MINISTER. Be comforted, my friend; no blame is laid on you by the public. I bear it all; and I am willing to bear it for your good and methinks you have only cause of joy and thankfulness; for to be convinced so soon of your mistake, is no small favour. No doubt the voice of the clergy, who practise the half-way, declaring as one man, that he who is qualified to offer his child to baptism, is equally qualified to come to the Lord's table, has wrought your conviction; for your former faith and practice were grounded merely on the custom of the country: this led you to think that the Lord's supper was more holy than baptism. But while you hear all the ministers, with whom you converse, declare they mean no such thing; they practise the half-way only in condescension to the ignorance, and groundless unscriptural scruples of the common people; you are convinced; you give up the point; you own the command of Christ, do this in remembrance of me, is binding on all his disciples: but, pray, upon what grounds, do you now so boldly claim baptism for your child?

P. Although I was "uncommonly dull and muddy," in my first visit; yet," you know, sir, what I wanted was to have my child baptised. As you told me there was but one covenant, so we were agreed that I had entered into that covenant, the very same covenant that you entered into three and thirty years ago, when you was admitted into the church. And, sir, why may I not have the seal of it set upon my child?" p. 4..

M. Did not I expressly tell you, that " If the covenant owned is the covenant of grace, and if the parent acts understandingly and honestly in the affair, he is a good man; he has a right before God to baptism for his children, and an equal right to the Lord's supper? But that if the covenant owned is not the covenant of grace, those who have owned it, have in the sight of God no right to either of those ordinances, which are seals of that covenant, and of no other: no more right than if they had given their assent to any chapter in the Apocrypha. ?'

P. True, you did so; and there is but one covenant, says my patron.

M. This covenant then is the covenant of grace, which, we are all agreed, requires repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ: or else there is no covenant of grace at all; for he says there is but one. But lay your hand upon your heart, and tell me the truth honestly, did you mean to profess repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, when you owned the covenant? or in other words, did you mean to profess a compliance with the covenant of grace? Pray, sir, recollect and repeat the very words you spake to me in your first visit.

P. You make me blush; for I told you the truth in my first visit, from the bottom of my heart; and this is what I said: I "knew myself to be unconverted; I meant to own the covenant, as the phrase is, and have my children baptised; but I had no design to profess godliness, or to pretend a real compliance with the covenant of grace. This godly people may do, but it had been great hypocrisy in me to do it. To lie to men is bad, but to lie to God is worse. I supposed that owning the covenant was what the unconverted might do." These were my very words: and on these principles I acted, as do all others that I am acquainted with, who own the covenant, have their children baptised, and do not come to the Lord's table; and I verily thought this was right before my first visit.

M. How is it possible a man so honest as you then appeared to be, should now act such a dishonest part, as you have done? It is my duty, as a minister of Christ, to rebuke you sharply; for then you told me, as you now own, that you did not mean to profess a compliance with the covenant of grace, upon which I denied baptism to your child; and yet just now you pretended, you did mean to do it. You have need to blush; this deliberate dissimulation in such an affair, is no small crime. Did your learned patron advise you to this step, to get your child baptised? Is this the way to obtain God's blessing?

P. Be this as it may, I am willing now to make a profession, and publicly to enter into covenant with God, and I have no objection against the form used in your church. I can make

that covenant, and speak truly in the sight of God, notwithstanding I know I have no grace. p. 6, 7.

M. How can a man who knows he has no grace, profess a compliance with the covenant of grace, without wilful lying? P. I do not mean to make a profession that shall imply conversion. There would be special hypocrisy' in doing so. p. 14.

M. What then? do you suppose the unconverted do comply with the covenant of grace? That the unconverted have repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ? That the unconverted choose the Lord Jehovah for their sovereign Lord, and supreme good through Jesus Christ, and give up themselves to his service, to walk in all his ways, seeking his glory?

P. No, sir, by no means. But "if it be true that the Lord Jehovah is my sovereign Lord and supreme good through Jesus Christ, i. e. if it be true, that he who through Christ is the author of being, and of every mercy to all the living, is the sovereign Lord and supreme good of every living soul, it is no harm to avouch it." I mean to give my assent to this truth, and no more.

M. Doth not the devil believe the truth of this proposition as firmly as any wicked man does? and is he in covenant? You have need to be better instructed about the nature of entering into covenant with God, before you can be considered as qualified in point of doctrinal knowledge.

P. No, sir, I am not so ignorant, neither. I know in what sense you mean to understand your covenant. But knowing myself to be unconverted, I cannot profess a compliance with the covenant of grace in that sense. I cannot profess supreme love to God, and that I do actually take him as my God, my chief good, through Jesus Christ. This is not in my heart. Therefore I mean to adopt the words of the covenant in a different sense; even in the sense in which an unconverted man who is at enmity against God may use them, and yet speak true.

M. But this is not to profess a compliance with the covenant of grace. And therefore should you make it, it could give you no right to sealing ordinances for yourself or your

child. Rather is it gross and scandalous dissimulation, very much like what is practised by Arians and Socinians among. the clergy of the church of England, when they subscribe the thirty-nine articles, in order to qualify themselves for a benefice upon the establishment; which practice is condemned by all honest men.

P. Be this as it may, I can at least with moral sincerity promise," to walk in all his ways and keep all his commands, seeking his glory." p. 7.

M. The obedience engaged by one who professes a compliance with the covenant of grace, is that kind of obedience which the covenant requires, viz. an holy obedience, an obedience which proceeds from faith and love. And do you mean to engage this?

P. No, by no means. I only mean to engage what an unconverted man may do, while such. p. ya.

M. But this unholy obedience is not that kind of obedience which the covenant of grace requires at your hands. So that you mean to profess neither to comply with the covenant of grace at present, nor to live such a holy life as it

a Other writers maintain, that such as know themselves to be unconverted, when they join in full communion with the church, are to engage that very kind of obedience required in the covenant of grace, from that time and forward till they die. They are not to profess that they have as yet loved God, believed in Christ, repented of their sins, or lived holy lives; but they are to engage that they will do all this as soon as ever they have joined with the church, and from that time forward till they die. This is Mr. Beckwith's scheme, answer to Mr. Green, p. 26. If these professors are so near being converted in their own judgments, really and honestly, that they do expect to be actually converted as soon as they have joined with the church, it is a pity they do not put off their public profession till the next sabbath; and so be converted first: and then they might make a full profession of a present compliance with the covenant of grace, and so the whole controversy might be ended. This is always the way that honest people take when they enter into the marriage covenant, to which this writer compares this transaction. They do not come and present themselves before the priest to enter into the marriage covenant, till they begin to love each other. And now they can with a good conscience give their consent to the whole marrige covenant, as being conscious to themselves that they already have such an heart in them. But should a pair offer to be married, who had, through their whole courtship, and to that moment, been at enmity against each other, as much as Paul declares every carnal mind to be against God, (Rom. viii. 7.) it would be looked upon as a hypocritical, mad, and stupid piece of conduct.

requires for the future. In short, you mean to use the words of a saint with the heart of a hypocrite; and so to come into Christ's visible church with the language of a friend, but with the heart of an enemy. Your proposed conduct may serve to give a very true and just exposition to those words of our Saviour, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? As if he had said, "I call you friend, because you, in words, make the same profession which my real friends do. But why do you do this, when at the same time you have the heart of an enemy? why do you act this hypocritical part? Such dissimulation is special hypocrisy.”

If

you could not comply with our covenant in its plain sense, and in the sense you knew we understood it, why did not you rather come like an honest man, and say so, and desire to have it laid aside; and a new covenant, an ungracious covenant, introduced in its room; a covenant which you could make, and act an honest part?

P. I thought there was but one covenant. I supposed the covenant you use in your church, as you understand it, was that one covenant. I thought that baptism and the Lord's supper were seals of the covenant of grace, and of no other. And so I must profess a compliance with the covenant of grace, or I cannot be received among Christ's disciples, or claim the privileges of such. Therefore I put this new sense on the words, that I might consent to them with a good con

science.

M. But the words, in this new sense, are not the covenant of grace, but an ungracious covenant; in sense and meaning exactly like the half-way covenant, in use in some churches, where they have two covenants, (a number of such churches I could name to you,) so while you cry out against the name of a half-covenant, you take the covenant of grace, and turn it into the very thing, in order to bring it down to a level with your graceless heart; and then put on a bold face, and come and claim the privileges peculiar to those who profess a compliance with the covenant of grace itself.

P. Sir," I am persuaded God has made the Lord's supper a converting ordinance to many, and he inay make it so to me.”