Genesis 17:7,8

I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and thy seed after thee

The faithful Covenanter

The communion and fellowship of man with God, was first founded on a covenant of works made with Adam in Paradise.

But this fellowship being placed in man’s own freedom, and having so weak a foundation, he lost both himself and it, so that now by the first covenant of works, Adam and all his posterity are under a curse; for we cannot fulfil the law that requireth personal obedience, perfect obedience, and exact obedience. He that “continueth not in all is cursed” Galatians 3:10). Now after this fall, man’s hapiness was to recover again his communion and fellowship with God; and therefore we must have a new covenant before we can have life and comfort. God must enter into new conditions with us before we can have any communion with Him. There are four periods of time of renewing this covenant: first, from Adam to Abraham; and in those first times of the world, those that were under the covenant were called the “sons and daughters of God,” “the children of the promise,” and the covenant of grace was called a promise of the blessed seed. Secondly, from Abraham to Moses; and then it was called a covenant, and they the children of the covenant. “I will establish My covenant.” A covenant is more than a promise, and a more solemn thing, because there be ceremonies. The third period of renewing the covenant of grace was from Moses to Christ; and then it was more clear, when as to the covenant made with Abraham, who was sealed with the sacrament of circumcision, the sacrament of the paschal lamb was added, and all the sacrifices Levitical; and then it was called a testament. That differeth a little from a covenant; for a testament is established by blood, it is established by death. So was that; but it was only with the blood and death of cattle sacrificed as a type. But now, from Christ’s time to the end of the world, the covenant of grace is most clear of all; and it is now usually called the New Testament, being established by the death of Christ Himself; and it differs from a covenant in these respects: First, A testament indeed is a covenant, and something more. It is a covenant sealed by death. Secondly, A testament bequeathed good things merely of love. It giveth gifts freely. A covenant is something to be done. But to come to that which I specially intend. The words, as I said before, contain the renewing of this blessed and gracious agreement between God and man to Abraham, the father of the faithful. “I will establish My covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee.” The words, you see, contain a covenant; and here are all things--all the articles and circumstances that agree to any covenant whatsoever. Here are the parties, both that make the covenant and that are covenanted with. Here is the substance of the covenant, and the qualities of the covenant, and the condition of the covenant. The party making the covenant is God, “I will be thy God.” God is the party covenanting. God indeed is both the party covenanting and the substance of the covenant: “I will be a God to thee.” They fall both together in one. The parties covenanted with, are Abraham and his seed--his seed by promise. The substance of the covenant is, “I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee.” The qualities of the covenant are--

1. It is a sure covenant: “I will establish My covenant.”

2. It is an everlasting covenant: “I will establish My covenant for an everlasting covenant.”

3. It is a peculiar covenant: “I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed; that is, only between Me and thee, and thy seed; not with the refuse of the world, but only with thy seed by promise; only believers, whether Jews or Gentiles.”

4. It is a most free covenant. It was made to Abraham, whom God called out of Ur of the Chaldees, out of an idolatrous nation, out of an idolatrous family; even as it was at the first most freely made to Adam in Paradise, when he was in a most desperate estate. So here it was freely made to good Abraham:

(1) The love of God was free to him when He called him, being an idolater; and then it was freely renewed afterward, when he was good, as we shall see anon.

5. It is a covenant consisting most of spiritual things. It is a spiritual covenant. I mean especially promising spiritual favours, although the other things, as appendices of the main, are likewise meant. And then, lastly, you have the condition of the covenant; and that, though it is not expressed, yet it is implied. “I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed.” “Therefore thou shalt take Me for thy God, carry thyself to Me as thy God,” etc. “I will be thy God.” This is the covenant in the Messiah; but first, what is it to be a God? I answer, To be a God, take it in the general, is to give being to the creature that had no being of itself, and to protect and preserve the creature in its being: in a word, to be a creator; for providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation. This is to be a God. What is, then, to be thy God? “I will be thy God.” I answer, To be a God in a more peculiar manner, is to be a God in covenant; that is, not only to be a God to preserve and continue this being of ours in a civil life, but it is to be a God in a higher relation to us; to be a God in a reference to an eternal, supernatural estate in heaven; to be a God here in grace, and hereafter in glory; and thus God is a God in a gracious covenant, only by Jesus Christ, and to those that believe in Him. “I will be thy God”: that is, “I will be thy God in Christ,” to give thee a better being than this world can afford; to free thee from the cursed estate thou art in by nature; to deliver thee from all ill, spiritually and eternally: especially to bestow on thee all good, spiritually and eternally; especially as we have it in the words of the covenant (Genesis 15:1), “I will be thy shield and thy exceeding great reward”; a shield to keep off all ill, and a reward for all good. So in Psalms 84:9, “God will be a sun and a shield,” etc. a sun for all sweet comfort and good, and a shield in regard of defence from ill; a sun and a shield till we come to the possession of eternal happiness. Well, to come to the trials. But let me first add this to the former: whomsoever God is a God to, it is known specially by spiritual and eternal favours. A man cannot know certainly that God is his God by outward and common things that castaways may have; for a castaway may have Ishmael’s blessing and Esau’s portion, blessings of the left hand, common graces. To know undoubtedly, therefore, that God is our God, must be by peculiar matters; for those whose God God is are a peculiar people, a holy nation, severed from others. First of all, then, know what the Spirit of God saith to thy soul; for they that are God’s have His Spirit, to reveal to their spirits the secret and hidden love of God. But if the voice of the Spirit be silent in regard of testimony, go to the work of the Spirit; but go to the peculiar work of the Spirit. Let us, then, come to the trial by our carrying ourselves to God. Can we say with David, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? “or “What is there in earth in comparison with Thee?” (Psalms 73:25.) When the conscience can tell us that we make God our treasure and our portion above all earthly things, then we make him our God.

2. Examine what affections we have to God: for it is affection that makes a Christian. Single out some few that We are most offending in.

(1) As, first, for fear, it may shame us all. Indeed, a Christian upon his best resolution is better. But the ordinary carriage of men is, they fear men more than God; they fear everything more than Him that they should fear above all.

(2) And so for joy and delight: we make God our God when we joy in Him above all things in the world; when we make Him our boast all the day long, as it is Psalms 44:8; when we make Him our glory, as He is called our glory in Jeremiah 2:11. God is our glory if He be our God.

(3) Again, If God be our God, we will trust in Him, rely and depend upon Him above all things; for whatsoever our trust is most in, that is our god. Now if our conscience tell us that we trust most in God, more than in wealth or friends, and will not to displease God please any man, it is a sign that we have made God our God, because we trust in Him.

(4) Again, If we make God our God, we may know it by our obedience, especially by the obedience of the inward man. But to proceed, and to come to some few familiar signs more that will try us, though these may try us, in the intercourse that is between God and us.

(a) Whosoever hath God for their God, they have the Spirit of supplication and prayer, to cry unto God, to run unto Him, especially in extremity. All God’s children have the spirit of adoption to cry, “Abba, Father!”

(b) Again, We may know that God is our God by this, by our separating from all others, in ourselves and out of ourselves.

(c) In a word, to name no more trials but this, whosoever God is a God to, there will be a transforming unto God, a transforming unto Christ, in whom God is our God. Having now thus unfolded terms, let us see what we may draw from thence for our use and comfort.

1. First, then, if by these trials we find that God be not, or have not been, our God, alas! let us never rest till we make it good that God is our God.

2. But, secondly, when we have found God to be our God, then make this use of it, a use of resolution. Is God my God? then I will resolve to please Him, though all creatures be against me.

3. Again, If God be our God, then let this stop all base and covetous desires after earthly things.

4. Again, If so be we know this for a truth, that God is our God, then let it be a use of exhortation to stir us up to keep, and maintain, and cherish acquaintance and familiarity with Him; as it is in Job 22:21.

5. Lastly, If by these comfortable signs we find God to be our God, then here is a spring of comfort opened to a Christian. If God be mine, then all that He hath is mine; He is my Father; He is my Husband; He is my Rock; His goodness, His wisdom, His providence, His mercy, whatsoever He hath is mine. “I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and thy seed after thee,” etc. I come now to the qualities of this covenant; and before I speak in particular of them, I beseech you observe one thing (which I will but touch, to make an entrance to that which follows), from the manner of setting down the covenant; it is not here set down as it is in other places of Scripture; “I will be thy God, and thou shalt be My people”; but here is only the first part, the main of the covenant of grace recited, “I will be thy God.” Why doth He not say, too, Thou shalt take Me for thy God? Because where the first is, He ever works the second; our part depends upon His. It is therefore--to come to the first quality--called a free covenant. It cometh from God merely of grace. Again, secondly, it is a sure, a certain covenant. I will establish My covenant. But in whom is it established? how cometh it to be sure? It is established in Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, in the Messiah; for “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). That is the fundamental promise. And as it is a sure covenant, so, thirdly, it is an everlasting covenant. “I will make an everlasting covenant with thee.” God is everlasting, Christ is everlasting, the graces of the Spirit are everlasting. When we are dead, He will be a God unto us, as it is said, “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” their God when they were dead. He is the God of our dust, of our dead bodies. He will raise them up, for they are bodies in covenant with Him. Again, it is a peculiar covenant. God is in covenant only with those that answer Him, that take Him for their God, that are a peculiar people. It is not glorying in the flesh; but there must be somewhat wrought that is peculiar before we can be assured we are of Abraham’s seed, and in covenant with God. And we may know that we are God’s peculiar by some peculiar thing that we can do. What peculiar thing canst thou do? To speak a little of that by the way. Thou lovest and art kind; but, saith Christ, what peculiar thing canst thou do? A heathen man may be kind and loving, but canst thou overcome revenge? Canst thou spare and do good to thine enemies? Canst thou trust in God when all means fail? What is the power of the Spirit in thee? Doth it triumph in thee over thy natural corruption? Canst thou do as Abraham did? He left all at God’s command; canst thou do that if need should be? Canst thou leave children, and wife, and life, and all at God’s command? Canst thou sacrifice Isaac as he did? Canst thou more trust in the promise of God than in the dearest thing in the world, yea, than in thy own feeling of grace? (R. Sibbes, D. D.)

The covenant as made with believers

I. THAT THE COVENANT OF GRACE IS MADE WITH THE SAINTS, AND THEY ARE ALL FEDERATES THEREIN, WILL APPEAR BY THESE ARGUMENTS.

1. From the type of the first Adam, for he is made the type of Him that was to come. Thus as the first covenant was made with the first Adam and all his posterity, so the second covenant is made with the second Adam and all His posterity also.

2. We read of a covenant made with persons and people, and promised unto them as special mercies, a covenant made with Abraham and Isaac, a covenant made with David: “The Lord has made with me an everlasting covenant in all things ordered and sure” (2 Samuel 23:5).

3. It will appear from the promises of the second covenant, though it is true, that they are all yea and amen in Him, yet are they properly and formally made unto us, either the first promises of grace or else of reward unto grace. Promises of grace are, “He will give His Spirit, and will give repentance, He will heal our backslidings,” etc., and “We have an unction from the Holy One,” etc.

4. The covenant of grace is a covenant in the hand of a Mediator, and confirmed by the death of the Testator; it is not only a covenant, but it is a testament.

5. The sacraments are seals of the covenant of grace.

6. There is a double oath to confirm this covenant, there is an oath made by God the Father to Christ, and there is an oath also made to us; there is an oath made unto Christ, and therefore He is said to be made a priest by a covenant oath (Psalms 110:4), and the oath to us: “Who are heirs of promise, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:17).

II. THE REASONS WHY IT WAS NECESSARY THAT THE COVENANT OF GRACE SHOULD BE MADE WITH ALL THE FAITHFUL AND NOT WITH CHRIST ONLY AS THEIR HEAD.

1. To answer those great ends why God will deal with man in a covenant way.

(1) The Lord will enter into covenant that He may declare His glory, not only in a way of goodness, but in a way of faithfulness. In the creation, the Lord did show forth much power and wisdom, and in the law much holiness; but there was no way to manifest His faithfulness, but by covenant: “The Lord hath chosen you above all people, that you might know that He is the Lord the faithful God” Micah 7:20).

(2) The Lord’s intention was to honour man also; and it is one of the greatest and highest dignities that the Lord hath put upon His people, to bind them unto Himself for a name and a glory; and Deuteronomy 26:18) the Lord did avouch them to be His people, to make them high above all people; and therefore the staff of beauty mentioned in Zechariah 11:10 is the covenant between God and His people.

(3) That the Lord might bind men unto Him more firmly in a way of obedience, and that the obedience might be made the more sweet. Man was bound unto God by a bond of creation; and from whom he has his being, unto Him did he owe his service; but the Lord will bind him unto Him with a further cord and bond of stipulation; the one was natural and necessary, and the other voluntary.

(4) That the people of God might exercise faith in their prayers, putting these bonds in suit that the Lord hath made over unto them, when they look upon themselves as sons of Abraham, heirs of promise, and children of the covenant, etc., and thereby they come with a great deal the more boldness before the throne of grace, as David, “Let the thing Thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and his house be established forever” (1 Chronicles 17:23).

2. There is a covenant made with the saints also, that they may see that they are as strictly bound to obedience in their own persons under the second covenant, as they were under the first covenant; and that the doctrine of the gospel though it be a doctrine of liberty, yet is not a doctrine of licentiousness.

3. That the saints also may stand in awe of the threats of God under the second covenant. (W. Strong, D. D.)

The covenant renewed

I. WHY SHOULD IT BE NEEDFUL FOR MEN TO RENEW THEIR COVENANT SO OFTEN?

1. Because of the unbelief of our spirits, and from the infirmity of our faith: for the confirmation of our faith in the mercy and grace of the covenant.

2. To manifest the sincerity of our hearts, that though we fail in the duty of it, yet our hearts still stand to it, we delight in the Law according to our inward man; though we fall every day, yet says a soul in covenant with God, I love to think of renewing the engagement that is between God and me; as a loving and tender wife loves often to renew her engagement to her husband, and to have it much in her mind.

3. By reason of the falseness of our hearts; there is so much treachery of spirit, that we are not easily kept within bounds, our purposes are easily broken, and men draw back from the Lord by reason of the falseness of their hearts, and the treachery that is in them: How weak is thy heart Ezekiel 16:30).

4. They renew their covenant, that by often repeating and renewing it, it may be set on upon their spirits the more, and lay the greater engagement upon them.

5. By reason of the forgetfulness of the heart; there is nothing that the ungodliness of a man’s heart is more prone to than to forget his engagement unto God, and therefore was that strict charge laid upon them Deuteronomy 4:23).

6. By reason of the ignorance and blindness of the mind of man, we have need to be remembered of our covenant, and to renew it often; we are all narrow-mouthed vessels, and receive all things from God but by drops, and light comes in upon us but by degrees in several beams, and a man looks often upon it before he can understand it; and therefore the Lord gives unto us “line upon line, and precept upon precept” (Isaiah 28:10).

II. HOW IS THIS WORK TO BE DONE AND WHAT IS IT FOR A MAN TO RENEW HIS COVENANT.

1. He that will renew his covenant with God must be deeply sensible of the breach of covenant, and of the unfaithfulness of his heart therein.

2. It must be with a resolution of heart to break all our covenants; men are said to “make a covenant with death and hell” (Isaiah 28:15).

3. A man must know the terms and read over the articles of the covenant anew; for no wise man will set his hand to an obligation, of which he is not well acquainted with the condition.

4. It must be with a free and full consent of heart, for the covenant in the renewing of it must be as voluntary as it was in the making of it; to make fair promises while men are under the rod, as many do in sickness, they promise to lead new lives, but yet return to their old ways.

5. A man must be willing to bind himself in the highest way unto obedience thereunto. When the people did make a covenant, they did stand up to the covenant, and said, Amen, Amen.

6. It must be with an earnest desire to God for grace to keep it, and an acknowledgment of our weakness and inability to perform any one of the duties of the covenant.

III. WHAT ARE THE TIMES AND SEASONS THAT THE PEOPLE OF GOD HAVE SPECIALLY OBSERVED IN RENEWING OF THEIR COVENANT WITH THE LORD?

1. When a man hath eminently fallen into any great sin, or hath relapsed into former sins that were repented of, and that we have humbled our souls for, and if being washed, we have again defiled ourselves, and turned again to folly, then is a season in which the Lord calls you to renew your covenant.

2. In time of public humiliation, when men would divert and turn away judgment either from a nation or a person, then is the time for them to renew their covenant, and this was the ground of the covenant that Hezekiah made (2 Chronicles 29:8).

3. In a time of public reformation, when the foundations have been destroyed, and all things out of course, and a great deal of difficulty appears, and even impossibility in carrying on the work; yet the people of God, looking upon it as a duty, have set upon it with full resolution and purpose of heart, and have covenanted to go through with the work, notwithstanding all opposition.

4. As a testimony of a man’s thankfulness for any great mercy or special deliverance, or as an argument of faith that a man is to use unto God, when he doth pray for and expect from God any special mercy.

5. When a man finds his heart bent to backsliding, and he is unsteady and unstable in any good way.

6. When a man doth receive the sacraments, any of the seals of the covenant, it is his duty to renew the covenant, as often as we set to the seal anew, we shall read over the obligation anew.

IV. NOW THE FRUIT AND BENEFITS THAT THE PEOPLE OF GOD HAVE FOUND BY THE RENEWING OF THEIR COVENANT ARE MANY.

1. It hath been a testimony to them of the truth of their repentance Matthew 3:8).

2. It is the foundation of consolation (2 Chronicles 15:14); in the time of Asa the king of Judah they swore with a loud voice, with trumpets and cornets, and all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their hearts.

3. It is a means to establish and stay the heart, which is in itself exceeding fickle and uncertain.

4. It is a special means joined with fasting and prayer to prevail with God for mercy, when a man is willing as well to engage himself to duty, as he is to expect mercy from the Lord, “They sought the Lord with their whole desire, and He was found of them, and the Lord gave them rest round about” (2 Chronicles 15:1).

5. It cloth not only establish the heart, but make it better; as the will becomes good at first by willing what is good, so it is then best when it most strongly wills what is best. Now when doth the will more strongly will what is best, than when it doth most firmly renew its covenant with God, its best good? So many grains as there are of a determined will in adhering to God, according to the terms of the covenant, so many grains there are of saving grace.

6. The frequent renewing of our covenant with God is that which fortifies the heart against temptations.

7. Such as oft renew their covenant with God have a great advantage for the strengthening their union with Christ.

8. The principal part of the soul’s communion and walking with God as a friend consists in this renewing its covenant with God.

9. The frequent renewing of our covenant with God is the most sovereign means to prevent or recover the soul out of any course of backsliding. (W. Strong, D. D.)

To thy seed after thee

Why the Lord will take children into their parents’ covenant, and not take in the parents alone, and leave their children in the condition in which they were by nature

The grounds of it are these: To show the extent of the grace of the second covenant; the Lord hath not dealt with men as He did with the angels, He did make a particular covenant with every particular angel, but He doth not so with men. He has always delighted to take in man into a covenant made with parents for them, that men might see that grace prevented them, and that they were engaged unto God, and His promise was out of grace entailed unto them as a birthright; and, therefore, as in the first covenant, God takes in Adam and all his posterity, and the second covenant is made with the second Adam and all His posterity; so, that there may be a resemblance hereof kept in the world, He hath taken in the children into their parents’ covenant, that they may see grace extend beyond their persons, even to their posterity.

I. THAT IT IS A. SPECIAL PRIVILEGE FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN, THAT THEY ARE TAKEN INTO THEIR PARENTS’ COVENANT, will appear by these arguments and demonstrations.

1. It will aggravate their sin if they abuse it; therefore it is a mercy and a privilege in itself: for what is not a mercy and a privilege in itself, that cannot add to a man’s sin and judgment. Now, as it is in riches and honours, and all the blessings in this life, they will be unto a man judgments if they are abused; therefore, they are blessings in themselves, blessings in the thing, though a snare to the man; so this very argument that is brought to prove that they are no blessings, and give no benefit, doth clearly prove that the thing itself is a privilege and a blessing.

2. For a child to be disinherited and cast out his father’s covenant is a very great judgment, and the sorest of all outward afflictions that can befall a man; as we see it in Cain, “Thou hast cast me out from the face of the earth, and from Thy face I shall be hid.”

3. It is promised as a special blessing for the visible Church of God to continue in any man’s posterity; and therefore we are to look upon it so Genesis 4:25); it was so in Seth, “God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew”; and so it was promised to Shem, “that the church of God should be in his posterity continued,” and that in due time “the Lord should enlarge Japhet to dwell also in the tents of Shem.”

4. It is the greatest wrath that God doth pour out upon men in this life, to cast them out of external church privileges.

II. BUT WHAT ARE THOSE PRIVILEGES AND THOSE PARTICULAR BENEFITS THAT COME UPON A PERSON AND HIS POSTERITY THEREBY?

1. Many of them shall be saved, elected, and converted to God; for the Lord doth take the number of His elect out of the loins of His own, the Church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven is hid in the visible Church here as wheat in a heap of chaff.

2. It is the only ground of hope that parents have for the salvation of their children dying in their infancy.

3. There is no ordinary way of salvation, but it is amongst them that are taken into covenant, salvation is of the Jews: there was in an ordinary way salvation to be had nowhere else, and therefore, by being taken into the outward privileges of the Church, a man is brought into the ordinary way of salvation.

4. It is a special honour to be the vineyard of the Lord, the garden of the Lord hedged in from the rest of the world.

5. By this you have special privileges: Jerusalem is the valley of Vision, and Jeshuron the seeing people; it is Ariel, the altar of the Lord, chiefly to them are committed the oracles of God, which they are to keep and to transmit unto posterity; it is a depositum laid up and concredited to them: “In Judah is God known, His name is great in Israel; He hath not dealt so with other nations”; they are a people near unto Him, and the Lord hath promised that He will give them His special presence: “I will dwell in the midst of them”; Christ walks in the middle of the golden candlesticks, though He be in glory.

6. By coming under the outward privileges of this covenant, they have very glorious operations, mighty works upon them that other men have never experience of; and all this, even in them that perish; and they have this as a fruit of their external interest; for (Hosea 6:5) there is hewing and slaying, there is sowing and planting, when the rest of the common fields lie untilled, and there are great gifts bestowed, such as the Lord cloth not bestow on any other sort of people in the world; for the great gifts that come from Christ as ascended are upon the visible Church of God; yea the thorns and briars in the Church have the rain and influences, great and many common works of the Spirit raising and elevating and improving nature, the least of which works and motions is more worth than the world, it is so in the things, though it prove at last a curse to the man.

7. They by this means come under the care of the Church.

8. They attain many temporal blessings, and are delivered from many temporal afflictions thereby; Ishmael had many outward blessings by Abraham’s covenant; the external blessings of the covenant are made good to them; God will not destroy Jerusalem, and the judgment came not upon King Hezekiah, “for David My servant’s sake,” and, “I will not rend it from Rehoboam, because I will not put out the light of Israel.”

III. WHY WILL THE LORD HAVE THE COVENANT RUN BY WAY OF ENTAIL, IN REFERENCE TO THE OUTWARD PRIVILEGES OF IT, AND NOT IN REFERENCE TO THE INWARD GRACES OF IT? The covenant that was made with Adam was to convey the one as well as the other, and the image that he had received he was to convey to his posterity, and the promise of life spiritual, and life eternal, was made unto his posterity in case of his obedience, as well as unto himself; and therefore, as all died in him, so all should have lived in him. So that by the first covenant Adam might have conveyed not only outward privileges, but inward graces also; and whereas now by reason of the fall, all mankind do convey death to their children, but not life.

1. The Lord will not have the graces of the covenant entailed from parents unto posterity.

(1) Because the curse of the first covenant is now become ex traduce, by propagation, and all the posterity of Adam do now as naturally convey the curse, by reason of the broken covenant, as Adam should have conveyed life and blessing, if he had stood in his integrity; and therefore whatever the immediate parents be, Adam’s sin comes alike unto all whether they be godly or wicked; and the child of a godly parent is as truly and as deeply guilty of the sin of Adam in his birth, as the child of the most wicked man that is, that is an entail left upon all mankind that can never be cut off, while there is a man born upon earth.

2. Because under the second covenant it is the election of God that takes place, and puts all the difference between men and men, between whom in themselves there is no difference.

3. Because since the fall the Lord has appointed another way to convey life unto His people, and that is not by generation from the first Adam, but by regeneration from a second Adam; and therefore, the Lord will surely honour His own way, and He will not; convey the grace of the covenant from parents unto their posterity, but from Him only who is the second Adam. (W. Strong, D. D.)