Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/104

 92 our Adversaries stumble at this, that in the Sacrament of the Supper, The Bread is called the body of Christ.

4. In this expression of the Covenant, the spirituall good things promised therein are limited to Abraham and to his seed. But all Infants whatsoever are not comprehended under the seed of Abraham. To say many thousand thousands are excluded from the seales and outward administration of the Covenant, when yet every one is partaker of the good promised in the Covenant, is to speake of our selves, and not according to the Word of God. We will not tie the grace of God to outward meanes: but ordinarily we cannot affirme they pertaine to the Covenant of Grace, and obtaine the highest blessings promised therein, whom God doth not vouchsafe so much as outwardly to receive into Covenant.

Ow we are drawing downe to Moses his time, and that manifestation of the Covenant of Grace, which was revealed to the Church by his Ministery. The curse of Gods revenging justice had now seized upon mankind for many generations, even thousands of yeares, so that now it was time for God to remember mercy in the midst of wrath, and to breake out into a clearer expression of this free gratious Covenant, extended to a people sprung up into a great number, and to be joyned together in an outward policie. The Covenant of free grace running downe in Abrahams seed was daily cast out, and grew wilde, as in the Ishmaelites, Edomites, Syrians, &c. therefore God was now pleased to knit the seed of Abraham together in a stronger, and (as I may call it) a state Covenant, that things might grow better and not worse. The body of the people to whom the Covenant pertained, was now growne populous and numerous, so that either it must grow wild, and come to nothing by it owne weight, or else be brought under the Covenant of God into a state and nationall Church.

The Covenant which God made with Israel is called the Old