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over was given to the children of Israel in Egypt, and not at Sinai; and that though connected with that covenant, and typical, as far as the body and blood of the Lamb were used as symbols, yet it was an ordinance previous to the giving of the covenant, and the ceremonial law at Sinai, and the regulations respecting the characters who were to approach unto God in this distinguishing ordinance were not ceremonial. But waving this, I remark secondly, that the new covenant which was to supercede the old, according to the Apostle, in the passage referred to, there was not to be a curtailment of privileges, but an increase. The excellence, or superiority of the new covenant, did not consist in debarring children from approaching un

God, with their parents in his distinguishing ordinances, but in "better promises." And what were some of those promises?

1. This new covenant was to be made, as the old was, with the house (the family) of Israel and Judah, and God's laws were to be put, not in an ark or chest, but in the hearts and minds of his people.

2. He was to be a God unto them and they were to be unto him a people. A people must include little children. This is not left to inference. 3. The third promise of the new covenant, but which may be considered, the second "better promise," is, that," all shall know the Lord"-and that little children might not be excluded, it is added, from the least to the greatest." If this does not

include little children from the time they can know the Lord, what can it mean? He who can see a repeal of little children from the Table of the Lord, in this passage, has "optics sharp I wean." Yours, &c

LETTER 7.

The argument continued-The Holy Scriptures fur

DEAR SIR:

ther considered.

You will recollect that in a former letter I considered the following principle of interpreting the word of God conceded by my Pædobaptist brethren, viz: "that when God has once legislated on a subject necessarily requiring his legislation, and he never alters or repeals the act, it stands forever." The law regulating membership in the church, and the privileges, and duties of members is essential to the very being of the church, and we have found an explicit law of God, embracing these subjects, in the Old Testament. No repeal of that law in the New Testament has yet been shown, and may venture to say never will he shown. Nor can any law be produced as a substitute, regula

I

ting membership, and the enjoyment of church prive ileges. It will not do to say, that the law of the passover was ceremonial, or typical, and ceased of course when Christ came. If the law itself was a type, we ought to have a law from Christ, as its anti-type, or substance. If the membership of infants, and little children, was typical, and typical of the membership of those newly born again, and advanced a little in the christian life under Messiah, then the membership of infants, born of religious parents, . is gone, and the baptists are right. If the law granting to children of three years and upwards, the privilege of partaking of the passover, was typical, I wish to know of what? If we must, right or wrong, make it typical, I would suppose it typical of children of three years, and upwards, partaking of the Lord's Supper which was to supercede the passover. But if the law of the Lord's Table in the passover was a typical law-and if the church then was a typical church—and her members typi cal members, why not upon the same principle maintain that the God of Israel was a typical God— and that then there were only typical penalties, and rewards—a typical hell, and a typical heaven; and that when Messiah came we got the substance of all these types? For my part I must believe that there was among the Israelites a true and substantial God—a true and substantial church with true and substantial laws, members and Table -and this God and his Table were as holy then as

they are now, and that therefore the same law must regulate the approaches to that God and that Table —it must admit and debar the same kind of characters. If we have another God-another churchanother Table, and other sort of characters partaking of that Table, then there is a propriety in laying aside the old law, and substituting a new. A little discrimination may relieve the mind of any soberly reflecting person, with respect to this subject. Certain symbols used, at the Lord's Table under the Old Testament, it is granted, on all hands, were typical, but it does not thence follow, that the Table was typical, or that the law regulating admission to that table was a typical, or ceremonial law. The body of the Paschal Lamb was one of the symbols formerly laid on the Lord's Table and was typical; it was discontinued when Christ the true Lamb of God was sacrificed, of whom it was a type, but the Table, the bread, and the wine were not laid aside. If they were formerly types they are so still-if they were ceremonial, they are ceremonial still.

The Apostles in illustrating the nature of the church of Christ, and the privileges and duties of her members, had recourse to the house of God, and those who partook of its privileges under the old dispensation; and they are far from inculcating a a change of the law respecting that house, which is now the church of the living God."

We have before ascertained that those who were considered worthy to stand in any one court of the

house of God, were worthy to enjoy the ordinances there administered; and it was as criminal to profane the house by an unhallowed entrance, as to profane its ordinances. The use I now am about to make of this, may expose me to the charge of Judaizing, I therefore produce Paul and Peter, as my precedents. They both teach us that the church under Christ answers to the house of God under the Mosaic dispensation. Paul taught Timothy, "how to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God."* And in addressing the Corinthian church, he writes thus; "know ye not that ye are the Temple of God? If any man defile the Temple of God, him will God destroy, for the Temple of God is holy which Temple ye are."t Again, what agreement hath the temple of God with idols; for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people." To the Ephesian church he writes; "in whom (that is Christ) all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Peter says to believers; "ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises of Him, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."S *i. Tim. iii. 15. ti. Cor. iii. 16, 17. ii. Cor. vi. 16. ¶Epk. ii, 21, 22. § í. Pet. ii. 9.

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