judgment on this point. We may, therefore, safely say, that the doctrine of infant damnation was a cherished doctrine of the Synod of Dort, and of such of the reformed churches of Europe as were represented in that Synod. And we might add to the evidence already adduced, that the same doctrine was very distinctly taught by the theological writers of that day, who were held in highest repute by this Synod for their soundness of doctrine. Among the most eminent of these, may be mentioned the names of Francis Gomarus, Antony Walaeus, Henry Alting, and William Perkins. In his "judgment" concerning the first article of the Remonstrants on Election and Reprobation, Gomarus says:
"For original sin alone there is damnation, which is the wages of all sin, even of that which is not actual, Rom. v. 12, 14, 21. Therefore the infants of unbelieving parents who are aliens from the covenant of God, not born again, are by nature children of wrath, without Christ, without hope, without God, Ephe. ii. 3, 12, even as in the deluge the infants of the world of the ungodly, and in the conflagration the infants of the wicked Sodomites perished and were justly subjected to the wrath of God with their parents, 2 Peter ii. 5, 6."[1]
Walaeus, who was a distinguished member of this famous Synod, professor of theology at Leyden, and one of the authors of the Belgic version of the Bible, says:
- ↑ Gomarus, Disputt. Theolog. p. 279. Acta Dordrechtana, Judicia Theologorum Provincialium, p. 24.
