is Posterity should be _for ever_
happy; but that if he fell, _all_ should be _subject_ to everlasting
Misery, as the counter Part of the Covenant; and he falling, the
Restoration of his fallen Race should be intirely owing to the good
Pleasure of God, who might _redeem all_ or only _a Part_, and leave
the rest to perish in the State wherein he found them, and in which
_Adam_ had involved them by his Transgression: This they call
_Preterition_, or a _Passing by_, which sounds a little better than
that harsh Word _Reprobation_, tho' in reality no better at all: And
on this first Transgression _some_ found the Doctrine of _Election_,
and others that of _Infant-Baptism_, as an Expedient to wash away
this original Guilt; and it must be owned, the Virtue of the Remedy
is admirably well suited to the Malignity of the Disease. I shall,
for their sakes, inspect a little farther into the Affair; to me it
appears unreasonable, and therefore improbable, that God should make
with _Adam_ any such Covenant or Agreement, or suffer the eternal
State of all Mankind to hang upon the single Thread of _one Man's_
Behaviour, and who too (it seems) God knew would swerve from his
Obedience: besides, in all equitable Covenants, _every Party_
concerned has a Right to be consulted, nor can they be justly
included to their own Detriment, without Consent first obtained,
(especially if the Thing covenanted for, has an immediate, or may
have a very fatal, tho' very remote, Tendency, to make _wretched_
and _unhappy_) which, in this Case, with regard to the Unborn, could
not possibly be had. I am sensible the Gentlemen against whom I am
arguing (especially Mr. _Gill_) have many pretty Inventions, to
justify such a Conduct in the Divine Being, such as producing
parallel Instances, drawn from the allowed Practice of Men, and Usage
of the State; in particular, the Law relating to _High-Treason_,
whereby a _Rebel's_ immediate Descendants are _deprived_ of
inheriting their Father's Estate, with others of a like Kind; to
all which, what I am about to offer may, I hope, be a sufficient
Answer: The two Cases differ so widely, that it will be no easy
Undertaking to make any Thing of this Instance in their Favour; and
'tis very surprising, to find Men of the brightest Intellects, so
weak as to argue and infer, from the Laws of _Fallible Men_, to the
Laws of an _Infallible_ and _Holy Being:_ The Inference ought rather
to be just the Reverse; for such Institution