nion of mine concerning infants, I will not defend with contention or obstinacy; nor rashly condemn those who, being persuaded by the authority of the antients, and of almost the whole church, do allow salvation to those infants only to whom God in his secret, but just judgment, does vouchsafe the sacrament of regeneration and baptism."

Upon the Reformation, the Protestants generally have defined, that the due punishment of original sin is, in strictness, damnation in Hell. I suppose and hope that they mean with St. Austin, a very moderate degree of it in the case of infants, in whom original corruption, which is the fomes or source of all wickedness, has not broke out into any actual sin.

But if their doctrine has in this respect been more rigid than that of the Church of Rome, or of the ancient Greek doctors, they have in another respect, viz. in the case of Christian people's children, given such a mitigating explication of our Saviour's words, as to allow better hopes than either of them; for they do generally incline to think, that if a child by misfortune die before it can have baptisın, the parents' sincere intention of giving it, and their prayers, will be accepted with God for the deed; and will be available to procure of God's mercy pardon of original sin, and even an entrance into the kingdom; whereas the schoolmen. and fathers have thought that Christ, at the Day of Judgment, will proceed by that sentence (John iii. 3, 5: such an one cannot enter into the kingdom of God) in the manner that a judge in a court of common law proceeds upon the words of a statute, having no power to make allowance for circumstances. The Protestants do hope that he will act in the manner that a judge of a court of equity docs, who has power to mitigate the letter of the law in cases where reason would have it. The fathers themselves thought this allowance would be made in the case of a grown man, who had a personal desire of baptisin; and that if it was an invincible necessity that kept him from water, he might enter the kingdom without being born of water. The Protestants

think the same in the case of the desire of the parent for his infant they think thus:- The main thing in God's intention in this case is, that a parent as he dedicates himself to God, so he should likewise dedicate his child, and get him entered into that covenant made in Christ, without which there is no hopes of Heaven; and that he should accordingly make use of that symbol, or outward sign which God has appointed to be the way of admission into that covenant, if he can possibly; and that his refusal to do the latter will be looked on as a refusal of the covenant itself. But that if, notwithstanding his sincere desire and endeavour of obtaining the outward symbol, he be by some accident disappointed of it, God will yet grant the same favour that he had promised upon the use of it, because it is the heart that God regards; and where that is ready, outward things are accepted, according to what a man has, and not according to what he has not; especially if some act of God himself, as the sudden death of the infant, &c. do render it impossible for him to have them.

Luther and his followers do indeed speak more doubtfully of this; and do lay so much stress on actual baptism, as that they allow a layman to do the office in times of necessity, rather than that the infant should die without it.

But Calvin, and those that follow him (who, to the great prejudice of religion made a needless schism from the others, or else the others from them, I know not which) sunk the doctrine of the necessity of baptism a pitch lower. They own that baptism is necessary not only, necessitate præcepti, by God's command, but also thus far, necessitate medii, that it is God's ordinary means to regenerate and give salvation. But they determine it as a thing certain, that the child of a godly believing parent shall obtain the kingdom of Heaven, though he do by sudden death, &c. miss of baptism," provided this happen by no negligence or contumacy of the parent;"

*Calvin, Antidot. ad Synod. Trident. Sess. 7. Can. 5, it. Antidot. ad Artic. Paris Art. 1, it. Institut. lib. 4, c. 75.

and they deny that there is or can be any such necessity as to justify a layman's giving it. And Calvin takes an occasion to jeer some Papists that had said That "if a child be like to die, and no water to be had but what is in the bottom of a deep well, and nothing to draw with, the best way is to throw the child down into the well, that it may be washed before it be dead."

The Church of England have declared their sense of the necessity, by reciting that saying of our Saviour, Job iii. 5, both in the office of baptism of infants, and also in that for those of riper years; and in the latter they add these words; " Beloved, you hear in this gospel the express words of our Saviour Christ, That except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:-" whereby you may perceive the great necessity of this sacrament, where it may be had." be had." And Archbishop Laud, shewing that infant baptism is proved from Scripture, and not from the tradition of the church only (against the Jesuit, his adversary, who, to cast in a bone of contention, had asserted the latter) gives his sense of it thus : *"That baptism is necessary to the salvation of infants (in the ordinary way of the church, without binding God to the use and means of that sacrament, to which he has bound us) is express in St. John iii,' Except, &c.

Concerning the everlasting state of an infant that by misfortune dies unbaptized, the Church of England has determined nothing (it were fit that all churches would leave such things to God) save that they forbid the ordinary office for burial to be used for such an one; for that were to determine the point, and acknowledge him for a Christian brother. And though the most noted men in the said church, from time to time, since the Reformation of it to this time, have expressed their hopes that God will accept the purpose of the parent for the deed, yet they have done it modestly, and much as Wickliff did; rather not determining the negative,

* Relation of Conference, § 15, num. 4,

than absolutely determining the positive, that such a child shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Archbishop Laud's words we see are," We are not to bind God, though he has bound us." And Archbishop Whitgift, disputing with Cartwright, says, "I dislike as much as you the opinion of those that think infants condemned that are not baptized.' All this is modest; but there are indeed some that do make a pish at any one that is not confident, or does speak with any reserve about that matter; and they despise him and his scruples as much, and with as much success, as Vincentius the talkative did those of St. Austin on the same point †.

For the opinion of the English Presbyterians, I shall content myself with citing these words of Mr. Baxter: "I have hereby been made thankful that God has kept me from the snare of Anabaptism; for though I do not lay so much as some do on the mere outward act, or water of baptism (believing that our heart-consent and dedication qualifies infants for a covenantright before actual baptism, which yet is Christ's regular solemnization and investiture) yet I make a great matter of the main controversy, notwithstanding that I hereticate not the Anabaptists for the bare opinion's sake," &c.

The Antipædobaptists, as they allow no advantage to an infant by its baptism, nor yet by its being the child of a godly and religious parent, so they do not all agree about the state of infants dying before actual sin. One sort of them determine with great assurance, that all infants, of Heathens as well as Christians, of the wicked as well as of the godly, shall be saved, and shafl enter into the kingdom of God; and they dissuade men from having their children baptized, or born again of water, &c.; seeing by this determination they are se cure of Heaven without it. To which the other commonly answer, That they desire such a safety for their

Defence of Answer to Admonition, Tr. 9, ch. 5, Div. 2. + See Part. 1, ch. 20.

Reply to Hutchinson, pag. 39,

children as has some ground in God's word, and not in their determination only; since an infant has no promise, right, or expectation of the kingdom of Heaven, merely as it is a human creature, or born of human race, but only as being entered and interested in the covenant of Christ, by which is promised an eternal life after this; and the said covenant does require, as a condition of all that are to enter into the kingdom, that they be born again of water, &c.

Another sort of Antipædobaptists have not this assurance concerning all infants; but do suppose a different state of them, on account of the decrees of election and reprobation.

Concerning the state of a baptized infant dying before actual sin, the whole Christian world has agreed that it is undoubtedly saved, and will be admitted to the joys of Heaven; since it has all that the church of Christ can give it. St. Austin says, as I shewed before, "He that does not believe this, is an Infidel: and, God forbid that we should doubt of it." It is certain there was never any doubt made of it till the times of the late managers of the doctine of Predestination.

Some of these have added several limitations and provisoes to this proposition, relating to the election or sanctification of the parents, or their right to church-membership; and some of them have used such expressions, as that they seem to think that even among the infants of faithful parents, some are so reprobated by the eternal decree of God, that though they be baptized, and die in infancy, yet they will be damned. Some sayings of Paræus, Perkins, Zanchius, &c. are by their adversaries produced to this purposet; and it is known what exceptions some have taken at the Rubric of the last edition of the English Liturgy at the end of the Office of Baptism :- That "it is certain, by God's word, that children which are baptized,

* Part 1, ch. 15.

+ See Acta Synodalia Dordracana Remonstrantium, pag. 45, 46.