suffices for little ones for salvation does not suffice for adults. They therefore who perish in maturer age, not fulfilling the vow of Baptism, do not lose the state of salvation which they had proportioned to them as infants, but lose the state of infancy, which, being changed, that ceases to suffice for the state of an adult, which by the Divine appointment was sufficient for the salvation of the little one."
By this theory, which intellectually was acutely framed, three advantages were gained; 1st, the passages of Holy Scripture, which speak of the regeneration of all baptized persons, of the remission of sin to all, and the like, could be taken in their literal sense without interfering with the doctrine which was made the rule of the rest; 2d, they avoided the invidiousness of implying that non-elect infants, who died as infants, although baptized, were damned; which was frequently urged against this school. 3d, The formularies of our Church could be understood in their literal sense.
The distinction here introduced is manifestly without any authority from Scripture, and its sole object to obviate a difficulty, yet on that very ground it the more shows wherein the objection[1] to admit the baptismal regeneration of all infants really lay.
Such were the two great lines of objection then taken to the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration of all infants: the one class generally holding that those who were regenerated were so before Baptism (Baptism sealing it only) the other allowing that all regeneration took place at Baptism, but confining it to the elect. The objections with which we are most familiar in modern times are not directly derived from either of these sources, although indirectly fostered by them, and retaining some of their principles, (as that of the indefectibility of grace,) but from those whom these writers opposed—the Anabaptists.
III. They may be divided into à priori, or which might be called
- ↑ Thus again, one recently asked, "if regeneration be the grace of Baptism, what name is to be given to the commencement of that spiritual life, from which a person never falls?" Gataker, p. 150. "One really baptized never perishes."
