on a child of Adam, which is innocent as to personal sin, without paying for it, or balancing it with good; so that still the state of the child shall be as good as could be demanded in justice, in case of mere innocence. Which plainly supposes that the child is not exposed to any proper punishment at all, or is not at all in debt to divine justice, on account of Adam's sin.' But, in this passage, what does Edwards say? Simply and only, as all the Reformers had said, that infants are exposed justly to eternal death on account of original sin; but that they suffer this deserved punishment HE DOES NOT SAY. And yet, such is the authority which the reviewer claims, as "directly and completely to his purpose," to prove that Edwards gave up infants to the torments of hell. BELLAMY is the next witness whose testimony demands our scrutiny. "It is plain and evident from facts, that Adam was considered and dealt with under the capacity of a public head, and that death, natural, spiritual and eternal were included in the threatening; for all his posterity are evidently dealt with just as if that had been the case. They are born spiritually dead, as has been proved in the former discourse. They are evidently liable to natural death, as soon as they are born. And if they die and go into eternity with their native temper, they must necessarily be miserable."—"God must necessarily look upon them in everlasting abhorrence."+ "So that, to a demonstration, God's thoughts of mercy towards a guilty, undone world, did not in any measure take their rise from any notion that mankind had been hardly dealt with, or that it would be anything like cruelty and unmercifulness, to damn the whole world for Adam's first sin."‡ "Mankind were by their fall brought into a state of being infinitely worse than not to be. The damned in hell, no doubt, are in such a state, else their punishment would not be infinite; as justice requires it should be. But mankind, by the fall, were brought into a state, for substance, as bad as that which the damned are in. For the damned undergo nothing in hell, but what, by the constitution with Adam, and the law of nature, all mankind were and would have been, for substance, exposed unto, if mere grace had not prevented." "As to godly parents, they have such a spirit of love to God, and resignation to his will, and such an approbation of his dispensations towards mankind, and such a liking to his whole scheme of government, that they are content that God should govern the world as he does; and that he should have subjects to govern; and that themselves and their posterity should be under him, and at * Edwards on Original Sin. Works, vol. vi. p. 462. 1bid. p. 333. his disposal. Nor are they without hopes of mercy for their children, from sovereign grace through Christ, while they do, through him, devote and give them up to God, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And thus they quiet themselves as to their souls."* "It was at God's sovereign election, to give every child of Adam, born in a Christian land, opportunity, by living, to hear the glad tidings, or only to grant this to some, while others die in infancy, and never hear. Those who die in infancy, may as justly be held under law in the next world, as those that live may in this. God is under no more obligations to save those that die, than he is to save those that live; to grant the regenerating influences of his Spirit to them, than he is to these." Now all which is contained in these passages, is, 1. That infants, as the subjects of original sin, are depraved, born spiritually dead. 2. That if they should die, and go into eternity with this depraved nature, they could not be admitted to heaven, and would be wicked and miserable. 3. That godly parents have hope for their children, through Christ, who are given to him in faith. But he nowhere, in these quotations, expresses the opinion that infants are lost; for we have shewn it to have been the common opinion of the Reformers, so happily expressed by Dickinson, the cotemporary of Bellamy, that some infants are elected certainly; viz. the children of believers, dying in infancy. Yet there is no "evidence from Scripture or the nature of things, that any of these [infants] will eternally perish. All those that die in infancy may, or aught we know, belong to the election of grace, and be predestinated to the adoption of children."‡ Dr. Twiss, though held in high estimation in his day, as a man of a powerful mind, and an able controvertist, belonged to the class of Calvinists denominated Supralapsarian, a very small proportion of the whole body, in any age, and to which, in this country, not one, probably, in ten thousand belong. He was of that class of divines denominated now Hyper-calvinistic and Antinomian, between whom and the great body of Sublapsarian Calvinists, there are almost as few points held in common, and as little affinity of feeling, as between evangelical Christians and Unitarians; and whose system, upon the principle that extremes meet, we regard as being as fatal to the souls of men as Unitarianism itself. If he was ever, in this country, regarded as a standard writer, of which I have no proof, he has long ceased to be considered such; as many other ancient Calvinistic authors have been superseded, as authorities, by later and better writers. * Bellamy's Works, vol. i. p. 336. + Vol. ii. pp. 369, 370. Since the days of Edwards, and Bellamy, and Hopkins, and West, and Smalley, and the younger Edwards, the number of transatlantic authors is small, whose authority has been relied on, upon points of doctrine. The New England theology, as it has been called, having so modified the statement of many cardinal doctrines, as to render such authorities nearly obsolete. I never heard Twiss referred to by my theological instructer, Dr. Dwight, as authority in any case, and never referred to at all but in terms of strong disapprobation, on account of the extremity to which he carried matters. To quote Twiss, therefore, as evidence that the Calvinists of Boston and New England hold to the doctrine of infant damnation, is not less unjust than it would be for us to quote the most revolting opinions of Priestley, Belsham, and the German school, as confirmation strong of what is believed in Boston and Massachusetts by the higher and more serious Unitarians, who would be shocked at their licentious opinions as much, perhaps, as I should. Antinomians are, indeed, called Calvinists; and so are Socinians called Unitarians. But to quote the one as evidence of the opinions of the other, is as preposterous as it is unreasonable. But it seems that Twiss was prolocutor (moderator) of the Westminster Assembly. True. But this is the first time I have ever heard this fact alleged as evidence that the Assembly believed with Twiss on the particular subject of the future state of infants. Did the Synod of Dort agree in all things with their moderator? Do the Convention of the Congregational ministers of Massachusetts agree always with their moderator? And will they take the sentiments of their last prolocutor in evidence for what they all believe?* For what purpose the reviewer has produced quotations from Dr. GILL, a Baptist author, who has never in this country been received as a standard writer by Calvinists of other denominations, I am unable to divine; unless it be, that, not satisfied with slandering all the Calvinists of the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations, he desired and sought occasion to throw the same unmerited stigma upon our brethren, the Baptists; for Gill, though a learned man, and, in some respects, a distinguished commentator, has never been ranked by Congregationalists and Presbyterians among their "most approved authors." He has never been received as a standard writer among us at all. His commentaries were recommended exclusively by Baptists; and even these speak in commendation of his work on the whole, and not as approving all that he taught; for it is well known, that on some points he leaned towards Antinomianism, and that one of the most pious and influential ministers of this city+ has been heard to deprecate the tendency, and the actual influence, of some of his opinions upon the churches of his denomination in certain portions of this country. * Dr. Beecher was himself the last moderator.-Ed. + Dr. Baldwin. The following testimony from my Rev. Brother, of the Baptist denomination, will show with what wanton injustice that large and respectable class of evangelical Christians to which he belongs, have been, by implication, involved with us in the odium of holding to the damnation of infants. "In relation to Dr. Gill, although he was distinguished for great learning and piety, yet his Body of Divinity is far from being received as authority by the Baptists. There are comparatively few, who embrace his doctrinal views. I have been a Baptist minister more than twenty one years, and have had opportunities of a very extended acquaintance with ministers of my own denomination, both in Great Britian and in the United States; but, in all my intercourse, I never have heard one individual, either in the ministry, or out of it, express his belief in the damnation of infants. Nor do I think there is one person among the orthodox of any denomination, whose opinions are entitled to the least degree of respect, that admits the sentiment. Many ministers, both in their preaching and writings, have clearly shewn that infants will be saved. Not so much, however, for the purpose of convincing their own people of this delightful truth, as to correct the misrepresentations, and to remove the reproaches, which had been cast upon them by the enemies of evangelical religion. DANIEL SHARP." Boston, March 18, 1828. THEOPHILUS GALE." So great is the Majestie of God, and so Absolute his Dominion, as that he is obnoxious to no Laws, Obligations, or Ties from his Creature: this Absolute Justice or Dominion regards not any qualities or conditions of its object; but God can, by virtue hereof, inflict the highest torments on his innocent Creature, and exempt from punishment the most nocent. By this Absolute Justice and Dominion God can inflict the greatest torments, even of Hel itself, on the most innocent Creature."* The reviewer subjoins: ABSOLUTE JUSTICE indeed! And this doctrine has been taught by men, and has been received by men; and doctrines founded upon it, and which necessarily imply its truth, are still eagerly inculcated and greedily received; and men's understandings have been so debased, their moral sentiments have been so brutified, that they have not had enough sense or spirit or knowledge of right and wrong, to lead them to ask in what the absolute justice of a Calvinistic God, might differ from the absolute justice of the Prince of Hell.t Having perceived the mistakes of the reviewer in translation, we thought it due to the memory of a "learned" and good man, "the author of a book once very famous," to examine whether the * Court of the Gentiles, part iv. p. 367. extract gave us, not the "truth" only, but "the whole truth." On turning to Gale, our astonishment was never surpassed. For, in the first place, his views of what he calls absolute justice are not fully explained by the reviewer. He evidently means by it, God's right to do whatever he will, in opposition to any opposing claim or obligation; a right derived, first, from the absolute and unerring perfection of his will; and secondly, from his right of creation; and thirdly, from the consideration, that what God actually wills, will be for the manifestation of his glory, and the highest good of the universe. In this view of the subject, he asserts, that all whom God creates may be dealt with, in respect to happiness or misery, for the general good, without any reference to character. But he does not say that this is the actual maxim of the divine administration. On the contrary, he teaches, most expressly, that it is not. What he calls "ordinate justice," is the actual rule of moral government; to which men had no claim, but which, being adopted voluntarily, and given to them by revelation and by promise, is the immutable rule of the divine administration. And this, reader, is no other than the principle of reward and punishment according to character and deeds, as the following quotation will abundantly show. "Proposition 5. So far as God hath obliged himself by the constitution of his own Wil and Word, his ordinate Justice ever regards the Constitution and Qualities of the object. God's ordinate Justice being the same with his Veracitie and Fidelitie, it alwaies respects such Qualities and Conditions, as its object, by reason of his own constitution, is invested with. For God, in the executions of his ordinate Justice, assumes the qualitie of a Judge: and a Judge cannot duely abstain from the administration of Justice; neither is Justice duly administred, unlesse the Qualitie of the objects, and merits of the cause be fully inspected and considered. God's ordinate Justice as Rector and Judge of the Al is chiefly exercised in the reduction of althings to that equalitie and order, which his Divine Wisdom and Wil has prescribed unto them. Hence these two things necessarily follow this Divine ordinate Justice: 1. It never exerts it self, but where those Qualities and Conditions, which it has prescribed its object, be found. As it never punisheth any but for sin; so it never rewards any but the Godly, &c. 2. Wherever these Conditions or Qualities are found, it necessarily exerts it self. It cannot but punish sin whereever it be; neither can it but reward holiness if sincere. There is a necessitie, not Physic but Moral, attendes al its that from the free Constitution of the Divine Wil."* In view of this exhibition, I remark, egresses; and That the reviewer has misrepresented Gale as flagrantly as Professor Norton has mistranslated Calvin. He has quoted his * Court of the Gentiles, part iv. p. 373. |
