§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 557
election alone, wliicli may work regeneration without baptism, as in the case of the Old Testament saints and the thief on the cross. We are made children of God by faith and not by baptism, which onl}- recognizes the fact. Calvin makes sure the salvation of all elect children, whether baptized or not. This is a great gain. In order to extend election beyond the limits of the visible means of grace, he departed from the pati'istic and scholastic interpretation of John 3 : 5, that " water " means the sacrament of baptism, as a necessary condition of entrance into the kingdom of God. He thinks that a reference to Christian baptism before it was instituted Avould have been untimely and unintelligible to Nicodemus. He, therefore, connects water and Spirit into one idea of purification and regeneration by the Spirit.^
Whatever be the meaning of " water," Christ cannot here refer to infants, nor to such adults as are beyond the reach of the bajjtismal ordinance. He said of children, as a class, without au}^ reference to baptism or circumcision : " Of such is the kingdom of God." A word of unspeakable comfort to bereaved parents. And to make it still stronger, he said: "It is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish" (Matt. 18:14). These declarations of our Saviour, wliich must decide the whole question, seem to justify the inference that all children who die before having committed any actual transgression, are included in the decree of election. They are born into an economy of salvation, and their early death may be considered as a sign of gracious election.
But Calvin did not go so far. On the contrary, he inti-
1 "Aqua nihil aliud est r/iium interior Spiritus Sancti purgatio et vegetatio." Com. in loco. He takes /cat epexegetically and lays the stress on -nviv/xa, which alone is mentioned in the following verses, 6 and 8. Similarly Grotius : " Spiritus aquceus, i.e. aquce instar emundaus." But the natural reference is to baptismal water, as the symbol of purification and remission of sins. Conip. Jolm 1 : 33; Tit. 3:5; Eph. 5 : 20. The different interpretations arc discussed at lengtli in Scliaff's ed. of Lange's Comin. on John, pp. 126 sqq.
558 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
mates very clearly that there are reprohate or non-elect children as well as reprobate adults. He says that ''some infants," having been previously regenerated by the Holy Spirit, "are certainly saved," but he nowhere says that all infants are saved.^ In his comments on Rom. 5 : 17, he confines salvation to the infants of pious (elect) parents, but leaves the fate of the rest more than doubtful.^ Arguing with Catholic advocates of free-will, who yet admitted the damnation of unbaptized infants, he asks them to explain in any other way but by the mysterious will of God, the terrible fact " that the fall of Adam, independent of any remedy, should involve so many 7iations ivith their irifant children in eternal death. Their tongues so loquacious on every other point must here be struck dumb."^
1 List. bk. IV. ch. XVI. 17 : "Infantes, qui servandi sint — ttt certe ex ea >«TATE OMNiN'O ALiQUi SERVANTL'R — aiiteu a Domino regenerari minime obscurum est." This was the doctrine of the Westminster divines, and is expressed in the Westminster Confession, cli. X. 3: "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and wliere, and how he pleaseth." Although this passage admits of a liberal construction, yet the natural sense, as interpreted by the private opinions of the framers of the Confession, makes it almost certain that the existence and damnation of non-elect infants is implied. The Presbyterian Revisionists, therefore, wishing to avoid this logical implication, propose to strike out elect, or to substitute all for it (as the Cumberland Presbyterians have done in their Confession). The change will be acted upon by the General Assembly in May, 1892.
^ " De piorum liberis loquor, ad qiios promissio gratue dirigitur ; nam alii a communi sorte nequaquam e.rimuntur."
^ " Tot gentes una cum liberis eoriim infantibus." Inst. III. ch. XXIII. § 7. To this should be added the challenge to Castellio : " Put forth now thy virulence against God, who hurls innocent babes even from their mothers' breast into eternal death." Calvin here argues e concessis. The passage has been often distorted. We give it in Latin with the connection {Opera, IX. 289) : " Negas Deo licere nisi propter facinus damnare quenquam mortalium. Tolluntur e vita innumeri adhuc infantes. Exsere nunc tuam virulentiam contra Deum, qui innoxios foetus a matrum uberibus avulsos in ceternam mortem prcecipitat. Ilanc blasphemiam, ubi jialam detecta est, quisquis non detestabitur, mihi pro sua libidine maledicat." In the same way he challenges Castellio (fol. 289), to explain the admitted fact, that God allows innocent infants to be devoured by tigers or lions or bears or wolves {" qui Jit ut Dens parvulos infantes a tigribus vel ursis vel leonibus vel hipis laniari vorarique sineat"). The attempt of Dr. Shields of