infer his belief on this subject, for he has himself stated it in the most clear and unequivocal terms.
In his account of the doctrine of Michael Servetus, who was condemned and burned for heresy by the Council of Geneva, at the instigation of Calvin, the following is reckoned by him and the Genevan Pastors among the dreadful heresies of Servetus:
"In the mean time certain salvation is said [by Servetus] to await all at the final judgment, except those who have brought upon themselves the punishment of eternal death, by their personal sins (propriis sceleribus). From which it is also inferred, that all who are taken from life while infants and young children, are exempt from eternal death, although they are elsewhere called accursed."[1]
This, then, was one of Michael Servetus' heresies, to wit, that he held a doctrine from which it might be inferred that "infants and young children are exempt from eternal death"; and this was one of the crimes for which John Calvin thought him justly condemned to the flames. Concerning the above passage it has been justly remarked: "It is the more important, because it stands in a work that was written as an apology for putting his victim to death, and is subscribed, not only by Calvin, but by the Ministers and Pastors of the Genevan church, to the number of fourteen. If it has not, therefore, all the formality, it has all the authority of a confession of faith, with the ad-
- ↑ Tractt. Theo.—Refut. Error. Mich. Serveti.
