Wylie on Descending Covenant Obligation

...to prove the transmission of the obligation of religious covenants to posterity, or those who enter into them representatively. In doing this we shall select some of the scripture passages which establish the point most clearly.

1. We find posterity recognized in the transaction between God and Jacob, in Beth-el, Gen. 28:13, where the good old patriarch, travelling to Padan-aram, in the visions of the night, had a remarkable interview with God. He engages to give unto Jacob and his seed all the land of Canaan. More than a thousand years from that time, this engagement is pleaded by his posterity, as having been made with them. Hos. 12:4, In allusion to this transaction, they say, "He found him" (Jacob) "in Beth-el, and there he spake with us." There he covenanted with us in the loins of our father Jacob.

2. We have another remarkable instance of the transmission of covenant obligation to posterity, in Deut. 5:2,3, "The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even with us, who are all of us here alive this day." There are several things connected with this passage, peculiarly deserving notice.

(1.) The covenant here alluded to, was made about eight or nine weeks after Israel's departure from Egypt. Compare Exod. 12:6 with 19:1.

(2.) It is now the eleventh month of the fortieth year, since they began their journey, Deut. 1:1. They are in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, attending to the rehearsal of the law.

(3.) All who had actually and personally for themselves entered into this covenant are now dead save three, viz. Moses, Caleb and Joshua, Num. 26:64,65, "But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel, in the wilderness of Sinai. For the LORD had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun."

(4.) All the persons now addressed, save Caleb and Joshua, must either be such as were minors at the making of this covenant, and so not able to engage for themselves; or such as were born after that period. Yet mark how Moses addresses them. He declares, the LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, that is, with our fathers only, but also with us, even with us who are all of us here alive this day. Can words be more explicit in demonstrating the transmission of covenant obligation to posterity?

3. We have another example of the same kind full in point, Deut. 29:10-15, which respects the renovation of the Sinaic covenant. Here Moses addresses the whole congregation. "Ye stand this day, all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water: That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day."

To this important duty they are exhorted, from the consideration, that it would be an excellent mean of establishing them in the land whither they went. "Neither," saith he, "with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; but with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day." The covenant is here made with persons of three different descriptions. One of them is addressed or spoken to. "Neither with you only," &c. intimating that the covenant was made with them but not exclusively: others are comprehended. Two descriptions are spoken of. One of these is present, represented by the words, "Him that standeth here with us," &c. which evidently point out minors, who were yet incapable of covenanting for themselves. The other is absent, namely, "Him that is not here with us this day." This could have no reference to any of the Israelites then in existence, as they were all present. It must therefore include posterity, yet to be begotten, together with all future accessions to their community, of those then considered strangers and aliens from the common-wealth of Israel. With them, Moses informs us the covenant was made, as well as with those who actually entered into it, in the plains of Moab.

4. Another instance, in which posterity is recognized in covenant obligation, is found in Josh. 9:15. This covenant was made between the children of Israel, and the Gibeonites. Between four and five hundred years after that time, the children of Israel are visited with a very severe famine, in the days of David, 2 Sam. 21:1. And it is expressly declared by the LORD that "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." And at the same time, ver. 2, that very covenant is recognized, and the breach of it stated, as being the formal reason of the Divine displeasure. Now, had it not been for this covenant, the extirpation of the Gibeonites would not have been imputed to Israel as a thing criminal; for they were comprehended in the Canaanitish nations, which God had commanded them to root out.

It may here be thought singular, seeing the LORD had expressly forbidden Israel to make any league with the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, that, notwithstanding, when they sinfully entered into covenant with them contrary to his command, this deed should be held valid by God, and they punished for the violation of it.

Perhaps this difficulty may be solved, by distinguishing the commands of God, into moral natural and moral positive. The former, God commands, because they are necessarily right, and their contrary inconsistent with the perfections of his nature. The latter are right, because God commands them. For any thing we know, they flow from his arbitrary will, and , had it pleased him, commands different or contrary would have been equally right. These commands, of course, he may reverse whenever he chooses. God's moral subjects have no right of this kind. They are bound to obey every one, even the least of his commandments. The violation of them is highly criminal. Neither ought we to come under any obligation to do what they forbid. But if any man, or community of men, should ignorantly engage to do what is contrary to a command which is only moral positive, provided God recognizes the deed, the person or persons are bound, however criminal they were in coming under the obligation. This we presume was the situation of things, in the point before us. Israel was criminal in entering into a league with the Gibeonites, contrary to the command of God. But there was nothing, in the matter of this deed, inconsistent with the divine perfections, or contrary to the moral natural law of God. He could never recognize or sanction an oath, whereby his subjects would be bound to act inconsistently with his divine attributes.

5. Another passage of scripture full in point is found in Jer. 11:10. God brings a charge against his people in these words. "The house of Israel, and the house of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers." Now it would be inconsistent to suppose, that, God would charge any with breach of covenant obligation, except those who had really covenanted; but he charges the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, with breach of covenant obligation; therefore they had really covenanted. But the covenant was "made with their fathers," and yet they are considered as really bound, as if it had been actually entered into by themselves.

6. This doctrine is proved also by infant baptism. It would be foreign from the point in hand, to enter upon a probation of the propriety of baptising infants. This at present I take for granted. To those who admit it, the argument will have the same force, as if it had been proved.

Our Westminster Divines very justly observe that "Baptism seals our ingrafting into Christ,—and engagement to be the Lord's." Baptism, like circumcision, is a seal of the righteousness of the faith, Rom. 4:11.. But seals are confirmatory of the deeds to which they are appended, and necessarily involve an obligation. Now when the person baptised, in infancy, comes to maturity he is either bound agreeably to the tenor of the obligation, or he is not. If he is bound, whence does his obligation arise? Not from his own act, for he was merely passive in the whole matter. It must arise from the connexion established by divine institution between him and his parent in this particular act. Between the parent and the child there is a representative identification, so that, whatever is actually done by the father in this representative capacity, is virtually done by the child, and thus the deed of the one becomes obligatory upon the other.—But supposing the child is not bound, when he arrives at maturity, then his baptism in infancy was useless. It was a mere form and cypher. He wants what was essential to the ordinance, viz. obligation to resist the devil, the world and the flesh, and to be for Christ alone. He ought now to be baptized, as having never before received this holy ordinance.

7. The truth of this doctrine may be further illustrated from the common practice of wills, or testamentary deeds among men. By these the heirs of the testator are bound. It may be here objected, that the example is not to the point, because the legatees are bound only inconsequence of their coming into the possession of the deceased's inheritance, but should they disclaim all interest in the estate, the obligation would not extend to them. Be it so. Then it will at least follow, that those who choose to enter upon the religious inheritance of their ancestors, are bound by their deeds. But is it a mere optional thing, whether they receive the inheritance or not? In whatever our ancestors erred, their deeds could neither bind themselves nor us. But, so far as they were right, we are bound to enter upon the inheritance, and endeavour to transmit it, with all possible improvements to posterity. See Psalm 78:1.

~Rev. Samuel Wylie, Discourse on the Obligation of Covenants, 1803.