Chapter XXXIV: Section VII: The Salvation Of Infants

The views which have been presented with regard to inborn depravity and the reaction of divine holiness against it suggest the question whether infants dying before arriving at moral consciousness are saved, and if so, in what way. To this question we reply as follows:

(_a_) Infants are in a state of sin, need to be regenerated, and can be saved only through Christ.

_Job 14:4_—“_Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not
one_”; _Ps. 51:5_—“_Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And
in sin did my mother conceive me_”; _John 3:6_—“_That which is
born of the flesh is flesh_”; _Rom. 5:14_—“_Nevertheless death
reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the likeness of Adam’s transgression_”; _Eph. 2:3_—“_by
nature children of wrath_”; _1 Cor. 7:14_—“_else were your
children unclean_”—clearly intimate the naturally impure state of
infants; and _Mat. 19:14_—“_Suffer the little children, and forbid
them not, to come unto me_”—is not only consistent with this
doctrine, but strongly confirms it; for the meaning is: “_forbid
them not to come unto me_”—whom they need as a Savior. “Coming to
Christ” is always the coming of a sinner, to him who is the
sacrifice for sin; _cf._ _Mat. 11:28_—“_Come unto me, all ye that
labor._”

(_b_) Yet as compared with those who have personally transgressed, they are recognized as possessed of a relative innocence, and of a submissiveness and trustfulness, which may serve to illustrate the graces of Christian character.

_Deut 1:39_—“_your little ones ... and your children, that this
day have no knowledge of good or evil_”; _Jonah 4:11_—“_sixscore
thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and
their left hand_”; _Rom. 9:11_—“_for the children being not yet
born, neither having done anything good or bad_”; _Mat. 18:3,
4_—“_Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall
humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven._” See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:265.
Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:50—“Unpretentious receptivity, ... not
the reception of the kingdom of God at a childlike _age_, but in a
childlike _character_ ... is the condition of entering; ... not
blamelessness, but receptivity itself, on the part of those who do
not regard themselves as too good or too bad for the offered gift,
but receive it with hearty desire. Children have this
unpretentious receptivity for the kingdom of God which is
characteristic of them generally, since they have not yet other
possessions on which they pride themselves.”

(_c_) For this reason, they are the objects of special divine compassion and care, and through the grace of Christ are certain of salvation.

_Mat. 18:5, 6, 10, 14_—“_whoso shall receive one such little child
in my name receiveth me: but whoso shall cause one of these little
ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that
a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he
should be sunk in the depth of the sea.... See that ye despise not
one of these little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven....
Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that
one of these little ones should perish_”; _19:14_—“_Suffer the
little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such
belongeth the kingdom of heaven_”—not God’s kingdom of nature, but
his kingdom of grace, the kingdom of saved sinners. “Such” means,
not children as children, but childlike believers. Meyer, on _Mat.
19:14_, refers the passage to spiritual infants only: “Not little
children,” he says, “but men of a childlike disposition.” Geikie:
“Let the little children come unto me, and do not forbid them, for
the kingdom of heaven is given only to such as have a childlike
spirit and nature like theirs.” The Savior’s words do not intimate
that little children are either (1) sinless creatures, or (2)
subjects for baptism; but only that their (1) humble
teachableness, (2) intense eagerness, and (3) artless trust,
illustrate the traits necessary for admission into the divine
kingdom. On the passages in Matthew, see Commentaries of Bengel,
De Wette, Lange; also Neander, Planting and Training (ed.
Robinson), 407.

We therefore substantially agree with Dr. A. C. Kendrick, in his
article in the Sunday School Times: “To infants and children, as
such, the language cannot apply. It must be taken figuratively,
and must refer to those qualities in childhood, its dependence,
its trustfulness, its tender affection, its loving obedience,
which are typical of the essential Christian graces.... If asked
after the _logic_ of our Savior’s words—how he could assign, as a
reason for allowing _literal_ little children to be brought to
him, that _spiritual_ little children have a claim to the kingdom
of heaven—I reply: the persons that thus, as a class, typify the
subjects of God’s spiritual kingdom cannot be in themselves
objects of indifference to him, or be regarded otherwise than with
intense interest.... The class that in its very nature thus
shadows forth the brightest features of Christian excellence must
be subjects of God’s special concern and care.”

To these remarks of Dr. Kendrick we would add, that Jesus’ words
seem to us to intimate more than special concern and care. While
these words seem intended to exclude all idea that infants are
saved by their natural holiness, or without application to them of
the blessings of his atonement, they also seem to us to include
infants among the number of those who have the right to these
blessings; in other words, Christ’s concern and care go so far as
to choose infants to eternal life, and to make them subjects of
the kingdom of heaven. _Cf._ _Mat. 18:14_—“_it is not the will of
your Father who is in heaven, that one of those little ones should
perish_”—those whom Christ has received here, he will not reject
hereafter. Of course this to said to infants, as infants. To
those, therefore, who die before coming to moral consciousness,
Christ’s words assure salvation. Personal transgression, however,
involves the necessity, before death, of a personal repentance and
faith, in order to achieve salvation.

(_d_) The descriptions of God’s merciful provision as coëxtensive with the ruin of the Fall also lead us to believe that those who die in infancy receive salvation through Christ as certainly as they inherit sin from Adam.

_John 3:16_—“_For God so loved the world_”—includes infants. _Rom.
5:14_—“_death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that
had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is
a figure of him that was to come_”—there is an application to
infants of the life in Christ, as there was an application to them
of the death in Adam; _19-21_—“_For as through the one man’s
disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the
obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law
came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but when sin
abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned
in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord_”—as without personal
act of theirs infants inherited corruption from Adam, so without
personal act of theirs salvation is provided for them in Christ.

Hovey, Bib. Eschatology, 170, 171—“Though the sacred writers say
nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in
infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a
favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout
father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those
who die before they are able to discern good from evil is
surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of
God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in
infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of
being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that
they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his
Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be
found with the saints.” David ceased to fast and weep when his
child died, for he said: “_I shall go to him, but he will not
return to me_” (_2 Sam. 12:23_).

(_e_) The condition of salvation for adults is personal faith. Infants are incapable of fulfilling this condition. Since Christ has died for all, we have reason to believe that provision is made for their reception of Christ in some other way.

_2 Cor. 5:15_—“_he died for all_”; _Mark 16:16_—“_He that
believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth
shall be condemned_” (_verses 9-20_ are of canonical authority,
though probably not written by Mark). Dr. G. W. Northrop held
that, as death to the Christian has ceased to be penalty, so death
to all infants is no longer penalty, Christ having atoned for and
removed the guilt of original sin for all men, infants included.
But we reply that there is no evidence that there is any guilt
taken away except for those who come into vital union with Christ.
E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 166—“The curse falls alike on
every one by birth, but may be alleviated or intensified by every
one who comes to years of responsibility, according as his nature
which brings the curse rules, or is ruled by, his reason and
conscience. So the blessings of salvation are procured for all
alike, but may be lost or secured according to the attitude of
everyone toward Christ who alone procures them. To infants, as the
curse comes without their election, so in like manner comes its
removal.”

(_f_) At the final judgment, personal conduct is made the test of character. But infants are incapable of personal transgression. We have reason, therefore, to believe that they will be among the saved, since this rule of decision will not apply to them.

_Mat. 25:45, 46_—“_Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these
least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal
punishment_”; _Rom. 2:5, 6_—“_the day of wrath and revelation of
the righteous judgment of God; who __ will render to every man
according to his works._” Norman Fox, The Unfolding of Baptist
Doctrine, 24—“Not only the Roman Catholics believed in the
damnation of infants. The Lutherans, in the Augsburg Confession,
condemn the Baptists for affirming that children are saved without
baptism—‘damnant Anabaptistas qui ... affirmant pueros sine
baptismo salvos fieri’—and the favorite poet of Presbyterian
Scotland, in his Tam O’Shanter, names among objects from hell ‘Twa
span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns.’ The Westminster Confession,
in declaring that ‘elect infants dying in infancy’ are saved,
implies that non-elect infants dying in infancy are lost. This was
certainly taught by some of the framers of that creed.”

Yet John Calvin did not believe in the damnation of infants, as he
has been charged with believing. In the Amsterdam edition of his
works, 8:522, we read: “I do not doubt that the infants whom the
Lord gathers together from this life are regenerated by a secret
operation of the Holy Spirit.” In his Institutes, book 4, chap.
16, p. 335, he speaks of the exemption of infants from the grace
of salvation “as an idea not free from execrable blasphemy.” The
Presb. and Ref. Rev., Oct. 1890:634-651, quotes Calvin as follows:
“I everywhere teach that no one can be justly condemned and perish
except on account of actual sin; and to say that the countless
mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from
their mothers’ arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be
universally detested.” So also John Owen, Works, 8:522—“There are
two ways by which God saveth infants. First, by interesting them
in the covenant, if their immediate or remote parents have been
believers; ... Secondly, by his grace of election, which is most
free and not tied to any conditions; by which I make no doubt but
God taketh unto him in Christ many whose parents never knew, or
were despisers of, the gospel.”

(_g_) Since there is no evidence that children dying in infancy are regenerated prior to death, either with or without the use of external means, it seems most probable that the work of regeneration may be performed by the Spirit in connection with the infant soul’s first view of Christ in the other world. As the remains of natural depravity in the Christian are eradicated, not by death, but at death, through the sight of Christ and union with him, so the first moment of consciousness for the infant may be coincident with a view of Christ the Savior which accomplishes the entire sanctification of its nature.

_2 Cor. 3:18_—“_But we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as from the Lord the Spirit_”; _1 John 3:2_—“_We know that,
if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see
him as he is._” If asked why more is not said upon the subject in
Scripture, we reply: It is according to the analogy of God’s
general method to hide things that are not of immediate practical
value. In some past ages, moreover, knowledge of the fact that all
children dying in infancy are saved might have seemed to make
infanticide a virtue.

While we agree with the following writers as to the salvation of
all infants who die before the age of conscious and wilful
transgression, we dissent from the seemingly Arminian tendency of
the explanation which they suggest. H. E. Robins, Harmony of
Ethics with Theology: “The judicial declaration of acquittal on
the ground of the death of Christ which comes upon all men, into
the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is
inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification
through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of
this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of
those who are lost.” So William Ashmore, in Christian Review,
26:245-264. F. O. Dickey: “As infants are members of the race, and
as they are justified from the penalty against inherited sin by
the mediatorial work of Christ, so the race itself is justified
from the same penalty and to the same extent as are they, and were
the race to die in infancy it would be saved.” The truth in the
above utterances seems to us to be that Christ’s union with the
race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God. But
subjective and personal reconciliation depends upon a moral union
with Christ which can be accomplished for the infant only by his
own appropriation of Christ at death.

While, in the nature of things and by the express declarations of Scripture, we are precluded from extending this doctrine of regeneration at death to any who have committed personal sins, we are nevertheless warranted in the conclusion that, certain and great as is the guilt of original sin, no human soul is eternally condemned solely for this sin of nature, but that, on the other hand, all who have not consciously and wilfully transgressed are made partakers of Christ’s salvation.

The advocates of a second probation, on the other hand, should
logically hold that infants in the next world are in a state of
sin, and that at death they only enter upon a period of probation
in which they may, or may not, accept Christ,—a doctrine much less
comforting than that propounded above. See Prentiss, in Presb.
Rev., July, 1883: 548-580—“Lyman Beecher and Charles Hodge first
made current in this country the doctrine of the salvation of all
who die in infancy. If this doctrine be accepted, then it follows:
(1) that these partakers of original sin must be saved wholly
through divine grace and power; (2) that in the child unborn there
is the promise and potency of complete spiritual manhood; (3) that
salvation is possible entirely apart from the visible church and
the means of grace; (4) that to a full half of the race this life
is not in any way a period of probation; (5) that heathen may be
saved who have never even heard of the gospel; (6) that the
providence of God includes in its scope both infants and heathen.”

“Children exert a redeeming and reclaiming influence upon us,
their casual acts and words and simple trust recalling our
world-hardened and wayward hearts again to the feet of God. Silas
Marner, the old weaver of Raveloe, so pathetically and vividly
described in George Eliot’s novel, was a hard, desolate, godless
old miser, but after little Eppie strayed into his miserable
cottage that memorable winter night, he began again to believe. ‘I
think now,’ he said at last, ‘I can trusten God until I die.’ An
incident in a Southern hospital illustrates the power of children
to call men to repentance. A little girl was to undergo a
dangerous operation. When she mounted the table, and the doctor
was about to etherize her, he said: ‘Before we can make you well,
we must put you to sleep.’ ‘Oh then, if you are going to put me to
sleep,’ she sweetly said, ‘I must say my prayers first.’ Then,
getting down on her knees, and folding her hands, she repeated
that lovely prayer learned at every true mother’s feet: ‘Now I lay
me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’ Just for a
moment there were moist eyes in that group, for deep chords were
touched, and the surgeon afterwards said: ‘I prayed that night for
the first time in thirty years.’ ” The child that is old enough to
sin against God is old enough to trust in Christ as the Savior of
sinners. See Van Dyke, Christ and Little Children; Whitsitt and
Warfield, Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation; Hodge, Syst.
Theol., 1:26, 27; Ridgeley, Body of Div., 1:422-425; Calvin,
Institutes, II, i, 8; Westminster Larger Catechism, x, 3; Krauth,
Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System; Candlish on Atonement,
part ii, chap. 1; Geo. P. Fisher, in New Englander, Apr. 1868:338;
J. F. Clarke, Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy, 360.