The divine life in three treatises

And if the Image of God, consisting in true holiness, be not natural, or born in every Infant in the world, then Original sin must needs be born with them: for that sin is either only or chiefly the Privation of that Image or Holiness. He that will say that this Image is not requisite to Infants, and so that the absence of it is a mere negation, doth make them brutes, and not of the race of man, whom God created after his Image, and leaves them uncapable of Heaven or Hell, or any other life then beasts have. And he that thinks so of▪ Infants to day, may think so of himself to morrow. And he that will affirm that this Image or Holiness is born with every Infant into the world, so wilfully contradicteth common evidence which appeareth in the contrary effects, that he is not worthy to be further talked with.

And if the Image of God, consisting in true holiness, be not natural, or born in every Infant in the world, then Original sin must needs be born with them: for that sin is either only or chiefly the Privation of that Image or Holiness. He that will say that this Image is not requisite to Infants, and so that the absence of it is a meer negation, doth make them bruits, and not of the race of man, whom God created after his Image, and leaves them uncapable of Heaven or Hell, or any other life then beasts have. And he that thinks so of▪ Infants to day, may think so of himself to morrow. And he that will affirm that this Image or Holiness is born with every Infant into the world, so wilfully contradicteth common evidence which appeareth in the contrary effects, that he is not worthy to be further talkt with.

One thing more I will propound yet to the contrary-minded; Can they say that any Infants are saved or not? If not, either they perish as brutes (which is a brutish opinion) or they live in misery; and then they had sin that did deserve it; yea if they think that any of them perish in the wrath to come, ⟨p. 90⟩it must be for sin. If they think that any of them are saved, it is either by covenant or without; there is some promise for it, or there is none. If none, then no man can say that any of them are saved. For who hath known the mind of the Lord without his Revelation? It is arrogancy to tell the world of the saving of any that God did no way reveal that he will save. But if they plead a Revelation or promise, it is either the Covenant of Nature or of Grace; a promise contained in Nature, Law or Gospel. The former cannot be affirmed, (not only because the dissenters themselves deny any such Covenant to have been in nature or any way made to Adam, but) because there is no such Covenant or promise in Nature to be found, for the Salvation of all Infants (and if not for all, then for none:) and because it is contrary to abundance of plain passages in the Scriptures, that assure us there is but One Covenant of Salvation now in force: and that all the world shall become guilty before God, and every mouth be stopped,