DIRECTIONS ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN COVENANT WITH GOD, AND BAPTISM.
Though the first part of this book is little more than an explication
of the christian covenant with God, yet being here to speak of baptism
as a part of God's worship, it is needful that I briefly speak also of
the covenant itself.
_Direct._ I. It is a matter of great importance that you well
understand the nature of the christian covenant, what it is. I shall
therefore here briefly open the nature of it, and then speak of the
reasons of it; and then of the solemnizing it by baptism, and next of
our renewing it, and lastly of our keeping it.
[Sidenote: The covenant what.]
The christian covenant is a contract between God and man, through the
mediation of Jesus Christ, for the return and reconciliation of
sinners unto God, and their justification, adoption, sanctification,
and glorification by him, to his glory.
Here we must first consider, who are the parties in the covenant. 2.
What is the matter of the covenant on God's part. 3. What is the
matter on man's part. 4. What are the terms of it propounded on God's
part. 5. Where and how he doth express it. 6. What are the necessary
qualifications on man's part. 7. And what are the ends and benefits of
it.
I. The parties are God and man: God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost on
the one part, and repenting, believing sinners on the other part. Man
is the party that needeth it; but God is the party that first offereth
it. Here note, 1. That God's part of the covenant is made universally
and conditionally with all mankind, (as to the tenor exacted,) and so
is in being before we were born. 2. That it is not the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, considered simply as persons in the Godhead; but as
related to man for the ends of the covenant. 3. That it is only
sinners that this covenant is made with, because the use of it is for
the restoration of those that broke a former covenant in Adam. It is a
covenant of reconciliation, and therefore supposeth an enmity
antecedent. 4. When I say that it is repenting and believing sinners
that are the party, I mean, (1.) That taking the covenant in its first
act, it is repentance and faith themselves that are the act, and are
our very covenanting. (2.) But taking the covenant in its external
expression, so it is a repenting, believing sinner that must take it,
it being but the expression of his repentance and faith, by an
explicit contract with God. 5. Note, that though God's covenant be by
one universal act, (of which more anon,) yet man's is to be made by
the several acts of the individual persons each one for himself, and
not by the acts of societies only.
II. The matter of the covenant on God's part is in general, that he
will be our God: more particularly, that God the Father will be our
reconciled God and Father in Jesus Christ; that God the Son will be
our Saviour; and God the Holy Ghost will be our Sanctifier. And the
relation of a God to us essentially containeth these three parts: 1.
That as on the title of creation and redemption he is our Owner, so he
doth take us as his own peculiar people. 2. That as he hath title to
be our absolute King or Governor, so he doth take us as his subjects.
3. That he will be our grand Benefactor and felicity, or our most
loving Father (which compriseth all the rest). And as he will be thus
related to us, so he will do for us all that these relations do
import. As, 1. He will do all that belongeth to a Creator for his
creature, in our preservation and supplies. 2. He will save us from
our sins, and from his wrath and hell. 3. And he will sanctify us to a
perfect conformity to our Head. Also, 1. He will use and defend us as
his own peculiar ones. 2. He will govern us by a law of grace and
righteousness. 3. He will make us fully happy in his love for ever.
III. The matter on man's part of the covenant is, 1. In respect of the
_terminus a quo_, that we will forsake the flesh, the world, and the
devil, as they are adverse to our relations and duties to God. 2. In
regard of the _terminus ad quem_, that we will take the Lord for our
God: and more particularly, 1. That we do take God the Father for our
reconciled Father in Jesus Christ, and do give up ourselves to him as
creatures to their Maker. 2. That we do take Jesus Christ for our
Redeemer, Saviour, and Mediator, as our High Priest, and Prophet, and
King, and do give up ourselves to him as his redeemed ones to be
reconciled to God, and saved by him. 3. That we do take the Holy Ghost
for our Regenerator and Sanctifier, and do give up ourselves to be
perfectly renewed and sanctified by him, and by his operations carried
on to God in his holy service. Also, 1. That we do take God for our
absolute Lord or Owner, and do give up ourselves to him as his own. 2.
That we take him for our universal, sovereign Governor, and do give up
ourselves unto him as his subjects. 3. That we do take him for our
most bountiful Benefactor, and loving Father, and felicity, and do
give up ourselves to him as his children, to seek him, and please him,
and perfectly to love him, delight in him, and enjoy him for ever in
heaven as our ultimate end. And in consenting to these relations, we
covenant to do the duties of them in sincerity.
IV. The terms or conditions which God requireth of man in his covenant
are, consent, and fidelity or performance: he first consenteth
conditionally, if we will consent; and he consenteth to be actually
our God, when we consent to be his people: so that as bare consent,
without any performance, doth found the relation between husband and
wife, master and servant, prince and people; but the sincere
performance of the duties of the relation which we consent to, are
needful afterward to continue the relation, and attain the benefits
and ends; so is it also between God and man. We are his children in
covenant as soon as we consent; but we shall not be glorified but on
condition of sincere performance and obedience.
V. God's covenant with man is nothing else but the universal promise
in the gospel; and (to the solemnization) the declaration, and
application, and solemn investiture or delivery by his authorized
ministers. 1. The gospel, as it relateth the matters of fact in and
about the work of our redemption, is a sacred history. 2. As it
containeth the terms on which God will be served, and commandeth us to
obey them for our salvation, it is called the law of Christ or grace.
3. As it containeth the promise of life and salvation conditionally
offered, it is called God's promise, and covenant (viz. on his part,
as it is proposed only). 4. When by our consent the condition is so
far performed, or the covenant accepted, then God's conditional,
universal promise or covenant, becometh actual and particular as to
the effect; and so the covenant becometh mutual between God and man:
as if a king make an act or law of pardon and oblivion to a nation of
rebels, saying, Whoever cometh in by such a day, and confesseth his
fault, and sueth out his pardon, and promiseth fidelity for the
future, shall be pardoned. This act is a law in one respect, and it is
a universal, conditional pardon of all those rebels; or a promise of
pardon; and an offer of pardon to all that it is revealed to: but it
is an actual pardon to those that come in, and conferreth on them the
benefits of the act as if they were named in it, and is their very
title to their pardon, of which their consent is the condition; and
the condition being performed, the pardon or collation of the benefit
becometh particular and actual, without any new act; it being the
sense of the law itself, or conditional grant, that so it should do.
So as to the reality of the internal covenant interest and benefits,
justification and adoption, it is ours by virtue of this universal
conditional covenant, when we perform the condition. But as to our
title _in foro ecclesiæ_, and the due solemnization and investiture,
it is made ours when God's minister applieth it to us in baptism by
his commission; as the rebel that was fundamentally pardoned by the
act of oblivion, must yet have his personal pardon delivered him by
the lord chancellor under the great seal. In this sense ministers are
the instruments of God, not only in declaring us to be pardoned, but
in delivering to us the pardon of our sins, and solemnly investing us
therein: as an attorney delivereth possession to one that before had
his fundamental title. Thus God entereth into covenant with man.
VI. The qualifications of absolute necessity to the validity of our
covenant with God _in foro interiori_, are these: 1. That we
understand what we do as to all the essentials of the covenant; for
_ignorantis non est consensus_. 2. That it be our own act, performed
by our natural or legal selves, that is, some one that hath power so
far to dispose of us (as parents have of their children). 3. That it
be deliberate, sober, and rational, done by one that is _compos
mentis_, in his wits, and not in drunkenness, madness, or
incogitancy.[38] 4. That it be seriously done with a real intention of
doing the thing, and not histrionically, ludicrously, or in jest. 5.
That it be done entirely as to all essential parts; for if we leave
out any essential part of the covenant, it is no sufficient consent
(as to consent that Christ shall be our Justifier, but not the Holy
Ghost our Sanctifier). 6. That it be a present consent to be presently
in covenant with God: for to consent that you will be his servants
to-morrow or hereafter, but not yet, is but to purpose to be in
covenant with him hereafter, and is no present covenanting with him.
7. Lastly, it must be a resolved and absolute consent, without any
open or secret exceptions or reserves.
VII. The fruits of the covenant which God reapeth, (though he need
nothing,) is the pleasing of his good and gracious will, in the
exercise of his love and mercy, and the praise and glory of his grace,
in his people's love and happiness for ever. The fruits or benefits
which accrue to man are unspeakable, and would require a volume
competently to open them: especially that God is our God, and Christ
our Saviour, Head, Intercessor, and Teacher, and the Holy Ghost is our
Sanctifier; and that God will regard us as his own, and will protect
us, preserve us, and provide for us, and will govern us, and be our
God and joy for ever; that he will pardon us, justify, and adopt us,
and glorify us with his Son in heaven.
_Direct._ II. When you thus understand well the nature of the
covenant, labour to understand the special reasons of it. The reasons
of the matter of the covenant you may see in the fruits and benefits
now mentioned. But I now speak of the reason of it as a covenant _in
genere_, and such a covenant _in specie_.
1. In general, God will have man to receive life or death as an
accepter and keeper, or a refuser or breaker, of his covenant, because
he will do it not only as a Benefactor, or absolute Lord, but also as
a Governor, and will make his covenant to be also his law, and his
promise and benefits to promote obedience; and because he will deal
with man as with a free agent, and not as with a brute that hath no
choosing and refusing power, conducted by reason: man's life and death
shall be in his own hands, and still depend upon his own will; though
God will secure his own dominion, interest, and ends, and put nothing
out of his own power by putting it into man's; nor have ever the less
his own will, by leaving man to his own will. God will at last, as a
righteous Judge, determine all the world to their final joy or
punishment, according to their own choice while they were in the
flesh, and according to what they have done in the body, whether it be
good or evil, Matt. xxv. Therefore he will deal with us on covenant
terms.
2. And he hath chosen to rule and judge men according to a covenant of
grace, by a Redeemer, and not according to a rigorous law of works,
that his goodness and mercy may be the fullier manifested to the sons
of men; and that it may be easier for men to love him, when they have
so wonderful demonstrations of his love; and so that their service
here, and their work and happiness hereafter, may consist of love, to
the glory of his goodness, and the pleasure of his love for ever.
[Sidenote: External baptism, what.]
_Direct._ III. Next understand rightly the nature, use, and end of
baptism. Baptism is to the mutual covenant between God and man, what
the solemnization of marriage is to them that do before consent; or
what the listing a soldier by giving him colours, and writing his
name, is to one that consented before to be a soldier.[39] In my
"Universal Concord," p. 29, 30, I have thus described it: Baptism is
a holy sacrament instituted by Christ, in which a person professing
the christian faith (or the infant of such) is baptized in water into
the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, in signification and
solemnization of the holy covenant, in which as a penitent believer
(or the seed of such) he giveth up himself (or is by the parent given
up) to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, forsaking the devil, the
world, and the flesh, and is solemnly entered a visible member of
Christ and his church, a pardoned, regenerate child of God, and an
heir of heaven.
[Sidenote: Complete baptism, what it is.]
As the word baptism is taken for the mere administration or external
ordinance, so the internal covenanting or faith and repentance of the
(adult) person to be baptized, is no essential part of it, nor
requisite to the being of it; but only the profession of such a faith
and repentance, and the external entering of the covenant; but as
baptism is taken for the ordinance as performed in all its essential
parts, according to the true intent of Christ in his institution (that
is, in the first and proper meaning of the word); so the internal
covenanting of a penitent, sincere believer, is necessary to the being
of it. And indeed the word baptism is taken but equivocally or
analogically at most, when it is taken for the mere external
administration and action: for God doth not institute worship
ordinances for bodily motion only; when he speaketh to man, and
requireth worship of man, he speaketh to him as to a man, and
requireth human actions from him, even the work of the soul, and not
the words of a parrot, or the motion of a puppet. Therefore the word
baptism in the first and proper signification, doth take in the inward
actions of the heart, as well as the outward professions and actions.
And in this proper sense baptism is the mutual covenant between God
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and a penitent believing sinner,
solemnized by the washing of water, in which as a sacrament of his own
appointment God doth engage himself to be the God and reconciled
Father, the Saviour and the Sanctifier, of the believer, and taketh
him for his reconciled child in Christ, and delivereth to him, by
solemn investiture, the pardon of all his sins, and title to the
mercies of this life and of that which is to come. What I say in this
description of a penitent believer, is also to be understood of the
children of such that are dedicated by them in baptism to God, who
thereupon have their portion in the same covenant of grace.
The word baptism is taken in the first sense when Simon Magus is said
to be baptized, Acts xxviii. And when we speak of it only in the
ecclesiastic sense, as it is true baptism _in foro ecclesiæ_; but it
is taken in the latter sense when it is spoken of as the complete
ordinance of God, in the sense of the institution, and as respecting
the proper ends of baptism, as pardon of sin and life eternal; and _in
foro cœli_.
In this full and proper sense it is taken by Christ when he saith,
Mark xvi. 16, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;" that
is, he that believeth, and is by baptism entered into the covenant of
God; and in this sense the ancients took it, when they affirmed that
all that were baptized were regenerated, pardoned, and made the
children of God. And in this sense it is most true, that he that is
baptized (that is, is a sincere covenanter) shall be saved if he die
in that condition that he is then in.[40] All that the minister
warrantably baptizeth, are sacramentally regenerate, and are _in foro
ecclesiæ_ members of Christ, and children of God, and heirs of heaven:
but it is only those that are sincerely delivered up in covenant to
God in Christ, that are spiritually and really regenerate, and are
such as shall be owned for members of Christ and children of God _in
foro cœli_. Therefore it is not unfit that the minister call the
baptized, regenerate and pardoned members of Christ, and children of
God, and heirs of heaven, supposing that _in foro ecclesiæ_ they were
the due subjects of baptism. But if the persons be such as ought not
to be baptized, the sin then is not in calling baptized persons
regenerate, but in baptizing those that ought not to have been
baptized, and to whom the seal of the covenant was not due.
None ought to be baptized but those that either personally deliver up
themselves in covenant to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
professing a true repentance, and faith, and consent to the covenant;
or else are thus delivered up, and dedicated, and entered into
covenant in their infancy, by those that, being christians themselves,
have so much interest in them and power of them, that their act may be
esteemed as the infants' act, and legally imputed to them as if
themselves had done it. If any others are unduly baptized, they have
hereby no title to the pardon of sin or life eternal, nor are they
taken by God to be in covenant, as having no way consented to it.
_Direct._ IV. When you enter a child into the christian covenant with
God, address yourselves to it as to one of the greatest works in the
world; as those that know the greatness of the benefit, of the duty,
and of the danger. The benefit to them that are sincere in the
covenant, is no less than to have the pardon of all our sins, and to
have God himself to be our God and Father, and Christ our Saviour, and
the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier, and to have title to the blessings of
this life and of that to come. And for the duty, how great a work it
is for a sinner to enter into so solemn a covenant with the God of
heaven, for reconciliation and newness of life, and for salvation! And
therefore if any should abuse God by hypocrisy, and take on them to
consent to the terms of the covenant, (for themselves, or their
children,) when indeed they do not, the danger of such profaneness and
abuse of God must needs be great. Do it therefore with that due
preparation, reverence, and seriousness, as beseemeth those that are
transacting a business of such unspeakable importance with God
Almighty.
_Direct._ V. Having been entered in your infancy into the covenant of
God by your parents, you must, at years of discretion, review the
covenant which by them you made, and renew it personally yourselves;
and this with as great seriousness and resolution as if you were now
first to enter and subscribe it, and as if your everlasting life or
death were to depend on the sincerity of your consent and performance.
For your infant baptismal covenanting will save none of you that live
to years of discretion, and do not as heartily own it in their own
persons, as if they had been now to be baptized. But this I pass by,
having said so much of it in my "Book of Confirmation."
[Sidenote: Of renewing the covenant oft.]
_Direct._ VI. Your covenant thus, 1. Made; 2. Solemnized by baptism;
3. And owned at age; must, 4. Be frequently renewed through the whole
course of your lives. As, (1.) Your first consent must be habitually
continued all your days; for if that ceaseth, your grace and title to
the benefits of God's covenant ceaseth. (2.) This covenant is
virtually renewed in every act of worship to God; for you speak to him
as your God in covenant, and offer yourselves to him as his covenanted
people. (3.) This covenant should be actually renewed frequently in
prayer and meditation, and other such acts of communion with God. (4.)
Especially when after a fall we beg the pardon of our sins, and the
mercies of the covenant, and on days of humiliation and thanksgiving,
and in great distresses, or exhilarating mercies. (5.) And the Lord's
supper is an ordinance instituted to this very end. It is no small
part of our christian diligence and watchfulness, to keep up and renew
our covenant consent.
_Direct._ VII. And as careful must you be to keep or perform your
covenant, as to enter it, and renew it; which is done, 1. By
continuing our consent; 2. By sincere obedience; 3. And by
perseverance. We do not (nor dare not) promise to obey perfectly, nor
promise to be as obedient as the higher and better sort of christians,
though we desire both; but to obey sincerely we must needs promise,
because we must needs perform it.
Obedience is sincere, 1. When the radical consent or subjection of the
heart to God in Christ is habitually and heartily continued. 2. When
God's interest in us is most predominant, and his authority and law
can do more with us, than any fleshly lust or worldly interest, or
than the authority, word, or persuasions of any man whosoever. 3. When
we unfeignedly desire to be perfect, and habitually and ordinarily
have a predominant love to all that is good, and a hatred to that
which is evil; and had rather do our duty than be excused from it, and
rather be saved from our sin than keep it.
_Direct._ VIII. While you sincerely consent unto the covenant, live by
faith upon the promised benefits of it, believing that God will make
good on his part all that he hath promised. Take it for your title to
pardon, sonship, and eternal life. O think what a mercy it is to have
God in covenant with you to be your God, your Father, Saviour,
Sanctifier, and felicity! And in this continually rejoice.
[38] Quis vero non doleat baptismo plerosque adultos initio passim et
nostro tempore non raro ante perfundi quam christianam catechesin vel
mediocriter teneant, neque an flagitiosæ et superstitiosæ vitæ
pœnitentia tangantur, neque vero id ipsum quod accipiunt, an velint
accipere, satis constet. Acosta, l. vi. c. 2. p. 520. Nisi petant et
instent, christianæ vitæ professione donandi non sunt. Idem. p. 521.
And again, While ignorant or wicked men do hasten any how, by right or
wrong, by guile or force, to make the barbarous people christians,
they do nothing else but make the gospel a scorn, and certainly
destroy the deserters of a rashly undertaken faith. Id. ibid. p. 522.
[39] See the "Reformed Liturgy," p. 68.
[40] Read the Propositions of the Synod in New England, and the
Defence of them against Mr. Davenport, about the subject of Baptism.