A26923:824
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 4. All grant, That the Covenant pardoneth the Adult only conditionally; and if it should pardon all Infants absolutely, their Condition would be so much more happy than that of the Adult, as is not consistent with what Scripture, Reason, and Experience speaketh. And there is no such thing said of them in the Word of God, and therefore not to be believed.
§. 5. Those that think not all Infants (so dying) to be saved and glorified, are also of several minds. 1. Some think that none are glorified, as being uncapable Subjects (whom I will not bestow ⟨p. 218⟩the labour to confute, nor to open the ill Consequents of it.) 2. Some think, that some are glorified, but none are positively punished with the poena sensus. These seem to me less rational than the former: For either Infants will have actual Intellection, and answerable Joys and Sorrows, or not: If not, the former, who reduce them all to mere Potentiality, or the state of Brutes, are in the right (of whom some will have them to be Viat•res after Death in vehiculo a•reo, and some are for their Transmigration, and return to Earth.) If yea, then as one part will have rational Joys, the other must have rational Sorrows, unless some return to Earth, or some middle state, be better proved than I have yet seen.
§. 5. Those that think not all Infants (so dying) to be saved and glorified, are also of several minds. 1. Some think that none are glorified, as being uncapable Subjects (whom I will not bestow ⟨p. 218⟩the labour to confute, nor to open the ill Consequents of it.) 2. Some think, that some are glorified, but none are positively punished with the poena sensus. These seem to me less rational than the former: For either Infants will have actual Intellection, and answerable Joys and Sorrows, or not: If not, the former, who reduce them all to meer Potentiality, or the state of Brutes, are in the right (of whom some will have them to be Viatres after Death in vehiculo areo, and some are for their Transmigration, and return to Earth.) If yea, then as one part will have rational Joys, the other must have rational Sorrows, unless some return to Earth, or some middle state, be better proved than I have yet seen.