LIMBORCH, Philip van (1633-1712), a prominent Remonstrant theologian, was born June 19, 1633, at Amsterdam, where his father held a good position in the legal profession. He received his education at Utrecht, at Leyden, in his native city, and finally at Utrecht university, which he entered in 1652. In 1657 he became a Remonstrant pastor at Gouda, and in 1667 he was transferred to Amsterdam, where, in the following year, the office of professor of theology in the Remonstrant seminary was added to his pastoral charge. He died there on April 30, 1712....

LIMBURG, or Limboπrg, one of the nine provinces of Belgium, is bounded on the N. and E. by Holland, on the S. by the province of Liège, and on the W. by those of Brabant and Antwerp; the area is 932 square miles, with a population, in 1880, of 211,694. The surface is for the most part flat, but rising somewhat towards the south-east. Most of the province is included in the barren and marshy district of sandy heath known as La Campine (Flem., Kempen). The Meuse, with a tolerably fertile valley, is its chief river. The soil is metalliferous; the chief vegetable products are cereals, leguminous plants, flax, hemp, and beetroot; and stock-breeding is largely carried on. Industries are less developed in Limburg than in the rest of Belgium; but the distilleries of the province are very considerable and noted. Limburg is divided for administrative purposes into three arrondissements, of which the capitals are Hasselt (population 11,500), Tongres (7600), and Maeseyck (4400). The last-named is the birthplace of Hubert and John van Eyck, the Flemish painters. One of the most interesting towns of the province is St Trond (5 ’.v.), thought to be the ancient Atuaticunι Oppidum, the oldest town in Belgium. Near Tongres is a mineral well, described by Pliny....

LIMBUS. The Limbus Infantum or Puerorum in rnediaeval theology is the “margin” or “border” (limbus) of hell to which human beings dying without actual sin, but with their original sin unwashed away by baptism, were held to be consigned; the category included, not unbaptized infants merely, but also idiots, cretins, and the like. The word “limbus,” in the theological application, occurs first in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; for its extensive currency it is perhaps most indebted to the Commedia of Dante (Zn∕., c. 4). The question as to the destiny of infants dying unbaptized presented itself to theologians at a comparatively early period, and received very various answers. Generally speaking it may be said that the Greek fathers inclined to a cheerful and the Latin to a gloomy view. Thus Gregory of Nazianzus {Orat. 40) says “that such children as die unbaptized without their own fault shall neither be glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as having done no wickedness, though they die unbaptized, and as rather suffering loss than being the authors of it.” Similar opinions have been expressed by Gregory of Nyssa, Severus of Antioch, and others,— opinions which it is almost impossible to distinguish from the Pelagian view that children dying unbaptized might be admitted to eternal life, though not to the kingdom of God. In his recoil from Pelagian heresy, Augustine was compelled to sharpen the antithesis between the state of the saved and that of the lost, and taught that there are only two alternatives,—to be with Christ or with the devil, to be with Him or against Him. Following up, as he thought, his master’s teaching, Fulgentius declared that it is to be believed as an indubitable truth that, “not only men who have come to the use of ...