Prologue The genesis of this booklet is not without interest, at least to me. I am bound to say I can see God's hand in the way it all began. It was like this. Out of the blue I came across Heather A. Candle's review of T. A. Warner's The Two Covenants, an essay. Warner being a man of whom I had never heard. In her review, Candle set out the background to her subject's work. T. A. Warner published the two covenants in 1845 at the request of the Black River Baptist Association in New York and the Mad River Baptist Association in Ohio. Warner had moved from New York to become the fifth pastor of the Lost Creek Baptist Church in Ohio. He must have presented this essay at both association meetings. Afterwards both groups asked him to publish his work so that others could read it. Therefore he asked the city bookstore printing office in Dayton, Ohio to print some copies. Warner had written distinctly against the consequences of covenant theology. One might almost say that in certain respects he had anticipated the recovery of new covenant theology in the 1970s. Notice my use of the word recovery. I did not say invention. There are two points that I wish to make. First, New Covenant theology was not invented. That dubious honour belongs to Covenant theology. Now, although these two sound as though they might be close cousins, nothing could be further from the truth. They are in reality poles apart. Covenant theology was first presented to the world in Central Europe in the last half of the 16th century. Oh yes, covenant theology, as distinct from the theology of the New Covenant, was invented by men. New Covenant theology, on the other hand, was not. When we talk of New Covenant theology, we are in fact talking about the theology of the New Covenant, and that is plainly revealed in Scripture. The name New Covenant theology, I freely admit, was coined in the last quarter of the 20th century. But the theology it refers to certainly did not begin with its name. It is in Scripture. so much for the first point, but it is a point worthy of notice. When I speak of New Covenant theology, I am not talking about uninvented theology. Secondly, down the centuries since the time of the apostles, various writers and teachers have been producing works advocating the leading tenets of the New Covenant. Indeed, I myself have contributed to this ever-growing corpus. In particular, I have published several works demonstrating the first point, namely that New Covenant theology, contrary to popular mythology, was not invented in the last quarter of the 20th century. Rather, since the time of the Apostles, some of the Fathers, and then, in later centuries, men such as Robert Purnell, Tobias Crisp, William Dell, John Eaton, John Saltmarsh, John Bunyan, Thomas Collier, William Gadsby, J. L. Harris, Robert Govett, C. H. Burgin, William Wales Horne, Edward Mile, and the like, have all published works which, to a greater or lesser degree, have departed from Covenant theology. They have all set out some of the leading tenets of New Covenant theology. The material point in all this is that New Covenant theology stems from Scripture. The New Covenant was promised in the Old Testament, being foreshadowed in the Law and prophesied in the Prophets. He was brought into being through Christ, his principles then being fully set out by the Apostles in the post-Pentecost Scriptures, as Christ promised, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And, as I have said, many writers and teachers down the centuries since that time have produced invaluable works setting out the truth of it all. Consequently, Kendall's review at once aroused my interest. since I have been privileged to bring back into wider circulation some of the relatively unknown writings of the men I have mentioned, I wondered if there was anything I could do with Warner's piece to add another title to that gallery. With this in mind, I immediately obtained a digital copy of Warner's book, but, sad to say, it was not in the easiest of formats for my use. So I asked my friend Chris Hanna if he could help. Alas, he could provide nothing better than what I already had. Nevertheless, and this to me is the encouraging fact, in his reply he attached a copy of a small work by another Ohio man, again a man of whom I had never heard, written a few years later than Warner's work. namely Samuel W. Lynn's Circular Letter on the Abrahamic Covenant, written for the Miami Baptist Association, Ohio, in 1863. I saw at once that Lynn's work, dealing as it does with a vital aspect of the theology of the New Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, merited wider distribution. This booklet is the result. And, taking the prologue full circle, I record my thanks to Heather Kendall, who eagerly responded to my request to write a foreword. Let me quote from an email she sent me. Lynd had a lot more influence than Warner, although I think that Warner's book is a lot more detailed. It certainly is. Nevertheless, they both desire the same result. for those who baptized infants to repent and admit that only those who profess faith in the finished work of Christ should be baptized. Let me tell you what to expect. After this prologue, in an introduction, I set out the main principles of the Abrahamic covenant. This leads into an examination of Lynn's circular letter, which I present in copious extracts, punctuated by my remarks. As I have indicated, I send this little work out in the hope that it may make a further contribution to the explosion of the myth, not to use a stronger word, that New Covenant theology is a novelty. More, I hope that by adding this volume to what I have already published in a similar vein, I will encourage many others to start looking into these things for themselves. Let me stress, and stress with all the force at my disposal, that this is not a cozy academic debate about a theological nicety. Far from it. A proper understanding of the Bible depends on getting the Abrahamic covenant right. Moreover, failing to get that covenant right leads, in a pastoral sense, a personal sense, to massive consequences, consequences of a devastating nature. It is no exaggeration to say that eternal consequences hang upon this question. What men wrongly believe about the Abrahamic covenant can lead them to take a route which, it is not too much to say, imperils their eternal salvation. That is just how serious it is.