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STATE OF INFANTS AFTER DEATH.
both when he said, 'In dying you shall die.' Even young serpents and the whelps of wolves, who cannot as yet harm anybody, are put to death, and with justice. How so? Because they are of such nature, that they easily can do harm. Therefore even infants are deservedly dammed, on account of the nature they have, to wit, a wicked nature and repugnant to the law of God."[1]
Therefore Beza was the colleague and successor of Cavin in the church and university at Geneva. And in Beza's exposition of the doctrine of Predestination, the following passage occurs:
"Some," he says, "are born out of the church, and so remain, to whom God vouchsafes nothing of that call which is necessary to salvation, that is, nothing of a revelation of his gratuitous covenant, and they are therefore necessarily placed beyond the hope of salvation, since faith comes by hearing, and without faith it is impossible for any one to please God. Nevertheless they are inexcusable, so far as relates to the execution of the divine decree, partly because all are born children of God's wrath, not of the promise, (Ephes. ii. 3,) partly because all adults, without Christ [or who are not Christians], are found guilty."[2]
It is plain from this, that Beza consigns all heathen infants to the torments of hell. But to make his opinions on this point still plainer, he says in another part of the same treatise:
