A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certain doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certaine doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…

To this I answer, that when I say, that all the creatures are ¹translated into the Dominion of Christ, I mean not into his Kingdom of a grace, but into the dominion of his power; viz. to be disposed of by him, the wicked to the praise of his justice, and both them and other creatures to the service and exercise of his elect. Hence I conceive it to be that it is said, that Christ hath bought the dominion of such as deny him. Hence ²by his dying and rising again he is said to be the Lord both of the quick and dead. Hence God is said to have given all things into his hand, with all power both in heaven and earth. Neither am Lable to conceive how the whole body of the Creature, I mean all the world beside Reprobates, can be said to wait for the redemption, and restoring into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, unless as they lost their liberty—by the first Adam, so they had recovered the same again by the redemption of the second Adam. If then all the creatures be translated into the dominion of Christ, think it not absurd that the Infants of Turks themselves be translated into the same dominion. The place that may be alleged to the contrary, doth prove the Infants of Infidels not to be translated into the Kingdom of grace, or fellowship of his Church, but what is that to this point touching children that die in their infancy before the guilt of their actual sin? I would not hastily determine any ⟨p. 256⟩thing. Praestat dubitare de occultis, quàm ligitare de incertis. It is better to doubt of secret things, then wrangle about things uncertain. They stand or fall to him, who hath said of the Infants of such parents, as commend them to the blessing of Christ, Of such is the kingdom of God. But to my understanding ³it is most agreeable to the analogy of faith to range little children under the covenant of Parents, it being Gods usual manner of dealing, to visit the sins of the Fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him, and to show mercy unto thousands of them that love him, and keep his commandments.

To this I answer, that when I say, that all the creatures are