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
I dare not, indeed, allow myself to be too peremptory, or give my
thoughts too great a loose on this subject: but, since it is taken for
granted by all, who give into the doctrine of original sin, that
infants, if not saved, are liable to the punishment of loss, which has
been before considered, as the immediate consequence of the imputation
of Adam’s sin; yet it doth not appear, to me, that they have such a
tormenting sense of the greatness of their loss, as others have who were
adult, and had received the knowledge of divine things, which infants
are not capable of. These, as it is more than probable, carry the ideas,
which they had received of divine things, out of the world with them,
which infants cannot be said to do; and therefore, if ever they have the
knowledge thereof, and consequently of the glory of the heavenly state,
it must be by extraordinary revelation. How far they may be led into
this matter, by observing the glorious work, which shall be performed in
the most visible manner, in the day of judgment, I pretend not to
determine. This, indeed, will give them some apprehensions of the
happiness which others are possessed of, and they are excluded from: But
even this cannot have so great a tendency to enhanse their misery, as
when hardened and presumptuous sinners, who have despised and neglected
the means of grace, are said, as our Saviour speaks to the Jews, _To see
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and they themselves
thrust out_, Luke xiii. 28. as intimating, that this will, in a judicial
way, be a means to enhanse their misery; and consequently they cannot
but have such a tormenting sense thereof, as what will make their loss
appear greater, and so render them more miserable than infants can be,
who never had these means of grace in this world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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