tematic divinity of two centuries ago, but that it was proclaimed from the pulpit in the ears of Christian congregations, and printed in sermons designed for spiritual edification. And we here add a quotation from Arthur Hildersham's Lectures on the Fifty-first Psalm, in further corroboration of our statement on this point:
"It is evident that God hath witnessed his wrath against the sin of infants, not only by hating their sins, but even their persons also. Rom. 9. 11, 13. And not only by inflicting temporal punishments upon them, but even by casting them into hell. For of those that perished in Sodom and Gomorrah, it is expressly said, Jude 7, that they were not only consumed with fire and brimstone, but that they suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. And the Apostle proving infants to be sinners by this argument, because death reigneth over them, Rom. 5. 14, showeth plainly, he meaneth not a temporal death only, but such as he calleth condemnation, ver. 16."—"There is in them a natural proneness, disposition, and inclination unto everything that is evil; as there is in the youngest whelp of a Lion, or of a Bear, or of a Wolf, unto cruelty, or in the very egg of a cockatrice, before it be hatched."—"Against these damnable errors, [one of which is, that all who die in their infancy shall certainly go to heaven,] you have heard it evidently proved, 1. That all infants are sinners, and deserve damnation. 2. That many infants have been vessels of wrath, and FIREBRANDS OF HELL."[1]
One more extract, and we close our citation of authorities—presuming that the reader, if his patience
- ↑ Hildersham's Lectures on the LI. Ps. pp. 280, 281, Ed. 1685.
