“The theologians of the Presbyterian Church believed that all men, infants as well as adults, were in a state of sin. They believed that in Adam all men sinned and fell, so that they came into the world under condemnation, being born the children of wrath, who derived from Adam a nature not merely diseased, weakened, or predisposed to evil, but one which was ‘itself,’ as well as ‘all the motions thereof,’ ‘truly and properly sin.’

These theologians acknowledged that by this innate, hereditary, moral depravity men were ‘altogether indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good; so that their ability to do good works is not all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.’

Infants too were lost members of a lost race, and only those savingly united to Christ were saved. Infants needed salvation because they were really ‘culpable and punishable.’ It was fundamental to this very conception of Christianity that it was a remedial scheme. ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ That infants were admitted to this redemption was not questioned. The salvation of an infant was an act of unobliged and unmerited grace — just as that of an adult.” — Lewis B. Schenck, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant (1940), p. 116