2 88 T h e Birth- Friviledge and Covenant- holine Ch. 3 8 cannot anfwer he prudently paffes over. My words are thefe ; you make no' difference between a Father , and the Father of the Faithful.T he latter I confeffe was proper to Abraham as the leading man in Covenant , but not the former. e/9dam alone was the father of all mankinde ; yet as you had another father, fo you alto are afather; and all thofe to whom God hath given iffue ; What make you of Jere ? I pray you ? is not he exprefre- ly called a root? Ifa. I i. I. What made Abraham, Ifaac and Ja- cob rootes (as in nature fo holy rootes) but the Covenant ? and was not the Covenant made as well with David as with Abra- ham, Ifaac and Jacob ? And as God is prefï'ed with his Covenant with them fo alfo with his Covenant with David, Val. 132. Io, I a, 12. I cannot reach this myftery, that Abraham can be a root of all the branches in Ifrael, reaching down to the Apoftles times, no intermediate rootes intervening, no more then Adam can be a natural root of mankinde to this time , without inter- mediate fathers of our flefh, deriving us from him, as Jacob with Rachel and Leah was a roote,from whom lfrael fprang as branches of an Olive ; fo Judah. and Tamar Roaz and Rath were roots likewife They built up the houle ofIfrael, Ruth. q.. II, 12. The houle oflfraelwasthis Olive -tree, thefe feveral Metaphors ex- prefling the fame thing, the building of the houle and bringing out the branches are one and the fame. All builders are roots ; thefe were builders,therefore rootes: Abraham may be called the builder laying the firft foundation, fo the root from whence e- very branch was derived ; yet every particular Beleever that had iffue, a builder, a root. Thofe Ifraelites that had no holineffe of inhefion , but only of relation that were Members of the Church vifible, not invifible , were fathers by way of communication o this holineffe, I Cor. io. I. All our fathers Were under the cloud, and all pa fled through the lea. It is as necefiary to have intermedi ate fathers between us and Abraham as to have intermediate mothers between us and Eve. Eve may as well be the mother of all living, and no other mother between us and her, as Abra- ham can be the father of the Faithful , and no interme :,,te fa- ther to derive from him, and communicate to us. But Mafter Tombes his proof is very well worth the hearing , that every be- leeving Parent is not the root. For then all the branches fhould be naturall;; the childe of every beleeviug Parent is a naturalibrauch' from
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