John Murray (like MANY other Calvinist-Reformed persons) making exceptions to the Romans 1:16 and Mark 16:16 rule, thus DENYING that the gospel is the power of God to salvation to EVERYONE BELIEVING:
"The priority of regeneration and the fact that it must not be separated from faith must be borne in mind even in the case of regenerate infants. In the nature of the case the infant is incapable of that conscious and intelligent activity in terms of which we must define faith and repentance. But where regeneration takes place in the case of an infant there is the immediate transition from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God, and even though intelligent faith cannot be in exercise, nevertheless there is that which we may and must call the germ of faith" (John Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, pp. 199-200; underlining mine).
WHY "may and must" we go along with Murray's insidious, gospel-denying ipse dixit?
Murray continues:
"It is impossible for us to determine the extent to which regeneration affects the rudimentary consciousness of the infant, but it must affect that rudimentary consciousness just as radically as sin does. If infants are depraved they may also be holy. The regenerate infant is in this respect radically different from the unregenerate infant. The regenerate infant is not under the dominion of sin, is not a child of wrath, but a child of God and a member of his kingdom. He grows up in the nurture of the Lord in the highest sense of that term. It will take years, of course, for the infant concerned to arrive at explicit consciousness of the implications of that regeneration and of the salvation it involves. But it is a fact that makes a radical difference in the developing or unfolding consciousness of the infant.
... When the infant is regenerated, that infant is converted in the sense that there occurs in the infant mind something which in the rudimentary sphere corresponds to conversion, that is to say, the direction in which the heart and mind -- germinal and rudimentary though they be -- are turned towards God, towards faith in him, love and obedience to him" (John Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, p. 200; underlining mine).
