Confessional whether they are baptized or not,
Statements, whether pagan or Christian; and,
further, that all who die in infancy are
elect, since their early death is a token of God's
peculiar mercy, and therefore of their salvation.
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Infallibility of the Popa Inge
Luther, on the other hand, taught the necessity of baptism to salvation; and this doctrine is part of the Lutheran creed, involving baptismal regeneration. Calvin held to election in regard to infants, and speaks thus:
"As to infants, they seem to perish, not by their own fault, but by the fault of another. But there is a double solution. Though sin does not yet appear in them, yet it is latent; for they bear corruption shut up in the soul, so that before God they are damnable." " That infants who are to be saved (as, certainly, out of that age some are saved) must be previously regenerated by the Lord is clear." — Institutes, iv., xvi. 17.
This doctrine of infant salvation through election is expressed in the Calvinistic symbols. The Canons of the Synod of Dort (1619) declare:
" Since we are to judge of the will of God from his word (which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended), godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy." — First Head of Doctrine, art. xvii.
And the Westminster Confession (1648) :
" The grace promised [in baptism] is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time." — xxxviii. 6. " Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth." — x. 3.
But the Second Scotch Confession (1580) says:
" We abhor and detest . his [the pope's] cruel judgment against infants dying without baptism." — Cf. Schaff, Creeds, vol. hi., p. 482.
Since Calvinists distinguish between elect and non-elect infants, it is not strange that some of their theologians have spoken of elect and reprobate infants. Thus Musculus says:
" Since, therefore, this discrimination of elect and reprobate in new-born infants is hidden from our judgment, it is not fitting that we should inquire into it, lest by ignorance we reject vessels of grace." — Loci communes, 336.
And the Swiss theologians at the Synod of Dort said:
" That there is an election and reprobation of infants, no less than of adults, we can not deny in the face of God, who loves and hates unborn children." — Acta synod. Dort. judic. 40.
In the seventeenth century, the Arminians resumed Zwingli's position, and, consistently with their theory that original sin was not punishable apart from actual transgression, taught the general salvation of infants; so do the Methodists and Baptists to-day. On the other hand, the Lutherans, and all others who teach baptismal regeneration, are logically shut up to the view that all who die unbaptized are lost. Also the Rev. John Henry Blunt, speaking, doubtless, for High-churchmen generally, says:
" It can hardly, I think, be doubted that they do sustain a loss, of whatever kind. In the Institution of a Christian Man, the Church of England declares, ' Insomuch as infants and children dying in their infancy shall undoubtedly be saved thereby (i.e., by baptism), else not.' In the last revision of the Prayer-Book is read, ' It is certain by God's word that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved': in other words, we are certain of the future happiness of the baptized, but have no assurance of the salvation of the unbaptized infant.
The question must thus be left in obscurity, as we have no sufficient warrant to go beyond the cautious statement of our Church." — (Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, p. 346, note 1, London, 1870.)
But the tendency is toward milder views. It may well be questioned if there be a single living Lutheran theologian of high standing who Modern confines the grace of salvation to bap- Tendencies, tized infants. So too with the Calvinists the heart is stronger than logic. Dr. Charles Hodge teaches emphatically the salvation of all infants who die in infancy, and asserts that this is the " common doctrine of Evangelical Protestants " {Systematic Theology, i. 26). The Westminster Confession x. 3 (ut sup.) was supplemented in 1903 for their own use by American Presbyterians by the following "declaratory statement":
"It is not to be regarded as teaching that any who die in infancy are lost. We believe that all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how he pleases."
Bibliography: Besides the pertinent sections in the works on theology and on history of dogma, e.g., Harnack, Dogma, ii. 142-143, v. 175 sqq., consult: C. P. Krauth, Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System, Philadelphia, 1874; G. W. Bethune, Early Lost, Early Saved, London, 1866; W. E. Schenck, Children in Heaven, Philadelphia, 1866; L. M. Ayer, Infant Salvation according to the Bible, New York, 1879; E. N. White, Why Infants are Baptized, ib.,1900.
INFRALAPSARIANISM: The doctrine that God for his own glory determined: (1) to create the world; (2) to permit the fall of man; (3) to elect from the mass of fallen men an innumerable multitude as " vessels of mercy" ; (4) to send his Son for their redemption; (5) to leave the residue of mankind to suffer the just punishment of their sins. This is the common doctrine of Augustinians, and is taught in the Calvinistic symbolical books. It is to be distinguished from Supralapsarianism (q.v.), the theory of some Calvinists, and is the same as sublapsarianism; see Calvinism; Predestination.
INFULA. See Vestments and Insignia, Ecclesiastical.
INGE, WILLIAM RALPH: Church of England; b. at Crayke, a village of Yorkshire, June 6, 1860. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1883), where he was fellow (1886-88). He was ordered deacon in 1888 and ordained priest in 1892, and was incorporated M.A. at Oxford in 1889, being fellow and tutor of Hertford College, Oxford, from that year until 1904. He was also assistant master at Eton College in 1884-88, and since 1905 has been vicar of All Saints', Knightsbridge, London. He was examining chaplain to the bishop of Lichfield in 1902, select preacher at Oxford in 1893-95 and 1903-05, and at Cambridge in 1901, moderator at Oxford in 1895-96 and 1903-04, Bampton lecturer in 1899, and Paddock lecturer at the General Theological Seminary, New York, 1906. He has written Society in Rome under the Ccesars (London, 1886); Christian Mysticism (1899); Faith and Knowledge (Edinburgh, 1904); Light, Life, and Love; Selections from the German Mystics (London, 1904); Studies of English Mystics (1906); Truth and Falsehood in Religion (1906); Personal Idealism and Mysticism (1907) J
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