A Fish Caught in His Own Net

The Introduction. Containing some brief Remarks upon the Characters which Mr. Fish gives of a Church of Christ.

THOSE who desire to bring any controversy to a just issue, will endeavor to hold up what light they can, concerning the merits of the cause, and not amuse or perplex others minds with things foreign from the things in hand: therefore, as Mr. Fish begins his preface with this information, that

The special occasion of the following discourses was, the revival of the spirit and principles of separation and anababtism;

I shall endeavor, according to the light I may be favoured with, to attend closely to these points, and shew wherein the difference between us lies, and the grounds of that difference.

I heartily concur with him that the truth which Peter confessed, or the person of Christ, of whom this confession is made, is the rock, upon which Jesus Christ resolves to build his church;

and that Peter was

one of those lively stones, or precious materials of that building.

page 3. But I can't say so of some of the characters which he gives to describe the church of Christ by; the first of which is,

That Jesus Christ has but one church in the world, and that it is the same which it always was.

To explain which he says,

We gentile believers were graffed in among the Jewish believers, making one church. As the apostle Paul shews, Rom. 11.17. And the whole is but the continuation of the same church, from the beginning of the world.

p. 6.7. It is readily granted that the invisible church is always the same; but that is not what Mr. F. intends: for he has just before said,

I mean to speak of Christ's visible Church upon earth.— which contains both good and bad, true believers and nominal.

And his sixth charctter of the church is only an explanation of this: which is, that

The church of p. 12Christ has always consisted of visible believing parents and their children bound together by covenant to be the Lords.

p. 22. And after some discourse upon Abraham's covenant he says,

Hence it appears that believing parents cannot enter into that covenant which God made with Abraham, without taking their children with them.—They therefore that take God for their God, but not the God of their seed, equally so; they leave out half, or the greater part of the subjects of it.

If any say that this promise To thee and thy seed after thee, under the gospel, intends thy seed or children when they are grown up, or become actual believers; and not while they are in a state of infancy, I apprehend the exposition will not stand.

Here you see, that great and small, parents and children, even little ones, stand forth in a body, that they might all enter into (or renew) covenant with their God.—Which shows that children, even infants were always reckoned a part of that body or church, which the Lord gathered in Abraham's family.

Tis true that this was the constitution of the church which was gathered in Abraham's family, as appears from verse 13 which is, That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

But when Mr. Fish says,

Is it not altogether reasonable to suppose that the christian church is made up of the same materials that the jewish church was?

The answer must be No, by no means; because God has said the contrary; and 'tis perfect madness to set up our suppositions and reasonings against divine revelation. Now that God has said the contrary, appears from Jer. 31.31, 32. Where he says,

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

Those who stood forth then as a body to enter into covenant, tho' they had seen great signs and miracles; yet the Lord had not given them an heart to perceive, eyes to see, nor ears to hear, unto that day. But of this new covenant he says,

I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be p. 13my people; and they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.

p. 13The constitution, priesthood and ordinances of the jewish church, served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things; but this is a better covenant which is established upon better promises. That old covenant Israel brake, and he regarded them not: But this new covenant is established upon better promises, which are, I will, and they shall. Heb. 8.5—13.

I cannot imagine that 'tis possible for words to express more plainly than these do, that there is an essential difference between the materials, as well as the forms of the two churches; even the same that there is between shadow and substance, flesh and spirit, type and antitype. All Abraham's natural seed were circumcised, and God said, my covenant shall be in your flesh; and all his seed in a gospel sense have the law written in their hearts, and their sins shall be remembered no more. Heb. 10.16, 17. Accordingly it was such as gladly received the word, and such as should be saved, that were added to the church, in the apostles times, Acts 2. And when some of a contrary character got in, they are said to creep in unawares, Gal. 2.4. Jude 4. Therefore I think we may justly return our author's question, and say,

Is it not altogether unreasonable to suppose that the christian church is made up of the same materials the jewish church was, since the holy Ghost has so plainly declared the contrary?