not looked upon by God as sinless, but that they are by nature children of wrath, seeing this terrible evil comes so heavily on mankind in infancy. But besides these things, which are observable concerning the mortality of infants in general, there are some particular cases of the death of infants, which the Scripture sets before us, that are attended with circumstances, in a peculiar manner giving evidences of the sinfulness of such, and their just exposedness to divine wrath. As particularly,
"The destroying of the infants in Sodom, and the neighboring cities; which cities, destroyed in so extraordinary, miraculous, and awful a manner, are set forth as a signal example of God's dreadful vengeance for sin, to the world in all generations; agreeable to that of the apostle, Jude, verse 7."[1]The text here referred to is in these words:—"Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." From which it is plain that Edwards believed the infants who perished at the destruction of Sodom, are now "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
And even Dr. Watts, whose natural tenderheartedness led him to plead most earnestly and touchingly for the rescue of little infants from everlasting torments, and who would fain, as he says, "find out some milder punishment for their share of the guilt of Adam in the Bible," even he supposes them to be reduced after death to a "state of non-
- ↑ Works, vol. vi. pp. 252, 3.
