04-03-2008, 09:45 PM
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| Stephen Marshall's pro-paedobaptist rejoinder
Stephen Marshall's Sermon on the Baptising of Infants: Quote:
And whereas some who see which way the strength of this conclusion bendeth, do allege, that though circumcision was to be applied to their infants, yet it was not as a seal of the spiritual part of the covenant of grace, but as a national badge, a seal of some temporal and earthly blessings and privileges, as of their right to the land of Canaan, &c., and that Ishmael, though he was circumcised for some temporal respects, yet he was not thereby brought under the covenant of grace, which was expressly said to be made with Abraham in relation to Isaac and his seed (Gen. 17:18-21) --
I answer, there is nothing plainer than that the covenant whereof circumcision was the sign (Rom. 4:11) was the covenant of grace; Abraham received circumcision a sign of the righteousness of faith, and the Jews received it not as a nation, but as a church, as a people separated from the world, and taken into covenant with God. It is true indeed, that circumcision bound them who received it to conform to that manner of administration of the covenant which was carried, much, by a way of temporal blessings and punishments, they being types of spiritual things; but no man can ever show that any were to receive the sacrament of circumcision in relation to these outward things only, or to them at all, further than they were administrations of the covenant of grace. Sure I am, the proselytes and their children could not be circumcised in any relation at all to the temporal blessings of the land of Canaan as they were temporal, because notwithstanding their circumcision they were not capable of receiving or purchasing any inheritance at all in that land; sojourn there they might, as other strangers also did, but the inheritance of the land, no, not one foot of it could ever be alienated from the several tribes to whom it was distributed as their possession by the most High: for all the land was divided unto twelve tribes (Deut. 32:8; Lev. 25:13, &c.), and they were not any one of them allowed to sell their lands longer than till the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:13, etc.). Yea, I may boldly say that their circumcision was so far from sealing to them the outward good things of the land, that it occasioned and tied them to a greater expense of their temporal blessings by their long, and frequent, and chargeable journeys, to worship at Jerusalem. And as for what was alleged concerning Ishmael, the answer is easy: God indeed there declares that Isaac should be the type of Christ, and that the covenant of grace should be established and continue in his family; yet both Ishmael and the rest of Abraham's family were really taken into covenant, until afterward by apostasy they discovenanted themselves, as also did Esau afterward, though he were the son of Isaac, in whose family God had promised the covenant should continue.
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