administered to all infants, the reprobate as well as the elect, to Esau, whom he hated in his mother's womb, as well as to Jacob, whom he loved before he was born.'

"Zanchius. In the Confession of the Church of Strasbourg, 1539, in Article XVIII., the preachers are admonished that they baptize no one, except this sentence be either expressed or understood: I baptize this person, O God, in accordance with thy election, and the purpose of thy will.' Hence, Zanchius, as quoted by the same author,1 makes this affirmation: "We believe that elect infants, when they are baptized, are not baptized with water alone, but are endowed also with the spirit of regeneration." So outside of the Institutes evidence is not wanting to prove that Calvin believed that some infants dying in infancy are reprobated to eternal misery, and that many of his contemporaries believed the same doctrine.

I

Friedrich Spanheim (1632-1701) studied

* Ibid., p. 27.

theology and philosophy at Leyden, and was appointed professor of theology at Heidelberg in 1655, and at Leyden in 1670. "He wrote a defense of Calvin against Descartes and Cocceius." He is quoted by Dr. Warfield as saying: "Confessedly, therefore, original sin is a most just cause of positive reprobation. Hence no one fails to see what we should think concerning the children of pagans dying in their childhood; for unless we acknowledge salvation outside of God's covenant and Church, . . . and suppose that all the children of the heathen dying in infancy are saved, and that it would be a great blessing to them if they should be smothered by the mid-wives or strangled in the cradle, we should humbly believe that they are justly reprobated by God on account of the corruption (labes) and guilt (reatus) derived to them by natural propagation. Hence, too, Paul testifies (Romans v. 14) that death has

'Development of the Doctrine of Infant Salvation, p. 41.

passed upon them which have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, and distinguishes and separates (1 Corinthians vii. 14) the children of the covenanted as holy from the impure children of unbelievers."

VI.

The Synod of Dort.

The Synod of Dort was held in 1618-19. The causes leading to the convening of this synod are set forth by Dr. John Henry Kurtz as follows: "Calvin's dogma of absolute predestination (which even the German Reformed Church evaded, or softened down), produced in the Netherlands a passionate controversy, which ended in the split of the Netherland Reformed Church. In the 16th century, already, the milder view of the infralapsarians, who held that the act of predestination followed the fall, was set up in opposition to that of the stricter Calvinists, who maintained that God had passed that act, before the fall, and who were therefore called supralapsarians. Drawn into this controversy, James Arminius, professor in Leyden since 1603, became more and more convinced, that the

'Church History, Vol. II., pp. 210, 211.

dogma of an absolute predestination was anti-scriptural, but then wandered into Pelagian paths. His colleague, Francis Gomarus, violently opposed him. The conflict soon became so bitter and general that the Holland States supposed they would have to interfere. A religious colloquy proved the more fruitless, as Arminius died during its progress (1609). The States, favoring the Arminians, declared the differences non-essential, and enjoined peace. Simon Episcopius, from 1611 professor in Leyden, placed himself at the head of the Arminian party. But as the Arminians were continually reproached and assailed by the Gomarists as Pelagians, they laid a Remonstrance before the States (1610), which, in five articles, set forth a carefully restricted semi-pelagianism. Thenceforth they were called Remonstrants, their opponents Contra-Remonstrants. There were influential men on the side of the Arminians, including the syndic Oldenbarneveld, and Hugo Grotius, distinguished as a jurist,