Chapter Ten: The Covenant of Life and Grace Made only with Believers

                                CHAPTER TEN

                           The Third General Head

          The Covenant of Life and Grace Made only with Believers

I come to the third thing, which is to prove that the Covenant of Eternal Life never was nor ever shall be made with any but such as believe, or such as are in Christ. For as soon as the seed of the woman was promised, Christ Jesus, He was the whole of the New Covenant. All promises are Yea and Amen. They are spiritual and heavenly blessings given in Him. This being one main point made known to the sons of men, that He must come out of the woman. You must understand that the Lord did presently make an outward covenant, which was typical entailed upon the flesh out of which the Messiah should come.

           Somewhat Offered To Prove That God, Upon The Fall, Made An Outward Covenant Entailed Upon The Flesh.

This is not held forth so clearly till the time of Abraham, nor then so clearly as it was afterwards by the hands of Moses. But it is clear to me that in substance, the same covenant of ceremonial obedience which was given to Moses when the people came out of Egypt, the same was given to Adam's generation. It was given upon the promise of Christ. It was to go on in the fleshly line out of which Christ was to come. This was to continue till Christ did come in the flesh. Then it ceased. The reasons I so judge are:

                     Cain and Able and their Sacrifices

I find Cain and Abel, at the end of the year of days, bringing their sacrifices. Able brought the firstlings of the flock and the fat thereof. Thus did God command the fair things to Israel by Moses, Exo. 34:19 and 13:12,13. You see Cain brought the first fruits of the ground. We find this delivered by Moses as part of the covenant to the Jews in Deut. 18:4 and 26:2. Here the Lord says, "Thou shalt bring of all the first fruits of the Earth, which thou shalt bring of thy Land, that the Lord thy God gives thee," Micah 7:1; Lev. 2:12,14; Pro. 3:19.

                    The Ground of This Worship Is Faith

Though you do not see here from what rule Cain and Abel did this, yet we must take for granted they had it from God. If not, how else could Abel have performed his worship acceptably if he had not a ground to do it by faith? It is certain he did it in faith. Therefore, he had a rule for the same, Heb. 11:4. During that time there was a distinction of clean and unclean Beasts going into the Ark.

  God's Law Made One Clean and Not Another and Forbids the Eating of Blood

Now what cleanness or uncleanness is here meant is by virtue of a Law? Certainly that Law which God gave to forbid such beasts and creatures made one clean and another not. Moses delivered this Law in Leviticus 11. Peter spoke of it in Acts 10, "Call not thou unclean, what God hath made clean." Likewise, the eating of blood is forbidden in Gen. 9:4, or flesh with the life thereof. The same Moses gave Leviticus 17:10. Here blood is forbidden upon the same ground and reason.

                The Old World Law of Separation in Marriage

We find Gen. 6:5 that God hints at a sin of the old world for which he brought the flood. It was, that the Sons of God married the daughters of men, seeing they were fair. This must needs be understood so as there was a Law prohibiting Seth's posterity to marry with Cain's. This Law was also given by Moses in Deut. 7:2,3.

                             Pre-Israelite Laws

We understand that these Laws were from God to Adam and his sons. So in substance, the same was given to Abraham with some additions. Moses committed the same to writing with further additions. But this is the result I would come to, God, having promised the seed of the woman to come out of that flesh, did institute an external Covenant of Worship that He would carry all along upon the flesh or line, out of which the Messiah should come. I understand the first promise of Christ to Adam and Eve was that in this flesh, the Word would be incarnate.

                     The Ceremonial Covenant of Worship

Then God made this Ceremonial Covenant of Worship with Adam's family. Therefore, both his Sons were trained up as Worshipers. This must needs be because Cain was never in a Covenant of Grace, nor do we have any ground to judge that he had ever any appearance of true grace in him.

                        A World as Well as A Church

God, having no intent to bring his promised seed out of Cain or Abel, also resolved there should be a world as well as a Church. He suffered Cain to murder Abel. Upon this he rejects Cain with all his posterity, as a Fugitive and a Vagabond.

                        Cain and His Flesh Rejected

From what did God reject him, but from this Church Covenant of Ceremonial obedience and worship? When Seth was born, God (as it appears to me) did renew a fresh Election upon him and his seed according to the flesh. The whole Race of Seth were God's Church. God teaching hereby, that the Messiah must come out of that Family according to the flesh, and not out of Cain's family or his posterity, nor any other.

           The Old World Destroyed by the Flood and the New Line

When God destroyed the world by the Flood, then there was only Noah's Family. It consisted of eight persons. They were all in this Church Covenant of Worship for a time till God pitched a fresh election upon Shem by the mouth of Noah his Father, Gen. 9:26. Here Ham and Japheth, with their posterity's, are passed by though as truly the seed of believing Noah as Shem. This Ceremonial Covenant of Works goes on upon Shem till the time of Abraham. Then, the world growing more numerous, God would have His Church in a more narrow compass, and so He more especially takes unto Him that particular family out of which Christ should come, which was Abraham's.

                    The Election of Abraham and His Line

The main ground upon which God elects Abraham's family into the outward Covenant with Himself and not Lot's, nor any of the rest of the Godly families then living in the world, was not because Abraham was any more of a believer, then the others or his family the family of a believer. For if so, then Lot and his family, and all the godly men's families then in the world, had been necessarily taken into the Covenant of Circumcision, because they and their families had been believers as well as Abraham's. For this is a sure Rule, if God give a promise or a command to any person considered in such a capacity as a Believer, then whosoever is a Believer, that command and promise belongs unto them. I might, by manifold instances, clear this as when God says to Joshua, I will not leave thee nor forsake thee. This was not made to him under any other considerations, but as a Believer.

            Why the Covenant of Circumcision Was Made to Abraham

                      And His Seed And Not To Others.

The Apostle is bold to say, this promise is made to the whole Church of the Hebrews, Heb. 13:5. They being all believers as Joshua was. But this Covenant of Circumcision, now so termed, was made with Abraham, his seed and family and not upon this ground, because he was a believer, but because that Christ must come out of his flesh and line. Therefore, to confirm and ratify this to Abraham, that Christ should so come, and to point out to all the world where they must look for and expect the Christ, God does as much say, in Abraham's loins you must expect Him and nowhere else. For as Christ said to the woman of Samaria, "The Jews know what they must worship, for salvation is of the Jews". Therefore, to be sure, the Covenant of Worship runs in that line.

                         The Eight Sons of Abraham

But now Abraham had eight Sons; the one by Sarah, Gen. 21:2, the other by Hagar, Gen. 16 and six sons by his wife Keturah, Gen. 25:1,26, to which he gave gifts, and sent away to the East Country from his son Isaac. This Covenant of Works did belong only to Isaac and his seed. For when God had in Gen. 11:17,7 promised that He would be the God of Abraham, and his seed in their generations, and give them Canaan, in the conclusion of this covenant He begins to speak to Abraham of a Son he should have by Sarah, and that she should be the Mother of Nations, as in Heb. 11. Abraham being affected with his son Ishmael whom he then enjoyed, says, "O that Ishmael might live in thy sight," as if Abraham should say, Lord I understand that thou hast made a Church Covenant with me, and my seed after me, taking my seed in their generations into external Covenant with Thee, O (as if he should say) that Ishmael might be the seed upon which this Covenant might run, where God tells Abraham that He had heard his prayer, that He would bless Ishmael with manifold outward blessings otherwise, but He says, my covenant shall be with Isaac, meaning here, that outward Covenant of Circumcision where you have Ishmael, and the six Sons of Keturah with all their posterity passed by in this fresh Election of Isaac and his seed, which were only elected in this covenant.

         The Outward Rejection of the Other Children and their Line

Therefore the bond child, and the six Sons of Keturah, though as truly believer's children as Isaac was, yet they are all dismissed this covenant and privileges of the same. The six sons by Keturah, as you have heard before, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them into the East Country.

                 Jacob's Being Loved and Esau's Being Hated

When Isaac had two sons in Rebecca's womb, God again made a fresh election of Jacob and his seed in their Generations, passing by Esau and his seed. For God says, "There are two Nations in thee, and two peoples." So He chose Jacob, considered as a Nation, and passed by Esau, considered as another Nation. For it is plain from those words, there are two Nations and two peoples, and that the Election was a National Election, and a National Rejection. He says, "The Elder shall serve the younger." This saying, "the Elder shall serve the younger," is interpreted by Mal. 1 to be a loving of Jacob, and a hating of Esau, laying his Mountain waste, that is, his Church-power or privilege, that he seemingly had expected to have been heir of. By the loving of Jacob, is meant the external electing Love, into the Covenant of Circumcision, according to that in Deut. 7:7. Speaking there of the whole Nation, the Lord did not "set his love upon you, nor chose you, because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved you."

                  The Election and Love Show the Seed Line

This Election and this love is equal alike to the whole nation of Israel. Therefore, so considered, you must mind this is only an external election of Jacob and these in his lines, into the National Covenant of Circumcision. As before in Gen. 18 he says, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." The meaning as the 17th chapter expounds is this; that the seed in their Generations, upon whom God would continue the Covenant of Circumcision, was that seed which was to come out of Isaac, and not that which came out of Ishmael and the six Sons of Keturah. None of them or their seed were to be of that great Nation which God promised to make of Abraham. For the Lord says to Abraham, Gen. 18:18, "I will make a mighty nation of thee."

                   The Natural Church Under Circumcision

Now by this Nation is meant the National Church taken into the Covenant of Circumcision. Whereas in the spiritual covenant all the Nations were to be blessed in him. He is to be the Father of multitudes of Nations, Gen. 12:3 and 17:4,5. But this Covenant of Circumcision, must not relate to any but to those who came out of Isaac, with his family, and then those that came out of the loins of Jacob, with his family.

        The Mystical and Spiritual Sense Shown by Isaac and his Seed, Typed Out Christ and His Seed

Though this be a true literal interpretation of these texts and really the proper mind of God, yet there is a mystical and spiritual sense pointed and driven at which Paul, that infallible Apostle, did clearly give out from those texts in Rom. 9. As Isaac typed out Christ so this temporal seed elected in Isaac, typed out this spiritual election in Christ. The temporal seed in a temporal covenant elected in Jacob, points out the choice of Christ and all his seed into a spiritual covenant.

                           The Spiritual Election

So a spiritual election in these texts was typed and figured out, as the Apostle does clearly maintain. The Apostles, not being the Ministers of the Letter, but the Spirit, 2 Cor. 3. Most true it is that Jacob, and the whole Nation in him, were elected into an outward Covenant. Esau and his seed were not. They were refused and passed by. Consider Jacob, now in the womb and his posterity were not any more the seed of a believer, than Esau and his seed were. Sure it is, he was not. Therefore, away with that error taken for granted, that the Covenant of Circumcision was made to believers and their seed.

              The Great Mistake of Making the Covenant of Works

               Run Upon the Line of Believers and their Seed

This Covenant of Circumcision you may clearly see was not made to Abraham, nor to his seed considered as a Believer's seed, but upon this ground or reason, that the Messiah was to come of Abraham, not of Lot. The Messiah was to come out of Isaac, and not of Ishmael, nor of the six sons of Keturah. Christ was to come out of Jacob and his posterity, and not out of Esau. Here you may nakedly see how greatly they mistake who think the covenant was made to Abraham and his seed considered as believers and believers' seed.

  Why Have A Natural Line Now As If Christ Has Not Yet Come In the Flesh?

If a National Covenant was made with Abraham and his seed according to the flesh, out of which flesh the Messiah was to come, and upon this reason, then you cannot conclude, that the covenant can belong to any Gentile and his seed but upon the same ground. Therefore, if you would tell us where to find a Gentile now, among many others who were to have Christ to come out of his loins according to the flesh, then you would have the same ground to say, that in like manner a Church Covenant should run upon him and his seed until Christ were come out of that flesh or line.