"What is religion established on the earth for? I conceive, as a part of a grand scheme of things, to contribute its influence to the restoration of all things to the state in which they were before man fell; when God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good. It was designed then to establish upon the renewed earth a race of inhabitants--men and women--who shall be all "very good."
To whom has religion in its several dispensations, been addressed? I reply to intellectual, moral and animal beings. By Paul's expression, "the whole person, spirit, soul, and body." I understand an intellectual, moral and animal person. The words spirit, soul, and body are constantly and interchangeably used for one another, as well as for the whole man: that is, to individuals in the exercise of these faculties. These very good people who are to be the population of the renovated earth, will everyone of them be persons who have been the intelligent inhabitants of the old earth as it now is. I say in their then antecedent state they will have been intelligent; else how can they sing the new song concerning their redemption by blood? God promised Abraham that he should "be the heir of the (tou kosmou) world." This world is yet to come. It was promised Abraham "through a righteousness of faith." Do you think any can possibly constitute a part of that world, who do not partake of it--as Abraham will--through faith?
Whoever is recognized as a citizen of the great nation of the Redeemed, who are to inhabit the earth renewed, must be the descendant of Abraham. "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ. You are all the sons of God through the faith by Christ Jesus." Faith in the blood of Jesus, and immersion, then are necessary to become sons of God and Christ. "And if you are Christ's, certainly you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise," made to him while a Gentile, that he should be the heir of the world. Pray, my brother, can you tell me how unconscious babes can become Abraham's seed by faith in Christ? The fact is, the only difficulty in the case arises from the traditions of the Spiritualists: Calvinists are for sending them to hell if non-elect, and Universalists are for sending them all to heaven. But in my judgment, "they err, not knowing the Scriptures." Babes are born into the world unconscious of everything intellectual, moral or animal. What loss would the extinction of their being be to them? What honour would accrue to God by a world of such inhabitants? Place them in the world of which Abraham is heir: what then? Are they there as babes or full-grown men and women? I cannot now write all that suggests itself to my mind; but my conviction is that they are neither "lost" nor "saved" in a religious or scriptural sense; but being born unconscious, having existed unconscious, and dying unconscious, unconscious they remain: that is, they cease to be. What an outcry some well-meaning people make at the idea of unconscious being not flourishing in heaven, which will be pre-eminently a moral and intellectual state! Calvinists believe that some infants are elected to eternal life without either faith or obedience; and that others are elected to damnation to all eternity; yet these believers in such a monstrous absurdity can raise a hue and cry against me, because I maintain that the Scriptures leave an unconscious being, that dies unconscious, in his unconsciousness for ever.
Some imagine that because nothing is said in Scripture as the destiny of infants, that therefore they will go to heaven. I confess, I can discover no such "therefore" in the premises. Shall I say because the Scriptures say nothing of the destiny of Julius Caesar by name, that therefore he will partake with the righteous? And yet one is just as consequent as the other; and that is, not at all. It appears to me that God deals more in positives than in negatives. He is not like some "divines" who say "I cannot tell you what the thing is, but I can tell you what it is not." It is not "yea and nay" with Him, but "amen" when He reveals a thing. But God has certainly revealed the destiny of infants, and Julius Caesar, as He has plainly made known the way of salvation.
Man, whether we regard him as male or female, infant or adult, is absolutely mortal. This is what the Scriptures teach. People talk about the "immortality of the soul;" but Yahweh says "the soul that sinneth it shall die," that is eternally. Some souls then are not to die, and who are these? Those of the race of man who obey the truth. This the Scriptures teach. The condition then upon which mortal man may become immortal, or an heir of eternal life, is OBEDIENCE TO THE TRUTH. It is obvious then that those who do not and can not obey the truth, cannot live for ever: hence the destiny of infants and of Julius Caesar is certain, as far as regards an eternal existence in the glorified state. Whether Julius Caesar, who never heard the truth, will be raised with the rejectors of the truth to suffer punishment, is another question; but, this I am persuaded by the positive tenor of the doctrine of Jesus as to eternal life, that infants will be raised neither to suffer punishment nor to enjoy a life of which they were never conscious. It is surprising that ever the doctrine of the eternal life of infants should have been discovered in the saying of Jesus. "Permit the children to come to me, and do not forbid them: for of such is the kingdom of God." Yet one need scarcely wonder at this, since "divines" can see in it the dogma of baby sprinkling. The passage in which this text is, when stripped of the mysticisms of human folly and conceit, appears to me simply to amount to this: Jesus was renowned for the efficacy of his touch. By touching the sick, he healed many diseases; as also by laying on of hands or by touch, the apostles subsequently imparted to their disciples the gifts of the spirit. On the present occasion, Jesus was conversing with the people and teaching them by similitudes. In the context, he had been showing that "every one who exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." About this time he was interrupted in his discourse by certain (perhaps mothers, who seem ever since to have been more absorbed in their infants than in the wisdom of the Holy One of God: I mean no offence, however, to the ladies by this remark), who brought infants to him that he might touch them." If I were asked why they did this, I should say, I suppose they expected some virtue would be imparted to them. Or they might have done it in the same spirit that fond parents introduce their little ones to the notice of their visitors; that they may admire them and pronounce them fine boys and girls, and predict some happy life in store for them. Or they might have done it in the same spirit that fond parents introduce their little ones to the notice of their visitors; that they may admire them and pronounce them fine boys and girls, and predict some happy life in store for them. However this may have been, the disciples, whose minds were engaged in listening to the gracious words which distilled from his lips, considered the presentation of the infants as inopportune, for they rebuked them or ordered them to stand back. This well-intentioned officiousness of the disciples, the Master corrected by calling them to him, and saying, "Permit the children to come to me and do not forbid them;" and as he had just been insisting upon the necessity of humility in the disposition of those who would be justified of God, he took occasion still further to urge it upon their attention, by setting forth these children as the type of the dispositions of those who constitute the kingdom of God, saying, "for of such is the kingdom of God." He did not mean by this that the kingdom of God was to be made up of natural infants, "for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and unless it be born again, it cannot enter the kingdom of God," but he evidently intended to teach that all who would enter therein, must be of a docile or teachable, tractable and humble disposition as a child; for says he, "whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a child shall never enter it." The humble and teachable disposition that is required in candidates for the citizenship of the kingdom, is a humility and docility toward God. Not that we are to be imperious toward men, but this is not the idea contemplated in the text. When our minds come into contact with the Scriptures, then they should dismiss every conceit that has been instilled into them by the nurse, priest or schoolmaster. As to the instructions of those, we should not be too tractable, too docile or to humble. We should take nothing they say for granted, but prove all things, regardless of who propounds them, and hold fast that which is good; though believed by the Pope himself. But the child-like humility inculcated by Jesus, is beautifully illustrated in the similitude of the Publican and the Pharisee. The former humbled himself before God. The consequence was, that God exalted the Publican by justifying him, and abased the Pharisee by paying no attention to his prayer. The Publican had the right disposition to enter the kingdom from which the self-righteous Pharisee was excluded.
You conclude that those children remain blessed to this day. Very well, I will not dispute your conclusion. This remaining blessedness will depend on their having been born again when of mature age, if indeed they ever arrived at that stage of human life. I presume you do not mean to say that because a particular blessing was pronounced upon those whom Jesus touched, therefore all other infants are blessed in like manner. If they remain blessed in like manner. If they remain blessed at this day, it is because after being born again, they have persevered in well doing, and will therefore be requited at the resurrection of the just.
As to infants being subject to a blessing or curse, I would observe that in a certain sense, we are all under a curse--they with us. They partake of the curse of disease, pain, and death. This I believe is about the sum an substance of the curse they are the subjects of. If war, famine, pestilence or earthquake come upon a country, they partake of the calamities, which are shorn, however, of all their horrors, inasmuch as they are devoid of suffering by anticipation, which is certainly a blessing.
No one who understands the gospel, need puzzle himself about the salvation of infants. It is a dogma of priests, by which they make money and build up their unholy craft. They have invented the dogma of the imputation of original sin, by which they make out that infants are in danger of hell fire (They have taught {though I believe they are getting ashamed of the original}, that there are infants in hell a span long, {merciful priests!} and nothing can save them but besprinkling their faces with holy water!) They have invented rhantism or rite of sprinkling, by which to wash away their sin and fit them for heaven. If they die unsprinkled, some of them will not bury them in the consecrated ground, for they have died as dies a dog. They regenerate a sinful child and wash away its original sin by sprinkling it in the name of the Father, &c. Infants are fit subjects of the rites of superstition, for it is all amen to them, and thus it is by these inventions that Anti-christ has conjured up a salvation and damnation of infants, and so far hoodwinked the world as to cajole the most of it into its reception.
God does indeed care for infants, and has use for them too. They are the men and women of a rising race. It is the duty therefore of Christian parents to train them up in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. It is parents who are responsible for the future destiny of their infants. If they bring them up in the nurture an admonition of the Lord, then indeed those infants will partake with their parents in the resurrection of the just. It is lamentable to behold the neglect of Christian parents in this matter. They seem as if they cared for the salvation only of themselves. These little innocents are left to follow the natural tendency of their minds to evil. This appears to be no offence in their sight, while to say that the Scriptures teach in effect, the everlasting unconsciousness of unconscious babes, is viewed with a pious horror in my judgment more pretended than real. But away with such hypocrisy! Let parents shew their philoprogenitiveness by leading them into the way of eternal life, and not by rapid lackadaisical exclamations about a matter which after all affects them neither in one way nor the other."