CHAPTER II.
INFERENCES.
"The canker-worm spoileth, and fleeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day; but when the sun ariseth, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are."—Nahum iii. 16, 17.
What, now, are the inferences forced upon us by the testimony exhibited in the foregoing chapter, viewed in connection with the prevailing belief of Christians of the present day upon the subject we have been considering? In view of the dense cimmerian darkness which had overspread the Christian world prior to the time of Swedenborg, who will deny that there was need of a new revelation from God out of heaven? And who can doubt that, ere long—dating from that dark period of the church when men "groped as if they had no eyes"—such a revelation would be vouchsafed as would eflfectually dissipate these shades of night?
Besides, this old doctrine of infant damnation is part and parcel of a stupendous heap of theological errors, which had been accumulating for more than fifteen hundred years. It is seen to be logically and intimately connected with the popular doctrines of fore-ordination, election, reprobation, imputed sin and imputed righteousness—clearly of the same family and household as these. Nor is the doctrine one whit more immoral in its tendency, nor more dishonorable to the character of the Divine Being, than is the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, to which, indeed, in some respects, it seems intimately allied. For, says the learned Theophilus Gale:
"There is no justice properly so termed in respect of the Creatures, whereby God stands obliged to them, antecedent to the constitution of his own Will. Nothing more unjust than to deny unto God an absolute Dominion to dispose of the Creature made by him as it pleaseth him. And that God DID, DE FACTO, inflict the highest torments on an innocent, pure, spotless Creature, even the Human Nature of His own Son, is most evident."[1]
And now the question comes, Why is it that this doctrine of infant damnation, which once stalked abroad so boldly, and was treated everywhere with such cordial respect and affection, has become so disagreeable and unpopular of late? Why is it that in these latter times it so shrinks from exposure, and anxiously seeks to hide its hideous head? Why is it that this doctrine has become so much more odious to Christians now, than it was one or two centuries ago? Why is it that you no longer hear it mentioned from the pulpit, or defended in theological treatises? Why is it that Christians of every name, not even excepting Calvinists themselves, are now so ready to reject and disown it? Why, indeed, but because a new Sun has risen upon the moral world, making more and more manifest the things of darkness? Why, but because the heavens have been opened, and the glad beams of heavenly light have begun slowly to penetrate the dark corners of the earth, and to drive to their hiding places the creatures of the night? Why, but because this is the beginning of a New Age—an age of general and rational illumination—the day of the Lord's second appearing, which He himself declared would be "as the lightning, which cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west"? Why, but because the present is the dawn of that great and glorious day in which, as saith the prophet Isaiah, "a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty"? And as the light of this New Dispensation diffuses itself more and more abroad, it will fare with other doctrines, popular and in good repute at present, as it has already fared with the one we have been considering. Before the lapse of another century, the doctrines, as hitherto expounded, of three persons in the Godhead, a vicarious atonement, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the material body, and others of kindred character, will take their places among the rubbish of the past; and teaching ministers will be as unwilling to defend them, or even to name them approvingly, as they are now to defend or name the old dogma of infant damnation. This will result inevitably from the steady diffusion of the light of the New Dispensation—from that clear rational illumination of the popular mind of Christendom, which is now everywhere going on in consequence of the descent of the New Jerusalem.
We have not attempted here any refutation of the doctrine of infant damnation; nor shall we attempt any. There is no occasion for that. But, in striking contrast with the Old doctrine, as herein exhibited, we shall present the New doctrine concerning the state of infants after death, as set forth in the revelations made for the New Church. Then let the reader decide between them; let him say which is from above, and which from beneath—which is true, and which is false.
- ↑ Court of the Gentiles, Part iv. B. ii. chap. vi. § 1.