as in the case of Jacob's children, no other individual subsequently stood in the same relation to the covenant that these three patriarchs did, and especially that Abraham did himself.

Hence, the favour shown to the nation in the time of Moses, nearly five hundred years after the promise was first made to Abraham, is attributed, not to the regard which God had to their immediate parents, but to the regard which he bore to those patriarchs. "The Lord," said Moses, on the plains of Moab, "loved your fathers, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people as it is this day." When Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz, it is said, II. Kings, xiii. 22. "And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet."When Moses in the xxvi. chap. of Leviticus, had predicted what desolating judgements should come upon the nation in after ages for their sins, he adds these impressive words, " And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might be their God:" alluding, unquestionably, to the Abrahamick covenant. Again; God says by the prophet Jeremiah, chap. xlvi. 28, " For I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure." How strikingly do we see

Though that people are preserved distinct, and Hence, in reference to

this declaration fulfilled to this day. scattered among all nations, they are unquestionably they will continue so. their future ingathering, St. Paul says, Romans, xi. 25, 26, 28, "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved"—"as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes."

It is manifest from these passages, that the seed included with Abraham in the covenant, means remote posterity as well as immediate; and that the blessing promised to the seed was not suspended upon the fidelity of successive parents; but was freely and absolutely engaged to him; it being always understood that the promise was indefinite, not embracing all the natural seed, but only the children of promise-such as God was pleased to call.

Hence, in the darkest periods with that people, there was a reference, as we have seen, to that covenant. God would not utterly cast them off on account of it-yea, the ordinances of heaven should depart before he would cast off all the seed of Israel from being his people. There was always a remnant of believers under the former dispensation, "according to the election of grace," and for aught appears, there has been a remnant to this day, and will continue to be. "As touching the election, the nation is yet beloved for the fathers' sakes," and will in due time "be graffed in again."

The transaction, then, with Abraham, inclusive of his seed, was a singular and wonderful exhibition of God's mercy-altogether a peculiar case. The cases of other parents and of other portions of our Lord's kingdom, are, by no means, parallel with his. Other believers may fail entirely of having posterity, or their seed may run out, or the descent of piety among them may become extinct, however glowing it might have been in the original stock; and other nations, however enlightened they may have once been, may revert back into heathenish darkness, and be swallowed up among the multitude of other kingdoms, and lost. But the covenant with Abraham secured to him the existence of posterity permanently-yea, a numerous posterity, and that as a distinct people, though scattered among all; and the continued existence of a pious seed to some extent, at least down to the coming of Christ, and subsequently; and, I doubt not, to the end of the world. Hence their preservation and distinction are a standing miracle.

It cannot, therefore, be pretended that God deals with other believers, especially with particular believers among the Gentiles, on so large a scale; and that baptism is to be applied to

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »