sum AND ,ttCÓVE1tY, &C. sonally and actually, after the similitude of _Adam's transgres- sion, as in Rom. v. 14. and there the scripture leaves them, that is, in death and thegrave. II. It has been granted, that the actual and personal sin of Adam, might provoke his Maker so far, as to continue his soul in its natural immortality after his bodily life was forfeited and finished ; and this is because he was a personal and actual sin- ner : And God may see it divinely proper, that he should suffer long anguish of conscience, tribulation and wrath after death, according to the aggravation of his personal crime, that is, upon supposition that he acceptednot the covenant of grace : Yet it does not follow, that the great God will punish the mere imputed guilt of his infant posterity in so severe a manner ; or that he will continue their souls in being, whose whole lifeand being is forfeited by Adam's sin, and that he will give them their being and life again, and fix them in an immortal state, merely to make them suffer long anguish and endless misery for the sin of Adam. Nor is this severity any where taught us in theword of God ; and I am well assured, that our reasonings from the good- ness and equityof God will incline us to judge more favourably of his sentenceupon infants, and will lead us to the milder and softer side of the question, as I intimated before. III. There Is one very good reason to suppose that thegreat God will resume the forfeited life and existence of the souls of children as well as of their bodies, and will not continue their immortal spirits to suffer tormentingpunishment for ever ; because, havingno personal sin, they can have no anguish of conscience, nor inward vexation : They cannot suffer any self-reproaches for sin, for they have committed none : Norcan this be conveyed to them by any imputed guilt of Adam, though it is a very great part of the punishment of souls for actual sin, as being thenatu- ral effect of personal transgression and guilt. If therefore they are punished for Adam's sin in another world, it must probably be by actual pains and torments inflicted on them by God himself, since the most natural effects of sin, that is, guilt and anguish of conscience, cannot reach them : And is it agreeable to thenature and mercy of a God to inflict such positive and endless pains or tormentswith his own hand, on such little creatures, who are free from all personal iniquity, and have no other crime but that they were born of Adam ? IV. If you should imagine that the mere sense of the loss of God's favour, without any actual inflictions of pain, is all the punishment that childrenshall suffer in their souls ; tell me how that can be without some positive and actual agency of God in it ? For unless God, some way or other, give them a sense what his favour is, and what is the loss of it, how can they have this knowledge ? And since they have have not lived in this world
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=