We thought, sir, that our children's title to baptism was derived to them from their believing parents, as the children of the Jews was to circumcision, from their circumcised and professing parents ; and that the same promise which conveyed their children's privilege to them, Gen. xvii. had conveyed the right of believers children to baptism unto them also. Acts ii. 38, 39. and that the root being holy, the branches are holy also, that is foederally holy, Rom. xi. 16. But to this you make such an answer as astonishes me to read, p. 26; where allowing Abraham to be the root, you say, 'The holiness here spoken of, is first in respect of God's election ; holiness personal and inhe- rent, in God's intention :' Eph. i. 4. " He hath chosen us in him, that we should be holy." (2.) It is also holiness derivative ; but not from any ancestors, but from Abraham only ; and that not as a natural, but a spiritual Jather ; wherein he is a lively image, or figure of Christ, and is derived from the covenant of grace, which passed in his name to him and his seed. And, lastly, it shall be in- herent, being actually communicated by the Spirit of God, when they shall be actually called.'
Reply. Here we see into what brakes and pits men run themselves, when they depart from the plain and safe path in explications of scrip- ture Here is such a tripartite distinction of lioliness, as I never met with before. (1.) Here is personal holiness inherent in Gods inten- tion. By this you must either mean sanctification decreed for them, and to be bestowed on them at the time of their calling ; and then it is coincident with the third member of your distinction. Or else you mean, that it is holiness inherent in the intention of God, as an accident in its subject ; and then the simplicity of God's nature re- sists your incongruous notion. But it would be a less crime, to confound the first with tlie last member of your vain and self-created distinction, than to speak things so repugnant to the simple and un- com pounded nature of God.
Or if your meaning be. That this holiness is in God by way of in- tention, but in them by way of inhesion ; that will not deliver you out of your confusion neither, but run you into greater: For then you confound tlT»e immanent with the transient acts of God, and make the same thing at the same time, to be purely in intention, and in execution ; or to be only in God's purpose to bestow hereafter, and yet, at the present, inherent in the persons he intends it for : So that I must leave your strange notion of personal holiness inherent in God's intention, to be cleared by a more metaphysical head than mine: or else to stand, among other rare and unintelligible notions, to be admired and apj)lauded by the ignorant reader.
But then, when we come to the second member of your distinction, I am as much at a loss to find your sense as before : For there you
Jell us, ' The holiness here spoken of, is derivative holiness also ; and that from Abraham only ; and from him, not as a natural, but a spiritual father, resembhng Christ herein.'
Reply. This word derivative is an equivocal word, and may signify Q\\)i\Qv inherent personal holiness^ ovjcederal holiness ; for both of them are derived. If you say the former, it looks too black and horrid for me to believe you mean it, though you should say you mean it ; for then you make Abraham not only the figure and image of Christ, as you speak, but Christ himself, by attributing to Abraham Christ's incommunicable property and prerogative. Then Abraham may say to all his children, as Christ doth, John xv. 4, 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches^ ^c. I am he that sanctifies you. But if you mean the last (as necessarily you must, if you mean any thing that hath orthodox sense in it) then this derivative holiness you speak of, is not personal holiness, or internal sanctification, hutjijcderal holiness, derived from covenanted ancestors, or parents to their children ; and therein you come over to us, and to the true sense of the text. But why must this be squeezed from you with so much difficulty ? And why did you hide thi^ feeder al holiness under an equivocal term, lest you should seem to yield the controversy with a word ? This is not fair.
Object. If you say we are too hasty, and triumph before the vic- tory : For though you do yield it to be ajcederal holiness^ yet it is such as can be derived from no other father, or progenitor, but Abraham only.
Sol. Yes, sir, I hope you will allow Isaac and Jacob, at least to be the root and first-fruit, as well as Abraham, seeing the covenant was jointly and expressly made with them all three, and thereby they be- came the root and first-fruit of that holy nation ; and if that people be called the seed of Abraham, they are also called the seed of Jacob ; and if father-hood be ascribed to Abraham, it is ascribed to Jacob too, Isa. Iviii. 1 4. And if Abraham be first named in the covenant, so is Jacob: See Lev. xxvii. 42. But if you allow these three pa- triarchs, perhaps that is all you will allow ; for you seem to say, that wojasderal holiness can be derived from any other progenitors. Good sir, whatever your own private opinion be in this matter, allow us to believe otherwise, as long as those scriptures 1 Cor. vii. 14. and Acts ii. 39. stand in our Bibles : For we cannot think but the foederal holi- ness o^ children results from the immediate /^arewfofaith, or covenant mterest, as well as from the xemoiev progenitors ; else we cannot un- derstand how the Corinthians' children should be holy, or how the promise should belong to the children of them that are afar off, viz. the Gentiles, who could derive no such thing to their children by a lineal descent from Abraham, but only as they became ingrafted branches by faith ; and so suck the fatness of the olive to thcmselve?, and to their buds, or children, as the natural branches did. I desire you to consider also, how this covenant passed, as you say it did, to Vol. VI. A a
372 A hevuy to mr. caiiy's solemn call.
Abraham and his seed, in Christ's name, if it be the same witb Adam's covenant ? Did that pass to Adam in Christ's name too ?
I have now dispatched what I at first promised and intended, viz, the confutation of my friend's mistakes about the covenants ; and the vindication of those scriptures^ by which our arguments, de- duced from one of them, are confirmed. And now I have no farther concernment with Mr. Cary's solemn call ; save only to note his high confidence, rash, and most unchristian censures, of all his differing friends and brethren, with which he concludes his discourse ; where- in he calls infants baptism,
(1.) A great abuse in the divine icorsJup, page 242, 243. And yet he that so calls it, never looked half way into the controversy ; nor is able, without manifest shuffling and contradiction, both to the words of God, and his own words, to answer our arguments ; as is here made too evident.