3. As the actual sin imputed to infants was Adam's, and their parents' only by act, and not their own, it is no wonder if upon their parents' faith and repentance, Christ wash and justify them from that guilt which arose only from another's act.
4. And then the inherent pravity was the effect of that act of their ancestors, which is forgiven them. And this pravity or inherent, original sin may two ways be said to be mortified radically, or virtually, or inceptively before any inherent change in them: 1. In that it is mortified in their parents from whom they derived it, who have the power of choosing for them; and, 2. In that they are by covenant ingrafted into Christ, and so related to the cause of their future sanctification; yea, 3. In that also they are by covenant and their parents' promise, engaged to use those means which Christ hath appointed for sanctification.[286]
5. And it must be remembered that as this is but an inceptive, preparatory change, so the very pardon of the inherent vitiosity is not perfect, (as I have elsewhere largely proved,) however some papists and protestants deny it. While sin remaineth, sin and corruption is still indwelling, besides all the unremoved penalties of it, the very being of it proveth it to be so far unpardoned, in that it is not yet abolished, and the continuance of it being not its smallest punishment, as permitted, and the Spirit not given so far as to cure it. Imperfect pardon may consist with a present right both to further sanctification by the Spirit, and so to heaven.
_Object._ Christ's body hath no unholy members.
_Answ._ 1. 1 Cor. vii. 14, "Now are your children holy." They are not wholly unholy who have all the fore-described holiness. 2. As infants in nature want memory and actual reason, and yet initially are men; so, as Christ's members, they may want actual and habitual faith and love, and yet initially be sanctified, by their union with him and his Spirit, and their parents' dedication, and be in the way for more, as they grow fit; and be christians and saints _in fieri_, or initially only, as they are men.
[281] Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13; Eph. iv. 4, 5.
[282] The Spirit is not given radically or immediately to any christian, but to Christ our Head alone, and from him to us.
[283] Acts xxvi. 8; 2 Tim. iv. 7; Rom. viii. 30; Gal. iv. 6.
[284] Rom. viii. 9, 16, 26.
[285] Mr. Whiston, p. 60, showeth, That even the promises of a new heart, &c. Ezek. xxxvi. xxxvii. &c. though they may run in the external tenor of them absolutely, yet are not absolutely absolute, but have a subordinate condition, and that is, that the parties concerned in them do faithfully use the means appointed of God in a subserviency to his working in or bestowing on them the good promised.
[286] God's being a God to any individual person doth require and presuppose that they do for the present, supposing them capable, or for the future as soon as capable, take God in Christ as their God. Ibid. p. 61.
Quest. XLIII. _Is the right of the baptized (infants or adult) to the sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost, now absolute, or suspended on further conditions? And are the parents' further duties for their children such conditions of their children's reception of the actual assistances of the Spirit? Or are children's own actions such conditions? And may apostate parents forfeit the covenant benefits to their baptized infants or not?_
_Answ._ The question is great and difficult, and few dare meddle with it. And almost all infant cases are to us obscure.
I. 1. It is certain that it is the parents' great duty to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
2. It is certain that God hath appointed this to be the means of their actual knowledge, faith, and holiness.[287]
3. And God doth not appoint such means unnecessarily or in vain: nor may we ordinarily expect his grace but in the use of the means of grace, which he hath appointed us to use.
4. It is certain that God's receiving the children of the faithful, is an act of God's love to the parents as well as the children, and promised as a part of his blessing on themselves.
5. It is certain that these parents hold their own mercies upon the condition of their own continued fidelity: and (let their apostasy be on other reasons never so impossible, or not future, yet) the promise of continuance and consummation of the personal felicity of the greatest saint on earth, is still conditional, upon the condition of his persevering fidelity.
6. Even before children are capable of instruction, there are certain duties imposed by God on the parents for their sanctification; viz. 1. That the parents pray earnestly and believingly for them. 2. That they themselves so live towards God as may invite him still to bless their children for their sakes, as he did Abraham's, and usually did to the faithful's seed.[288]