-- CHAPTER I: The children of godly parents called the inheritance of the Lord
first thoughts that he fell upon before the world was, are said to have the solidity of counsel in them, and to be as perfect as to eternity they could have been made, and so perfect that they are not capable of alteration unto any other. Hence in Heb. 6:7, 'Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heir of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.' He deliberately ventures to swear, as being privy he had considered all things that concerned their salvation; pauca respiciens cito pronunciat, but he that considers all, as he that deliberates is supposed to do, is bold to swear.
Observe only this at last, that it is said 'the counsel of his will,' as if his will had been of the two the most forward, and had set his understanding a-work about all those counsels.
BOOK V Election, in the ordinary course of it, runs in a line of succession from believing parents to their posterity.—The covenant of grace is entailed on the children of believers.—God most usually makes such his choice.—What judgment we are thereupon to have of them.
CHAPTER I
The children of godly parents called the inheritance of the Lord, because he is the owner of them as his elect and chosen, among whom his possessions and his peculiar people lie.—The derivation of the covenant of grace from their fathers unto them proved by the covenant made to Abraham, as it was a family covenant.—The difference between his privilege herein, and ours under the gospel.
'Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is a reward,' says the psalmist, Ps. 127:3. He speaks of what children are unto godly and holy parents, for unto such only is any blessing given by God as a reward, namely, of their holiness and righteousness (therefore merces bonorum operum, a reward of their good works, says the Chaldee paraphrast), and the psalmist expressly speaks of blessings which God 'gives his beloved ones,' as the words immediately foregoing do tell us, of which this blessing of children he makes the last and greatest. And it is also as certain that he speaks of children as supposed holy and godly (filii recti, says the same paraphrast); for otherwise they are not a reward, but as Solomon full often speaks of a foolish or ungodly child, he is a curse, a shame, and sorrow to him that begat him, and to her that brought him forth. The psalm was made, as appears by the title of it, 'of or for Solomon,' and therefore, as it is more than probable, was penned, as that other psalm, the 72d, which bears the same title, by David the father, of and for Solomon his son, who was, for his father's sake, 'the beloved of God,' 2 Sam. 12:24, 25, and upon whom the sure covenant and mercies of David were entailed, together with his kingdom. And what is said in this psalm, in the verses before, fitly agrees to him, for he it was who was to build God's house, to keep and preserve Jerusalem the city, and the kingdom, in peace, and to have rest, or as the psalmist calls it, ver 3, quiet sleep given him by God, from all his enemies round about him. And for this, compare the prophecy of him, 1 Chron. 22:9, 10, with the instructions here given him in the three first verses of this psalm, and ye will see how fitly this psalm concerns him.
Now, this Solomon, thus owned and beloved of God, David himself looked at as a child given for a reward of all his piety and uprightness, and therefore upon his rejoicing in so great a blessing, he takes occasion indefinitely to pronounce of other holy men's children, beloved of God also; so to raise up their hearts, that which to his comfort he had found true of his beloved Solomon. And this upon a just ground, for as the covenant made with David is set forth unto us, as the exemplar or draught of God's like covenant with his
elect, so Solomon, David's son, is here by David considered as the pattern or prototype of all the like children of godly parents, on them bestowed by virtue of that same covenant by which Solomon was on him. So as indeed this is the true scope of the royal prophet here: 'Lo, such children as Solomon was (holy and beloved of God), they are an heritage of the Lord, a rich and great reward; and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of them.'
Now such children may be understood to be an inheritance, &c., in a double respect: 1, unto their parents, an inheritance and a great reward to them from the Lord; or, 2, the inheritance of the Lord himself, through and for their parents' sake. The words here will bear that latter reading also, and so by both the sense will be made more full; and then the meaning is, that as they are a choice and peculiar gift given by God unto their parents, as his rewards use to be, so withal a choice and peculiar people unto God himself, as his inheritance is said to be; and so not only an heritage (as our translation carries it) from the Lord as the donor (as Isa. 54:17, and in some other places the word heritage is taken), but further, they are the inheritance of the Lord as the owner and possessor of them; that is, such children, they are his elect, his beloved, his chosen, among whom his possessions and his peculiar people lie. Thus everywhere in Scripture, to be the 'chosen people of God,' and to be 'his inheritance,' are all one; for instance, Ps. 28:9, 'Save thy people and thine inheritance;' and Ps. 33:12, 'Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance.'
Thus in the New Testament likewise, as well as in the Old, 1 Peter 5:3, the apostle calls the church the Lord's heritage; and through they being thus God's chosen for his propriety and choice inheritance, it is that they become (what follows) the highest reward unto their fathers of their uprightness; and so by being first the inheritance of the Lord, they become an inheritance from the Lord unto their parents, even the richest they can possess. And thus this reading of the words is so far from excluding the other, namely of their being their fathers' inheritance, that it is improved and raised thereby, and the due value put upon this blessing given; for what
greater favour can there be than this, that God should first take their children to be an inheritance to himself, and so make them heir of all things, and when they are thus ennobled and enriched, then to put them into their parents' arms as a rich inheritance to them? And then as Christ said, John 17:6, of the children which God had given him, so may they, 'They were thine, and thou gavest them me;' and as it is in Ps. 16:6, 'Lo, I have a goodly heritage.'
There is nothing that is or can so truly be accounted our own as our children; other things are but external appurtenances, but these are as branches to the root, yea, they are ourselves multiplied; therefore
God, who is in covenant with us, doth (as our children do inherit our goods) become heir of them himself, and owns them for his inheritance, to protect and dwell upon, and with, for ever.
And surely the elect children of godly parents in covenant with him may in this respect more peculiarly be called God's inheritance than others of his children chosen by him; for their parents being servants to him, and he their God, their children therefore do by a natural right of inheritance fall unto him, as the children of servants born in the house did unto their masters by the law, Exod. 21:4.
But, however, whether this were the meaning of these words or no, this we may rest confident to have been the psalmist's drift, that children, when they are holy, and so God's elect and chosen inheritance, are to be looked upon by their parents as the choicest and freest gift (as inheritances use to be), the richest reward and blessing that on earth can be bestowed upon them. And this we see confirmed to us, from what esteem both Abraham our father, then when his heart had been newly enlarged from the highest communion with God, did put upon such a blessing; as also from what esteem God did put upon it to him, by promising of this blessing then, when his heart was drawn out to the largest expressions of his love. Gen. 15:1, God came to Abraham in a vision, and said unto him, 'I am thy exceeding great reward;' here was the deepest and most comprehensive expression of love that God ever
made unto any man, and Abraham takes the advantage of this, and improves it (for how could he now out-ask what God had promised?), and says to God, 'What wilt thou give me, seeing I am childless?' so that a child, next to his own salvation, was the gift and blessing in Abraham's desires and thoughts. Upon this hint of Abraham, God promiseth him a Son, even Isaac, and that his 'seed should be as the stars of heaven,' and this son to be an heir, not of his goods only, as verse 4, but of his God also; and indeed when God renews the covenant, he so expressly enlargeth it, chap. 17 ver. 7, and so God promiseth to take his seed to be his own inheritance as well as to be heirs of Abraham; lo, from this instance also, such children, as the psalmist here speaks, are at once both the inheritance of the Lord and a very great reward; even the greatest of all rewards, next to God himself becoming a reward to us.
Now, this great blessing and inheritance, in which God hath thus mutually estated both these parents and their children, is to be the main subject of the ensuing discourse, even to confirm and establish the faith both of children and parents on both sides; to the end that godly parents, hearts may be raised up to the expectation of the highest comfort and reward in their children, that they, next assurance of their own salvation, can be filled with (which notwithstanding they too much neglect and undervalue); and that their children also, who are the most of God's elect, may be provoked to make search, and diligently to look out for that inheritance, here of the Lord himself, which by a gracious entail God hath settled on many of them long ere they were born, and of which they are often ignorant.
That my scope may by all be fully understood, I have shut up the full sum and argument of the whole into this one proposition, that The children of believing parents, at least their next and immediate seed, even of us Gentiles now under the gospel, are included by God within the covenant of grace, as well as Abraham's or David's seed
within that covenant of theirs. Both the proof and explication of which great point will run along together.
I will begin first to search out this right by that magna charta, that great and faithful charter which was made to Abraham, the father of the faithful, in the name of all his seed; for that is made the primary and fundamental ground of this great privilege by our divines, that we being 'Abraham's seed' (as Gal. 3:29) as well as the Jews, and having the same covenant, are therefore 'heirs of the promise,' and so of that promise which was made to Abraham and the Jews: 'I will be the God of thee and of thy seed.' But against this ground, as thus barely alleged, this exception hath often come thwart my mind, that this was Abraham's peculiar privilege, and an honour to him vouchsafed; as likewise was that to be styled the 'father of all the faithful,' which, as we all know, is to us incommunicable; and that therefore, although we may for our own persons indeed come into his promise as his seed, and so into that part of the promise, 'I will be the God of thy seed,' and so have the promise of God's being our God, and of the blessing by Christ for ourselves, as we are Abraham's seed, yet take the whole promise as collectively made to him and us, 'I will be the God of thee and of thy seed,' and it should seem to be peculiar to him alone, as to be the father of the faithful also is, by which title we are no way called, but only the sons of Abraham, and Abraham's seed. It might have well sufficed us for our own persons to have come into his promise singly, and to be 'heirs according to the promise,' as the phrase is, Gal. 3:26, although we were not fathers also to convey the promise, as Abraham was; nor although the promise, as collectively taken, had belonged to us, as to Abraham it did, nor that part of the promise, 'I will be the God of thy seed,' had been extended to us. And although the Jews, who were Abraham's seed after the flesh as well as after the Spirit, had that privilege also, that God in their generations promised to be the God of them and their seed; yet that also may seem to be a special privilege proper to them, which we
Gentiles cannot plead; for as in Rom. 3:1, 'What advantage or prerogative had the Jews' but this Rom. 9:4, that 'to them pertaineth the adoption, and the covenant, and the promises,' as being those
'whose are the fathers after the flesh,' verse 5, and so they had this privilege, that the covenant was propagated by the flesh.
Now, in satisfaction to these two exceptions, although there must necessarily be granted a transcendent special honour and privilege vouchsafed to Abraham, and to the Jewish nation his seed, which we have not; yet withal a further inquiry would be made, whether notwithstanding we Gentiles have not some correspondent sprinkling of this privilege of his and theirs, though of a lesser extent, and how far ours extendeth, in difference to that of theirs, and what further warrants there are for any such privilege to us Gentiles, who must have a charter and grant to shew for it if we would prove our seeds to be born heirs within the covenant, even as nobles and gentlemen have in a civil way for theirs; otherwise it will be the highest presumption in us to claim it, or to expect it at the hands of God.
First, then, to Abraham we grant this transcendent privilege, that he had the peculiar honour to be the 'father of all the faithful,' as Eve had the honour to be 'the mother of all living,' Gen. 3:20, which being spoken by Adam after the promise to her seed made, ver. 15, may be interpreted in the same sense that Abraham's was; she was the 'mother of all living,' that is, that live spiritually and by faith, as Abraham was 'father of all the faithful,' the covenant running in her name at the first, as in Abraham's afterward; and so Adam, in that his speech to Eve, uttered his faith in the promise made to her of her seed, and so in that respect Adam himself came in under her covenant.
Secondly, It was both Abraham's and the Jews' privilege also that they should have this promise to all generations, as Gen. 17. For two thousand years the covenant to belong thus unto them, and to be entailed on them, and also that 'after the flesh Christ should come of them,' as Rom. 9:5, and that they should be the root of our covenant, and we but engraffed on them as the 'natural branches,' Rom. 11; and further, that after their eminent breaking off by unbelief, for well
nigh two thousand years since, their covenant should be remembered, and for their fathers' sakes all Israel should yet be saved, as in the same chapter. And as the place which he there quotes out of Isaiah also promiseth that their seed's seed should be converted in a successive way from their second call to the world's end; and perhaps of every one, at least the most of that nation. And indeed it hath seemed to me to be one reason why all that nation were outwardly holy (which no nation ever was) before Christ's time, that this might be a prophetic type that all should one day be inwardly and really holy. How transcendent a privilege is this, then, that they should have something peculiarly promised to them, which is evident even by this also, that Abraham and his seed had the peculiar promise of Canaan, which we Gentiles have not.
But yet let us search into the records of Holy Writ, if out of this their great charter, there be not a seal grant of a lesser, though like privilege, and this by virtue of Christ, in that we have the honour to be accounted Abraham's seed as truly as they; and likewise in that, to have the covenant entailed unto children is so great and spiritual a privilege, as would tend infinitely to the comfort of godly parents now, as then it did to theirs, to have our seed within the covenant, as theirs were. Wherefore, though this was peculiar unto Abraham and them, to have an entail to them and to their seed for ever, yet that we should have our eyes and ears blessed with the hopes of our next seed (how far further I will not now dispute), as involved in this covenant, was a meet mercy for God's free grace to vouchsafe to us
Gentiles also. And seeing Abraham and they did partake of so great a privilege otherwise, it may well be hoped and expected, that so small an one correspondent to theirs, God should vouchsafe to us Gentiles, upon whom the blessing of Abraham through Christ is come, in a conformity unto his blessing upon him and his.
And searching this, first, I find that this very privilege is given unto a Gentile convert by Christ himself, and founded upon this very ground, that he was a 'son of Abraham,' being become a believer.
This we have, Luke 19, declared by Christ of Zaccheus when he was
converted, who by all circumstances was a Gentile, and so the ancients carry it, for he was a publican; and though some, yet but few
Jews were such, because of the hatred of their own nation; yet he being a chief publican, was surely therefore a Gentile. It being an office of trust to be chief custom-gatherer for the emperors, they would be sure to put none into that office but a Gentile; and so I find out of antiquity, Cyprian and others quoted for it, that in those chief places of custom, none but equites Romani, Roman knights, were placed.* And whereas some object, that if Zaccheus had been a Gentile, that then the Jews would have clamoured against Christ for going in unto a Gentile, and that so professedly as under that notion, because a Gentile. The answer is not far off, for, ver. 7, we read that they did quarrel him for it, 'they all murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest to a sinner,' that is, a Gentile; for the Jews usually called the Gentiles by the name of sinners, as Paul's phrase is, Gal.
2:15, 'sinners of the Gentiles.' But then, further, that answer which Christ there gives unto their murmuring doth strengthen this, for he says of him, 'Inasmuch as he also is the son of Abraham,' ver. 9. The meaning of which words evidently is this, that he who is not by birth a son of Abraham, but a sinner, a Gentile, yet is made one now by grace; and when Zaccheus was thus converted, Christ enlargeth his covenant to Zaccheus his family also, 'This day is salvation come to this house, inasmuch as he is also the son of Abraham,' ver. 9. This was spoken of him as now believing in Christ. Now if Christ's intent had been in this his answer given, to shew that he was a Jew, and so though a great sinner, yet was converted as being a son of Abraham
(as some expound it), he would have made it the reason but of this only, why Zaccheus was saved himself personally; but he makes it the reason why his house should be saved also, and so the covenant stuck with them of his family likewise, because he the father of the family was now a believer; whereas had his children and family, being Jews by birth, and himself likewise, then salvation had come unto him and them all, because they all wore sons of Abraham by birth (if Jews) as well as he. So as it is evident, that as he was a Gentile by birth, so now being converted, is therefore called a 'son of Abraham' and withal had this privilege of Abraham, as being his son (which is the
point I allege this for), to have his house brought into the covenant, even of that of salvation, in conformity to his father Abraham, whose house at the first giving of that covenant, even children and all, were circumcised and saved upon that ground, Christ intending now he should go in to eat with him, to convert his household also. And let me add this, that as Christ once before, in the conversion of the centurion, the first fruits of the Gentiles, Mat. 8, did first break open the treasury of the Gentile's conversion, so upon occasion of this man's conversion afterwards, he shews the privilege of the Gentiles, when converted, and their covenant to be the same with Abraham's in a conformity therewith; and so here first broacheth the doctrine of it, this man being the next first-fruits of the Gentiles, shewing how their covenant was to run by households, in a conformity to Abraham's family at first.
And, 2, Thus in like manner, when the apostles came to preach the gospel to a Gentile householder, master or father of a family, they carried the offer of it in this tenor, and in the way of this privilege, as a motive to conversion. So when Paul preached to the jailor, Acts 16, he asking, 'What shall I do to be saved?' ver. 30, Paul answers,
'Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved;' and then addeth, 'thou and thine house.' As Christ published the covenant with those promises annexed to a Gentile converted already, to comfort him, so the apostles promulge the offer of it to one to be converted, and being a master of a family, do declare his privilege by this, that he should be a means to convey it to his house; and accordingly it fell out there, ver. 34, that 'he believed in God with all his house,' as Zaccheus and his household did here.
And, 3, in the New Testament we find in the event (which still answers to promises) that the gospel spread itself through whole households, this being the tenure of our covenant. So it is said of the centurion, a Gentile, Acts 10:2, that he was 'a devout man, fearing
God, he and all his house;' so Lydia was converted, 'and all her house,' Acts 16:15, 16; so 1 Cor. 1:16, 'The household of Stephanas,'
and perhaps intimated, at least sometimes, in that usual phrase, 'the church in thy house.'
Now, then, when the covenant thus runs with the heads of houses for the families themselves, I argue thus from thence for their children, that they must needs be included and intended in a more special manner; for they are the natural branches, and servants but engrafted, as was said of the Jews and Gentiles in the like case. And 'the servant abides not always in the house, but the son ever abides in it,' John 8:35. The house of Aaron and his children are put for one and the same, Ps. 115:12, 15. In like phrase of speech, Leah and Rachel, in bringing forth children, are said to 'build up the house of Israel,' Ruth 4:11; and so the word house is used for posterity in all languages.
And for the further confirmation of this, namely, that this tenure of the Gentiles' covenant in a conformity to Abraham's, should run thus by families from the heads thereof, this doth fully suit with the original promise made to Abraham himself, when the Scripture foresaw, as Paul's phrase is, that the Gentiles should be justified, and so conveyed a blessing through Abraham unto them, as his seed. The promise (Gen. 12:3) runs in these terms, 'In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed;' as elsewhere, Gen. 18:18, and 22:18, it runs in these terms, 'All the nations of the earth shall be blessed.' These expressions are both used; the one to shew, the seed should be of all nations and people, yet so as withal the covenant was to run by families in those nations. Therefore the New Testament quotes it in both senses: Gal. 3:8 says, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, all nations, or heathens, because some of all nations shall be converted; but Peter, when he makes mention of the covenant, Acts 3:25, though chiefly for the end to shew the Jews were the first children of the covenant, yet he expounds these words spoken to Abraham, 'In thy seed shall the families of the earth be blessed,' thus: 'In thy seed,' namely Christ (as ver. 26 he interprets it), 'all the fatherhoods or kindreds of the earth shall be blessed.' The word in the original is αἱ πατριαὶ, 'fatherhoods of the earth; so he styleth families because of the father's covenant,
through which Christ, the seed of Abraham, conveys his blessing.
And the psalmist, Ps. 22:27, speaking of the calling of the Gentiles by Christ, as the fruit of his death, when he says, 'All the ends of the earth shall turn unto him; and all the kindreds,' &c. The Septuagint also renders it, as Peter here, πατριαὶ, fatherhoods, and because it shall be derived sometimes by succession of birth, as a means of conveying the blessing, therefore, in the following 30th verse, he saith, 'a seed shall serve him'; that is, the posterity of those godly, who (as ver. 31) 'shall be born of them.'
Further, we see that in the calling of the Jews to come, God respects their fathers and their covenant though it be under the gospel; so Rom. 11. Yea, and the apostle quoteth for it that place of the prophet,
Isa. 59:20, 'The Redeemer shall come to Zion.' Now if we look into the words of the prophet prophesying of their call, how doth the promise of the new covenant made to them in that their call to come run? More infallibly upon their seed than that former to Abraham's did. 'This is my covenant, my Spirit shall not depart out of the mouth of thy seed, and out of thy seed's seed, from henceforth and for ever.'
There will be in the new Jerusalem a continued succession of sanctified ones, a seed's seed for ever; and not only of men converted when of ripe years, but when infants. Therefore in Deut. 30 (where
God gives the covenant of the gospel, as appears by Rom. 10, and that in opposition to the law given before, and expresseth it by way of prophesying what should fall out after their dispersion, as ver. 1), he says, 'I will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed,' ver. 6.
You know whither the phrase circumcise leads, namely, to the sign and seal of it, which under the New Testament is baptism answering unto it. Their children's hearts he will circumcise, which is the fruit of baptism, as Col. 2:12.
And further, that our covenant, as Abraham's seed, should run thus with us and our families, was most correspondent to that first example of the covenant then given to Abraham; for then the church was only in a family, and so the first giving of this covenant and the seal to confirm it, was established with a family through Abraham