Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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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 intimates very clearly that
there are reprobate 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. f837 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. f838 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 nations
with their infant children in eternal death. Their tongues so loquacious on
every other point must here be struck dumb.” f839
And in this connection he adds the significant words:, It is an awful
(horrible) decree, I confess, but no one can deny that God foreknew the
future, final fate of man before he created him, and that he did foreknow it,
because it was appointed by his own decree.” f840
Our best feelings, which God himself has planted in our hearts, instinctively
revolt against the thought that a God of infinite love and justice should
create millions of immortal beings in his own image—probably more than
half of the human race—in order to hurry them from the womb to the
tomb, and from the tomb to everlasting doom! And this not for any actual
sin of their own, but simply for the transgression of Adam of which they
never heard, and which God himself not only permitted, but somehow
foreordained. This, if true, would indeed be a “decretum horribile.”
Calvin, by using this expression, virtually condemned his own doctrine.
The expression so often repeated against him, does great credit to his head
and heart, and this has not been sufficiently appreciated in the estimate of
his character. He ventured thus to utter his humane sentiments far more
strongly than St. Augustin dared to do. If he, nevertheless, accepted this
horrible decree, he sacrificed his reason and heart to the, rigid laws of logic
and to the letter of the Scripture as he understood it. We must honor him
for his obedience, but as he claimed no infallibility, as an interpreter, we
must be allowed to challenge his interpretation.