therein from one generation to another Hence the covenant runs to us and to our seed after us in their generations To keep in the line and under the influence and efficacy of this covenant of God is the true way to the Churches glory To cut it off and disavow it cuts off the prosperity of Sion hinders it from being as in the most glorious times it shall be an eternal excellency and the joy of many generations This progress of the covenant establisheth the Church Deut. 29 13. Jer. 30.20 The contrary therefore doth disestablish it This obligeth and advantageth to the conveyance of Religion down to after-generations the care whereof is strictly commanded and highly approved by the Lord Psal 78.4 5 6 7. Gen. 18.19 This continues a nursery still in Christ's Orchard or Vineyard Isa 5.1 7. the contrary neglects that and so lets the whole run to ruine Surely God was an holy God and loved the purity and glory of the Church in the Old Testament but then he went in this way of a successive progress of the covenant to that end Jer. 13.11 If some did then or do now decline to unbelief and apostacy that doth not make the faith of God in his covenant of none effect or the advantage of interest therein inconsiderable yea the more holy reforming and glorious that the times are or shall be the more eminently is a successive continuation and propagation of the Church therein designed promised and intended Isa 60.15 59.21 Ezek. 37.25 -28. Ps 102 16-28 Jer. 32.39 The parents in question are personal immediate Argum 6 and yet-continuing members of the Church 1. That they are personal members or members in their own persons appears 1. Because they are personally holy 1 Co. 7 14. not parents onely but your children are holy 2. They are personally baptized or have had Baptism the seal of membership applied to their own persons which being regularly done is a divine testimony that they are in their own persons members of the Church 3 They are personally under discipline and liable to Church-censures in their own persons vide Propos 3. 4. They are personally by means of the covenant in a visible state of salvation To say they are not members in their own persons but in their parents would be as if one should say They are saved in their parents and not in their own persons 5. When they commit iniquity they personally break the covenant therefore are personally in it Jer. 11.2 10. Ezek. 16. 2. By the like Reasons it appears that children are immediate members as to the essence of membership i. e. that they themselves in their own persons are the immediate subjects of this adjunct of Church-membership though they come to it by means of their parents covenanting For as touching that distinction of mediate and immediate as applied to membership which some urge we are to distinguish 1. between the efficient and the essence of membership 2. between the instrumental efficient or means thereof which is the parents profession and covenanting and the principal efficient which is divine Institution They may be said to be mediate or rather mediately members as they become members by means of their parents covenanting as an instrumental cause thereof but that doth nothing vary or diminish the essence of their membership For divine Institution giveth or granteth a real and personal membership unto them as well as unto their parents and maketh the parent a publick person and so his act theirs to that end Hence the essence of membership i. e. Covenant-interest or a place and pâ—â—tion within the visible Church is really properly personally and immediately the portion of the childe by divine gift and grant Josh. 22 25 27. their children have a part in the Lord as well as themselves A part in the Lord there and Church-membership or membership in Israel are terms equivalent Now the children there and a part in the Lord are Subject and Adjunct which nothing comes between so as to sever the Adjunct from the Subject therefore they are immediate subjects of that Adjunct or immediate members Again their visible ingraffing into Christ the head and so into the Church his body is sealed in their Baptism but in ingraffing nothing comes between the graft and the stock Their union is immediate hence they are immediately inserted into the visible Church or immediate members thereof The little children in Deut 29.11 were personally and immediately a part of the people of God or members of the Church of Israel as well as the parents To be in covenant or to be a covenantee is the formalis ratio of a Church-member If one come to be in covenant one way and another in another but both are in covenant or covenantees i. e. parties with whom the covenant is made and whom God takes into covenant as the children here are Gen. 17.7.8 then both are in their own persons the immediate subjects of the formalis ratio of membership and so immediate members To act in covenanting is but the instrumental means of membership and yet children are not without this neither For the act of the parent their publick person is accounted theirs and they are said to enter into covenant Deut. 29.11 12. So that what is it that Children want unto an actual compleat proper absolute and immediate membership so far as these terms may with any propriety or pertineÌ„cy be applied to the matter in hand Is it Covenant-interest which is the formalis ratio of membership No they are in covenant Is it divine grant and institution which is the principal efficient No he hath clearly declared himself that he grants unto to the children of his people a portion in his Church and appoints them to be members thereof Is it an act of covenanting which is the instrumental means No they have this also reputatively by divine appointment making the parent a publik person and accounting them to covenant in his covenanting A different manner and means of conveying the covenant to us or of making us members doth not make a different sort of membership We now are as truly personally and immediately members of the body of faln mankinde and by nature heirs of the condemnation pertaining thereto as Adam was though he came to be so by is own personal act and we by the act of our publick person If a Prince give such Lands to a man and his heirs successively while they continue loyal the following heir is a true and immediate owner of that Land and may be personally dis inherited if disloyal as well as his father before him A member is one that is according to Rule or according to divine Institution within the visible Church Thus the child is properly personally or immediately Paul easts all men into two sorts those within and those without i.e. members and non-members 1 Cor. 5.12 It seems he knew of no such distinction of mediate and immediate as puts a medium between
following Testimonies from sundry Eminent and Worthy Ministers of Christ in New-England who are now with God First Touching the children of Church-members Mr. Cotton hath this saying The Covenant and Blessing of Abraham is that which we plead for which the Apostle saith is come upon us Gentiles Gal. 3.14 which admitteth the faithful and their Infant-seed not during their lives in case their lives should grow up to Apostacy or open Scandal but during their infancy and so long after as they shall continue in a visible profession of the Covenant and Faith and Religion of their fathers otherwise if the children of the faithful grow up to Apostacy or any open Scandal as Ishmael and Esau did as they were then so such like now are to be cast out of the fellowship of the Covenant and of the Seals thereof Grounds and Ends of Baptism of Children p. 106. see also p. â—â— 3â—.34 Again The seed of the Israelites though many of them were not sincerely godly yet whilest they held forth the publick profession of God's people Deut. 26 3-11 and continued under the wing of the Covenant and subjection to the Ordinances they were still accounted an holy seed Ezra 9.2 and so their children were partakers of Circumcision Yea further though themselves were sometimes kept from the Lords Supper the Passeover for some or other uncleanness yet that debarred not their children from Circumcision Against this may it not seem vain to stand upon a difference between the Church of Israel and our Churches of the New-Testament For the same Covenant which God made with the National Church of Israel and their seed it is the very same for substance and none other which the Lord makes with any Congregational Church and our seed Quaery 9th of Accommodation and Communion of Presbyt and Congregal Churches And the same for substance with those Quaeries was delivered by him in 12. Propositions as Mr. Tho Allen witnesseth in Epist to the Reader before Treat of Covenant and those Quaeries Now in the 8th of those Propositions he hath these words The children of Church-members with us though baptized in their infancy yet when they come to age they are not received to the Lords Supper nor admitted to fellowship of Voting in Admissions Elections Censures till they come to profess their Faith and Repentance and to lay hold of the Covenant of their parents before the Church and yet they being not cast out of the Church nor from the Covenant thereof their children as well as themselves being within the Covenant they may be partakers of the first Seal of the Covenant Lastly speaking to that Objection That the Baptism of Infants overthrows and destroys the Body of Christ the holy Temple of God and that in time it will come to consist of natural and carnal Members and the power of Goverment rest in the hands of the wicked He Answers That this puts a fear where no fear is or a causless fear And in prosecution of his Answer he hath these words Let the Primitive Practise be restored to its purity viz. that due care be taken of baptized members of the Church for their fitting for the Lords Table and then there will be no more fear of pestering Churches with a carnal generation of members baptized in their infancy then of admitting a carnal company of hypocrites confessing their Faith and Repentance in the face of the Congregation Either the Lord in the faithfulness of his Covenant will sanctifie the hearts of the baptized Infants to prepare them for his Table or else he will discover their hypocrisie and profaneness in the presence of his Church before men and Angels and so prevent the pollution of the Lords Table and corruption of the Discipline of the Church by their partaking in them Grounds and Ends of Baptism c. p. 161 163. See also Holiness of Church-members p. 41 51 56 57 63 87. Bloody Tenent washed p. 44 78. Mr. Hooker saith Suppose a whole Congregation should consist of such who were children to Parents now deceased who were confederate their children were true members according to the Rules of the Gospel by the profession of their fathers Covenant though they should not make any personal and vocal expression of their engagement as the fathers did Survey part 1. p. 48. Again We maintain according to truth that the believing parent covenants and confesseth for himself and his posterity and this covenanting then and now is the same for the kinde of it Part 3. p. 25. See p. 17 18. part 1. p. 69 76 77. And in the Preface fetting down sundry things wherein he consents with Mr. R. he expresseth this for one that Infants of visible Churches born of wicked parents being members of the Church ought to be baptized In these saith he and several other particulars we fally accord with Mr. R. And Part 3. p. 11. It is not then the Question whether wicked members while they are tolerated sinfully in the Church they and their children may partake of the Priviledges for this is beyond question nor do I know nor yet ever heard it denied by any of ours Mr. Philips speaking of a people made partakers of Gods Covenant and all the priviledges outwardly belonging thereto he saith Themselves and all that ever proceed from them continue in the same state parents and children successively so long as the Lord continues the course of his Dispensation nor can any alteration befall them whereby this estate is dissolved but some apparent act of God breaking them off from him Reply p. 126. Again speaking of that Holiness 1 Cor. 7.14 he saith I take it of foederal holiness whereby the children are with the believing parents taken by God to be his and by him put under his covenant and so they continue when men of years though they never have any further grace wrought in them nor have any other state upon them then what they had when they were born Ibid. p 131. Again a company become or are a Church either by conversion and initial constitution or by continuance of the same constituted Churches successively by propagation of members who all are born in the church-Church-state and under the covenant of God and belong unto the Church and are a Church successively so long as God shall continue his begun dispensation even as well as fully as the first Ibid. p. 145. Mr. Shepard in Defence of the Nine Positions p 143. hath the expression Concerning the Infants of church-Church-members they are subject to Censures whensoever they offend the Church as others are though so long as they live innocently they need them not And in the year 1649. not three moneths before his Death he wrots unto a friend a large Letter yet extant under his own Hand concerning the Membership of Children wherein he proveth by sundry Arguments that they are Members and answereth sundry Objections against it and sheweth at large what great good there is in children's Membership In which
John 3.12 and so becoming the father of a wicked unchurched race Burthen God appointed unto Eve another viz Seth in whom to continue the line of her Church-seed Gen 4.25 How it did continue in his seed in their generations Genes 5th sheweth Hence the children of the Church are called Sons of God which is as much as members of the visible Church in contradistinction to the daughters of men Gen. 6 2. If righteous Noah be taken into the Ark then the onely preserving place of the Church his children are taken in with him Gen. 7.1 though one of them viz. Ham after proved degenerate and wicked but till he so appears he is continued in the Church with his Brethren So Gen. 9.25 26 27. as the race of Ham or his son Canaan parent and children are cursed so Shem parent and children is blessed and continued in the place of blessing the Church As Japhet also or Iaphet's posterity still parent and children shall in time be brought in The holy line mentioned in Gen. 11 10-26 shews how the Church continued in the seed of Shem from him unto Abraham When that race grew degenerate Iosh 24.2 then God called Abraham out of his countrey and from his kindred and established his covenant with him which still took in parents and children Gen. 17.7 9. So it did after in the house of Israel Deut. 29.11 12 13. and when any eminent restauration or establishment is promised to the Church the children thereof are still taken in as sharers in the same Psal 102.16 28. 69.35 36. Jerem 32 38 39 Isa 65 18 19 23. Now when Christ comes to set up the Gospel-administration of his Church in the New Testament under the term of the kingdome of heaven Mat 3 2. 11.11 he is so far from taking away children's portion and membership therein that himself asserts it Mat 19 14. The children of the Gentile but now believing Corinthians are holy 1 Cor 7 14. The Apostle writing to the Churches of Ephesus and Colosse speaks to children as a part thereof Eph 6 1. Col. 3 20. The inchurched Romans and other Gentiles stand on the root of covenanting Abraham and in the Olive or visible Church they and their children till broken off as the Jews were by positive unbelief or rejection of Christ his Truth or Government Rom. 11 13 16 17 -22. The children of the Jews when they shall be called shall be as aforetime in Church-estate Ie 30.20 with 31.1 Ezekiel 37 25-28 From all which it appears that the series or whole frame and current of Scripture-expressions doth hold forth the continuance of childrens membership in the visible church from the beginning to the end of the world The seed or children who become members together with their Parents Partic 4 i.e. by means of their parents covenanting are children in minority This appears 1. Because such children are holy by their parents covenanting who would else be unclean 1 Cor. 7.14 but they would not else necessarily be unclean if they were adult for then they might act for themselves and so be holy by their personal covenanting Neither on the other hand would they necessarily be holy if adult as he asserts the children there to be for they might continue Pagans Therefore the Apostle intends onely infants or children in minority 2. It is a principle that carries evidence of light and reason with it as to all transactions Civil and Ecclesiastical that if a man be of age he should answer for himself John 9.21 They that are come to years of discretion so as to have knowledge and understanding fit to act in a matter of that nature are to covenant by their own personal act Neh. 10.28 29. Isa 44 5 3. They that are regularly taken in with their parents are reputed to be visible entertainers of the covenant and avouchers of God to be their God Deut 26.7 18. with Deut. 29.11 12 But if adult children should without regard to their own personal act be taken in with their parents then some might be reputed entertainers that are manifest rejecters of the covenant for so an adult son or daughter of a godly parent may be It is requisite to the membership of children Partic 5 that the next parents one or both be in covenant For although after-generations have no small benefit by their pious Ancestors who derive federal holiness to their succeeding generations in case they keep their standing in the covenant and be not apostates from it yet the piety of Ancestors sufficeth not unless the next parent continue in covenant Rom. 11 22. 1. Because if the next parent be cut or broken off the following seed are broken off also Exod 20.5 Rom. 11 17 19 20. as the Gentile believing parents and children were taken in so the Jews parents and children were then broken off 2. One of the parents must be a believer or else the children are unclean 1 Cor. 7 14.3 If children may be accounted members and baptized though the next parents be not in covenant then the Church should be bound to baptize those whom she can have no power over nor hope concerning to see them brought up in the true Christian Religion and under the Ordinances For the next parents being wicked and not in covenant may carry away and bring up their children to serve other Gods 4. If we stop not at the next parent but grant that Ancestors may notwithstanding the apostacy of the next parents convey membership unto children then we should want a ground where to stop and then all the children on earth should have right to membership and Baptism Proposition 3 d. The Infant-seed of confederate visible Believers are members of the same Church with their parents and when grown up are personally under the Watch Discipline and Government of that Church 1. That they are members of the same Church with their parents appears 1. Because so were Isaac and Ishmael of Abrahams Family-church and the children of Jews and Proselytes of Israels National Church and there is the same reason for children now to be of the same Congregational Church with their parents Christ's care for children and the scope of the Covenant as to obligation unto Order and Government is as great now as then 2. Either they are members of the same Church with their parents or of some other Church or non-Non-members But neither of the latter therefore the former That they are not non-Non-members was before proved in Propos 2. Partic. 3. and if not members of the same Church with their parents then of no other For if there be not reason sufficient to state them members of that Church where their parents have covenanted for them and where ordinarily they are baptized and do inhabit then much less is there reason to make them members of any other and so they will be members of no particular Church at all and it was before shewed that there is no ordinary and orderly standing estate of Church-members but
in some particular Church 3. The same covenant-act is accounted the act of parent and-childe but the parents covenanting rendred himself a member of this particular Church Therefore so it renders the childe also How can children come in with and by their parents and yet come into a Church wherein and whereof their parents are not so as that they should be of one Church and the parents of another 4. Children are in an orderly and regular state for they are in that state wherein the order of Gods Covenant and his institution therein hath placed them they being members by vertue of the Covenant of God To say their standing is disorderly would be to impute disorder to the order of Gods Covenant or irregularity to the Rule Now all will grant it to be most orderly and regular that every Christian be a member in some particular Church and in that particular Church where his regular habitation is which to children usually is where their parents are If the Rule call them to remove then their membership ought orderly to be translated to the Church whither they remove Again order requires that the childe and the power of government over the childe should go together It would bring shame and confusion for the childe to be from under government Prov. 29.15 and Parental and Ecclesiastical government concurring do mutually help and strengthen each other Hence the parent and the childe must be members of the same Church unless the childe be by some special providence so removed as that some other person hath the power over him 2. That when these children are grown up they are personally under the Watch Discipline and Government of that Church is manifest for 1. Children were under Patriarchal and Mosaical discipline of old Gen. 18 19. 21.9 10 12. Gal. 5.3 and therefore under Congregational discipline now 2. They are within the Church or members thereof as hath been and after will be further proved and therefore subject to Church-judicature 1 Cor. 5.12 3. They are disciples and therefore under discipline in Christ's school Matth. 28.19 20. 4. They are in Church-covenant therefore subject to Church-power Gen 17.7 with Chap. 18.19 5. They are subjects of the kingdome of Christ and therefore under the laws and government of his Kingdome Ezek. 37.25 26. 6. Baptism leaves the baptized of which number these children are in a state of subjection to the authoritative teaching of Christ's Ministers and to the observation of all his commandments Mat. 28.19 20. and therefore in a state of subjection unto Discipline 7. Elders are charged to take heed unto and to feed i. e. both to teach and rule compare Ezek. 34.3 4. all the flock or Church over which the holy Ghost hath made them overseers Acts 20.28 That children are a part of the flock was before proved and so Paul accounts them writing to the same flock or Church of Ephesus Eph 6.1 8. Otherwise Irreligion and Apostacy would inevitably break into Churches and no Church-way left by Christ to prevent or heal the same which would also bring many Church-members under that dreadful judgement of being let alone in their wickedness Hosea 4.16 17. Proposition 4 th These Adult persons are not therefore to be admitted to full Communion meerly because they are and continue members without such further qualifications as the Word of God requireth thereunto The truth hereof is plain 1. From 1 Cor. 11.28 29. where it is required that such as come to the Lords Supper be able to examine themselves and to discern the Lords body else they will eat and drink unworthily and eat and drink damnation or judgement to themselves when they partake of this Ordinance But meer membership is separable from such ability to examine one's self and discern the Lords body as in the children of the covenant that grow up to years is too often seen 2. In the Old Testament though men did continue members of the Church yet for ceremonial uncleanness they were to be kept from full communion in the holy things Levit. 7 20 21. Numb 9.6 7. 19.13 20. yea and the Priests and Porters in the Old Testament had special charge committed to them that men should not partake in all the holy things unless duely qualified for the same notwithstanding their membership 2 Chron. 23.19 Ezekiel 22.26 44.7 8 9 23. and therefore much more in these times where moral funess and spiritual qualifications are wanting membership alone is not sufficient for full communion More was required to adult persons eating the Passeover then meer membership therefore so there is now to the Lords Supper For they were to eat to the Lord Exodus 12.14 which is expounded in 2 Chron. 30. where keeping the Passeover to the Lord verse 5. imports and requires exercising Repentance verse 6 7. their actual giving up themselves to the Lord verse 8. heart-preparation for it verse 19. and holy rejoycing before the Lord verse 21 25. See the like in Ezra 6.21 22. 3. Though all members of the Church are subjects of Baptism they and their children yet all members may not partake of the Lords Supper as is further manifest from the different nature of Baptism and the Lords Supper Baptism firstly and properly seals covenant-holiness as circumcision did Gen. 17. Church-membership Rom 15.8 planting into Christ Rom. 6. and so members as such are the subjects of Baptism Matth. 28.19 But the Lords Supper is the Sacrament of growth in Christ and of special communion with him 1 Cor. 10.16 which supposeth a special renewing and exercise of Faith and Repentance in those that partake of that Ordinance Now if persons even when adult may be and continue members and yet be debarred from the Lords Supper until meet qualifications for the same do appear in them then may they also until like qualifications be debarred from that power of Voting in the Church which pertains to Males in full communion It seems not rational that those who are not themselves fit for all Ordinances should have such an influence referring to all Ordinances as Voting in Election of Officers Admission and Censures of Members doth import For how can they who are not able to examine and judge themselves be thought able and fit to discern and judge in the weighty affairs of the house of God 1 Cor. 11.28 31. with 1 Cor. 5. 12. Proposition 5 th Church-members who were admitted in minority understanding the Doctrine of Faith and publickly professing their assent thereto not scandalous in life and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their children to the Lord and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church their children are to be Baptized This is evident from the Arguments following These children are partakers of that which is the main ground of baptizing any children whatsoever Argum 1 and neither the parents nor the children do put in any barre to hinder it 1. That they