The Lutheran Creed retains substantially the Catholic view of baptismal regeneration, and hence limits infant salvation to those who enjoy this means of grace; [743] allowing, however, some exceptions within the sphere of the Christian Church, and making the damnation of unbaptized infants as mild as the case will permit. [744] At present, however, there is scarcely a Lutheran divine of weight who would be willing to confine salvation to baptized infants.
The Reformed Church teaches the salvation of all elect infants dying in infancy, whether baptized or not, and assumes that they are regenerated before their death, which, according to Calvinistic principles, is possible without water-baptism. [745] The second Scotch Confession, of 1580, expressly rejects, among other errors of popery,' the cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament.' [746] Beyond this the Confessions do not go, and leave the mysterious subject to private opinion. Some of the older and more rigid Calvinistic divines of the supralapsarian type carried the distinction between the elect and the reprobate into the infant world, though always securing salvation to the offspring of Christian parents, on the ground of inherited Church membership before and independent of the baptismal ratification; while others more wisely and charitably kept silence, or left the non-elect infants--if there are such, which nobody knows--to the uncovenanted mercies of God. But we may still go a step further, within the strict limits of the Reformed Creed, and maintain, as a pious opinion, that all departed infants belong to the number of the elect. Their early removal from a world of sin and temptation may be taken as an indication of God's special favor. From this it would follow that the majority of the human race will be saved. The very doctrine of election, which is unlimitable and free of all ordinary means, at all events widens the possibility and strengthens the probability of general infant salvation; while those Churches which hold to the necessity of baptismal regeneration must either consistently exclude from heaven all unbaptized infants (even those of Christian Baptists and Quakers), or, yielding to the instinct of Christian charity, they must make exceptions so innumerable that these would become, in fact, the rule, and overthrow the principle altogether.
In the seventeenth century the Arminians resumed the position of Zwingli, and with their mild theory of original sin (which they do not regard as responsible and punishable before and independent of actual transgression), they could consistently teach the general salvation of infants. The Methodists and Baptists adopted the same view. Even in the strictly Calvinistic churches it made steady progress, and is now silently or openly held by nearly all Reformed divines. [747]
Whether consistent or not, the doctrine of infant damnation is certainly cruel and revolting to every nobler and better feeling of our nature. It can not be charged upon the Bible except by logical inference from a few passages (John iii. 5; Mark xvi. 16; Rom. v. 12), which admit of a different interpretation. On the other hand, the general salvation of infants, though not expressly taught, is far more consistent with the love of God, the genius of Christianity, and the spirit and conduct of him who shed his precious blood for all ages of mankind, who held up little children to his own disciples as models of simplicity and trustfulness, and took them to his bosom, blessing them, and saying (unconditionally and before Christian baptism did exist), 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven,' and 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in nowise enter therein.'
6. Salvation of adult heathen. This is a still darker problem. Before Zwingli it was the universal opinion that there can be no salvation outside of the visible Church (extra ecclesiam nulla satus). Dante, the poet of mediæval Catholicism, assigns even Homer, Aristotle, Virgil, to hell, which bears the terrible inscription--
'Let those who enter in dismiss all hope.'
But the Swiss Reformer repeatedly expressed his conviction, to which he adhered to the last, that God had his elect among the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and that, together with the saints of the Old Testament from the redeemed Adam down to John the Baptist, we may expect to find in heaven also such sages as Socrates, Plato, Aristides, Pindar, Numa, Cato, Scipio, Seneca; in short, every good and holy man and faithful soul from the beginning of the world to the end. [748]
For this liberality he was severely censured. The great and good Luther was horrified at the idea that even 'the godless Numa' (!) should be saved, and thought that it falsified the whole gospel, without which there can be no salvation. [749]
Zwingli, notwithstanding his abhorrence of heathen idolatry and every relic of paganism in worship, retained, from his classical training in the school of Erasmus, a great admiration for the wisdom and the manly virtues of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and was somewhat unguarded in his mode of expression. But he had no idea of sending any one to heaven without the atonement, although he does not state when and how it was applied to those who died before the incarnation. In his mind the eternal election was inseparably connected with the plan of the Christian redemption. He probably assumed an unconscious Christianity among the better heathen, and a secret work of grace in their hearts, which enabled them to exercise a general faith in God and to strive after good works (comp. Rom. ii. 7, 10, 14, 15). All truth, he says, proceeds from the Spirit of God. He might have appealed to Justin Martyr and other ancient fathers, who traced all that was true and good among the Greek philosophers and poets to the working of the Logos before his incarnation (John i. 5, 10). [750]
During the period of rigorous scholastic orthodoxy which followed the Reformation in the Reformed and Lutheran Churches, Zwingli's view could not be appreciated, and appeared as a dangerous heresy. In the seventeenth century the Romanists excluded the Protestants, the Lutherans the Calvinists, the Calvinists the Arminians, from the kingdom of heaven; how much more all those who never heard of Christ. This wholesale damnation of the vast majority of the human race should have stirred up a burning zeal for their conversion; and yet during that whole period of intense confessionalism and exclusive orthodoxism there was not a single Protestant missionary in the field except among the Indians in the wilderness of North America. [751]
But in modern times Zwingli's view has been revived and applauded as a noble testimony of his liberality, especially among evangelical divines in Germany, and partly in connection with a new theory of Hades and the middle state.
This is not the place to discuss a point which, in the absence of clear Scripture authority, does not admit of symbolical statement. The future fate of the heathen is wisely involved in mystery, and it is unsafe and useless to speculate without the light of revelation about matters which lie beyond the reach of our observation and experience. But the Bible consigns no one to final damnation, except for rejecting Christ in unbelief, [752] and gives us at least a ray of hope by significant examples of faith from Melchizedek and Job down to the wise men from the East, and by a number of passages concerning the working of the Logos among the Gentiles (John i. 5, 10; Rom. i. 19; ii. 14, 15, 18, 19; Acts xvii. 23, 28; 1 Pet. iii. 19; iv. 6). We certainly have no right to confine God's election and saving grace to the limits of the visible Church. We are indeed bound to his ordinances and must submit to his terms of salvation; but God himself is free, and can save whomsoever and howsoever he pleases, and he is infinitely more anxious and ready to save than we can conceive.
[728] Zwingli defines providentia to be perpetuum et immutabile rerum universarum regnum et administratio.
[729] This illustration is used by Myconius in defending the Zwinglian view of Providence. See Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. I. p. 133. The illustration of Zwingli, Opp. IV. p. 112, concerning the adulterium Davidis and the taurus, is less happy.
[730] As a matter of history, it is an undeniable fact that the strongest predestinarians (whether Augustinians or Calvinists or Puritans) have been the most earnest, energetic, and persevering Christians. Edward Zeller (a cool philosopher and critic of the Tübingen school) clearly explains this connection in his book on the Theological System of Zwingli, pp. 17-19: 'Gerade die Lehre von der Erwählung, der man so oft vorgeworfen hat, dass sie die sittliche Kraft lähme, dass sie zu Trägheit and Sorglosigheit hinführe, gerade diese Lehre ist es, aus welcher der Reformirte jene rücksichts- und zweifellose, bis zur Härte und Leidenschaftlichkeit durchgreifende praktische Energie schöpft, wie wir sie an den Helden dieses Glaubens, einem Zwingli, einem Calvin, einem Farel, einem Knox, einem Cromwell, bewundern, welche ihn vor den Zweifeln und Anfechtungen bewahrt, die dem weicheren, tiefer mit sich selbst beschäftigten Gemüth so viel zu schaffen machen, von denen selbst der grosse deutsche Glaubensheld Luther noch in späten Jahren heimgesucht wurde. Die wesentliche religiöse Bedeutung dieser Lehre, ihre Bedeutung für das innere Leben der Gläubigen, liegt nicht in der Ueberzeuzung von der Unbedingtheit des göttlichen Wirkens als solchen, sondern in dem Glauben an seine Unbedingtheit in seiner Richtung auf dieses bestimmte Subjekt in jener persönlichen Gewissheit der Erwählung, welche den Unterschied der reformirten Erwählungslehre von der augustinischen ausmacht, und eben darauf beruht es auch, dass die theoretisch ganz richtigen Konsequenzen des Prädestinatianismus in Beziehung auf die Nutzlosigkeit und Gleichgültigkeit des eigenen Thuns den Reformirten nicht blos nicht stören, sondern gar nicht für ihn vorhanden sind. Was er in den Sätzen von der ewigen Vorherbestimmung aller Dinge, von dem unwandelbaren Rathschluss der Erwählung und der Verwerfung, für sich selbst findet, das ist nur die unzweifelhafte Gewissheit, persönlich zum Dienst Gottes berufen zu sein, und vermöge dieser Berufung in allen seinen Angelegenheiten unter dem unmittelbarsten Schutz Gottes zu stehen, als Werkzeug Gottes zu handeln, der Seligkeit gewiss zu sein. Die Heilsgewissheit ist hier von der sittlich religiösen Anforderung nicht getrennt, der Einzelne hat das Bewusstsein seiner Berufung nur in seinem Glauben, und den Glauben nur in der Kräftigkeit seines gottbeseelten Willens, er ist sich nicht seiner Erwählung zur Seligkeit ohne alle weitere Bestimmung, sondern wesentlich nur seiner Erwählung zu der Seligkeit des christlichen Lebens bewusst; die Erwählung ist hier nur die Unterlage für das praktische Verhalten des Frommen, der Mensch verzichtet nur desshalb im Dogma auf die Kraft und Freiheit seines Willens, um sie für das wirkliche Leben und Handeln von der Gottheit, an die er sich ihrer entäussert hat, als eine absolute, als die Kraft des göttlichen Geistes, als die unerschütterliche Selbstgewissheit des Erwählten zurückzuerhalten.'
[731] Zwingli, being requested by Philip of Hesse (Jan. 25, 1530) to send him a copy of his sermon, which he had preached without manuscript, reproduced the substance of it, and sent it to him, Aug. 20, 1530. under the title, Ad illustrissimum Cattorum principem Philippum sermonis de Providentia Dei anamnema. Opera IV. pp. 79-144. See a full extract in Schweizer's Centraldogmen, Vol. I. pp. 102 sqq. Ebrard makes too little account of this tract.
[732] In the later editions of his Institutes; for in the first edition he confines himself to a very brief and indefinite statement of this doctrine.
[733] That is, of the verbal copula esti, est=significat, not of touto (Carlstadt), nor soma= figura corporis (OEcolampadius, on the ground that Christ probably did not use the verb at all in the original Aramaic). Zwingli was always inclined to a tropical interpretation, and averse to the notion of a carnal presence, but was led to his exegesis in 1522 by a tract of Honius (Hoen), a lawyer of Holland, De eucharistia, which taught him in qua voce tropus lateret. See Ebrard, Vol. II. p. 97. His controversy with Luther began when he wrote a letter to Matth. Alber, at Reutlingen, Nov. 16, 1524.