because of the covenant promise which was made alike to parents and children. But the others, since not less than their parents they have no lot in the covenant, and are aliens from the promises of grace, we leave to the MERITED judgement of God."[1]
"We do not subject to the punishment of original sin, all infants promiscuously, but those only, who, born of unbelieving parents, are aliens from the grace of the covenant, and do not partake of righteousness of life in Christ"[2]And Perkins, who was a leading writer in the controversy with Arminius, writes as follows "concerning the execution of the decree of reprobation:"
"Reprobates are either infants, or men of riper age. In reprobate infants, the execution of God's decree is this: As soon as they are born, for the guilt of original and natural sin, being left in God's secret judgment unto themselves, they, dying, are rejected of God for ever."[3]
The evidence, then, is conclusive, that the Synod of Dort, which has been pronounced by an eminent authority "a most ample representation of the opinions of the whole Calvinistic world," held the doctrine of infant damnation. The circumstance that not one of the several deputations denies it, while it is distinctly affirmed by a number of them, may be taken as proof positive that it was the common belief of that body.
