that this day may not be kept, but forgot, and methinks it looks with a paler colour in the almanack than it used to do; but next year it will be a full jubilee, fifty years since the contrivance thereof. Let all whom God shall lend life unto that day, keep in your minds the memorial of so great a blessing, and preserve the memory thereof. For what principles of false doctrine had infected this land, had this plot taken effect! And, therefore, it shall be my prayer, that God will write thankfulness in your hearts to a continual remembrance of the same."

CHAPTER XII.

Fuller's Infant's Advocate.

N 1653, our author published his "Infant's Advocate." This little work he dedicated first to the Earl of Carlisle, his patron, and to the Rt. Hon. Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, and then in a second dedication to his truly fraternal friend, Matthew Gilly, to his learned parishioner, Edward Palmer, formerly of Trinity College, and to Henry Wollaston, John Vavasor, and Francis Boynton,* also of his parish of Waltham. In the dedication he does not omit to mention the literary celebrity of the place whence this his own little work was sent forth; the introduction of Cranmer to Henry the Eighth; the martyrologist's famous Acts and Monuments, penned in this place, whose posterity was possessed of a considerable estate at Waltham in Fuller's time; and the pious labours of Bishop Hall, most of whose books bear date from Waltham.

* From the Boyntons of Barnston, in Holderness, York

The first chapter is of circumcision: what it was, on whom, by whom, and when to be administered: The penalty of wilful recusants therein. Our author meets the objection, "If circumcision was a sacrament, was there not a neglect in regard of the ratification of the covenant to females?" by the reply, that "though women were not formally, they were virtually circumcised in the males. What is done to the head none will deny done to the body." In the erudite work of Faber, on the Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration, we meet with a twofold answer: "Since females are incapable of circumcision, their case was specially provided for under the law and they were dedicated to God, and admitted into covenant with him, through the medium of purification and sacrifice. See Levit. xii. 5—8.

"Among the Jews the principle was reasonably understood to be, that in the summing up of God's people, the females, as help-meets, were to be viewed as sub-included with the males." This Faber supports by the testimony of Buxtorf Synagog. Judaic.* The objection is one of those that are adduced by Bishop Bethell and others against the correspondence of circumcision and baptism.+ It may not be without its use to some who may peruse these pages, to observe, that Bishop Bethell's "General View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism," is recommended by Dr. Pusey in his "Letter to the Bishop of Oxford," "as a very clear

*Faber, B. ii. c. 3, p. 107.

+ Bethell on Regeneration in Baptism, p. 64, London. 1821.

and full statement of the true doctrine as it regards the connection of regeneration and baptism."*

Circumcision was administered, remarks Fuller, generally by the master of the family. We see that the head was the priest of the family in the patriarchal age. What may be called the patristical mystery of the eighth day, may be found in the ninety-seventh page, of the third chapter of Faber's second book: "For no other reason must we believe, that the circumcision of children on the eighth day was divinely enjoined to the ancient Fathers, except to signify the regeneration that is in Christ who, after the sabbatical seventh day, during which he lay in the grave, delivered up on account of our offences, on the following day, that is, the eighth, rose again for our justification." +

Fuller argues against the supposition of eternal wrath being the sentence of uncircumcised children, inasmuch as not they, but those who caused the neglect, were the breakers of the covenant.

The second chapter is entitled "Circumcision considered as a seal of the Gospel covenant; and what spiritual graces were conveyed and confirmed thereby." Here he shows that the Abrahamic, Jewish and Christian covenant are essentially one. Why then is the last called a new covenant? he answers, that is often in Scripture called new which is remembered, and especially, if it is also more clearly unfolded. Thus (John xiii. 34.) our Lord calls that a new commandment which was never

* P. 119. + August contra Julian Pelag. lib. vi. c. 7.

theless from the beginning, though latterly almost obliterated by man's vindictiveness. Christ consecrated for us a new and living way. Heb. x. 20: Yet it is the same with the prophet's old path. Jer: vi. 16.

mercy.

"Now

mercy is

Nor was the covenant made with the Jews a mere covenant of works. In the second commandment we have mention of a shiboleth which a covenant of works can never pronounce." As for Abraham God promised to be a God to him. Gen. xvii. 7. This very phrase is a gospel-phrase. Parallel is the expression God with us. So St. Paul expounded it. Rom. iv. 11. But if the Abrahamic was a covenant of faith, why so little mention of faith in the Old Testament? The trusting in God so often set forth in the Old is the same with faith in the New Testament. The Jews were no more entirely without spiritual than the Christian without temporal promises. 1 Tim. iv. 8.

The third chapter treats of the "several acceptations of the seed of Abraham in Scripture." In these are included the proselytes, aliens by extraction, Jews by profession. The first of these were Abraham's own household not his children. Then the mixed multitude that went up with the Israelites out of Egypt. Exod. xii. 38. and afterward the Gibeonites. Josh. ix. 27. also Rahab the Hittite, Ruth the Moabitess, Naaman the Syrian and others.

The fourth chapter proves that "all visible members of the Jewish Church had a federal right to the sacraments." See Joh. viii. 37. Rom. ix. 4. and also 1 Cor. x. 2-4.