CHAPTER III: All God's elect do not, before their regeneration, remain in that state of sin and w
for the pardoning of your sins, so he rose again to regenerate and beget you again. Therefore says the text, 1 Peter 1:3, 'Who hath begotten us again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.' If you will have the benefit of his death, you must find the power and virtue of his resurrection in sanctifying you, as Paul speaks, Phil. 3:10. 'And you who are dead in sins and trespasses,' must be 'quickened with him,' unto a new life of grace, if ever you be saved. Both these you have in Eph. 2:4–6, 'God, who is rich in mercy, hath quickened us together with Christ, even when we were dead in sins and trespasses, and hath raised us up together,' &c. And this new birth, or holiness, necessarily accompanies pardon, even as Christ's resurrection followed his death; and his death extends to save no more than his resurrection puts forth a power to beget. As, if Christ had not personally risen, we had been still in our sins, so if Christ be not risen in thee, thou art still in thy sins, and wilt die in them: Rom.
6:12–14, 'Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof: neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto
God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.'
And chap. 7:4, 'Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruits unto God.' Which last place confirms that former reason given, that we being to be married to Christ, and he being to be risen from the dead, we must be made like him in a new resurrection.
CHAPTER III
That all God's elect do not indeed, before their regeneration, remain in that state of
sin and wrath, as is evident in the case of infants.* The great God, for holy and glorious ends, but more especially to give demonstration, or to make appear his love and kindness, his mercy and grace, hath ordered it so, that the generality of elect that live to riper years, should for some time remain in a condition of sin and wrath, and then he renews them, and turns them to himself. I have in the former chapters proved the matter of fact.
My present business is to consider the design of God herein, and to what ends and purposes, and for what reasons he hath thus appointed such their condition.
I must premise something by way of limitation, and explication, to prevent exceptions against this truth.
1. My meaning is not, that God regenerates none but such as are grown up to riper years. I should be injurious to multitudes of his elect, if I so asserted. But as infants are capable of all the essentials of regeneration, so, de facto, it is evident that he regenerates multitudes of them whilst such. For in the Old Testament the promise being indefinitely uttered for time or age as well as person—'I will be the God of thee and thy seed,' Gen. 17:7; 'And I will circumcise thy heart, and the hearts of thy seed,' Deut. 30:6—and circumcision (which has the sign and seal of that circumcision of the heart mentioned in the promise, and so the seal of that promise itself, and of the performance), being by God's command applied to infants, whereof multitudes whilst such died, necessarily imports that there are some of that age, whom God had in his eye, whom he inwardly circumcised; or else the promise and seal to them had been in vain.
And if it had took place in none but those that lived until they grew up to riper years, then circumcision would have been deferred unto that age, as that wherein God's ordination had only been to regenerate mankind, namely, all when come to such or such an age,
grown up, and not before. And circumcision is the seal of that righteousness, the same righteousness which believers grown up have imputed to them (as Rom. 4:11, the apostle, instancing in Abraham, says), 'He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith;' which words do not assert circumcision to have been a seal of faith or righteousness only unto them that actually do believe, but the purpose of them was to signify and exemplify what righteousness it was that circumcision was the seal of, which he exemplifies in Abraham, saying that it was the same that Abraham the father had imputed to him, and which believers lay hold on, which is called the righteousness of faith; because revealed from faith to faith, and so apprehended and made known to us that are of riper years by faith. And so hereby he gives us to understand that elect infants circumcised, the seed of Abraham, dying, had and might have the very same righteousness which we and Abraham had by faith, and which circumcision did seal up to his faith, even as well as they have the actual application of that outward seal as much as Abraham had. And indeed the half of mankind dying whilst infants, it may be well supposed that as great a portion, at least for number, are found amongst the seed that die, as experience shewed was found among them that lived, and so were inwardly circumcised. And those promises, 'I will be the God of thee and thy seed;' and 'I will circumcise the heart of thy seed;' being spoken (as they are apparently) indefinitely of any age, one as well as another, who shall dare to limit them to years of understanding only? And if indefinitely for age, then it may as well be supposed, that there is no time, or age, in the whole series of man's life, but there will be found instances of some of Abraham's seed that were therein regenerated, some in one, some in another; even as there is not the least moment in the thread of man's life, but some or other have expired therein. And again, shall we limit it to infants of eight days old, to exclude all infants dying before eight days? Surely no. The real intent was otherwise. As women were not excluded from the promise, though not circumcised personally; to whom yet the promise held, as well as unto males; and the female sex were representatively circumcised in the males; so infants (take it still indefinitely of what age, yea, of what moment's
standing you will, from their conception), were represented in the circumcision of those infants of eight days old. This deferring and staying of it then, and this representative circumcision at eight days old of some, was ordained typically to hold forth that representation of all the elect which that גבר, that strong male child Christ, the firstborn of them, was to bear of all the seed, he standing in their stead.
And it is to no purpose to say, that circumcision sealed up to them only the promise of Canaan; for beside that the promise to Abraham and his seed was one and the same, also infants that died (as half of mankind die when infants) enjoyed so little, some not at all, the benefit of that promise, 'that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee,' as it were ridiculous to assert circumcision was applied to them to seal up that promise only.
In the New Testament, we find that grace and all the privileges thereof are now more extendible, as to nations ('Go teach all nations,' not the Jews only) so in like manner unto all sorts of persons, more than these to whom the grace and dispensations of grace in the Old
Testament could be supposed to extend; and therefore if to infants then, so now. And it is observable that the first in the catalogue of the New Testament (both according to Christ's account, Mat. 11:11, and also that of Zacharias) was John, who, as the first-fruits to sanctify in a more special manner the lump of infants, was filled with the Holy
Ghost in his mother's womb, Luke 1:15.
Christ himself, who sanctified our nature, to the end that we might be sanctified (John 17:19, Heb. 2:11), representatively sanctified every age of man he went through, as well as those ages or years of man's life he fell short of. Now therefore he was sanctified in the womb, to sanctify some infants in the womb. He was holy when born, even because some infants when first born might be then sanctified.
And the same Lord Jesus pronounceth of infants, that 'Of such is the kingdom of God.'
Nor can it be supposed that he sanctifies only such infants that in his decrees he had appointed to die when infants; for when Christ spake that last fore-cited speech, it was upon occasion of such infants being brought to him, who might be supposed to have lived up to riper years, and it being intended a direction to the apostles as ministers, with respect to infants coming or being brought to them, to be sure they were not first to judge who were to live and who were to die, and to regard the latter only, therefore Christ speaks indefinitely. And add to this, John Baptist, who lived to riper years, was yet when an infant sanctified.
And if we take a great lump of Christians that are grown up, some few will be found sanctified from their infancy, insomuch as they dare not say but they had workings of grace on them ever since they can remember, and that they had gracious dispositions (though proportioned to that age) mingled with the dawnings and springings of reason in them. This experience shews, and therefore you must not take this doctrine universally true, that of these that live to years of discretion, none are sanctified when infants.
Yet in the text it is more generally and ordinarily true concerning those elect who live, that God (in whose hands are the times and seasons of regenerating men, as well as of all things else, Acts 17) hath appointed and ordered their month (as the prophet speaks) or times of bringing forth to be, when grown up to years of discretion.
And besides instances out of the apostles' epistles, many passages in the Old and New Testament evidence that thus it was even in those that lived in Zion, and were well educated in the church of God, and yet needed regeneration, and were regenerated when of years of discretion, or grown up.
In the Old Testament, David (Ps. 51:12) desires God 'restore to him the joy of his salvation, that he might teach sinners God's ways' (not heathens only, but sinners among whom he lived), 'and that they might be converted unto him,' ver. 13. And though men scoff to hear
of converts in the church, yet Isaiah tells us of 'converts in Sion,' Isa.
1:27.
In the New Testament we have the example of Timothy, who though brought up by good parents, and taught the faith by his grandmother and mother (2 Tim. 1:5), and who, though he was one who know the Scriptures from a child, yet for all this his conversion was afterwards by Paul's ministry; who therefore calls Timothy his own son (1 Tim.
1:2), not only as nourished up by him in the words of truth (as 1 Tim.
4:6), but as truly begotten (in respect of regeneration), as ever any other was of whose conversion he was an instrument; and therefore elsewhere also he still calls him his son, 2 Tim. 1:2, 1 Cor. 4:17, upon the same account that he calls Onesimus his son, Philem. 10, 'My son
Onesimus:' and he gives the reason why he styles him so, 'whom I begat' (says he) 'in my bonds.' And accordingly elsewhere, he distinguisheth between spiritual fathers and instructors in the same,
1 Cor. 4:15, 'Though you have,' says he—that is, might be supposed to have—'ten thousand instructors, yet not many fathers,' that is, that converted you; none was an instrument thereof but I: 'For in Christ
Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.' And (Acts 18) he shows he was the converter of those saints at Corinth; and as of them, so of Timothy, whom, in the very next words, he terms his son
(which always speaketh relation to a father), and he having thus, in the words afore, distinguished between a father and an instructor, and having styled himself a father to them, for his having begotten them, that he should style Timothy his son, with the same breath, must necessarily be understood in one and the same sense. And when he says, 1 Cor. 4:17, 'for this cause I have sent unto you
Timothy, who is my beloved son;' there was something of an argument in it to move them to receive Timothy, as sent them by him, being their natural brother, as it were, begotten by the same hand they had been. So then Timothy, though a towardly child, and well educated as any can be supposed to be, yet after he was come to years of discretion, it was that he was converted. And truly the additions of that word, 'begotten you through the gospel,' God having appointed as then, so now, the gospel, and that as preached, to be the