If this were true, the condition of a Turk's child dying in his infancy, is far better than the condition of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob living, for they might fall from grace (say they) and be damned, but a Turk's child dying, according to their opinion, shall certainly be saved."[1]
Anthony Burgess was a member of this famous Assembly, and may be cited as another good authority. And in his work on Original Sin, he not only maintains the doctrine of infant damnation, but gives a history of it; and furnishes us at the same time with an authority in addition to his own, and an admirable illustration of Edwards' doctrine, that the happiness of heaven receives a zest from contemplating the miseries of hell.
"Fourthly, The consideration of God's just and severe proceedings against Pagans and their children, may make thee the more admire the grace of God in saving of thee. For how many Heathens perish in hell, who, it may be, never committed such gross and foul sins in their lifetime, as thou hast done? To be sure their infants never committed such actual iniquities, as thou hast done; yet they appear, according to God's ordinary way of proceedings, to be left in that lost estate of nature. And therefore that is a good quickening meditation which Vedelius useth, (Hilar. cap. 3. page 119,) to make a godly man thankful for God's grace, seeing by na-
than Abraham, Moses, and the Virgin Mary while upon earth. For they may perish, according to your doctrine, but not the children of Turks who have died in infancy. Yet the Apostle declares that all and every one of them are born children of wrath, and what imaginable reason can there be why they may not also die children of wrath? Twiss. Contra Corvinum, c. 9. § 3.—Leigh's marginal note.
↑Leigh's Body of Divinity, pp. 416, 417. Fol. Ed. 1662.
