unto all men, its rejection originated in that section of the Church, which supposed a portion of mankind, whether they died as infants or adults, elected to life, the rest left to the damnation which their inherited corruption in itself deserved. Therewith it is not said, nor meant to be understood, that those who now reject the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration, hold any such views.
This school, then, made the indefectibility of grace, the rule by which they measured the declarations of God, with respect to His mercies in Baptism. As many as held that none could fall finally from grace given, were obliged to hold, that none but those who should finally be saved, were regenerated in Baptism. Nor did they wish to conceal that this was their only ground. Being fully persuaded of the truth of their first principles, they held, unhesitatingly, that the general declarations of Holy Scripture (they added, also, of the Fathers[1],) must be limited by this known truth. As they expressed it, all "elect children" received the gifts of the Holy Spirit; the rest were washed with water only[2]. These, in some respects, retained the honour of the
- ↑ See Note N at the end.
- ↑ "Let us first distinguish of infants, of whom some are elected, and some belong not unto the election of grace. These latter receive only the element, and are not inwardly washed; the former receive, in the right use of the Sacrament, the inward grace." Taylor, Comm. on Titus, p. 643. "In the Sacrament, by virtue of Christ's institution, ordinarily, grace is given to all, that are by election capable of it." Burges, p. 150, and Beza, l.c. p. 387. "This we say, that the Holy Spirit does not, by the outward Baptism of water, put forth in all the power of the internal Baptism, but in the elect only." "As in circumcision, so in Baptism, many thousand infants receive it who yet are never regenerated, but perish for ever." P. 393. Archbishop Usher, Summe and Substance of Christian Religion, p. 416. "The Sacrament of Baptism is effectuall in infants only to those, and to all those, who belong unto the election of grace." Calvin, arguing against the Anabaptists, and so for the regeneration of elect infants, although not as bestowed through Baptism, implies that of those who die in infancy, some are not elect, and so perish. "Moreover," he says, "infants which are to be saved, (and certainly, of that age, some are at all events saved,) it is clear that they are before regenerated by the Lord." Institt L. 4. c. 16. § 17. And on Eph. v. 26. "Many receive the sign, who yet are not
