Exposition of the Canons, First Head of Doctrine, Of Divine Predestination: Article 17 (3)

The quotations made from the opinions of the very fathers who drew up the Canons serve to furnish us with information as to the background of Article 17. In the first place, it becomes evident that the basic question with which the fathers were occupied was not the narrow question of the salvation of children of believers who die in infancy, but the fact of the Arminian denial of either election or reprobation of children. And it is only in connection therewith that the Synod felt constrained...