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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41781	The infants advocate against the cruel doctrine of those Presbyterians who hold, that the greatest part of dying infants shall be damned : in answer to a book of Mr. Giles Firmin's entituled, Scripture warrant, &c. / by Tho. Grantham.	Grantham, Thomas, 1634-1692.	1688 (1688)	Wing G1538; ESTC R43209	26,760	32

Blessed because he should fail of his End if these evil Actions were not done This is his Logick let him look to it But 3. What I conceive to be Truth concerning Free-Will I will give you a short account from what I have formerly published in a little Catechism where in Page 21. I put these Questions and Answers following What mean you by the third part of Repentance Answ I mean first a boly loathing of Sin because it is of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. and because God hates it And because Christ died because of it 2. To abstain from the act of Sin in Desire Word and Deed as much as possible God saw their Works that they turned from their Evil Ways Break off thy Sins by Righteousness Repent ye therefore and be Converted This is to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance Quest Hath Man any liberty of Will and any measure of Power thus to hate and forsake Sin Answ 1. By the Bounty of God Man hath some liberty and power this way He is not chained to his Sins of Necessity Chuse you this day whom you will serve To day if ye will hear his Voice harden not your Hearts Mary hath chosen the good part 2. Man's infirmity in the exercise of this Liberty and Power is so great that he is not to depend upon this Liberty and Power but upon the Strength of God in the use of them Hos 14. 2. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Now let any Sober Christian tell me how it is possible to make the Will of Man an Imperial Majesty out of my Words that is a Majesty that hath no Peer for no less than such a Slander would serve Mr. Firmin to fix upon us especially upon my self For what cause he is so inveterate I know not But come Mr. Firmin will the Doctrine of a chief Man of your own please you if so you and I may agree in his Sentence Thus he speaks Austin as well as Pelagius Calvin as well as the Arminians the Dominicans as well as the Jesuits all generally maintain that Man hath Free-will Origen is condemned by Epiphanius for saying that Man had lost the Image of God This Image is two-fold 1. Natural i. e. Reason and Free Will. 2. Qualitative or Ethical i. e. Our Holiness and this is lost and by Grace restored No Man of Brains can deny that Man hath a Will naturally free it is free from Violence It 's a self-determining Principle but is not freed from evil Dispositions Mr. Baxter's Preface to his Call to the Vnconverted I think I need say no more to a Wise Man And I am sure this is as much as any Wise Man among us will say in this Matter CONCLVSION Mr. Firmin seems displeased at the multitude which will be Saved if my Opinion be true that all Dying Infants shall be Saved I will give you his own words I pray saith he whose Opinion are you of Huberus the promiscuous Salvation of all Or are you of Caelius Secundus Curio ' s Opinion That the number of the Elect and Saved is much greater than the number of the Reprobate and Damned Whether you or these or Christ be truest Mat. 7. 14. few find it the Day of Judgment will determine Here Sir you shew your Spirit But for answer Although I know that God is not willing that any should Perish but that all should come to Repentance 2 Pet. 3. 9. 1 Tim. 2. 4. yet I see too much cause to fear that but very few of the many to whom God is so long suffering to lead them to Repentance will consider his Goodness therein And that the far greater part will despise the Riches of God's Goodness and treasure up unto themselves Wrath against the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God. And in this very respect I fear some old Professors such especially as have been Teachers of others and yet have not learned either Civility or Honesty in treating those who differ from them in Opinion As to the Text Mat. 7. 14. blessed be God Infants are in no danger by it they may all be Saved and so the number of the Saved be much the greater by them for seeing they none of them are walking in the Broad-way which leads to Destruction they must needs go the Way which leads to Life Tho as it is a strait way of Faith and Obedience and many Crosses for Christ's sake they can neither seek nor find it yet their Redeemer hath found it for them and has declared their Right to Heaven and will therefore in his own Time and Way bring them to the Enjoyment of that Kingdom which he hath prepared for them as well as others But here also we see you are unkind to many Dying Infants whilst you are sending them to Hell with those who walk in the Broad-way FINIS * It was not the Bp of Norwich for I never saw him nor did I ever dispute any Doctor out of the room as Mr. F. hath both foolishly and falsly reported in Print with no less than six other false and very frivolous Tales in half a Page Dr. Willit Hexap in Gen. p. 196 c. * You bid me understand what that Fallacy Ignoratio Elenchi is and here you are fallen into that Fallacy your self * In the Book of Wisdom we read That Wisdom preserved the first Father of the World and brought him out of his Offence Chap. 10. 1. which is agreeable to the Canonical Scripture Luke 3. 38. because Adam is called the Son of God. Dr. Willit Hexap in Gen. p. 56. See Diodat upon Gen. 17. 14. who is also clear in this Point

knowing this we know our Gracious God will deny them no Supplies which is needful for them If this do not satisfie Mr. F. then let him give some account to the World now he is grown up how the Spirit did work in the business of his Regeneration in his Infancy and if he can give no account of his own Infant-Regeneration then I think it will be hard for him to give it of the manner of the Regeneration of other Infants Mr. Firmin 3. You must demonstrate that tho Infants have not actually sinned against the Covenant of Grace yet they have not unbelief and impenitency seminally which are quite opposite to the Covenant of Grace Answ 1. I conceive nothing can be spoke more irrationally nor unrighteously than to suggest that poor Infants have Unbelief and Impenitency in them And yet so 't is the seeds of those Impieties at least Mr. F. will have to be in them And I demand of him how he knows this And how he can tell when these Sins against the Covenant of Grace are purged from Infants Seeing he has told us they are not holy by their Birth I would know whether they be purged before their Birth or after But let us hear our Saviour's Judgment of little Children which all will grant to be more worth than Mr. Firmin's He speaks of some just Persons which need no Repentance whom he opposes to such as have gone astray I will not presume that this is only meant of Infants to whom our Lord tells us the Kingdom of Heaven belongs but I humbly conceive as it is true of them so it does include them as being of that Number Again He tells us Except we be Converted and become as little Children we cannot see the Kingdom of God. But if Infants be guilty of Vnbelief and Impenitency in such a degree as these Sins in them are quite opposite to the Covenant of Grace we should have but little benefit by such Conversion And thus he reflects upon Christ in his Directions to his Followers as if Christ gave not good Counsel herein St. Paul exhorts Christians as touching Malice to be Children in which Speech he is directly contrary to Mr. F. And St. Peter would have us like new-born Babes i. e. to lay aside all Malice Guile Hypocrisie and evil Speaking But if Unbelief and Impenitency be in them Seminally these Impieties are there also and then they are bad Presidents being as wicked as it is possible for them to be in Mr. F's judgment However Mr. F. is compelled to confess Infants are not guilty of any Actual Sin against the Covenant of Grace And then who made you a Judg of their Hearts Sir Sure this is an Attempt too high for any Man. But I must demonstrate that Infants have not unbelief seminally Well I will plead their Cause as well as I can and I Argue for them thus They who have no object of Faith propounded to them seminally can have no unbelief seminally But Infants have no object of Faith propounded to them seminally Ergo They can have no unbelief seminally If Mr. F. deny the Minor I will hold him to his own Law Affirmanti incumbit probatio If he affirm that Infants have an object of Faith propounded to them seminally let him prove it As for the Major our Saviour's words John 15. 22. do establish it and indeed This is the Condemnation that Light is come and Men love Darkness He that has no Light cannot be blamed because he cannot see Our Lord charges not the sin of Unbelief till means to believe was rejected And will he be more unkind to the Infant than to the grown Person Who can have so vile an opinion of the Almighty But I must demonstrate also that Infants have not Impenitency seminally yea such Impenitency as is quite opposite to the Covenant of Grace Well I reply first by way of Admiration That ever such wild Notions should issue from a Learned Head that so he might have some specious pretence to damn poor Infants But God hath said He will turn the Wisdom of Wise Men backward and make Diviners mad Isa 44. 25. 2. Impenitency supposes the Party charged first to be guilty of some Sin committed or desired or conceived But nothing of this can be justly charged against Infants Consider them acquitted of Original Sin by the Mercy of God in their Redeemer Who shall lay any thing to their charge What have they done Mr. Firmin Do you ask what have they done Did you never see Revenge Wrath Pride Envy Rebellion against and Striking of Parents acting in little Children Answ 1. These are not Infants of Eight days old c. but such who by the ill Example of their Tutors quickly may learn these things Otherwise if the Child thinks it has cause to be Angry and to make Defence it does no more than you will vindicate in your own Cause And why does not Charity make you think the best of Infants seeing you ought to think no evil of the weak actions of grown Persons O thou that canst see such Beams as Revenge Wrath Pride Rebellion c. in the Eyes of poor Infants pluck these Beams out of thine own which evidently are thy Distempers from the Books which thou hast written in which not many Pages are free from Tincture of some of these Diseases But you add Blessed Austin observed a Sucking Child that was not able to articulate one word look with a Countenance even pale with Envy upon his fellow-Suckling which shared with him in the same Milk which made the holy Man cry out Ubi Domine Quando Domine Reply How did Austin know that the Child was pale with Envy Suppose this good Man himself had sat down to Dinner and another snatch it all away from him perhaps he would have look'd Pale also for such we must suppose the Child's case to be when another takes the Breast it thinks all is gone for it yet understands not the Rules of Hospitality or Good-fellowship being unsensible of the others Necessity The poor Child attended its own preservation as Nature taught it a poor ground on which to build so severe a Charge Should the best of God's People be tried how duly they make others sharers in their Blessings who have need of Relief they may perhaps be more justly charged than that Sucking Child Judg no poor Infants lest ye be judged To conclude Seminal Faith Seminal Repentance Seminal Vnbelief and Seminal Impenitency are things of which we have no account in Scripture And though I would not offend Mr. Firmin nor at all disparage his Scholarship which I acknowledg to be abundantly more than mine yet when I consider Learning in Saint Paul's sense 2 Tim. 3. 14. I cannot but think these to be very wild and unlearned Notions which no Man can be assured of nor give a good account that he learned them of any of the Master-Builders the holy Apostles And who ever asserts these things shall never