Читать книгу A Book of Gems, or, Choice selections from the writings of Benjamin Franklin - Бенджамин Франклин - Страница 58

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IN our generation, a vast amount of ink and breath is wasted in writing and preaching about infant sin, infant salvation, idiots, etc. There is one thing certain about it, and that is, that our writing and preaching about infant sin, infant salvation, Christ dying for infants and idiots, never saved an infant, an idiot, or anybody else. We do not, by our writing and preaching about them, make them sinful or righteous. It is simply writing and preaching about them, and not to them, and certainly can do them no good. It is purely curious and speculative, pleasant for men and women to talk about, who will not love and obey the Savior themselves.

There are some things so clear in themselves that all can see them on the mere mention of them. Infants and idiots can not understand, believe, receive, reject, or obey the gospel. They can not repent, pray, praise God or rejoice. The gospel is simply not addressed to them. Infants and idiots are plainly and simply not gospel subjects. How are they then to be saved? What salvation do you mean? Salvation from sin, do you say? What sin? They never sinned, and have no actual sin, as the schoolmen style it. They are under no guilt. They never transgressed any law, human or divine. They never rejected Christ nor the gospel. They have no personal sin or guilt; no personal condemnation, and need no personal justification. The justification we receive in believing and obeying the gospel, is from our own sins, actual sins, sins we have committed ourselves. Infants have no sins of this kind and need not this justification. The remission of sins received, in turning to God, is for sinners; those who, in their own persons have committed sins, and not for infants, who have never sinned—who have no sins of this kind. They have no guilt, no condemnation, and need no salvation from “old sins,” as Peter has it, or past sins. They have no sins of this kind.

But, then, this is only a partial view of the matter. We all need something more than this. We need another salvation beyond pardon, or salvation from actual sins; we need to be ransomed from the grave, raised from the dead; our bodies changed, glorified, immortalized. The infant and idiot need this. This salvation is future. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” “By one man, sin entered into the world.” “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” But we are not under the guilt of Adam’s sin; only under the consequences. These consequences came on us without our will, volition or consent; without our action. We had no power to avert the calamity. It came on us unconditionally. The first Adam, without our volition or action, involved us in it. The second Adam, the Lord from heaven, unconditionally removes it from us. Without our volition or action, he takes it away. The first Adam involved us in death. Our turning to God, becoming christians and obtaining remission of sins, does not save us from death. We all die the same as those not Christians. After we die, the best of saints, we need the same ransom from the grave, as infants do. To be made alive; to be changed, immortalized and glorified. This is the salvation from Adam’s sin, or the consequences of it, and this is needed for the saints and infants alike.

“If one died for all, then we are all dead.” I. Cor. v. 14. This includes infants and idiots. Christ then died for all. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The same “all” that die in Adam shall be made alive in or by Christ. Christ, then, died for all—all that die in Adam—and will make the same “all” alive, or raise them from the dead. He, then, in dying for all, died for infants and idiots, and secured for them resurrection from the dead, and they need to prepare them for the world to come.

They can receive no gospel, and need none; they can not repent, and need no repentance; they can not pray or commune, and need no prayer or communion; they need no religion, and are simply not subjects of religion. They need no church. The gospel, repentance and remission of sins, the church and all that is in it, is for pardoned persons—those washed from their sins—the redeemed by the blood of Christ, and not for those who never sinned, had no guilt, and needed no pardon—those who have no faith and know not the Savior.