Chapter Thirteen: An Answer to 1 Cor. 7:14 As It Is Alleged To Prove The Baptism Of Infants.

                              CHAPTER THIRTEEN

             An Answer to 1 Cor. 7:14 As It Is Alleged To Prove The Baptism Of Infants.

Another Scripture made use of, or rather, abused and wrested to defend this error, is 1 Cor. 7:14. "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy," whence is gathered by those of that opinion, that this holiness is (as they call it) a federal holiness, or a covenant holiness. That is to say, God having taken the believing parent with the child into covenant with Himself, the child is in this sense holy, that is a covenant holiness.

         God Takes Persons Unto Himself In Either a Typical Covenant or a Covenant of Life

 Now for the better understanding this text, I pray consider how and in what sense God takes persons into Covenant with Himself? You have heard this is in two ways.

                      The Typical Covenant Illustrated

Either He takes souls to Himself in a typical covenant. In that sense they may be said to be separated from the rest of the World. This separation of them from the rest of the World to Himself is a holiness that the carnal Jew was only partaker of, because it was only a typical and legal holiness. They were separated from all other nations in the world to God in this covenant.

Now the word holy signifies so much as separating or setting apart, and in this sense, the Vessels of the Temple were holy as also the Priests. They were set apart by Law from the rest of Israel to offer the bread of their God.

                            The Covenant of Life

In the second place there is also a New Covenant or a Covenant of Life. In this Covenant God takes a people to Himself. He writes His Law in their hearts and in their minds, to sanctify them and to justify them. This internal holiness, which God, as an effect of that Covenant, infuses into the heart, is only this New Covenant holiness. There is no other holiness that relates to the New Covenant. When the heart and the inward man shall be purified through faith, and when the whole heart and affections are, by the powerful work of God's grace, separated from sin and those vanities below, to heaven and heavenly things, this is the only holiness that the Covenant of Eternal Life conveys to souls.

             No Natural Seed Is Born With New Covenant Holiness

The Hypocrite may have this in appearance, but the elect and chosen have this only in truth. God puts no difference between us and them, "purifying their hearts by faith." He has, by one offering, for ever perfected them that are sanctified, Heb. 10. This sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth always goes together, 2 Thes. 2:13. Therefore, it is impossible that this should be the meaning of the text, that all believers' carnal seed are in a Covenant of Eternal Life and have their hearts purified and sanctified through the work of the Spirit and faith, before they are born, and in this sense, are born holy.

                No Internal Holiness from the Fleshly Birth

I know no other sanctification the Scripture speaks of belonging to a Covenant of Grace and eternal life. As for that external or typical holiness in an outward covenant, it cannot be because that was abolished through Christ's death as appears in Hebrews the 8th and 9th chapters. Therefore, far be it from the Apostle to intend here the countenancing of any such erroneous opinion as that every believer's Child was by virtue of his first birth, internally holy with that holiness of truth as the Apostle calls it, Eph. 4:24.

                       The True Meaning of This Text

The true meaning of this text is to this effect: the Corinthians, having sent several doubts and questions to the Apostle to resolve and answer, he answers them particularly as appears in the first verse of this chapter. It seems that among the rest they had a Jewish question stated which was grounded (as we suppose) upon Ezra 9 and Deut. 7:2. Here you find it was unlawful for a Jew to marry with a stranger. Therefore, Ezra caused all those men that had taken strange wives to put them away, as not lawfully married, because their marriage was contrary to and against the Law given to them. Therefore, they were to put them away and the children born of them were counted as illegitimate and unclean in an unlawful relationship.

        The Marriage of Believers and Unbelievers In the New Covenant

 as Compared with the Old Covenant

These Corinthians did propound this question in writing to the Apostle, whether such of them as had unbelieving husbands and wives yet remaining in idolatry, might lawfully abide with them in that fellowship in the marriage-bed, and whether that fellowship were not unclean and unlawful, as in Ezra's time?

Unto this question the Apostle answers verse 12, "To the rest speak I, not the Lord. If any Brother hath a Wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away, and the woman which hath a husband which believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him." But also might they say, why is not our marriage fellowship unclean? Therefore, in verse 14, he says "The unbelieving wife is sanctified to the believing husband, or else were your children unclean, but now are they holy." As if Paul should say, the reason why I would have the believing husband to abide with the unbelieving wife is this, because the unbeliever (now since the partition wall is down between Jew and Gentile) may justifiably be a wife to a believing husband, there being now no Law in the New Testament against such marriages. This is especially true since their marriage was transacted when they were both Idolatrous Heathen.

         The Law of Marriage and Its Separation and Holy Offspring

It being taken for granted that their marriage was lawful in these words, "The unbelieving wife is sanctified to the believing Husband," and that it is understood that the unbelieving husband is, by the Law of Marriage, sanctified to, or set apart, or separated to, or made holy to the believing wife, the Law of marriage having separated him from all other women in the world to be to her, and her only, else were your children unclean. Mark, says the Apostle, "Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy."

That is, if the Law of God did not set the unbeliever apart to the believer and so justify their fellowship in the marriage bed, then would the children begotten in that fellowship be unclean and base born. But now they are holy.

That is, now they are begotten in the holy wedlock according to the holy law of marriage and not as those children were who were unclean in Ezra's time. So that from the unbeliever's lawful and sanctified abode with the believer, does the Apostle conclude the children to be clean or holy. Thus, all children of Heathens are in the same sense holy, who are begotten in holy wedlock. For, as the fellowship of man and woman in the bed, being not according to the Law, is called fornication, uncleanness, and unholiness, so the fellowship of any two persons, even of Heathen, being according to that Law of marriage, it is then clean or holy. So the children begotten in that fellowship are said to be clean or holy begotten.

            There is No Such Law from God Concerning the Heathen

No one doubted of the holiness of the Heathen because they never had any law to prohibit their marriage together. But now, the Jews, having an express Law against marriage with any other nation, it was legally unclean or unholy for them to match with any such or to bed with any such who were not Jews or Proselytes.

       The Old Testament Marriage Law Was a Part of the Partition Wall Between the Jews and Gentiles

Now that Law, you must mind, was part of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile. It has been abolished since Christ's full exhibition. So then take the sense of the text thus:

First, the Apostle bids the Believers to continue with the unbelievers or Idolaters.

Secondly, adding this reason, because their fellowship is holy.

Thirdly, from an absurdity which would else follow, and that is, Else were your children unclean, but now they are holy.