to decide on their condition in a future world. In the hands of divine mercy I leave them, and bow in submissive silence. That infants in this sense are depraved, I argue, [1.] From the fact already established, that in all ages and nations, without a single exception, they do sin when they arrive at years of discretion. This furnishes the same evidence that they are born with a bent to evil, that is furnished by the universal propensity of lions to feed on flesh, that they are born with a carnivorous nature. I argue this, [2.] From the sufferings and death of infants. If it be said that the sufferings and death of brutes furnish the same evidence of their depravity, I admit that the groans of the irrational creation, as well as the briers and thistles of the ground, prove that the nature of all things is marred by the fall of man. But for this, no animals would have been carnivorous, none poisonous, none resentful.* The fall of man, though it could not infect brutes with moral depravity, has occasioned a real depravation of their nature. No animals are found, if possessed of sufficient vigour, which are not capable of bitter animosity. I am willing to regard the sufferings of the irrational tribes as a publick token of the depravation of their nature; and must by analogy regard the sufferings and death of infants as a token of the depravity of a nature created for moral action. *Isai. xi. 6-9. and lxv. 25. In regard to mankind, it is a fundamental maxim of divine government that "the curse causeless shall not come." "Whoever perished being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?"* I forbear to insist on the several recorded instances of the destruction of infants expressly in token of God's displeasure against sin, as at the time of the flood, the burning of Sodom, (which ten righteous persons would have saved,†) the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, of Achan, of the nations of Canaan, of Jerusalem, of Babylon ; as also the express command, in several instances, to destroy infants with their parents as a punishment for sin. I forbear to insist on these; for in that memorable passage in the 5th of Romans, the apostle appears to have settled the point that death comes upon the whole human race, (not as it does on beasts,) in consequence of their sin, of nature or practice. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." His argument rests on the principle that among the human race, (not among brutes,) the empire of sin and that of death are coextensive. If in subsequent verses he makes the visible ground of the death of infants to be the * Job iv. 7. Prov. xxvi. 2. † Gen. xviii. 32. + Exod. xii. 29. Numb. xvi. 27-33. Deut. ii. 34. and iii. 6. and vii. 2. and xxxii. 25. Josh. vii. 24, 25. Isai. xiii. 18. Jer. ix. 21. and xliv. 7. Lam. ii. 11, 19, 20. and iv. 4, 10. § Num. xxxi. 17. 1 Sam. xv. 3. Ezek. ix. 6. publick sin of Adam, (a point which I freely concede,) I hope to show hereafter that for the posterity of Adam to suffer any evil on account of his sin, is itself a sufficient proof that they partake of his depravity. I argue the depravity of infants, [3.] From their need of a Saviour, and from their being brought to a Saviour in baptism. "We thus judge that if One died for all, then were all dead, and that He died for all."* If infants are saved by Christ, certainly they are sinners, (in the sense already explained,) for He came to save none but sinners. "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."+ Whoever is entitled to heaven by law cannot be saved by grace. But if infants are not saved by grace, and by Christ, why bring them to Him in baptism, and fix upon them the seal of the covenant of grace? If they are pure, why sprinkle them with water as if they were unclean? Why was an ordinance instituted to set forth their need of purification? If children are spotless, infant baptism is a jest. But their depravity is settled, [4.] By express declarations of Scripture. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” "What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous?" "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" "How can he be clean that is born of a woman?" "The 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. Mat. ix. 12, 13. wicked are estranged from the womb; they go as tray as soon as they be born." "I knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." bound in the heart of a child." "Foolishness is "For the imagi nation of man's heart is evil from his youth." "The children of Israel-have only done evil be.. fore me from their youth." "As for thy nativity, [alluding to the pollution and ruin accompanying the first birth, and the remedy provided by divine mercy,] in the day thou wast born-thou [wast not] washed in water, but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live: yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live." "That which is born of flesh is flesh," is carnal. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him." "Among whom we all had our conversation, and were by nature children of wrath even as others."* Now if all mankind are born depraved, there is the same evidence that depravity is propagated from father to son, through all generations, as that speech, or reason, or any of the natural affections are, (though in a sense entirely compatible with * Gen. viii. 21. Job xiv. 4. and xv. 14. and xxv. 4. lviii. 3. Prov. xxii. 15. Isai. xlviii. 8. Jer. xxxii. 30. 5. John iii. 6. 1 Cor. ii. 14. Eph. ii. 3. Ps. li. 5. and blame,) and so is to be traced back, equally with them, to the original parent. But if on the other hand infants receive their whole nature from their parents pure,-if when they leave the duct through which all properties are conveyed from ancestors, they are infected with no depravity, it is plain that they never derive a taint of moral pollution from Adam. There can be no conveyance after they are born, and his sin was in no sense the occasion of the universal depravity of the world, otherwise than merely as the first example. These two points, the depravity of infants and the derivation of sin from Adam, stand or fall together. Either infants are born depraved, (just as they are born with the faculties of reason and speech, and with the instincts on which are founded the natural affections,) or the universal depravity of man no more follows from the sin of Adam than from the sin of Noah. I prove the derivation of sin from Adam, (3.) From the fact that we are involved by him in condemnation and punishment. In condemnation at least to temporal evils. That all the temporal evils pronounced upon our first parents, the toil and trouble, the thorns and thistles, the state of female subjection, the pains of child-birth, and death itself, do in fact come upon their posterity, not casually, but according to the original sentence, is so evident that it is not denied. Just cast your eyes however on the following texts: "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to |