The doom of the majority of mankind

Preface

The great discussions in theology, both in England and America, during the last few years, have turned mainly upon two points. The first of these is the relation of humanity to the Future Life. In England the discussion on this subject was powerfully stimulated by Canon Farrar's book, " Eternal Hope." In America the debate, rekindled by this book, received a new direction and an independent impulse from the so-called Andover Controversy ; one result of which was that an Orthodox clergyman, called to a professorship by the Trustees of that institution, was denied confirmation by the Board of Visitors, because of his charitable speculations on this subject. Candidates for ordination were afterwards excluded from Orthodox pulpits for the same reason. A conspicuous feature in this discussion has related to the destiny of those — involving the great majority of the race — who have no opportunity in this life to accept or even to become acquainted with the Orthodox theory of salvation. With this question before it, the American Board, at its last annual missionary meeting at Portland, refused to concede that the heathen might have a probation after death, and reaffirmed the motive for missionary work to be the necessity of saving them from an endless hell.

IV PREFACE.

The second great subject of theological discussion has been the scientific criticism of the Bible. The influence of Dutch and German criticism has penetrated to the very centre of Calvinistic strongholds.

These two theological questions are much more closely related than they seem to be at first. The Orthodox estimate of the Bible as an infallible book has had much to do in determining what view shall be taken of the future destiny of the race. It was a deep conviction of the close relationship of these two questions which led Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., of Boston, to affirm in a public address, that before Orthodoxy could revise its creeds, it must revise its estimate of the Bible. In the prolonged discussion which this paper awakened, an incidental statement of Dr. Ellis, that certain Scripture texts " are alleged as certifying that the vast majority of the human race are to be victims of endless woe," was challenged by an Orthodox clergyman, Rev. J. L. Withrow, D.D., of Park Street Church, Boston, who characterized it as an absolute and abominable misrepresentation of Orthodoxy. As editor of the " Christian Register," the writer replied at length in the columns of that paper, aiming to fix upon Orthodoxy the responsibility of teaching this doctrine of the doom of the majority of mankind.

This debate, and the questions that grew out of it, have furnished the material for this book. In the first three chapters the evidence presented in the original article has been largely augmented, especially with reference to modern authorities. In the fourth chapter important admissions and criticisms of Evangelical writers are presented concerning the moral difficulties

PREFACE. V

of this doctrine. Attempted mitigations, and features which are still unrelieved by these palliations, are considered in succeeding chapters ; while in a final chapter attention is invited to what seems to us a more promising and, indeed, the only adequate solution.

Two things have become evident in this discussion. First, that Orthodoxy is not wholly ready to revise its belief; and secondly, that its beliefs are constantly suffering revision without its consent. The tenacity, painfully apparent, with which Orthodox bodies hold to ancient standards and traditional interpretations of Scripture, has not prevented the action of other solvents. The old creeds cannot be exposed to the atmosphere of to-day without disintegration. The progress of science, philosophy, and ethics has rendered progress in theology imperative. It has also become evident to an increasing minority of Christians that Orthodoxy must revise its teachings. But no revision will satisfy the demands of an enlightened liberal thought and sentiment, which does not reconsider and restate the relations of God to human destiny, and reaffirm, with clarion voice, the great truth that "in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him," and that "as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God."

No apology is needed for any warmth and earnestness in dealing with a dogma so distressing to the feelings, so alien to the moral sense, as the Doom of the Majority of Mankind ; but earnestness and warmth are not inconsistent, we trust, with kindly feeling and fairness of statement. In exposing the

VI PKEFACE.

errors of Orthodoxy, we are not ungrateful for its truths.

No better proof of the timeliness of this volume can be given than that Orthodoxy is earnestly seeking for a solution of the problems of which it treats. That solution may not be reached in the present discussion, but its attainment is only postponed. Fundamental questions in ethics or religion are not decided finally until they are decided rightly. They may be evaded or deferred ; but they will reappear, and knock at the door of the reason and the conscience till by their importunity they command a hearing. The disposition of Evangelical Christians to grapple anew with these old questions is a grateful sign.

There is a liberal spirit working through all the sects to-day. No sect has any monopoly of it, and none can escape its influence. It is not merely pulling down, but it is building " with a sure and ample base," upon broader and deeper foundations. We hail with joy every conquest that it makes. Let the liberal elements in every branch of the Christian Church join hands for the consummation of this constructive work. What are differences in polity, ritual, and denominational traditions, compared with the work of' purifying Christianity from its corruptions, developing its best ideals, and making it truly representative of universal religion ?

Boston, May, 1883.

Contents

PAGE

Preface iii

I, The Damnation of the Majority taught by Evangelical Christians as a Scripture Doctrine 5

II

The Damnation of the Majority taught by Evangelical Creeds.

It is claimed by some that the only fair way in an examination of this kind is not to take individual interpretations of Scripture, or individual utterances on the point at issue, but to appeal to the Evangelical Creeds. Thus Rev. Dr. Withrow, of Boston, in the discussion which has given rise to this book, said : " Evangelical creeds are the constitutional beliefs of Christendom. These great standards of Orthodox belief contain the body of Evangelical Faith, founded on the Word of God. It would be in order for any one to adduce from the Westminster Confession of Faith, from the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Saybrook or the Andover Creed, a disproof of my statement, that ' no evangelical creed in Christendom teaches that the vast majority of the human race are to be the victims of endless woe.' . . . Orthodoxy does not hold itself responsible for all the views of its several adherents. Its beliefs are to be judged by its standards." {Christian Register, Jan. 4, 1883, p. 5.)

The position assumed by Dr. Withrow is perfectly logical. It is consistent and honorable. Denominations that have standards to which they appeal should be judged by them. Let us see, then, what the great evangelical standards teach concerning this doctrine. We will not pause here to ask the question how far individuals who still profess these creeds have secretly or openly repudiated them. We are told that we must not judge evangelical bodies by individual opinions. The appeal has been made to the standards ; to the standards let us go.

We readily grant that the oldest creed known to Christendom, the Apostles' Creed, does not contain the doctrine ; but it is unmistakably taught in the mediaeval creeds of the Church, and most conspicuously in the creeds of that branch of the Christian Church to which Dr. Withrow belongs, — Calvinistic Orthodoxy. As our argument concerns only the Protestant belief on this subject, we omit reference to the Roman Catholic creeds, and, beginning with the Protestant Reformation, confine ourselves to those creeds which are still the authoritative standards of a large portion of the Evangelical Church. We do not say that the doctrine of the doom of the majority is stated in so many words, but we contend that a creed is responsible, not merely for its definitions, but for the inevitable conclusions which must be drawn from them. We shall show, therefore, that the principal creeds teach :

1. The doctrine of the eternal damnation of the majority of infants of the race.

2. The doctrine of the eternal damnation of the great body of the heathen world, constituting the vast majority of the adult portion of mankind.

1, Infant Damnation in the Creeds.

1. The doctrine of the damnation of the majority of infants is taught in creeds which make sanation dependent on baptism.

This was the doctrine of Augustine. It is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church to-day. It is also taught in

THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION.

That Confession, adopted in 1530, says : — * ' Art. ix. Of Baptism they teach that it is necessary to salvation. . . . They condemn the Anabaptists, who allow not the baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without baptism."

Luther, in an Exposition of Psalm xxix., in extending comfort to Christian mothers, based on the invitation of Jesus, says : —

" We say that children are conceived and born in sin, and cannot be saved without Christ, to whom we bring them in baptism . . . for without Christ is there no salvation. Therefore Turkish and Jewish children are not saved, since they are not brought to Christ."

Melanchthon, who wrote the Augsburg Confession, also held the same views : —

" The promise of grace pertains to children who are within the Church. It is certain that out of the Church, — that is, among those upon whom the name of God is not invoked through baptism, and who are without the Gospel, — there is no remission of sins and participation in eternal life." (Melanchthonis Oper., part. 1. de baptism, infantum, fol. 237 seq.)

He classes them with blasphemous Jews, Mahometans, and the enemies of Christ.

Again he says : —

"It is not to be asserted that salvation pertains to infants outside of the Church, as without any evidence the Anabaptists furiously contend."

And again : —

" This hypothesis is to be held, that infants who are within the Church, upon whom the name of Christ has been invoked, are received into grace; not Turks nor Jews."

Zerneke,1 the author of a curious book on the " State of Infants of Heathen Parents, who die in Infancy," after quoting these passages from Melanchthon, says : —

1 Dissertatio Theologica de Statu Infantium a Gentilibus progenitorum, cum in Infantia decedunt. Jena, 1733. Third edition, — in the library of Dr. Ezra Abbot, Cambridge, Mass. We find on the titlepage the names of Dr. Joannes Fecht as prceses, and Jacobus Henricus Zerneke as respondent ; but it appears from p. 96 that Zerneke is the substantial author, though he was assisted by Fecht, Professor of Theology and Superintendent at Rostock.

" From these it is easily apparent in what way the words of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession are to be understood, since any one is the best interpreter of his own words."

The Augsburg Confession has always been, and still is, the authoritative standard of the Lutheran Church. In the discussion on "The Revision of Creeds" in the North American Review for February, 1883, Rev. Dr. G. F. Krotel, speaking for the Lutheran Church in America, says : " All parts of the Lutheran Church in this country profess to receive the fundamental creed of Lutheranism, the Augsburg Confession ex animo" He tells us that " the Lutheran Church, instead of going away from her standards, is really coming back to them."

Rev. Dr. C. P. Krauth, the most prominent advocate of Lutheranism in this country, in his principal work, " The Conservative Reformation," argues that Baptism " as the ordinary channel of Regeneration, places infant salvation on the securest ground." In his "Review of Dr. Hodge's Systematic Theology," p. 22, Dr. Krauth relieves us somewhat by saying: "As Lutherans we have a clear faith resting on a specific covenant in the case of a baptized child, and a well-grounded hope resting on an all-embracing mercy in the case of an unbaptized child." But this is the individual view of Dr. Krauth ; it is not the teaching of the Lutheran Standards ; nor, as wre have seen, was it the view of Luther and Melanchthon, the authors of that Confession. There is abundant evidence that Lutheran ministers and laity still cling to the necessity of waterbaptism for infant salvation, and, like Roman Catholics, would not dare to let their children die without it.1

Dr. Philip Schnff, of Union Theological Seminary in New York, says : —

1 See a little book, "Behind the Scenes/' byF. M. Jams, Cincinnati, Ohio, — G. W. Lasher, 1883, — in which confessions are given of various ministers who have baptized infants to assure parents of their salvation. (Chaps, u. and ix.)

" All Orthodox systems which hold to the necessity of waterbaptism for salvation, lead to the horrible conclusion that all unbaptized infants dying in infancy, as well as all the heathen, — that is, by far the greatest part of the human race, past and present, — are lost forever. " {The Harmony of the Reformed Confessions, p. 50.)

The Church of England, in her baptismal formula, clearly teaches the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ; but though maintaining that baptized infants are saved, she does not say that unbaptized infants are lost.

2. The doctrine of the damnation of infants taught in Calvinistic Creeds.

In his review of Dr. Hodge's " Systematic Theology," that eminent Lutheran scholar and divine, Dr. C. P. Krauth, lately deceased, has presented an overwhelming amount of testimony concerning " Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System." Calvinistic Creeds and Calvinistic Fathers have been placed on the witness-stand. We have not space to give a tithe of the evidence so thoroughly presented ; but, after reading it, we cannot escape his conclusion, that " Calvin's theory involves the certain damnation of the majority of the infants of the race, and does not claim that there is distinct evidence, even in the most hopeful case, that any particular child is saved." (p. 58.)

Dr. Philip Schaff, himself a Presbyterian, makes this candid admission : —

"The scholastic Calvinists of the seventeenth century mounted the Alpine heights of eternal decrees with intrepid courage, and revelled in the reverential contemplation of the sovereign majesty of God, which seemed to require the damnation of the great mass of sinners, including untold millions of heathen and infants, for the manifestation of his terrible justice. Inside the circle of the elect all was bright and delightful in the sunshine of infinite mercy, but outside all was darker than . midnight. ' ' ( The Harmony of the Reformed Confessions, p. 47.)

THE SYNOD OF DORT.

At the Synod of Dort, 1619-1622, this question of infant damnation came up. The position of Calvinism is unmistakable, that only elect infants are saved. Against this view the Arminians protested; and their "Apology" shows the doctrine against which Episcopius and others remonstrated : —

" Why shall it be thought absurd or wicked to say that God not only wills of his good pleasure to destroy, but also to devote to the inner torments of hell, the larger part of the human race, many myriads of infants torn from their mothers' breasts ? for these are the horrid inferences which the school of Calvin rears on those foundations, which consequently the Remonstrants look upon with their whole soul full of aversion and abhorrence.' ' (Krauth, p. 63.)

The Arminians say again : —

" We especially desire to know from this venerable Synod, whether it acknowledges as its own doctrine, and the doctrine of the Church, particularly what is asserted . . . concerning the creation of the larger part of mankind for destruction, the reprobation of infants, even though born of believing parents." (Acta Synod., 121; Krauth, p. 58.)

The Swiss Theologians at Dort say: —

" That there is an election and reprobation of infants no less than of adults, we cannot deny in the face of God who loves and hates unborn children." (Acta Synod. Judic. 40. See Krauth, p. 15.)

From the Zurich Consensus between Calvin and the Zurich ministers : —

u We zealously teach that God does not promiscuously exercise His power on all who receive the Sacraments, but only on the elect. He enlightens unto faith none but those whom He has foreordained unto life." (Niemeyer, Collect. Conf. 195.)

From the above it is evident that, according to Calvinism, non-elect infants cannot be saved by baptism.

Molinaeus, 1568-1658, "one of the greatest divines of the French Calvinistic Church," defended the decrees of the Synod of Dort : —

"If one were to crush an ant with his foot, no one could charge him with injustice, — though the ant never offended him, though he did not give life to the ant, though the ant belonged to another and no restitution could be made. . . . The offspring of the pious and faithful are born with the infection of original sin. ... As the eggs of the asp are deservedly crushed, and serpents just born are deservedly killed, though they have not yet poisoned any one with their bite, so infants are justly obnoxious to penalties." (Krauth, p. 66.)

Again, Molinaaus says : —

" We dare not promise salvation to any [infant] remaining outside Christ's covenant." (Krauth, p. 18.)

The Bremen Theologians at Dort say : — "Believers' infants alone, who die before they reach the age in which they can receive instruction, do we suppose to be loved of God, and saved of His . . . good pleasure." (Acta Synod., 63.)

Marckius (quoted by Krauth) says: —

* ' Xor is it to be doubted that among these reprobated are to be referred the infants of unbelievers. . . . God has revealed nothing as decreed or to be done for their salvation, and they are destitute of the ordinary means of grace. So that we ought utterly to reject, not only their salvation, of which Pelagians dream, but also the Remonstrant [Arminian] theory that their penally is one of privation, without sensation. The terminus to which these are predestined is eternal death, destruction, damnation." (Krauth, p. 35.)

THE WESTMINSTER COKFESSION.

The Westminster Confession and Catechisms, says Dr. Philip Schaff, in his " Harmony of the Reformed Confessions" (p. 11), "present the ablest, the clearest, and the fullest statement of the Calvinistic system of doctrine. . . . They have been adopted not only by Presbyterians, but also, with some modifications, on church polity and the doctrine of baptism, and with a reservation of greater freedom, by the Orthodox Congregationalists and the Regular, or Calvinistic Baptists in Great Britain and America."

This Confession of Faith also assumes the damnation of unelect infants.

" Elect Infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ, through the Spirit who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.

" Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved.' ' {Westminster Confession, Chap. X. in., iv.)

The inevitable conclusion from this language is that while elect infants are saved, unelect infants are certainly lost. Modern Calvinists, repudiating the doctrine of infant damnation, would like to put a new meaning into these words ; they would have us believe that all dying in infancy are elect. But such is not the language, and such is not the natural meaning, of the Westminster Confession. If the writers of it believed that all infants were saved, why did they limit the word infants by that word elect ? In that Confession we are told again that " every sin, both original and actual, . . . doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal" ( Westminster Confession, VI. vi.)

Thus original sin is exposed to the same penalty as actual sin, and nothing in the Westminster Confession relieves any infants but elect ones from this fate. There is not a line in that Confession that teaches that infants are saved as a class. As Dr. Krauth says, their salvation depends upon " an absolute personal election."

This view of the Westminster Confession is confirmed by a vast array of testimony from the Calvinistic writers of the time, which we could readily present, if it seemed necessary ; but perhaps one quotation will be sufficient to show how the Westminster Confession was understood by the men that made it. Dr. William Twisse was the Prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly of divines. He wras one of the most prominent Calvinists of his day. In his greatest work, u The Vindication of the Grace, Power, and Providence of God," he says : —

" Many infants depart from this life in original sin, and consequently are condemned to eternal death on account of original sin alone: therefore, from the sole transgression of Adam, condemnation to eternal death has followed upon many infants ." (Vindicice, i. 48.)

This view of Twisse was very extensively held among Calvinists, not only in England, but in this country. We have a rough poetic monument of its prevalence in this country in " The Day of Doom," by Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, A. M., " teacher of the Church at Maiden, in New England, 1662." This is " a poetical description of the great and last Judgment." Among the great number of those who appear before the judgment-seat are the reprobate infants, who piteously plead for mercy: —

" Then to the Bar all they drew near

Who died in infancy, And never had or good or bad

effected pers'nally; But from the womb unto the tomb

were straightway carried, (Or at the least ere they transgress' d)

Who thus began to plead :

" * If for our own transgressi-on or disobedience, We here did stand at thy left hand, just were the Recompense; 3

But Adam's guilt our souls hath spilt, his fault is charg'd upou us ;

And that alone hath overthrown and utterly undone us.

" * Not we, but he ate of the Tree,

whose fruit was interdicted ; Yet on us all of his sad Fall

the punishment 's inflicted.

How could we sin that had not been,

or how is his sin our, Without consent, which to prevent

we never had the pow'r?

" l O great Creator why was our Nature

depraved and forlorn?

Why so defiPd, and made so vil'd,

whilst we were yet unborn?

If it be just, and needs we must

transgressors reckon'd be, Thy Mercy, Lord, to us afford,

which sinners hath set free.

" * Behold we see Adam set free,

and sav'd from his trespass, Whose sinful Fall hath split [spilt ?] us all,

and brought us to this pass.

Canst thou deny us once to try,

or Grace to us to tender, When he finds grace before thy face,

who was the chief offender? '

uThen answered the Judge most dread:

4 God doth such doom forbid, That men should die eternally

for what they never did.

But what you call old Adam's Fall,

and only his Trespass, You call amiss to call it his;

both his and yours it was.

il ' He was design 'd of all Mankind

to be a public Head ; A common Root, whence all should shoot,

and stood in all their stead.

He stood and fell, did ill or well,

not for himself alone, But for you all, who now his Fall

and trespass would disown.

" ' If he had stood, then all his brood

had been established In God's true love never to move,

nor once awry to tread ; Then all his Race my Father's Grace

should have enjoy 'd for ever, And wicked Sprites by subtile sleights

could them have harmed never.

11 ' Would you have griev'd to have receiv'd

through Adam so much good ; As had been your for evermore,

if he at first had stood ?

Would you have said, " We ne'er obeyed

nor did thy laws regard ; It ill befits with benefits,

us, Lord, to so reward ?"

" * Since then to share in his welfare,

you could have been content, You may with reason share in his treason,

and in the punishment.

Hence you were born in state forlorn,

with Natures so depraved; Death was your due because that you

had thus yourselves behaved.

11 ' You think " If we had been as he whom God did so be trust, We to our cost would ne'er have lost all for a paltry lust. ' '

Had you been made in Adam's stead, you would like things have wrought,

And so into the self -same woe, yourselves and yours have brought.

" ' I may deny you once to try,

or Grace to you to tender, Though he finds Grace before my face

who was the chief offender ; Else should my Grace cease to be Grace,

for it would not be free, If to release whom I should please

1 have no liberty.

" ' If upon one what 's due to none

I frankly shall bestow , And on the rest shall not think best

compassion's skirt to throw, Whom injure I? will you envy

and grudge at others' weal ?

Or me accuse, who do refuse

yourselves to help and heal ?

" ' Am I alone of what 's my own,

no Master or no Lord ?

And if I am, how can you claim

what I to some afford ?

Will you demand Grace at my hand,

and challenge what is mine ?

Will you teach me whom to set free,

and thus my Grace confine ?

" 'You sinners are, and such a share

as sinners, may expect ; Such you shall have, for I do save

none but mine own Elect.

Yet to compare your sin with their

who liv'd a longer time, I do confess yours is much less,

though every sin 's a crime.

u ' A crime it is, therefore in bliss you may not hope to dwell ; But unto you I shall allow the easiest room in Hell. ' ' '

Wigglesworth's views were thus in entire harmony with the Westminster Confession and with those of Twisse, its prolocutor, Calvin, and others whom we have quoted. The popularity of his poem was very great. " The first edition," says John Ward Dean,1 " consisting of eighteen hundred copies, was sold, with some profit to the author, within a year ; " which, considering the population and wealth of New England at that time, shows almost as remarkable a popularity as that of " Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Professor Tyler, in his "History of American Literature," says : 2 " This great poem, which, with entire unconsciousness, attributes to the Divine Being a character the most execrable and loathsome to be met with, perhaps, in any literature, Christian or Pagan, had for a hundred years a popularity far exceeding that of any other work, in prose or verse, produced in America before the Revolution. . . . No narrative of our intellectual history during the colonial days can justly fail to record the enormous influence of this terrible poem during all those times. Not only was it largely circulated in the form of a book, but it was hawked about the country in broadsides as a popular ballad. ... Its pages were assigned in course to little children to be learned by heart along with the catechism ; as late as the present century, there were in New England many aged persons who were able to repeat the whole poem ; for more than a hundred years after its first publication it was, beyond question, the one supreme poem of Puritan New England."

1 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, for April, 1863.

2 History of American Literature, vol. ii. p. 34.

" His work," says Francis Jenks,1 " fairly represents the prevailing theology of New England at the time it was written, and which Mather thought might ' perhaps find our children till the Day itself arrives.' " Happily that day has not arrived, and the children of Mather have disowned so much of the doctrine as relates to the damnation of infants.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church of the United States, which was organized in 1810, adopted in 1813 a semi-Arminian revision of the Westminster Confession. Instead of saying, "Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved," they changed the language to all infants. The great body of the Presbyterian Church in America, however, though they have individually given up the belief in infant damnation, still allow this frightful doctrine to disfigure their standards. Yet Dr. Withrow tells us that Orthodoxy must be judged " by its standards." No modern Presbyterian clergyman that we know of teaches the doctrine of infant damnation, but every Presbyterian minister is obliged to subscribe to a Confession which teaches it. If our Calvinistic brethren deny the doctrine of infant damnation, let them blot it out of their standards. Either their standards are condemned by their present belief, or their present belief is condemned by their standards.