96 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
Zwingli traced salvation exclusively to the sovereign grace of God, who can save whom, where, and how he pleases, and who is not bound to any visible means. But he had no idea of teaching salvation without Christ and his atonement, as he is often misunderstood and misrepresented. "Christ," he says (in the third of his Conclusions), '' is the only wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Hence it is a denial of Christ when we confess another ground of salvation and satisfaction." He does not say (and did not know) where, when, and how Christ is revealed to the unbaptized subjects of his saving grace : this is hidden from mortal eyes ; but we have no right to set boundaries to the infinite wisdom and love of God.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches the necessity of baptism for salvation, and assigns all heathen to hell and all unbaptized children to the limbus infantum (a border region of hell, alike removed from burning pain and heavenly bliss). Lutheran divines, who accept the same baptismal theory, must consistently exclude the unbaptized from beatitude, or leave them to the uncovenanted mercy of God. Zwingli and Calvin made salvation depend on eternal election, which may be indefinitely extended beyond the visible Church and sacraments. The Scotch Presbyterian Confession condemns the "horrible dogma" of the papacy concerning the damnation of unbaptized infants. The Westminster Confession teaches that "elect infants dying in infancy," and "all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word, are saved by
on Providence, and most confidently at the close of his Exposition of the Christian Faith, addressed to the king of France. See the passages in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 382, and A. Baur, I.e. II. 772. Comp. also Zeller, I.e. p. 163 ; Alex. Schweizer, Die Prat. Centraldogmen, I. 94 sqq., and Reform. Glaubenslehre, II. 10 sq. ; Dorner, Gesch. der protest. TheoL, p. 284 (who with his usual fairness vindicates Zwingli against misrepresentations).
§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 97
Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth." ^
The old Protestant eschatology is deficient. It rejects the papal dogma of purgatory, and gives nothing better in its place. It confounds Hades with Hell (in the authorized translations of the Bible 2), and obliterates the distinction between the middle state before, and the final state after, the resurrection. The Roman purgatory gives relief in regard to the fate of imperfect Christians, but none in regard to the infinitely greater nund^er of unbaptized infants and adults who never hear of Christ in this life. Zwingli boldly ventured on a solution of the mj'sterious problem which is more charitable and hopeful and more in accordance with the impartial justice and boundless mercy of God.
His charitable hope of the salvation of infants dying in infancy and of an indefinite number of heathen is a renewal and enlargement of the view held by the ancient Greek Fathers (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa). It was adopted by the Baptists, Armenians, Quakers, and Methodists, and is now held by the great majority of Protestant divines of all denominations.
1 Chapter X. 3. " Elect" infants, however, implies, in the strict Calvinistic system, " reprobate " infants who are lost. This negative feature has died out. See on this subject Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 378-384, and hi& Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, New York, 1890, p. 17 sqq.
2 This serious error is corrected in the Revised English Version of 1881. It is an anachronism when a scholar of the nineteenth century denies the distinction between Hades or Sheol {i.e. the spirit-world or realm of the dead) and Gehenna (i.e. hell, or the place and state of the lost).
CHAPTER IV.
SPREAD OF THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.