Genesis 17:7-8 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant… The grounds of it are these: To show the extent of the grace of the second covenant; the Lord hath not dealt with men as He did with the angels, He did make a particular covenant with every particular angel, but He doth not so with men. He has always delighted to take in man into a covenant made with parents for them, that men might see that grace prevented them, and that they were engaged unto God, and His promise was out of grace entailed unto them as a birthright; and, therefore, as in the first covenant, God takes in Adam and all his posterity, and the second covenant is made with the second Adam and all His posterity; so, that there may be a resemblance hereof kept in the world, He hath taken in the children into their parents' covenant, that they may see grace extend beyond their persons, even to their posterity. I. THAT IT IS A. SPECIAL PRIVILEGE FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN, THAT THEY ARE TAKEN INTO THEIR PARENTS' COVENANT, will appear by these arguments and demonstrations. 1. It will aggravate their sin if they abuse it; therefore it is a mercy and a privilege in itself: for what is not a mercy and a privilege in itself, that cannot add to a man's sin and judgment. Now, as it is in riches and honours, and all the blessings in this life, they will be unto a man judgments if they are abused; therefore, they are blessings in themselves, blessings in the thing, though a snare to the man; so this very argument that is brought to prove that they are no blessings, and give no benefit, doth clearly prove that the thing itself is a privilege and a blessing. 2. For a child to be disinherited and cast out his father's covenant is a very great judgment, and the sorest of all outward afflictions that can befall a man; as we see it in Cain, "Thou hast cast me out from the face of the earth, and from Thy face I shall be hid." 3. It is promised as a special blessing for the visible Church of God to continue in any man's posterity; and therefore we are to look upon it so (Genesis 4:25); it was so in Seth, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew"; and so it was promised to Shem, "that the church of God should be in his posterity continued," and that in due time "the Lord should enlarge Japhet to dwell also in the tents of Shem." 4. It is the greatest wrath that God doth pour out upon men in this life, to cast them out of external church privileges. II. BUT WHAT ARE THOSE PRIVILEGES AND THOSE PARTICULAR BENEFITS THAT COME UPON A PERSON AND HIS POSTERITY THEREBY? 1. Many of them shall be saved, elected, and converted to God; for the Lord doth take the number of His elect out of the loins of His own, the Church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven is hid in the visible Church here as wheat in a heap of chaff. 2. It is the only ground of hope that parents have for the salvation of their children dying in their infancy. 3. There is no ordinary way of salvation, but it is amongst them that are taken into covenant, salvation is of the Jews: there was in an ordinary way salvation to be had nowhere else, and therefore, by being taken into the outward privileges of the Church, a man is brought into the ordinary way of salvation. 4. It is a special honour to be the vineyard of the Lord, the garden of the Lord hedged in from the rest of the world. 5. By this you have special privileges: Jerusalem is the valley of Vision, and Jeshuron the seeing people; it is Ariel, the altar of the Lord, chiefly to them are committed the oracles of God, which they are to keep and to transmit unto posterity; it is a depositum laid up and concredited to them: "In Judah is God known, His name is great in Israel; He hath not dealt so with other nations"; they are a people near unto Him, and the Lord hath promised that He will give them His special presence: "I will dwell in the midst of them"; Christ walks in the middle of the golden candlesticks, though He be in glory. 6. By coming under the outward privileges of this covenant, they have very glorious operations, mighty works upon them that other men have never experience of; and all this, even in them that perish; and they have this as a fruit of their external interest; for (Hosea 6:5) there is hewing and slaying, there is sowing and planting, when the rest of the common fields lie untilled, and there are great gifts bestowed, such as the Lord cloth not bestow on any other sort of people in the world; for the great gifts that come from Christ as ascended are upon the visible Church of God; yea the thorns and briars in the Church have the rain and influences, great and many common works of the Spirit raising and elevating and improving nature, the least of which works and motions is more worth than the world, it is so in the things, though it prove at last a curse to the man. 7. They by this means come under the care of the Church. 8. They attain many temporal blessings, and are delivered from many temporal afflictions thereby; Ishmael had many outward blessings by Abraham's covenant; the external blessings of the covenant are made good to them; God will not destroy Jerusalem, and the judgment came not upon King Hezekiah, "for David My servant's sake," and, "I will not rend it from Rehoboam, because I will not put out the light of Israel." III. WHY WILL THE LORD HAVE THE COVENANT RUN BY WAY OF ENTAIL, IN REFERENCE TO THE OUTWARD PRIVILEGES OF IT, AND NOT IN REFERENCE TO THE INWARD GRACES OF IT? The covenant that was made with Adam was to convey the one as well as the other, and the image that he had received he was to convey to his posterity, and the promise of life spiritual, and life eternal, was made unto his posterity in case of his obedience, as well as unto himself; and therefore, as all died in him, so all should have lived in him. So that by the first covenant Adam might have conveyed not only outward privileges, but inward graces also; and whereas now by reason of the fall, all mankind do convey death to their children, but not life. 1. The Lord will not have the graces of the covenant entailed from parents unto posterity. (1) Because the curse of the first covenant is now become ex traduce, by propagation, and all the posterity of Adam do now as naturally convey the curse, by reason of the broken covenant, as Adam should have conveyed life and blessing, if he had stood in his integrity; and therefore whatever the immediate parents be, Adam's sin comes alike unto all whether they be godly or wicked; and the child of a godly parent is as truly and as deeply guilty of the sin of Adam in his birth, as the child of the most wicked man that is, that is an entail left upon all mankind that can never be cut off, while there is a man born upon earth. 2. Because under the second covenant it is the election of God that takes place, and puts all the difference between men and men, between whom in themselves there is no difference. 3. Because since the fall the Lord has appointed another way to convey life unto His people, and that is not by generation from the first Adam, but by regeneration from a second Adam; and therefore, the Lord will surely honour His own way, and He will not; convey the grace of the covenant from parents unto their posterity, but from Him only who is the second Adam. (W. Strong, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. |
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