and diligent heed to keep all his Goodness and all his Perfections ever in remembrance left they should be perverted by Satan Self-love and Sensual Pleasure The Terms of the Covenant of Grace are much more fully represented in the Scripture than was the Covenant of Works The Covenant of Grace was first published to Adam and Eve after their Fall in these Words The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent Where by the Serpent is understood Satan who under the appearance of a Serpent deluded them and by the Seed of the Woman is meant the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace who is to bruise that Serpent's Head and to deliver from the Power thereof such as should obtain the Benefit of the Covenant of Grace which for my more distinct understanding I do conceive as if it had been more fully exprest and as if God after the Fall had said to our first Parents thus I made a Covenant with you for your selves and your Posterity that if you continued innocent during the time of your Trial I would have given you supernatural Grace whereby you should never sin but should be eternally Happy I gave you sufficient natural Capacity to fulfil that Covenant but you have distrusted my Kindness and have believed an Apostate Spirit and therefore have lost to your selves and your Posterity the Benefit of that Covenant without being in any necessity to break it by my Decrees or Dispensations I might justly cut you off without having any Posterity or might leave you and them to follow your own ways and I will no more make a Covenant with you for them but I will raise up a second Adam who shall take upon him your Nature and be like you in all things Sin only excepted who will be for ever Innocent and Holy and so not only perform that which by the former Covenant you might have performed but will submit himself to Sufferings for you and your Posterity of greater value than if you had all suffered eternally the just Reward of your Sins And for his Sake I do offer you and will offer to all your Posterity who shall be capable to know an offer of Mercy and Grace that I will make you new Creatures enduing you with supernatural Powers and Inclinations making you Holy and Happy and will not suffer you to continue in Sin if you be not so addicted to your Sins as to reject my Offer to make you Holy and therefore I will continue with you and your Posterity the Light and Law of Nature written in your Hearts whereby you may know Sin the Transgression of it and that you may know that there is Mercy for the Penitent and none for the malicious while obstinate Sinner whereby you may also know that if you repent and betrust your selves to my Mercy and Conduct that I will make you Holy and Happy And albeit neither you have nor will they have Ability to repent and trust yet with the Offer I will give Strength to perform these Acts if the Offer be not rejected and will bring them to the Means of Grace to follow out the same This Offer becomes a Covenant by acceptance thereof the Accepters betrusting themselves to God's Grace and Direction by his Word and Spirit trusting to obtain Pardon of all Sin and of Excitation to Repentance for obtaining of it and for obtaining eternal Happiness by infusing the Habits of Grace here and perfecting them in Glory hereafter in the beatifick Visions of God's Perfections and the shining of his Face for ever without fear of Sin or falling from that happy State I do conceive that in this Representation all the Requisites of a Covenant are comprehended For the Difference between a Covenant and any other Favour done or promised whether absolute or conditional is no Covenant albeit there may be therein mutual Prestations required but this is special in an Offer that it hath no Obligation till it be accepted whereby the Accepters become obliged to perform the mutual Prestations on their Part. God making the general Offer of Mercy and Reconciliation to Sinners if they repent and betrust themselves to him for all things necessary for their Happiness for even the natural Conscience of all Men of Discretion is capable to know and represent to them that God is Just and will punish obstinate Sinners and yet is merciful to penitent Sinners throwing themselves upon him tho without Revelation they cannot know how a just God can pardon Sin without Satisfaction to his Justice but the same is manifested by the Gospel as by the first Adam all his Posterity were capable of Happiness if they sinned not so now by the second Adam all are again capable of Happiness upon far easier Terms of Repentance and Faith and even these performed by supernatural Grace If Adam or his Posterity had the making of the Covenants of Grace they could not without Impudence make them larger for there could be no more added but that even all the obstinately Wicked and Impenitent should enjoy the Pleasure of their Lusts on Earth and thereafter the Joys of Heaven so that I do and all considering Persons might cry out with the Apostle O the Height the Breadth the Length the Depth of the Love of God! And yet his electing Love is even larger than this Offer for albeit it be inconsistent with his immaculate Holiness to make any happy whom he doth not first make holy yet some Rejecters he maketh holy and happy pulling them as Firebrands out of the Fire which maketh none of the obstinate and rejecting Sinners excusable who continue to refuse to be made holy and tho they may deceive themselves thinking they would be willing to be holy yet while they are addicted to their Sins in reality their Will is not to quit them In my most serious Thoughts I can perceive nothing in this Conception of God's Covenants with Men that is impossible inconsistent with or incongruous to any of the Divine Perfections but highly illustrating them all and becoming the Majesty and Glory of God as the King and Ruler of his rational Creatures as to their eternal State Thereby he shews himself to be the most excellent King not only in a just Distribution of Rewards and Punishments but in great Goodness providing all things requisite that might have made them all happy without making any one miserable but by their own particular Fault Thereby also his great Wisdom is manifested designing or doing nothing in vain but ever choosing fit Means for the best Ends whereby his Mercy doth eminently appear that even against Merit he gives Grace and Glory to those Creatures of whom he had no need and who had willingly and ungratefully offended and injured him that he hath left nothing undone that could consist with his Domion his Wisdom his Purity and Holiness to extend his Goodness to his rational Creatures He doth not only govern the Elect towards their Happiness after their Conversion
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
first six days These Men had better quit their Grounds than keep them with such Consequences and yet it is from Consequences that they take them up which might be better misbelieved than these tho they had far more probability both from Sense and Reason but if there be Incomprehensibility in either case it ought least to be applied with so great Derogation to the Power of God This Power working immediately by the Act of the Will is an incommunicable Perfection of God and a part of that Glory which he will give to no other and therefore it is impossible that any Creature could create and no more consistent than that God should make more Gods Whatsoever is effectuate by sole Will is an Act of Creation whether it be the Production of a Substance of a Power yea or of a Mode or Accident or any thing above the Powers of Nature or Grace Therefore no Creature can be any more than the Instrument of working a Miracle and that only when God willeth the individual Act and no Creature can have a Power to work Miracles of any kind as the Creature willeth or that God should work a Miracle at the choice of the Creature which were a Dependance unbecoming his Majesty We must not think that the Faith of Miracles was an Arbitrary Habit as when Christ said to his Disciples If ye had Faith as a grain of Mustard-seed ye should say to this Mountain Be removed hence and cast into the Sea it imports no more than that God at that time for Confirmation of the Gospel would make them Instruments of some particular Acts of supernatural Power as he moved them yet not at their Desire but his own There is a groundless Imagination that hath much spread it self That God hath given a Power to all Men or to all Christians to produce Effects in Creatures by their firm and full Perswasion and Desire that these Effects should be and that they are not such Effects is because few or none attain to that Perswasion and so the very Power vanisheth and were frustraneous and inconsistent with the Wisdom of God that doth nothing in vain as well as with the incommunicable Power of God I pray God Men would advert and consider what ground there is to believe that God hath given a Power to a Priest or Minister that at his Desire so oft as he pleases to express the words of Consecration of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist the most stupendous Miracles should then arise of course or that by their Consecration the Elements should have a Power or Efficacy to confer Grace or otherwise to confirm it than that by the solemn Preparation of the Heart and the earnest Prayer of the Creature God would more readily grant their Desire than at other times or how by applying the Water in Baptism at Desire Original Sin should be forgiven or Grace should be given which incroacheth not only upon the incommunicable Power of God but upon his Wisdom that he should give Grace to all that were baptized which in the most part would prove frustraneous by being lost They do not a little derogate from the Omnipotence of God who imagine that the very Nature and Essence of a created Will doth inseparably imply that God cannot otherwise determine it but by perswading yet no Perswasion can be so strong but it can reject it and choose the contrary whereby they fancy that they can clear God from any Accession to Sin even by Permission as if his Purity could not be preserved but by the loss of his Omnipotence So that God has done all that is in his absolute Power to make every Rational Creature holy and happy Yet the Pretext is vain for it cannot be imagined that God should be so mean an Orator that he could not perswade Men to go to all Nations to preach and spread Books perswading them to embrace the true Religion which yet he hath not done and yet he hath done all that he could do not by his absolute Power but by his regulate Power by his most wise and holy Decrees They might with more Pretext have said that God in his Freedom and Wisdom had decreed that he would make no farther use of his Power but by Perswasion yet that would have incorached upon his Wisdom and Soveraignty that he hath made Creatures which he could not effectually govern so that it is without all ground in Reason or Revelation that he hath so decreed It is a very brutish Pretence that it were a brute Power and not rational to infuse Habits or Inclinations in Rational Creatures seeing these infused Powers act at the Judgment and Choice of Reason though in some cases without Hesitation or Deliberation are Creatures perswaded to desire their own Well-being or Parents perswaded to love their own Children or any to pity the injured miserable MEDITATION VII Upon the Oneness of God IT is impossible and inconsistent that there could be more Gods than one both for the Omniscience and the Omnipotence of God for God is capable of no Imperfection and therefore is impassible He knows not by any outward Impression or Manifestation but from Reflection upon his own Nature and Decrees by which he knows what will be the Effects of the Capacities he hath decreed to give to Creatures and by his own over-ruling them for his Glory Therefore there can be no more Decrees but those which are in that Omniscient view if there were any other they could only be known by extrinsick Manifestations wherein God behoved to be Passive So neither are such Decrees possible nor the Actings of them nor could they be known in a way consistent with the Divine Perfection It is as evidently inconsistent there could be more Omnipotents than one for if they were equal in Power none of them could be Omnipotent for they could resist one another and so have no effectual Power and if they were unequal in Power the weaker could not be Omnipotent The Omniscience and Omnipotence of God are his most evident Perfections even by the Light of Nature and his Oneness is fully and frequently asserted in Scripture Scripture hath also revealed the Trinity in the Divine Nature which is the Foundation of the Salvation of the Elect carried along through the whole Current and Oeconomy of the Divine Decrees and Dispensations relating to Mankind from the Beginning revealing that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Head of the Serpent and by all that is said of the Messiah in the Old Testament and of Christ in both Testaments But it is declared to be a Mystery and the greatest Mystery ushered in with an unparallel'd note of Attention 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is the Mystery of Gidliness God manifested in the Flesh. Therefore the Trinity of Persons must be consistent with the Oneness of God and it must be a nearer Oneness than that of Individuals of one kind yet not such an Oneness as if there were but one Divine
the Manifestation of his Glory in his Aversion from Sin for As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of a Sinner He hath no Pleasure in the Misery of his Creature It is another Mistake of Guilt and Punishment that it is a Debt whereby the Sinner is obliged to undergo the Punishment It may be called a Debt as it is called a Prison or a Bondage neither is the Satisfaction for Sin properly a Payment For if it were a Debt a Criminal should be obliged in Justice to offer himself to pay that Debt which yet not only he ought not but he may not do Neither doth a Judg proceed to Punishment as receiving a Debt from the Criminal but by his own Authority If Christ's Satisfaction for Sin were a Payment it would follow that no Man should mourn for Sin because Christ having satisfied there remained no more Debt or Guilt of Sin which hath driven many into that pernicious Error whence they are called Antinomians and it would highly derogate from the Goodness of God if he did only take that Payment from the Cautioner that was due by the principal Debtor But if the Satisfaction be by manifesting God's Abhorrence of Sin it gives great Light to Christ's Satisfaction interceding for Sinners and offering that the Father should manifest as much of his Abhorrence of Sin upon him as if all Mankind had been made eternally miserable that as the second Adam he might make them all capable of Salvation and the Elect secured in it The Judicial Justice of God is that which he exerciseth as Judg of all the World which stands not only in Rewards and Punishments but also in giving every rational Creature its Right or its own whether it be by retaining the Rights they have without Molestation or by attaining these which they possess not God would never suffer any rational Creature to want its Right to give it to any other Creature if it were not for Sin Judicial Justice calling the Party that he may be heard if he have any thing can be said and that the Fact must be proved is implied in the Nature of it and morally necessary which the great Judg of the World observes by himself or by his Deputies By himself he called Adam and Eve and asked first Adam Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee thou shouldst not eat and he heard his weak Plea and the Man said The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the Tree and I did eat Then he called the Woman and said to her What is this that thou hast done and he heard also her Plea who said The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat In these Accusations there was both the Law adduced and applied to the Fact violating it and the Proof by their own judicial Confession both their Pleas were rejected and just Judgment pronounced against them but immediately a Mediator was intimated and thereby hope of Mercy When Cain killed his Brother Abel before God pronounced Sentence against him he calls him saying What hast thou done The Voice of thy Brother's Blood crieth unto me from the Ground There is the Proof the Blood being yet fresh upon the Ground Cain makes no Defence therefore God pronounceth this Sentence Thou art accursed a Fugitive and a Vagabond shalt thou be on the Earth yet even to Cain there was something of Favour admixed for God spared the Temporal Judgment by Death by his sole Prerogative and therefore he set a Mark upon Cain to prohibit all to execute the just Sentence of Death against him the Justice whereof Cain acknowledged saying that every one that findeth me shall slay me which could not import an unwarrantable Revenge as if all Men would be wicked to multiply Slaughter without Warrant God's Judicial Justice by his Deputies is chiefly by Man's own Conscience which both accuses them proves against them and condemns them for all their Faults until it be seduced or seared and then often God delays his Judgment till the Soul 's appearing before him after Death but sometimes he executes his Judgment by Men without Warrant sometimes by other Accidents and frequently by Judges deriving Authority from him who therefore ought to follow the Rule and Pattern he hath given them condemning no Man till they had called him to answer for himself and giving him time and freedom to offer all his Defences and adducing sufficient Proof of the Fact charged against him MEDITATION XV. Upon the Mercy of God MY Thoughts in my last Meditation upon the Punitive Justice of God and the Miseries thence arising lead me to consider the Mercy of God which presupposes Misery as the Object of it The Mercy of God is a part and kind of his Goodness but is a special kind of Goodness presupposing Misery therefore I could not distinctly consider it till I considered the Misery arising from God's Justice The Goodness of God which presupposes not Misery is more properly called his Bounty or Benignity in Benevolence or Beneficence If Adam had not fallen God's advancing him from an Animal to an Angelical Estate had been an Act of free Beneficence and Bounty but no Act of Mercy for then Adam had never been miserable Yet Mercy doth not always consider Misery as pre-existent or as seen present or past but as foreseen which would come to pass if it were not prevented by Mercy and this is properly called Preventing Mercy in contradiction to that which is called Healing or Curing Mercy As Physicians use preventing Medicines when they foresee the latent Causes of the Disease that would come if these Causes were not removed as well as healing Medicines to remove the Disease incumbent the preventing Medicines are more useful tho less sensible than the other So are God's preventing Mercies God foresaw Adam's Fall and the ensuing Misery to himself and his Posterity and on the Foresight and Consideration thereof decreed to send his Son into the World to assume the Nature of Man and in it to suffer Death and expiate his Justice and to satisfy his Abhorrency of Sin This Decree was preventing Mercy not designed to prevent the Existence of Sin but to prevent the Incurableness of it when it should exist and to prevent the Evil of Punishment which would befal the Sinner and to prevent the height and eternal Continuance of it whereby Infants and Idiots never commit Sin and those who are saved do never commit Sin after the State of Mortality God doth also cure Sin after its Existence not only absolutely in Glory but in part in Mortality removing the Rage and reigning Power of it Mercy is one of the natural innate Principles in Man common to all Men who so far arrive to Discretion as that they can discern the Misery of a Rational Creature which worketh like an Instinct upon the view of the Object without reasoning and with such Propension that tho oftentimes they would they cannot forbear Those who
Christian Crown the Perseverance of Saints when Christ hath said That no Man can pluck his Sheep out of his Hand and God hath said That whom he loves he loves unto the end Or why are we bidden to make sure our own Salvation Why is a Plerophory or full assurance of Salvation held forth in Scripture if these be unattainable in this Life It is a pitiful Evasion that Men may be sure they have Grace but not sure they will keep it for the Assurance relates not to Grace but to Glory and Salvation It is true If the righteous Man depart from his Righteousness it shall be remembred no more But it is as true that the gracious God who freely gave Righteousness will not suffer the Righteous to depart from it either in this Life or that which is to come There is another way of universal Grace maintained by some of those of the Augustan Confession and it seems to be so held in the Liturgy of the Church of England that Grace is given to all who are baptized at the time of their Baptism The Church of Rome excludes all from Mercy and Glory that are not actually baptized tho they give them a more easy Quarter which they call Limbus Infantum than those of riper Age and certainly they must place Idiots there as well as Infants yet they are more cruel that condemn these Infants and Idiots to eternal Torment No Protestant excludes Salvation by the want of Baptism and none of them do include Salvation by Baptism but only Regeneration nor do they hold that that Regeneration doth always or for the most part continue but that these Infant-Saints may fall away yet all that die in Infancy must be saved for they cannot fall away The Liturgy saith we do not doubt that all that are baptized are truly regenerate which I would rather interpret as a Presumption in the Judgment of Charity than as a positive Assertion in the Judgment of Verity As if one saw a Man of Age giving Signs of his Belief baptized said I doubt not this Man is regenerate yet some of the Learned understand it otherwise who yet are not for amissible Grace and therefore perplex themselves indeavouring to invent a Sacramental Grace of Regeneration being conditional upon Faith at the time of Discretion The Papists are more puzled to clear how the Water of Baptism regenerates for they think it not enough that God hath promised to regenerate all at that time but they hold that the Water sacramentally used doth it opere operato by a Power given it by God I know no reason to confirm this Opinion it is true Christ saith Except a Man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God This would exclude all that were not baptized from Heaven if there the Kingdom of God signified Heaven which none hold but Papists And therefore many by the Kingdom of Heaven understand the Christian Church as it must be understood in several other places so that the meaning will be no Man can be a Member of the visible Church but he that is or is rationally supposed to be regenerated by the Spirit of God and likewise consecrated to God by Baptism So that it is of the same import with these words Whosoever shall believe and be baptized shall be saved The joining of Water to the Spirit can no more infer the necessity of Water than of Fire which is elsewhere joined to the Spirit It is from this Opinion tho without Warrant that Baptism is called the Laver of Regeneration because a Laver imports Washing but Regeneration is to be attributed to the sanctifying of the Spirit the Baptized are consecrated by the Water of Baptism not as antecedent to Regeneration but more frequently consequent thereto I see no reason to prove Baptism to be a converting Ordinance but the quite contrary in the very Institution of it He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved So that there is no warrant to baptize any but such as in the Judgment of Charity may be accounted Believers either by actual or habitual Faith Therefore Baptism doth not confer the Grace of believing nor hath God shown that he will ordinarily confer that Grace at Baptism This is much confirmed by Circumcision which was the Seal of the Covenant which could not be meant of the actual sealing and confirming which was in every circumcised Person for it were inconsistent with the Wisdom of God to have designed a Seal for that use which were only applicable to Men and not to Women But it was a Seal confirming that Society in which it was used to be the Society wherein ordinarily the Covenant of Grace was to be found as it was also the solemn Inauguration and Entry into the Church so is Baptism which is now the solemn Entry into the Christian Church and is in place of Circumcision and therefore the Anabaptists have no just ground to scruple at the baptizing of Infants born to be Members of the Church which have not only a presumptive inward Holiness but a federal Holiness or such a Holiness as all things consecrated to God have much more Children consecrated by the Members of the Church and dedicated to God by their Parents or in case of their Death or Incapacity by their nearest Relations or even by others from the presumptive Will of their Parents I see no Warrant for any under the pretence of being God-fathers or Godmothers to baptize the Children of Infidels tho they were in their Power All these ways of general and amissible Grace do much incroach upon the Wisdom of God Why should he give Grace to so many who he knew would not make use of it were not that Grace in vain But if Grace be given always and effectually at the time of Conversion it is both sufficient and quadrant with the Wisdom of God who doth nothing in vain It will breed no Difficulty that God calleth many whom he doth not choose because that is necessary to put them in a possibility of Salvation and to render those inexcusable that do refuse it But to give actual Grace to those who would throw it away were to cast Pearls before Swines All these ways of conceiving the Covenant of Grace and the Divine Dispensations of Election and Reprobation shew that generally Christians agree that it is an eminent part of the amiable Aspect of God that he hath put no Rational Creature under the Necessity of Damnation tho most Part do overdo holding more than what is necessary or convenient for that Effect There can be nothing more clear and there is nothing more inculcated in Scripture than that the Way of Salvation is by the way of Covenant which implies in its Nature mutual Prestations of the Parties covenanting towards each other but doth not imply that these Prestations must be of equal Value or of any Merit but that the Force of the Covenant is from the Engagement of the