T

infants are sinners, or that any degree of unpardoned sin is sufficient to ruin the soul. But since the means of pardon have been provided by the death of Christ, the solitary cause assigned by the Bible for the perdition of any is, unbelieving rejection of the Gospel. “This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." And such is the whole tenor of the New Testament. Believe and live; reject and be lost; this is the alternative which constitutes the whole burthen of the Gospel message. Now it is manifest that infants are morally incapable of rejecting the gospel, and are, therefore, not involved in that condemnation which is affixed to this sin alone.

But, perhaps it is objected that faith is the only condition of salvation, and if infants are incapable of rejecting the gospel, so also are they incapable of accepting it. To this we answer, that faith is not the only nor principal condition of salvation. It was first and most of all needful that Christ should make atonement, in order that man might be saved; and, indispensable as is faith to those who are capable of exercising it, it is not to be supposed that it is essential to the salvation of those who die before the years of accountability. Though infants are totally incapable of receiving the gospel as accountable man receives it, it does not therefore follow that they are altogether excluded from the benefits of Christ's sacrificial death. God requires of his creatures, "according to that they have, and not according to that they have not;" and our Lord plainly implies that any other principle would be manifestly unjust. Under His moral government, it cannot be that all the conditions of salvation which are demanded of responsible agents are required of unconscious babes The first and principal condition of human-recovery from the fall has been met in Christ, and inasmuch as faith is impossible to infants, it is fair to suppose that it is not required of them; and the fact that they are unable to commit that actual sin upon which condemnation is predicated, if it does not establish their salva

tion, goes very far in encouraging such a belief. Our argument is, that, however it might have been if no acceptable ransom had been provided, since this unspeakable deed of love, irresponsible babes do not and cannot, as such, bring themselves under condemnation.

Moreover, the resurrection of the bodies of infants affords a strong presumption of the salvation of their souls. It is the explicit declaration of Scripture that "all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth." In the sublime and troubled tragedies of the Apocalypse, John "saw the dead, small and great, standing before God." From these and similar passages it is abundantly evident that the resurrection trumpet shall break the slumbers of uncomputed millions, who fell into the grave in the fresh morning of their life. Now what is the object of the resurrection of this mighty host of the infant dead? Surely not that they may be judged, for judgment proceeds upon the supposition of responsible action, and of this infants are incapable. The Bible teaches us that the awards of the great assize will be distributed according to the deeds done in the body, but in the case of those we are now considering, there have been no moral deeds. Infants are not raised to be consigned to endless punishment, for we have before seen that they can never commit the sin against which this nameless curse has been denounced. There is, therefore, strong reason to believe that they are raised to spend an eternity in God's "presence where there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand where there are pleasures for evermore."

We have now seen that the salvation of all who die in infancy is rendered probable —first, by their inability to commit actual sin against which perdition is denounced, and second, by their resurrection. To render this probability a certainty, nothing now is needed more than to meet the charge that they perish because of original sin. If the early dead are lost, it is not because of actual transgression; for the very thing taken for granted throughout this article is, that they die before the dawn of moral responsibility. If they finally perish, it must, therefore, be because of their guilty nature.

-

But our third argument is based upon the fact that the Scriptures teach that the guilt entailed upon the race by the first Adam, for those who die in infancy, was removed by the atoning death of the Second. In the fifth chapter of his "Letter to the Romans," Paul announces two truths which have a direct and important bearing upon this point. First, we are assured that before the law "from Adam to Moses" "death reigned over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Now of whom does the apostle hold this language? Not the heathen, for, like Adam, they have been guilty of actual transgression. Not Christians, for, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Of all the generations of men, there is but one class who have broken no known requirement, and therefore have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, and that is infants. That in all past time death has reigned over these, is a fact too notorious to need proof.

The second truth here stated by the apostle is, that "if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many."

These two truths are connected by the statement that Adam was a type of Christ; and the whole parenthesis, extending from the thirteenth to the eighteenth verse, applies to those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," and affirms that the blessings of the atonement are exactly commensurate with the evils of Adam's sin.

Now, putting these truths together, the whole passage teaches that, just as the penalty of the first sin passes upon infants, destitute of actual transgression, much more-not as actors, but as subjects-are they partakers of the grace of God, and the gift by grace. By no effort of their own they became the heirs of death; and by an act of sovereign clemency they are made the heirs of life. Christ's righteousness, like Adam's sin, is transmitted to irresponsible babes, entirely irrespective of personal moral action. The turpitude of the first transgression, for all the early dead, is taken away by the merits of the only Saviour. Irrespective of personal

demerit, the first Adain brought sin and death upon every new-born infant; irrespective of personal merit, the second Adam shields those hapless babes with his own glorious righteousness. Dying in infancy, they die because Adam sinned; living in eternity, they live because Christ hath died. For them, whatever original sin may be—whether a leprous taint in the very nature, or only a bias to evil-it is cleansed away by the blood of Christ. Since Jesus hath died, it is nowhere intimated in the Scriptures that original sin alone will occasion the ruin of the soul; while, on the other hand, the passage we have just considered teaches, as we believe, that the effect of Adam's sin, for all who are free from personal transgression, is taken away by Christ. How, then, can the early dead be lost? They sink, not into the tomb of Adam, dark and silent, but into the new tomb of Jesus, radiant with hope, and vocal with the song of triumph. They enter heaven, not on account of the piety of their ancestry, not through the cleansing power of any outward rite, not because they are innocent; but they crowd the mansions of the blessed, and rain their crowns of life at Jesus' feet to sing, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever."

To the correctness of this view the contrasted emotions of David at the death of Absalom and that of the child of Uriah's wife, furnish a strong proof. When his adult son sank as the victim of his own wicked folly, the grief of David was inconsolable. The great deep of his nature was broken up, and, in the bitterness of his soul, he cried, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" But when his infant child was taken away, he "arose from the earth and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped. Then he came to his own house, and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat." the bold and striking contrast in his occasions? David has furnished the

What is the secret of conduct on these two answer: "While the

child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Surely David could not have believed that his child was eternally lost; for what consolation was there in the expectation of a similar doom soon to rest upon himself? He could not have meant, as some would have us think, 'he is gone to the grave, and I shall soon follow him; for how, then, with a tranquil heart and a cheerful countenance, could he have gone to the house of the Lord and worshipped? No: David's deep and full-souled comfort arose from the conviction that his child was safe; and that when his own immortal, soaring spirit should leap from its earthly tenement, he would meet and spend an eternity with that child, beyond the reach of grief and death. Of the abandoned Absalom he could cherish no such hope. He had gone down to the grave with actual and unrepented guilt. While, therefore, he could regard the death of his infant child with composure, that of his adult and wicked son filled his soul with unspeakable grief and alarm.

And it is especially worthy of notice, that the very case in which David expressed so strong a belief in the safety of a departed infant soul, was one in which, if ever, the iniquities of a parent would rest upon his child. Here was an infant whose very birth was connected with a series of base and revolting crimes; and if God will ever visit hereafter the sins of a father upon his children, surely he would have done so with the child of Uriah's wife. Yet these sins of the father, great as they were, deeply as they were felt, clouded not his assurance of the future security of his babe. David's sins were visited upon his child in this life, but, speaking under the guidance of Inspiration, he affirmed his salvation in the next. The unerring Spirit of God gave to him the solacing asurance that he should meet his little one in heaven.

From these considerations we must believe that all the infant dead are saved by the merits of Christ. As before observed, the Scriptural allusions to this subject are purely