Why doth he make the covenant with his seed as well as with himself? I answer, We apprehend favours and curses more in our seed ofttiines than in ourselves ; and it will humble a man to see calamities on his posterity, more than on himself ; and a man more rojoiceth to see the flourishing of his seed than of himself. It is said that Josiah did die in peace, though he died a bloody death, because he saw not the ruin of his house and * That is, ' communicate.'— G. t Cf. Vol. III. page Q.—G.
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family, which was worse than death. God saw how Abraham apprehended and valued seed, when he said, ' What wilt thou give me, since I am child- less ? ' Gen. XV. 2. Therefore God, intending a comfortable enlargement of the covenant of grace to Abraham, extends it to his seed : * I will be the God of thy seed.' It is a great blessing for God to be the God of our seed. It is alluded to by St Peter in the New Testament, ' The promise is made to you and to your children,' Acts ii. 39.
But what if they have not baptism, the seal of the covenant ? » That doth not prejudice their salvation. God hath appointed the sacra- ments to be seals for us, not for himself. He himself keepeth his covenant, whether we have the seal or no, so long as we neglect it not. Therefore we must not think if a child die before the sacrament of baptism, that God will not keep his covenant. Tliey have the sanctity, the holiness of the covenant. You know what David said of his child, ' I shall go to it, but it shall not return to me ;' and yet it died before it was circumcised. You know they were forty years in the wilderness, and were not circumcised. Therefore the sacrament is not of absolute necessity to salvation. So he is the God of our children from the conception and birth.
But how can God be the God of our children, when they are born in corruption, children of wrath ? Can they be the children of wrath and the children of God both at one time ?
I answer, Yes ; both at one time. For even as in civil matters, in our city here, a man may be a freeman of the city, and yet be born lame or leprous, or with some contagious disease — this hindereth not his freedom — 60 the children of a believing father and mother may be freemen of the city of God, and in the covenant of grace, and yet be tainted with original sin, that overspreadeth the powers of the soul notwithstanding.
Whence we see a ground of baptizing infants, because they are in the covenant. To whom the covenant belongs, the seal of it belongs ; but to infants the covenant belongs ; therefore the seal of it, baptism, belongeth to them. If circumcision belonged to them, then baptism doth ; but cir- cumcision belonged to them, for the eighth day they were circumcised ; therefore baptism belongeth to them.
Anabaptistical spirits would not have children baptized if they believe not. Why then were the children of the Jews circumcised ? They were circumcised because they were in covenant ; and is not the covenant of grace enlarged ? Wherein doth the new covenant difl'er from the old, but, among many other things, in the enlargement of it ? There is now a new people, the Gentiles, in covenant, that were not before, new priests, new sacrifices, new sacraments. All is new in the covenant of grace. If all be enlarged in the covenant, why should we deny the seal of the covenant to them in the new that had it in the old, even children ? It is senseless. The Scripture, to meet with such, applieth baptism to them and circum- cision to us, to shew that in the covenant of grace they are all one in effect : 1 Cor. X. 2, * All they were baptized under the cloud ;' and St Paul saith. Col. ii. 11, ' We are circumcised with circumcision without hands.' We are circumcised, and they were baptized ; to shew, I say, that all are one in Christ. Christ is all one, ' yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever,' Heb. xiii. 8 : ' yesterday,' to them that were under the law ; ' and to-day,' to us under the gospel ; and ' for ever ' to posterity. And therefore, if children had interest in Christ then, so they have now. This is clear and undeniable : God is the God of our children.
This should be an encouragement to parents to be good, if not for love
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of themselves and tlieir own souls, yet for their children and posterity's sake, that God may do good to their children for them. They cannot deserve worse of their children than to be naught* themselves.
How many examples are there in Scripture that God plagued and punished the children for the fathers' sins ! Though in the main matter he will not do it sometimes, because he is gracious and good ; he will be good to the children, though their parents be naught,* as Joshua and Caleb came into Canaan, though their parents were rebels, and died in the wilder- ness. Yet it is a discomfortable thing. When parents are naught,* they may look that God should punish their sin in their children.