A Body of Divinity, Vol. 2 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger CatechismRidgley, Thomas
Religion
A Body of Divinity, Vol. 2 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism
Therefore all that I shall attempt, at present, is, to prove, that if
all, who die in their infancy, are not saved, yet their condemnation is
not like that which is due to actual sin, or those habits thereof, which
are contracted by men. And here it must be allowed, pursuant to our
former method of reasoning, that, if they are not saved, they have the
punishment of loss inflicted on them; for the right to the heavenly
blessedness, which Adam forfeited and lost, respected not only himself,
but all his posterity. Whether they have any farther degree of
punishment inflicted on them, or how far they are liable to the
punishment of sense, I dare not pretend to determine. I do not care to
conclude, with some of the Remonstrants, such as Episcopius, Curcellæus,
and others, that they always remain in an infantine state, or, that they
have no more ideas in the other world, than they had in this; for this
is to suppose what cannot be proved. Besides, if they always remain in
this state, this must be supposed, either to be the consequence of
nature, and argued from their want of ideas, while they were in this
world, or else it must be by a particular dispensation of providence,
respecting some infants in the next, and not all. To suppose the former,
is to suppose that none are saved, since remaining in an infantile
state, is not salvation; for it is beyond dispute, the soul that is
saved, whether it went out of the world an infant, or a man is
exceedingly enlarged, and rendered receptive of the heavenly
blessedness. And if, on the other hand, they suppose, that their
remaining in this infantile state, is by a particular dispensation of
providence, this, was it true, would be a small punishment, indeed,
inflicted on them for Adam’s sin: But we have as little, or less ground
to conclude this, than that all infants are saved; and therefore I
cannot give into this notion, which, indeed, differs but little from
that of the Papists, who suppose them, if dying unbaptized, to remain in
a state of insensibility; which is no other, than an ungrounded
conjecture. And, as for the account which we have, in some of their
writings concerning the place alloted for them, which they call _Limbus
Infantium_, and its situation between heaven and hell, this is no better
than a theological romance; and it cannot but be reckoned trifling and
ludicrous, and nothing else but an imposing their own fancies, as
articles of faith.
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