Horrenda Vox
As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, at the Colloquy of Montbéliard, Beza “affirmed that many thousands of baptized children are never regenerated, but perish eternally” — prompting Andreae, in shock, to write a marginal note: “Horrenda vox.”
Horrenda indeed.
It appears that in some circles, though, this view was identified as the Reformed view. But it is certainly not the view expressed in the Reformed confessional documents. The Canons of Dort, in the First Head of Doctrine, Article 17, declare something quite the opposite of what Beza affirms:
We must judge concerning will of God from His Word, which declares that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they are included with their parents. Therefore, God-fearing parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in their infancy.
“Ought not to doubt” means that, according to the Canons, it is wrong for such parents to doubt that their children, who die in infancy, are elect and saved. “Don’t do it!” say the Canons. “Don’t doubt, but believe that your children are among God’s elect and that they are saved from their sin and from death — and believe it because that’s what God’s Word declares.”
But that’s not the only statement about the matter in the Canons of Dort. In the Conclusion of the Canons, the Synod talks about how some people have tried to “persuade the public” that the Reformed churches teach various things, including that
Many innocent children of believers are torn from their mothers’ breasts and tyrannically thrown into hell, so that neither the blood of Christ nor their baptism nor the prayers of the church at their baptism can be of any help to them.
That seems to be what Beza thought, when he “affirmed that many thousands of baptized children are never regenerated, but perish eternally.” But the Canons say of this view that it is something “which the Reformed churches not only do not confess but even detest wholeheartedly” (emphasis added). The Canons, then, agree here with Andreae against Beza: “Horrenda vox!”