More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second…

§. 12. Perhaps some will lay all the right of Infants to the pardon of sin, and salvation, upon secret election only; as if all that we knew of Infants Salvation were that God will save some whom he hath elected: but that there is no Promise of grace and salvation to any particular Infant in the world, as under any condition or qualification: And if this be so, then, 1. No Infant hath any Right to pardon, grace and salvation, given him by the Covenant of Grace; No more than any elect person at age hath before faith and regeneration: Election gave Paul (nor any wicked man) no right to pardon or salvation: Else elect Pagans and Infidels are justified; if they have jus ad impunitatem & Regnum Coelorum. 2. And if this be so, we have no assurance that God will save ten or three Infants in all the world: For he hath not told us whether he hath elected so many. 3. And yet we cannot be sure but that they may all or almost all be saved, while the number of the elect is unrevealed. ⟨p. 205⟩4. Nor can we know that any more of the Children of the Faithful are saved, than of the Heathens or Infidels; of those that love God and keep his Commandments, than of those that hate him. 5. And, in a word, we have then no proper hope, upon Covenant right, that God will save any one individual Infant in the world: For we can hope (in this proper sense) of nothing but what we do believe, and we can believe nothing but what is promised or revealed. And so Parents must be thus far hopeless.

§. 13. God who made man after his Image, teacheth him to govern according to those principles which are his Image: And all the Kingdoms in this world take Infants for Infant-members; and the Laws give them Right to Honours and Inheritances, the possession and use whereof they may have in the time and degrees that nature doth capacitate them. And can we then think that God who made a Conditional Gift of Pardon and Salvation to all the adult persons in the world, did wholly leave out Infants, and that his Covenant giveth them no rights at all; no not to be members of his visible Church?