Beauty for Ashes

Front matter

BEAUTY FOR ASHES;

OR,

CONCERNING THE

Introduction

S.

N.

There is but one Source of the beautiful, the good, and the true; for all the beauty, goodness and truth there are in the world, are only finite expressions—faint images, as it were—of the One Infinite Goodness. "There is but One Good, that is God."

And we are taught that man was originally made in the image and likeness of this One Good. Therefore all the finite expressions of this Good, are always pleasing to men in the degree that their moral integrity has been preserved, or the lovely image of their Maker been retained. They interest and attract every mind, from which the native hues of innocence have not faded or been blotted out.

And yet the interest which most men feel in the beautiful, the good, and the true, is often enhanced by contrast with their opposites. Beauty never appears so attractive, as when exhibited along with deformity. Virtue never has such winning charms, as when seen by the side of vice. Truth never looks so lovely—never shines with such heavenly lustre, as when contrasted with the dark shades of ignorance or error. Every good artist understands this. Hence poets, painters, and sculptors, in seeking to present us with their highest conceptions of the beautiful, the good, and the true, almost always avail themselves of the power that exists in contrasts.

It is from a motive akin to that of the artist, that we here undertake to exhibit the Old doctrine concerning the state of infants after death, side by side with the New. The reader will thus be enabled to judge between them; while the truth and beauty of the one, cannot fail to be exalted by contrast with the blackness and deformity of the other.

We have a further object in exhibiting the Old doctrine upon this subject with some minuteness, and somewhat in detail. It is, that the reader may see what gross darkness enveloped the Christian church prior to that New Dispensation of Christianity which it is our high privilege to proclaim; and how urgent was the need, therefore, of a new revelation, upon the subject here treated of, at least. Before men can be expected to bestow much serious and candid attention upon the writings of Swedenborg, which contain this new revelation, they must be led to see and acknowledge that there existed a real need of some such new revelation, prior to the time of its announcement. And the best way to lead them to see and acknowledge this, is, to unfold and exhibit some of the features of the Old Theology, especially as that Theology was understood and expounded prior to Swedenborg's time. For if there were really a need of this new revelation at the time it was made, the evidence of such need must be sought and found in the then reigning Theology of Christendom, as expounded by its eminent doctors, and most distinguished writers. It is, therefore, a matter of deep interest and importance, to those who are disposed to examine any point in the New Theology, to ascertain, if possible, what was the belief of Christians generally upon that point, at the time of, or prior to, this alleged new revelation. And the importance of this becomes the more apparent, when we consider that the doctrinal theology of some portions of christendom, particularly those portions with which we are most familiar, has undergone very important modifications on some points, since the time when Swedenborg wrote;—and this, too, in consequence of the new revelation made through him, and that memorable event which occurred in the World of Spirits in the year 1757, witnessed and described by him. And on account of these modifications, the contrast between the New and the Old Theology, as the latter is understood and expounded by many theologians at the present day, is often much less striking than that between the New and the Old of one, two, or three centuries ago. The New Theology, we know, has not changed, for it is embodied in the theological writings of Swedenborg; and these writings, which are the same to-day as they were when first given to the world a hundred years ago—or rather, we should say, the Sacred Scriptures as interpreted by these writings, are the standard to which all New Churchmen appeal. But the Old Theology—not, perhaps, as embodied in the written creeds, but as understood by its living expounders, and as proclaimed from the pulpits of Christian lands—is perpetually changing, and has been for the last hundred years or more. Its ministers all appeal, indeed, to the written Word; but, for lack of some acknowledged and reliable standard of interpretation—some authorized and uniform method of eliciting the true meaning of the Word, their interpretations differ widely, as might be expected. And the popular interpretations of the present day, differ on many points still more widely from those of a few centuries ago, as will appear from the extracts cited in these pages. For there is no doubt that the prevailing belief among Christians now, upon the subject of our present inquiry, is quite in harmony with the doctrine revealed through Swedenborg a hundred years ago; and how different this doctrine is, from the one almost universally held as orthodox prior to the New Dispensation, will manifestly appear from the following pages.

Part 1

PART I.

OR,

"And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord."—Ezekiel xxxii. 7, 8.

Thick darkness broodeth o'er the world: The raven pinions of the night. Close on her silent bosom furled, Reflect no gleam of orient light." S. H. Whitman.

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD DOCTRINE.

"A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness."—Joel ii. 2.

The prevailing belief of the Christian Church hitherto, in regard to the state of infants after death, is a legitimate subject of inquiry, and one which we think may be pursued with profit. Not only so, but it is a subject in which all Christians might be expected to feel a common interest. And if the inquiry be prosecuted in a spirit of Christian candor and fairness, some valuable instruction may be gathered from it, and no one will have just cause of offense. Observe that our inquiry relates not to the prevailing belief on this subject among Christians now, but to the belief which had prevailed in the Church prior to Swedenborg's time, or to the revelations made through him. We are happy to believe that the old, and once popular doctrine of infant damnation, is looked upon with little or no favor in any respectable Christian communion of the present day. All who will, may see, and nearly all do see, by the light of the New Age, that this old doctrine could have originated nowhere else than in the darkness of the abyss:—that it never came down from God out of heaven.

In the prosecution of our design, we shall pursue that course which we deem the fairest, and likely at the same time to be most satisfactory to the reader: that is, we shall exhibit the hitherto prevalent belief among Christians on this subject, by copious quotations from authentic documents, citing the ipsissima verba of the writers themselves.

And we begin with the opinion of Augustine—sometimes called in the short style of the Middle Ages, St. Austin—who lived and wrote in the latter part of the fourth century. And of this writer the Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge says: "He was one of the most celebrated Fathers of the church, whose writings for many centuries had almost as potent an influence on the religious opinions of christendom, as those of Aristotle exercised over philosophy." What did this learned and influential Father believe and teach concerning the final state of many who die in infancy? Hear him:

"It may therefore be truly said, that infants, dying without baptism, will be in a state of damnation of all the most mild. But, greatly does he deceive and is he deceived, who affirms that they will not be damned."

Again, this eminent Father says:—

"We affirm that they [infants] will not be saved and have eternal life, except they be baptized in Christ. * * * * This new doctrine, that there is eternal life independent of the kingdom of heaven, that there is eternal salvation independent of the kingdom of God, was never before heard of in the church. First, see, brother, whether perchance you ought not hence to agree with us, that whosoever does not belong to the kingdom of God, must, without doubt, belong to the number of the damned. The Lord will come, and, about to judge the living and the dead, will, according to the gospel, make two divisions, the right and the left. To those on the left, he will say, Depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. To those on the right, he will say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The one he calls a kingdom, the other damnation with the devil. There is no middle place left, where you can put infants."—"Behold, on the right is the kingdom of heaven. Inherit, he says, the kingdom. He who is not there, is on the left. What will happen on the left? Depart into everlasting fire. On the right, an eternal kingdom; on the left, everlasting fire. He that is not on the right, will indisputably be on the left. Therefore he that is not in the kingdom, is doubtless in eternal fire. Certainly he cannot have eternal life, who is not baptized; he will not be on the right, that is, he will not be in the kingdom. * * * In his [the Lord's] last sentence, that he might teach what is the kingdom, and what eternal fire, he says, [Matt XXV. 46,] Then these shall go away into everlasting burning, but the righteous into life eternal.

"Behold, he [the Lord] has explained to you what is the kingdom, and what is everlasting fire; so that when you confess that an infant will not be in the kingdom, you may allow that he will be in eternal fire.

"I feel that this question is a profound one, and I own that my powers are not sufficient to fathom its depths. I must here be content to exclaim with Paul, O the depth of the riches! An unbaptized infant goes to damnation."

Such was the doctrine held and taught by Augustine, whose writings, we are told, exerted such "a potent influence on the religious opinions of christendom" for many centuries. With good reason, therefore, did Benedict Turretin say: "Augustine holds, 'that infants dying without baptism, are punished with the punishment of eternal fire.'"

We will refer to but one other ancient authority, that of Fulgentius, who flourished during the latter part of the fifth century, and was a theologian of the same school as Augustine. This writer often, and with that apparent confidence which an author evinces when he is giving utterance to truths generally believed, speaks of God's condemning little infants to "eternal torments," "eternal burning," " eternal damnation," and the like. In one of his works he gives a catalogue of the orthodox articles of faith, beginning each with the words Firmissime tene et nullatenus dubites—"most firmly hold, and by no means doubt." And among these articles, of which there are forty in number, occurs the following:

"Most firmly hold, and by no means doubt, not only that men who have come to the use of reason, but also that in , whether they begin to live in their mothers' wombs, and there die, or, after being born, pass from this life without the sacrament of holy baptism, which is given in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will be punished with the everlasting punishment of eternal Fire; because, although they had no sin of their own committing, they have nevertheless incurred, by their carnal conception and nativity, the damnation of original sin."

It would be easy to cite other similar passages showing how prevalent was the belief in infant damnation among the orthodox Christians of that early period. But it will doubtless be more satisfactory to the reader, as indeed it is more important to our present purpose, to exhibit the belief of the church on this subject at a later period. We therefore dismiss the ancient authorities, and cite next the opinion of the celebrated John Calvin, who flourished during the sixteenth century, and of whom an eminent writer on theology has said: "As a theologian he stands in the very foremost rank of those of any age or country." Calvin was one of the "Reformers," and established at Geneva that system of church polity called Presbyterianism, which was originally considered an essential part of Calvinism. And the great number of Protestant Christians who have endorsed the doctrines of Calvin, and who have, therefore, been known as Presbyterians, High Calvinists, Strict Calvinists, Moderate Calvinists, &c., is proof of the high repute in which this man and his doctrines have been held by a large portion of the Christian church. What, now, was the doctrine concerning the state of infants after death, as held and taught by this celebrated "Reformer"? If this can be ascertained with certainty, we may then form a pretty correct conclusion respecting the belief, on this subject, of that great multitude of Christians, who have embraced the doctrines taught by him, and consequently have taken the name of Calvinists. And Calvin's belief on the subject under consideration might easily be inferred from his doctrine concerning election and reprobation, or predestination, which, in his "Christian Institutes," he has thus explained:

"Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He hath determined in Himself what He would have become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestinated either to life or to death."

Now this, when viewed in connection with what he says in another place, that "election is not made from any foreseen faith, obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition, as a prerequisite cause or condition," were sufficient to convince us that Calvin, if consistent with himself, must have believed in the damnation of some at least, who die in infancy. But fortunately we are not left to infer his belief on this subject, for he has himself stated it in the most clear and unequivocal terms.

In his account of the doctrine of Michael Servetus, who was condemned and burned for heresy by the Council of Geneva, at the instigation of Calvin, the following is reckoned by him and the Genevan Pastors among the dreadful heresies of Servetus:

"In the mean time certain salvation is said [by Servetus] to await all at the final judgment, except those who have brought upon themselves the punishment of eternal death, by their personal sins (propriis sceleribus). From which it is also inferred, that all who are taken from life while infants and young children, are exempt from eternal death, although they are elsewhere called accursed."

This, then, was one of Michael Servetus' heresies, to wit, that he held a doctrine from which it might be inferred that "infants and young children are exempt from eternal death"; and this was one of the crimes for which John Calvin thought him justly condemned to the flames. Concerning the above passage it has been justly remarked: "It is the more important, because it stands in a work that was written as an apology for putting his victim to death, and is subscribed, not only by Calvin, but by the Ministers and Pastors of the Genevan church, to the number of fourteen. If it has not, therefore, all the formality, it has all the authority of a confession of faith, with the ad weight derived from the solemnity of the occasion on which it was published."

Again, in his work on the Eternal Predestination of God, written more particularly against Albertus Pighius, a Catholic writer, who opposed the doctrine of unconditional election, Calvin says:

"If Pighius does not think original sin sufficient for the damnation of men, and will make no account of the secret judgment of God, what will he do with infant children, who have been snatched out of this life before they were able, on account of their age, to give any such proof [of wickedness]? Since the same condition of birth and death was common to the little ones who died at Sodom and Jerusalem, and there was no difference in their works—why will Christ, at the last day, separate some of them to his left hand, from others standing at his right? Who does not here adore the admirable judgment of God, in that it has been ordered that some should be born at Jerusalem, whence they presently pass to a better life, and that Sodom, the entrance of hell, should be the birthplace of others?"

According to Calvin as here quoted—and thousands of his followers have held the same—the little ones of Sodom and Gomorrah will stand "on the left hand." And to ascertain what he meant by this, we have only to refer to that chapter in Matthew, to which he alludes. We there read that "the King shall say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.—These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Matt xxv. 41, 46.

Again, in his famous reply to Sebastian Castalio, whose heretical opinions had incurred the displeasure of the stern Genevan, Calvin says:

"As to what you object, that no one is justly damned, unless on account of transgression, and after transgression; on the first point we have no dispute, since I everywhere teach that no one perishes except by the just judgment of God. Yet it cannot be dissembled that a hidden poison lurks in your words; because, if the similitude you propose is admitted, God will be unjust in that he involves the whole race of Abraham in the guilt of original sin. You deny that it is just in God to damn any one, unless on account of transgressions. Persons innumerable are taken out of life while yet infants. Put forth now your virulence against God, who precipitates into eternal death harmless infants (innoxius fœtus) torn from their mothers' breasts. He who will not detest this blasphemy [of yours] when it is openly exposed, may curse me at his will. For it cannot be demanded that I should be safe and free from the abuse of those who do not spare God."

Once more, in his Christian Institutes, he says:

"I ask again, how has it happened that the fall of Adam has involved so many nations with their infant children, in eternal death without remedy, but because it so seemed good in the sight of God?"—"It is a dreadful decree, I confess."

No one, we think, after reading these citations, will doubt that John Calvin believed and taught the monstrous doctrine of infant damnation. Yet he was one of the most distinguished of the "Reformers," and a man to whom multitudes in the Christian Church have long been accustomed to look with reverence, as to a teacher of more than ordinary wisdom.

But this doctrine was not peculiar to Calvin; nor did it originate with him or the Reformation. Turretin, an eminent Calvinistic writer, assures us that "the Orthodox Church has always held the doctrine of the danmation of infants." For centuries prior to the Reformation it had been deemed a heresy to deny this doctrine. A writer in the Christian Examiner for 1828, treating of this subject, says:

"It had been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church for ages, and the Reformers are not exclusively entitled to the praise of giving this last finish to their doctrines of predestination and original sin. They had become familiar with its horrors in the common belief of that church, that such as die without baptism, including of course all heathen infants, have nothing to save them from hell, or at least from future punishment somewhere. Though most Protestants at last dissented from the church they abandoned, in denying the necessity of this rite to salvation, the damnation of infants was, nevertheless, held to be a necessary consequence of their guiltiness by nature, and reprobation by God. The Catholics, in the superabundance of their compassion, had provided a limbus infantum, a place reserved especially for these little ones, in which they were to suffer something less than the full torments of hell—a notion which was ridiculed by the Protestants, who held that there are but two places for all who are to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, a heaven and a hell—the one on the right hand, the other on the left of the Judge; and that such as are not admitted to the former, must necessarily take up their abode in the latter."

And we might show from the writings of Luther, Melancthon, Zanchius, Beza, Perkins, Whitacre, Piscator, Marlorat, Martyr, Ridgley, Watts, Edwards, Bellamy, and a host of others, who have been long regarded as shining lights in the church, that they believed and taught the same doctrine on this subject as Augustine, Fulgentius, and Calvin. Thus Zanchius—than whom there is scarcely a commentator of the age of Calvin, who is quoted oftener or with more respect—writes in opposition to Pighius as follows:

"Says Pighius: 'Infants are without actual sin. Therefore, although exiles from the kingdom of heaven, they will not be damned, nor receive any punishment of sense, except those of them who, in the course of nature, sin, either in their external or internal senses [nisi etiam qui sensibus internis vel externis naturaliter peccant.]'

"I answer. They are nevertheless wicked, and being born adapted to sin, are therefore justly damned although they have not yet sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. For as temporal death came upon them on account of original sin, so did also eternal; for God threatened both when he said, 'In dying you shall die.' Even young serpents and the whelps of wolves, who cannot as yet harm anybody, are put to death, and with justice. How so? Because they are of such nature, that they easily can do harm. Therefore even infants are deservedly dammed, on account of the nature they have, to wit, a wicked nature and repugnant to the law of God."

Therefore Beza was the colleague and successor of Cavin in the church and university at Geneva. And in Beza's exposition of the doctrine of Predestination, the following passage occurs:

"Some," he says, "are born out of the church, and so remain, to whom God vouchsafes nothing of that call which is necessary to salvation, that is, nothing of a revelation of his gratuitous covenant, and they are therefore necessarily placed beyond the hope of salvation, since faith comes by hearing, and without faith it is impossible for any one to please God. Nevertheless they are inexcusable, so far as relates to the execution of the divine decree, partly because all are born children of God's wrath, not of the promise, (Ephes. ii. 3,) partly because all adults, without Christ [or who are not Christians], are found guilty."

It is plain from this, that Beza consigns all heathen infants to the torments of hell. But to make his opinions on this point still plainer, he says in another part of the same treatise:

"The grace of believing is not truly said to be offered to all men, unless perchance we dream that the grace of faith is, in some internal and extraordinary way, infused into the many infants that die in all parts of the earth, as well as into the myriad of adults who leave this life before they have heard anything of Christ—a dotage," he adds, "which needs no refutation."

And Bellamy says:

"It was at God's sovereign election,—to give every child of Adam born in a Christian land, opportunity, by living, to hear the glad tidings, or only to grant this to some, while others die in infancy, and never hear. Those who die in infancy, may as justly be held under law in the next world, as those that live may in this. God is under no more obligations to save those that die, than he is to save those that live; to grant the regenerating influences of his spirit to them, than he is to these."

Dr. John Edwards, who wrote near the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, who has been styled the Paul, the Augustine, the Calvin of his age, and of whom it is said "that all unbiassed and impartial men voted him by universal consent to be one of the most valuable writers of his time"—this learned divine, referring to the calamities and sufferings to which infants as well as adults are subject in this life, and which he regards as punishments, argues thus:

"We may well argue from these things, that infants are not looked upon by God as sinless, but that they are by nature children of wrath, seeing this terrible evil comes so heavily on mankind in infancy. But besides these things, which are observable concerning the mortality of infants in general, there are some particular cases of the death of infants, which the Scripture sets before us, that are attended with circumstances, in a peculiar manner giving evidences of the sinfulness of such, and their just exposedness to divine wrath. As particularly,

"The destroying of the infants in Sodom, and the neighboring cities; which cities, destroyed in so extraordinary, miraculous, and awful a manner, are set forth as a signal example of God's dreadful vengeance for sin, to the world in all generations; agreeable to that of the apostle, Jude, verse 7."

The text here referred to is in these words:—"Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." From which it is plain that Edwards believed the infants who perished at the destruction of Sodom, are now "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

And even Dr. Watts, whose natural tenderheartedness led him to plead most earnestly and touchingly for the rescue of little infants from everlasting torments, and who would fain, as he says, "find out some milder punishment for their share of the guilt of Adam in the Bible," even he supposes them to be reduced after death to a "state of non ," which he designates as "a sort of endless punishment without pain."

"Upon the whole," he says, "the opinion of the salvation of all children, as it has no countenance from the Bible, so it has no foundation in the reason of things."—"The Scripture brings down the infants of wicked parents to the grave, and leaves them there, and so do I. The Scripture has not provided any resurrection for them, neither can I do it."

And the learned Theophilus Gale, the author of a work quite famous at one time, entitled the "Court of the Gentiles," says:

"So great is the Majestie of God, and so Absolute his Dominion, as that He is obnoxious to no Laws, Obligations, or Ties from his Creature: this absolute justice or Dominion regards not any qualities or condition of its object; but God can by virtue hereof inflict the highest torments on this innocent Creature, and exempt from punishment the most nocent. By this Absolute Justice and Dominion God can inflict the greatest torments even of Hell itself, on the most innocent Creature."

TESTMONY OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION.

Leaving here the opinion of individuals on this subject prior to Swedenborg's time, we will proceed next to consider, what is more important to our present purpose, the opinion of religious bodies or sects. And let us first consult the famous Augsburg or Au Confession of Faith, drawn up by Melancthon at the Diet of 1530, and which may be considered as the creed of the German Reformers, especially of the more temperate among them. The ninth article of this Confession says:

"They [the Lutheran churches] teach concerning baptism, that it is necessary to salvation; and that the grace of God is offered through baptism; and that infants ought to be baptised, who, being offered to God through baptism, are received into God's grace.

"They condemn the Anabaptists, who disapprove of infant baptism, and affirm that they are saved without baptism."

And Melancthon in his Apology, which is another of the Lutheran symbolical books, remarks upon this article:

"The ninth article is approved, in which we confess that baptism is necessary to salvation."—"And as we condemn most other errors of the Anabaptists, so this also, that they contend that the baptism of infants is useless. For it is most certain that the promise of salvation pertains even to infants. But it does not pertain to those who are without the church of Christ, where there is neither the Word nor the sacraments, because the kingdom of Christ exists only with the Word and sacraments. Therefore it is necessary to baptise infants, that the promise of salvation may be applied to them."