I. CALVINISM IMPUGNS THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE DEITY.
The existence of moral evil is a fact,
not to be denied by any man who révérences his
own understanding; and that it seemed fit to the Divine
Wisdom to permit its introduction into the world,
is equally beyond contradiction, unless we limit the
divine power, and suppose that, by a necessity antecedent
to the divine will, and controlling the divine conduct,
the Deity himself acts, not spontaneously but from
coercion. That sin, with its awful consequences,
should even exist by permission, under the
administration of infinite benevolence, has been regarded
by theologians as one of the most perplexing mysteries
of “the deep things of God.”
But Calvinism leads to the direct
and inevitable conclusion, not only that God has permitted
the fall of angels and of men, but that He is himself
the original author of their defection, and
of the guilt and suffering which have been incurred
by disobedience. No subtlety of argument, no
special refinements or metaphysical distinctions,
no ingenious evasions can rescue from this fatal conclusion
the Calvinistic exposition of the divine decrees.
If the Creator in the construction of the human mind
rendered it naturally, morally, absolutely impossible,
that man should maintain his obedience to the divine
law under the circumstances in which he was placed the
act of transgression, be it what it may, must be traced
to the will and intention of the Deity the
effect, sin, guilt, condemnation, undefinable
misery, diffused over the face of the creation, and
coextensive with the numberless generations of the
family of man the cause, God; that
Being who is perfect reason, perfect goodness, light
without darkness, love without malevolence; who cannot
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man;
with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning!
Contrasted with this monstrous compound of impiety
and absurdity, which makes infinite goodness the eternal
source of infinite misery, there is wisdom in the
Manichaean doctrine of two conflicting principles,
holding a divided dominion over the universe, and contending,
one for the production of the universal degradation
and wretchedness, the other, for the purity and bliss
of all intellectual and moral beings!
The advocates of scriptural truth
have not failed to expose, with holy indignation and
eloquent remonstrance, the inconsistency of these
views of the divine government with the entire scope
and spirit of the evangelic economy of grace.
While the love of God to a fallen world is the great
theme of the apostolic ministry, and, in language
too explicit to be misunderstood, the propitiation
of Christ is said to be for the sins “of the
whole world,” while, in exact
agreement with the consolatory declaration that God
“delighteth not in the death of a sinner,”
the apostles of Christ are commissioned to “preach
the gospel to every creature,” we
are taught by Calvinism, that the God of truth is
only mocking the great mass of his miserable creatures
with a semblance of mercy, from whose tenderness they
are excluded, and with promises and invitations which
He never designed should be accepted by them.
A dark and unrelenting fate has already sealed their
destiny, and their perdition is rendered inevitable
before they have committed those offences for which,
as if in derision, they are commanded to repent, in
order that they may escape the wrath of the Almighty.
Thus, in total disregard of all that is holy and majestic
in the character of the Deity, He is described as
a Being invested with the most detestable of Satanic
attributes, assuming the gentle affections of a father,
only to exercise more effectually the wanton power
of a tyrant, and treacherously inviting our confidence
and our love, when, with such falsehood and cruelty,
as the most debased of his creatures would not be
able to perpetrate, He is only preparing victims for
his inexorable malice.
Let it not be said, in opposition
to this, that we are imperfect judges, in any particular
case, of the rectitude of the divine procedures; that
our ignorance renders our decision in such a case
daring and presumptuous. We are not ignorant
of what is meant either by justice or mercy.
These moral qualities are essentially the same in
nature, whether in created beings or in their Creator.
The only difference is in degree. In the Deity
they are infinite; and, if infinite justice
and mercy are compatible with conduct which, on a
smaller scale, would expose a human being to eternal
infamy, then are we disqualified for all just conceptions
of the character of God. If wanton cruelty be
consistent with Divine compassion, then may deception
be reconciled with inviolable faith, and they, who
deem themselves to be happy in the electing love of
God, may awake at last to the fearful discovery, that,
having indulged in the dream of special grace, they
are only reserved for a destiny still more terrible
than others, whom they had abandoned as reprobate
to the sovereign wrath of God! By what infatuation
are men induced to rely on any supposed distinctions
in favour of themselves, when they have removed the
only grounds of confidence in the righteous administration
of the Deity?
It is an impressive feature in the
works of rigid predestinarians, that their own minds
seem to partake of the fearful gloom with which they
depict the divine attributes. They appear awed
and terror -stricken with the stern aspect of the
great Being whose moral character they have distorted,
until they tremble at the creations of their own imagination.
They write as men whose minds are rendered morbid
with mysterious fears, rather than brightened into
holy gladness, by a filial love of God. They
seem to be vindicating with servile dread a character,
whose wrath they would deprecate, and whose doubtful
favour they would propitiate on their own behalf.
Even when they express their persuasion of their own
interest in “special grace,” it is more
in the spirit of men who are conscious of being the
favoured objects of capricious tyranny, than of that
serene and hopeful and cheering confidence which inspires
the devout heart, when it contemplates through a happier
medium the beneficent and universal Father. Nor
is this unnatural. The moral character of the
Deity, as misrepresented by Calvinism, both unsettles
all our ideas of rectitude, and renders insecure our
hold upon Infinite Goodness.
That the mental disease of Cowper
was intensely aggravated by depressing views of the
divine character, which he received from Newton and
others, and that the consolations which might have
soothed his mind, from a scriptural view of the grace
of the gospel, were neutralised or destroyed by his
supposing himself the victim of an irreversible
decree, is clear to every impartial reader of his
most interesting and most melancholy life. Yet
of his piety we have this touching proof, that, amidst
the wildest aberrations of his intellect, and while
oppressed with the conviction that he was numbered
with the reprobate, his persuasion of the rectitude
of the divine government never wavered; he acquiesced
in the doom which he believed to await him; and declared
that if it were the will of God that he should perish,
he would not lift a finger to reverse his fate!
Who would not lament, that a mind thus tempered to
pious confidence, should be taught by a pernicious
creed to distrust its own interest in the love of
God a delusion which passed away only in
death!
II. CALVINISM IS NOT TO BE RECONCILED WITH THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
OF MAN.
Whatever extent we assign to the corruption
of human nature, by which its moral powers have been
impaired, or the soul disqualified for the due and
proper use of those powers, it is plain that men are
still capable of acting, and of being treated as the
subjects of moral government. Calvinistic writers
do themselves admit the turpitude of sin and the loveliness
of virtue that vice entails suffering,
and that happiness is the consequence of a religious
conformity to the will of God. That is, setting
aside all special refinements by which they attempt
to disprove that the present state of man is probationary,
they confess that practically mankind are treated
as accountable beings whose guilt is punished and their
goodness rewarded. This broad and unquestionable
fact defies controversy. Although we may not
be able to give a definition of freedom which
may satisfy the philosopher, and although we may concede
to the opposers of the freedom of the will, that virtue
and vice moral good and moral evil are
to be predicated, not of the cause, whether it be
freedom or fate, from whence our volitions spring,
but of the good or evil nature of the volitions
themselves in whatever way these questions
are decided, or, if we leave them undecided, as being
beyond the present grasp of the human intellect, men
are unquestionably subjected by the Deity to the laws
of a moral economy. They are, sooner or later,
rendered happy in exact proportion to their conformity
to the commands of God, and miserable if they remain
rebellious.
And all we contend for is, that such
a state of things can never be explained on the supposition
of absolute predestination or inevitable necessity,
founded on the irreversible decrees of Heaven.
The reason appears on a moment’s consideration.
The good or evil nature of the volition belongs, on
this hypothesis, not to the created being, who is
a passive instrument, without actual power but
to the Creator, who is the only real agent, as well
as the efficient cause. The instrument by which
He accomplishes his purposes may be good or evil,
the volitions of that instrument may be characterised
by whatever qualities you please, still, a mere instrument
is not an object of moral approbation or blame; no
responsibility attaches to it, and the condition on
which it acts is perfectly incongruous with all the
ideas we have of reward or punishment. These
are inapplicable to a state of fatalism. The
volitions, and the actions they produce, are in
reality those of the Deity. To Him they belong,
and to Him alone. On this critical and decisive
point all the great Calvinistic writers break down.
While they award to human beings the treatment due
to moral agents, they deny to them the attributes
without which they cannot be responsible for their
actions.
To beings under moral government,
personal agency is essential; but Calvinistic fatalism
reduces all agency to that of the Deity alone.
The human soul is moved mechanically by impulse from
without, and passively yields to an irresistible power.
It supposes the exercise of faculties
by which we are made sensible of our relation to the
Deity, and our obligation to obey his laws. Hence
results the consciousness of rectitude or guilt, and
all the noble motives by which we are led to self-government
and self -renunciation from a sense of
duty, and with a view to future happiness in the enjoyment
of the divine approbation. But Calvinistic necessity
destroys the majesty of the human mind, as “an
arbiter enthroned in its own dominion, endowed with
an initiating power, and forming its determinations
for good or for evil by an inherent and indefeasible
prerogative.” It tells us that we have
neither power to act nor freedom to fall that
our sense of liberty is delusive, that we are predestined
to sin or to holiness by a decree of the infinite
mind, and that our fate has been sealed from eternity!
If we really believe it and act upon it, our moral
energies are for ever suppressed, and the consciousness
of virtue and of guilt must give way to the humiliating
persuasion that we can do nothing, and that we have
nothing to do, but to yield to our lot and await our
doom, whether to be lost or saved!
The absurdity of such a theory of
religion is a light consideration compared with the
perilous consequences it must produce, if it were
possible that the mass of ignorant and unreflecting
creatures, of which society is composed, should really
believe it true and act in accordance with their belief.
Instructed to regard their present conduct and future
allotment, as being already determined, the notion
of a state of trial, in which they were accountable
to God, would be cast off, with all its salutary restraints
upon the passions, and all its noble incentives to
a virtuous life. Nor would it be possible to
enforce the laws of morality by mere temporal sanctions,
the fear of exile, the dungeon, or the gibbet, when
conscience no longer enforced the dictates of religious
faith. The great auxiliary and support of all
human authority is to be found in that most noble
attribute of human nature the sense of
duty, which ceases to operate the moment we lose
the consciousness of freedom, believing that our thoughts,
our actions, ourselves, are but necessary links
in an eternal chain of causes and effects.
Such a theory of religion renders
it absurd to admonish mankind of their duty,
whether to obey the law of God, or to believe the
Gospel of Christ.
To this reasoning the Calvinist replies:
“I acknowledge that men are morally, spiritually
dead. But at the command of God I would preach
to the dead: at his word the dead shall hear and
live.” But this reply is irrelevant to
the great points of the argument. It remains
to be proved, that God would be just in punishing as
a crime that spiritual death, of which, on the Calvinistic
theory, He is the author; that it is possible
for infinite goodness to subject created beings to
an inevitable necessity of breaking his laws,
and then hand them over to perdition. This is
the point which cannot be evaded; and it is fatal
to the predestinarian theology. Doubtless God
can raise the dead, literally or spiritually; but that
does not touch the question.
III. CALVINISM IS OPPOSED TO THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PURPOSES OF A
VISIBLE CHURCH.
By the visible Church is meant the
great body of persons who are baptized into the faith
of Christ, and openly profess his religion; and the
term is used in contradistinction to the invisible
Church, which consists of real, sincere, and spiritual
disciples of our Lord. These may be said to be
invisible, since to search the heart and penetrate
its secrets, is the prerogative of God alone.
The truly faithful, as distinguished from the mere
professors of Christianity, will not be seen
in their distinct character until the hour when the
final judgment shall separate the righteous from the
wicked. “Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
The visible Church, with her apostolic
ministry, her worship, her sacraments, and her various
provisions for the edification of the body of Christ,
is instituted and constructed on the manifest principle
that the present is a probationary state, and that
those who by her ministrations are brought under the
obligations of the Christian covenant, are not thereby
absolutely but conditionally sealed to eternal life,
which is suspended on their faithful adhesion to Christ,
and final perseverance in his holy ways.
In exact accordance with this statement,
our Lord describes the kingdom of heaven, or the Christian
Church, as a field in which the wheat and the
tares grow up together until the harvest; and
as a net cast into the sea and gathering of all
kinds of fishes, bad and good, which are afterwards
to be separated.
Not a syllable occurs in the New Testament,
not a single fact transpires in the history of the
apostolical Churches, to justify the persuasion,
that such only as were decreed to eventual salvation,
were received as members of the Christian community.
Such an order of fellowship, had it really existed,
would have amounted to a pre-judgment of characters,
anticipating and superseding the judicial sentence
of the last day. In that case, to obtain an entrance
into the communion of the Church was virtually to be
proclaimed a member, not only of the visible, but also
of the invisible society of the redeemed, rendering
needless all exhortations to perseverance, and impossible
all danger of apostasy. But such an exclusive
and select and judicial order of fellowship never
did and never can exist under the present dispensation,
which is essentially a mixed state, and one of probation,
supplying the means of working out our own salvation,
and of making our calling and election sure,
but not requiring evidence of our effectual calling
and of our certain election to life previous to our
introduction to the worship and sacraments of the Church.
From the earliest records we have
of the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, as
well as from all later history, we may learn that
the Catholic Church never aimed at the senseless project
of a pure communion, which, by excluding all but the
finally elect, should rival in sanctity the fellowship
of the saints above.
The worship of the Christian
Church has always been open, unrestricted, unconfined
by classical distinctions, such as those of the elect
and the reprobate. The gates of the temple are
closed against none who would join in the celebration
of its holy rites. God is the Father of all;
Christ the Saviour of all; the manifestation of the
Spirit was given for the profit of all; the Gospel
is to be preached to all. “And the Spirit
and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth
say, Come, and let him that is athirst come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely.”
The same free and charitable principle
has directed the administration of the sacraments,
a circumstance the more remarkable, since, in the
judgment of the most eminent Fathers of the Church,
these are the channels by which spiritual grace is
actually communicated to all who are rightfully baptized,
and religiously partake of the Lord’s supper.
The formularies of our own branch of Christ’s
Catholic Church are so clear and definite on this
point, that every effort of ingenious casuistry to
give them another meaning, or to reconcile their use
with the Calvinistic theology, has ended in discomfiture.
The sacraments are “outward and visible
signs of an inward and spiritual grace, given unto
us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means
whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to
assure us thereof.” This grace is
imparted, not as to the elect and to them exclusively,
but as to beings who are free and responsible, who
have to account for their use of this sacred and inestimable
gift, and who may forfeit its blessings by subsequent
guilt and final impenitence. The present state
of our knowledge, or rather ignorance of the philosophy
of the human mind, may not supply us with a satisfactory
answer for those, who, in a cavilling or sceptical
spirit, ask, “How can these things be?”
But it is the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the
Church, and it is perplexed with fewer difficulties
than will be found to press upon every other hypothesis.
Supposing the Calvinistic doctrine
of predestination to be founded in truth, the very
existence of the visible Church in its present form
is a mystery which requires to be solved. No part
of its constitution or order harmonises with a scheme
based on fatalism, and limiting the grace of Heaven
to a narrow section of the human family.
The Sabbath bell, joyously or solemnly,
invites all who hear to come to the house of God;
and in the name of the “great congregation”
the minister of Christ addresses the Deity, saying,
“Our Father which art in heaven!”
But Calvinism pronounces that God
is not “the lovely Father of all mankind;”
and, that while He has instituted the rites of religious
worship, and invites all to mingle in its sacred duties,
He regards the greater number as “cursed
children,” marked out for perdition, “before
the morning stars sang together, or ever the sons of
God shouted for joy.”
The ministers of the Church administer
to all adult converts from paganism, Judaism, or Mahometanism,
who make a credible profession, and to all infants,
whose sureties engage for their Christian education,
the rite of baptism, signifying the remission of past
sin, original or actual, and pledging the communication
of whatever grace is needful to remedy or assist the
weakness of nature in the moral warfare with temptation.
But Calvinism not only abjures this
indiscriminate bestowment of grace; but denies that
even the elect are regenerated in baptism, leaving
it to the arbitrary determination of God’s decree,
at what given period, and under what circumstances,
they shall be, instantaneously, and without regard
to any foregoing state of mind or habits of life,
transformed into the beloved, and loving, and lovely
children of God!
In a word, Calvinism supposes and
requires an order of administration totally distinct
from that which actually exists in the visible Church
of God. And, accordingly, various Calvinistic
communions, which have separated from the Church
since the Reformation, have attempted a literal “fellowship
of saints,” presuming to discriminate
from the mass of nominal Christians those who have
experienced the conclusive and saving change of Calvinistic
conversion, and admitting such only to the full enjoyment
of Church privileges and to the Lord’s table.
It seems not a little surprising, that not only sagacious
individuals but extensive communities should persevere
in an attempt which, in the nature of things, can
lead only to disappointment; for, the sincerity of
that species of conversion which is supposed to be
final, of that grace which is said to be irrevocable,
can never be decided until the Judge of all has pronounced
his verdict. In the meantime, the terms of communion
must agree in some measure with the actual state
of man; and when the matter is quietly examined, it
appears that even in Calvinistic communions the
terms of membership are reduced to a profession of
the received “faith and order,” and an
assurance, on the part of the initiated, that he believes
himself to be a converted person by God’s special
grace. This is all that is required besides evidence
of good moral character; more than this is impracticable.
The spirit of Calvinism can never be fully embodied
in a system of Ecclesiastical polity corresponding
exactly with its own nature, and marked by its own
exclusiveness; for who shall discern the elect?
This discovery appears to have been
made by an eminent Calvinistic clergyman of the present
day, who, instead of coming to the legitimate conclusion
that Calvinism is therefore untenable, as being an
impracticable system, has recourse to a delusive theory
of ecclesiastical fellowship, which confounds the
visible with the invisible Church, or reduces the
former to a mere nullity. According to his
view of the subject, the Church of Christ consists,
not of the collective body of persons who may happen
to be in fellowship with any particular Christian
communities, nor of the aggregate of persons who throughout
the world make an outward profession of our holy faith,
but of those, and those only, who “maintain the
doctrines of grace, and uphold the authority of Christ
in the world,” with whatever denomination of
Christians they are in external fellowship. These,
being the truly regenerate, are to tolerate each other’s
differences on minor questions, to love each other
as being one in Christ, and to co-operate in every
way for the diffusion of their common principles throughout
the world. Mr. Noel’s theory confirms the
statement made in this section, that Calvinism, which
it is presumed he means by “the doctrines of
grace,” denies the claim of any mixed body
of professing Christians, such as the Anglican, or
the Lutheran, or the Scottish, or any other church,
in its aggregate character, to be a church,
or a distinct branch of the Catholic Church. That
is, Calvinism is opposed to the constitution and the
purposes of a visible church. Mr. Noel’s
theory is fatal to its existence. For, when it
is said of those exclusively, who, in whatever denomination,
“maintain the doctrines of grace,” “and
this one body is the church,” it
is clearly proveable, that these persons have no intelligible
grounds on which to rest that high and exclusive pretension;
they are not the visible church.
These persons may, or may not, be
members of the spiritual or invisible Church;
that is known only to the Searcher of the heart.
They may or may not be the most holy and sincere individuals
in the several churches or denominations with which
they hold external communion; that also remains
to be confirmed or refuted by “the final sentence
and unalterable doom.” But they do not
constitute what is commonly understood by the visible
Church of God. They have no ministry, no worship,
no administration of the sacraments, visibly distinct
from the mass of persons who are of the same external
fellowship with themselves; and the error of assigning
to them the distinction of being alone the true Church
arises from the ambiguity of the word Church,
on which changes are rung, producing a confusion of
ideas a double confusion of ideas, “confusion
worse confounded.” What is the mental process
by which Mr. Noel arrives at this point? First,
the invisible Church is tacitly put and mistaken for
the visible, the truly spiritual for the nominal,
it being assumed that we can know the hearts of others.
Then, secondly, this invisible Church is supposed
to become visible, and to be alone visible,
in the persons of those who maintain the doctrines
of grace; while the really external Church, consisting
of the entire body of professing Christians throughout
the world, vanishes out of sight, and is declared to
have no ecclesiastical existence! The truth is,
that Calvinism and a visible Church are incongruous
ideas, and that no man, of whatever talent he may
be possessed, can make them harmonize. The Calvinist
believes, and is consistent in his belief, that the
elect only are “the Church,” but since
it is impossible to discriminate them from others,
it is impossible to unite them in an exclusive visible
fellowship. And, if it were possible, they would
form such a Church as never before existed. Calvinism
is irreconcileable with the order which has descended
from the apostolic age, by the consent of the Catholic
Church, and with any visible constitution.
If Mr. Noel has succeeded in making
converts to his theory of a visible Church,
from the difficulty they find in detecting its fallacies,
it only proves, that
“Sheer no-meaning puzzles
more than wit.”
The dissenter who, on objecting to
a Church rate, said, that “If all Churchmen
were like Mr. Noel, neither he nor his brethren would
object to join them,” does not seem to have been
aware that they were already members of Mr. Noel’s
Church. Or, what is more probable, it was designed
significantly to hint to that reverend gentleman,
that he was no more attached than themselves to the
Church of which he is a pastor, and whose ordination
vows are upon him, and that with Churchmen
who are prepared so to betray or deny their Church,
under an erroneous sense of duty, dissenters may without
difficulty form an alliance.
IV. CALVINISM IS PRODUCTIVE OF POSITIVELY INJURIOUS EFFECTS ON
INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER, AND ON SOCIAL HAPPINESS.
When Lord Chatham taunted the Church
with having “a Calvinistic creed, a popish liturgy,
and an Arminian clergy,” that illustrious person
was the author of a libel on this holy and apostolical
institution. Her creed is not Calvinistic, for
it says nothing about absolute predestination; her
liturgy it not popish, for there is no worship of
saints or of the Virgin; her clergy are not Arminian,
for their moderation has preserved them, as a body,
from all extremes in doctrine, and that, as
well as their unrivalled erudition and intellectual
power, has been the admiration of the most eminent
protestant divines and men of letters in Europe.
And to her truly scriptural character, especially
her rejection of the Calvinistic theology, with its
gloomy, turbulent, and intolerant spirit, may be traced
the high tone of moral feeling and practical reverence
of religion which have honourably distinguished the
people of England. Happily, Calvinism in its
palmy days was confined to the Puritanical party,
which made comparatively small progress within the
pale of the Church; while the most influential of
her clergy, and the great majority of her well educated
laity, embraced the doctrines of a more generous and
scriptural theology. Without falling into Pelagianism,
a charge made by Calvinists on all who reject the
system improperly called “the doctrines of grace,”
they held the great evangelic truth that Christ “died
for all,” and its correspondent views of
the benevolence of God, and the moral dignity of human
nature, impaired, but not destroyed, by the fall.
The principles of the remonstrants,
without being servilely embraced, influenced and modified
the religious opinions of the people of England, who
were never generally favourable, either to the dogmas
or the discipline of the Genevan reformer, and to this
circumstance are we largely indebted for the manly
and the moral character of our country.
This statement, founded on the history
of the Reformation and the times which followed, is
not intended as an indiscriminate attack on the moral
character of Calvinists. Many of them are to be
classed with the holiest of men; not because they
are Calvinists, but because their erroneous notions
are rendered innoxious, by the prevalence of a sincere
piety, and by a secret and practical disbelief of
the principles which, in speculation or imagination,
they seem to hold.
It would be both unjust and uncharitable
to judge any class of persons simply by the creed
they subscribe, or to impute to them the consequences
which might be supposed to follow from a rigid adherence
to its doctrines. There are antagonist principles
at work; there is the law written on the heart; there
is grace to counteract the tendency of false impressions;
there is the love of God and of man to render those
who are truly good men superior to any bad principles
they have unhappily imbibed. Their Christianity
is dominant, and their Calvinism is made harmless.
But evil speculation has a tendency
in all minds to lessen or destroy the power of those
dictates of conscience which are honourable to us
as moral agents; and it will counteract, so far as
it goes, the salutary influence of those scriptural
truths which still retain their hold upon the judgment
or the feelings. In but few instances, comparatively,
can Calvinism be altogether harmless; in the ordinary
course of things, it is productive of results positively
injurious.
In persons of serious religion, it
will produce opposite effects, as they may be gentle
and timid, or bold and presumptuous. In the former,
anxiety, fearful apprehension, deep distress, approaching
to despondency, lest the tremendous decree of reprobation
should have been recorded against them in the indelible
page. In the latter, who can bring a sanguine
temperament of mind to the contemplation of the subject,
the effect may be, and often is, unbounded confidence,
leading to self-complacency and spiritual pride; the
very natural result of believing that they are special
objects of the love of God, and that their persuasion
is a divine impulse, God speaking to the heart.
Spiritual pride may assume the aspect of profound
humility, and thus impose on its victim by the notion
that he is only magnifying the sovereign grace of
Heaven in his election to eternal life. But such
is the weakness of human nature, that the consciousness
of this high distinction needs to be chastened by very
lofty views of the moral virtue required by Christianity,
and by very humbling conceptions of our own, to prevent
a false and dangerous elation of the heart.
And, in how many instances this consciousness
is mere delusion, it would seem almost needless to
suggest. It is often professed under suspicious
circumstances by doubtful characters. Nothing
can be more groundless than the persuasion so commonly
entertained by persons of this creed, that to be fully
convinced of the truth of the doctrine is a sufficient
ground of confidence that they are therefore
of the number of the chosen people. The strongest
conviction may be deceptive. The firmest assurance
may be the result of ignorant or fanatical presumption.
And whatever may be the readiness of this class of
persons to say, “My mountain standeth firm I
shall never be moved,” it cannot but be feared
respecting many of them, that they have yet to learn
the very “first principles of the oracles of
God.” The remarkable absence of humility
and charity in these “children of special grace”
is alone enough to render their Christianity questionable,
exposes the dangerous nature of their delusion, and
proves the practical inutility of their scheme; since,
after all, without the evidence of a truly evangelical
temper and life, no inward assurance would satisfy
a reflecting mind; and in the possession of such evidence,
no other assurance is needed.
The self-righteousness of the Pharisee
is scarcely more to be dreaded than the spiritual
pride of the Calvinist, when it has passed from under
the control of holy wisdom. It assumes the character
of selfishness, bigotry, and the lust of intolerant
dominion.
The same spirit of exclusiveness and
domination, which pervades in general their ecclesiastical
polity, affects their allegiance to the state.
Under cover of abolishing episcopacy, the doctrinal
Puritans were the principal authors of that revolution
which introduced the Commonwealth after the fall of
the monarchy; and their aim was the exclusive dominion
of the saints, that by political power they might
establish their own forms of Church government.
Religion was really their object, and they were not
hypocritical in professing it; but to accomplish their
spiritual projects, they considered themselves entitled
to secular dominion; and their tyranny in Church and
State was so overbearing, that the nation, after the
death of Cromwell, eagerly threw itself into the arms
of the Stuarts, almost without a compact, rather than
endure the sanctimonious intolerance of Calvinistic
patriots and republican saints.
The same leaven is still at work.
The doctrinal Puritans of the present day have the
same lordly consciousness of a right to dominion.
They have declared their resolution to “stagger
senates, and smash cabinets” until their points
are carried. They have given to the nation a
significant announcement of their claims to power,
by their politico-religious synod of Manchester.
The imperial parliament of these realms is, in future,
it seems, to make its fiscal arrangements, and legislate
on points of purely political economy, under the dictation
of the Calvinistic divines of the nineteenth century.
Doubtless, our future Chancellors of the Exchequer
will be selected from this body of sacred financiers.
While it produces effects so remote
from those of true Christianity in the religious
professors of Calvinism, on the mass of ignorant,
sordid, unreflecting, and worldly-minded persons, who
are taught these doctrines, its worst influences are
seen to operate; and, as the country was notoriously
demoralized at the close of the Cromwellian dictatorship,
when Calvinistic divines had enjoyed a long and signal
triumph, so is the present age marked by a degeneracy
in the public morals, which has kept pace with the
progress of opinions of similar character and tendency.
The rude multitude is taught that there is no grace
but special grace, and this produces recklessness
and indifference, since no efforts will avail if they
are not to be partakers of these, to them, forbidden
streams of the river of the water of life. Or,
perhaps, this gloomy doctrine produces a sullen suspicion,
vague and undefined, of the rectitude of God, and
thus alienates still more those hearts which are already
adverse to the Divine government.
Of all the mischievous extravagances
of opinion, none has produced more fatal consequences,
than the notion, that God takes particular delight
in selecting the vilest of men for the object of his
electing love; and that the gross sinner is better
prepared for the grace of Christ, than they who have
walked in the paths of virtue.
It is a melancholy but instructive
fact, that in Calvinistic families, the puritanical
order and discipline which are often highly commendable,
have proved insufficient to counteract the malignant
effects of the doctrines inculcated on the minds of
the young. Instead of being taught that grace
is given to all, and that all are responsible for
its use, they are instructed that this blessing may
perhaps be withholden. And no families have sent
forth into the world more affecting examples of worthless
and unprincipled young men, who have brought down
the grey hairs of their excellent but mistaken parents
with sorrow to the grave!
If the unguarded preaching of “the
doctrines of grace,” and the scanty instruction
given on the great duties of practical religion, have
contributed to the demoralized state of the people,
let it not be supposed that other causes have been
wanting to swell the tide of corruption. From
the Revolution, toleration has been gradually enlarged,
until all salutary restraints have been swept away,
and the glorious liberties of our country have degenerated,
by a fatal abuse, into unbridled licentiousness.
The press is daily infusing poison into the public
mind. What once would have been punished as profaneness
and blasphemy, is no longer noticed by the gentle
guardians of the law, and treason has almost
ceased to be a crime. Liberalism has trampled
over law, and the reigning evils have been unhappily
aggravated by those whose position in the state ought
to have dictated other conduct than that of making
anarchical principles the road to dominion.
V. CALVINISM IS NOT THE DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE OR OF THE ANGLICAN
CHURCH.
The general tenor of the Holy Scriptures
is so clearly against it, that it is impossible to
account for the facts or the doctrines of the Bible
on supposition of the truth of the Calvinistic theology:
Nor would it be needful to discuss the subject, however
briefly, on scriptural grounds, but for a few particular
texts which are cited against the current testimony
of the word of God. It is said that one
text, if plain and direct, is evidence enough for the
establishment of any doctrine. This may be a sound
canon of interpretation, where the one text admits
but one meaning, and that meaning is not opposed by
conflicting evidence, but not otherwise. In the
present instance, there exists, in addition to the
opposing stream of Scripture testimony, the following
strong presumption against the Calvinistic view of
particular texts. Supposing the doctrine of Calvinistic
fatalism to be correct, no explanation can be given
of the general tenor of Divine revelation, none which
can be made to harmonize with that doctrine.
The entire history of providence and redemption, as
given in the Bible, proceeds on the principle, not
of fate, but of freedom; and if we are not free, we
are reduced to the suspicious and unworthy conclusion,
that the secret and the revealed will of God are at
variance with each other; that we are deceived by
a scheme of things designedly arranged to convey false
impressions of truth, and that while God treats us
now as though we were accountable beings, He fixes
our final destinies without any regard whatsoever
to our imaginary freedom and pretended responsibility.
On the other hand, taking the general
tenor of the sacred volume to be the true representation
of the moral economy under which we are placed by
the infinite wisdom of God, all the passages which
are cited by Calvinists, as being favourable to their
cause, may be so explained, and that without violence,
as to accord with the current testimony of the Scriptures
to the freedom and moral agency of man. A stronger
presumptive argument cannot be conceived against the
claim of Calvinism to scriptural authority.
Let it be also distinctly observed,
that the cause of Calvinism is not served by those
passages of Scripture which relate to the election
of individuals, or of nations, to certain privileges
which do not extend to the absolute enjoyment of eternal
life. Of this description is the ninth of the
Romans. The subject of that celebrated chapter
is not the election of individuals to final salvation,
but the election of the Jews to the honor of being
the visible Church, and their subsequent rejection
through open unbelief. Nor does the allusion
contained in it to the destruction of Pharaoh and
his host in the Red sea, yield an argument in favour
of Calvinistic reprobation. The fact that the
infatuated monarch was hardened in heart by the
leniency which spared him under so many provocations
and insults offered by him to the Almighty God, does
not prove, nor was it designed to prove, that he was
the fated victim of an eternal decree, whether in
regard to his secular or spiritual condition.
Nor can Calvinism plead for itself
those texts which are supposed to refer to the election
of individuals to final salvation, but which at the
same time leave unsettled the important question at
issue; whether that election was absolute and irrespective
of character, or whether it was founded on the foreknowledge
of their faith and obedience. Such for example
is the language of St. Paul, 2 Thess. i, 14.
All such passages leave the controversy undetermined,
proving only that the doctrine of election is scriptural,
but not fixing the sense in which it is to be taken,
whether absolute or conditional.
The terms election and predestination,
with their correlates, are of frequent occurrence
in the New Testament, and with various significations,
which are to be explained by the particular subjects
to which they refer. But the only texts
which really bear on the Calvinistic controversy,
are those which may seem to represent election as
sovereign, arbitrary, and totally irrespective of the
faith and obedience of the elect; such are few indeed.
Let us review that which is deemed by the advocates
of Calvinism among their most conclusive evidences.
“That election,” says Edwards, “is
not from a foresight of works, as depending on the
condition of man’s will, is evident by 2 Tim.
. ’Who hath saved us, and called us
with an holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.’”
Edwards was not more remarkable for acuteness and
subtlety as a reasoner, than for his lax and indiscriminate
citations of Scripture. He appeals to this text
with such confidence, that he deems no analysis to
be necessary. The bare citation is enough.
But a brief examination of the passage
will make it clear that it yields no support to Calvinism.
The Calvinist affirms “that God, by an absolute
decree, hath elected to salvation a very small number
of men without any regard to their faith and obedience
whatsoever.” That is, the decree which
insures the safety of the elect is not founded on
God’s foreknowledge of their holiness and of
their perseverance in the faith. To show that
this doctrine is supported by the passage under our
consideration, it must be proved, that when the Apostle
says, “not according to our works,”
he means our Christian good works, our faith,
our repentance, our charity, our evangelic obedience
to Christ; of this, there is not the shadow of evidence.
On the contrary, the works alluded to are those,
whether good or bad, which were done in a state of
heathen or Jewish depravity, at any rate done before
believers exercised faith and repentance, and were
called to the privileges of the Christian Church.
No other interpretation will hold.
St. Paul states that God “hath
saved us, and called us with an holy calling.”
He then proceeds to trace this happy condition to its
sources. He begins with a negation. The antecedent
cause of our salvation and calling was not our
works; we were not treated according to
our works; not after the measure, the proportion, the
merit or demerit of our works: these might have
brought punishment, but could never have procured
for us blessings so great and undeserved. The
real cause was the purpose of God and his
grace given in Christ before the world began.
Here, our works are put in
distinct opposition to the purpose and grace of God.
They could not, therefore, be our
Christian works, done in a state of salvation and
subsequent to our obeying the holy calling. These
are the practical results, the moral effects,
of our holy calling according to the gracious purpose
of God. These could never have been done but
for that holy calling. They could not therefore
in any sense be the antecedent cause of that
holy calling. In the order both of nature and
of time, both the gracious purpose and the holy calling
must have preceded these works. To tell any man
of common sense, that they were not the procuring
cause of the grace from whence they were themselves
derived, was needless.
To one so intelligent as Timothy,
such instruction was worse than superfluous.
Works could not hold the twofold relation of cause
and effect to God’s grace. Nor can it be
supposed that St. Paul was the author of a solecism
so obvious, as that of formally setting in opposition
to the purpose and the grace of God those
evangelic works, which were the moral effects of the
influence of that grace and of the execution of that
purpose. The works alluded to were those which
might be done before men were partakers of the Christian
salvation, or independently of the dispensation of
grace, and according to such works no man could
be entitled to the blessings of eternal redemption.
This important text lends no support
to the Calvinist. It cannot be cited in proof,
that the election of God is arbitrary and uninfluenced
by his foreknowledge of the faith and obedience of
his chosen people, for the works here intended are
not Christian good works done in faith.
Edwards did wisely in not analyzing this text.
The same principle of interpretation
is applicable to Titus ii. “Not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration,
and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” These
works are not those of the truly regenerate,
which being the effects of the grace of Christ,
cannot be mistaken for the meritorious cause of the
communication of that grace. It is rather to
be taken as a broad assertion, that the blessings
of the Christian covenant, are not the result or the
reward of human deserts; that apart from the redemption
of Christ, there are no works of righteousness
by which we can be saved; and that while Christians
are made really holy and good, their sanctification
is to be traced to the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
In neither passage is there any statement on which
to rest an argument for the arbitrary and unconditional
decree of the Calvinist, nor for depreciating the
intrinsic value of those really good works which the
Christian performs in faith. Calvinism has no
foundation in the word of God. It is in direct
collision with that sacred authority. St. Paul
rests the divine election on the foreknowledge of
the Deity, and let his decision be final. “Whom
he did foreknow, he also did predestinate,
to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
The seventeenth Article of the Church
accords with the Scriptures, and its doctrinal statements
are made almost entirely in the language of the sacred
writers, and of those eminent divines of the Reformation
who abjured Calvinism and adhered to the Bible.
It is drawn up with great moderation, says nothing
of absolute decrees and unconditional election, and
it treats the subject practically. The concluding
paragraph relating to “curious and carnal persons”
shows that the venerable compilers of the Article
rejected extreme views of this doctrine, since these
only could lead to “a most dangerous downfall.”
But if the article itself be at all equivocal, it must
be interpreted by the formularies of the Church and
by the Scriptures, since no dogma is to be imputed
to this holy branch of Christ’s Catholic Church,
that is at variance with the attributes of God, the
moral constitution of man, the testimony of the Bible,
and the obligations of practical religion.
If Calvinism be the doctrine of our
Church, then are the Catechism, and the Order
for the Ministration of Baptism, the most absurd
and delusive compositions by which the minds of men
were ever led astray.
VI. CALVINISM HAS LED TO
THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, THAT THE SCRIPTURES
MAY BE ACCOMMODATED TO EXTREME VIEWS OF THE DIVINE
DECREES.
It was not in the nature of things,
that Calvinistic predestination should be received
as truth, without producing such a modification of
the entire system of divine revelation, as would impress
on it a new and completely different character.
Christianity, in its unadulterated simplicity, is
distinguished by the consolatory views it imparts
of the benignity and grace of God, and by the direct
and cogent motives it suggests for holiness and righteousness
of life. But the first article of the Calvinistic
creed throws a veil of awful and suspicious mystery
over the divine goodness, and represents it “as
the sun shorn of his beams.” Having determined
that God is not the universal Father, nor “the
Saviour of all men,” but the projector of a
scheme which predetermines the ruin of the great mass
of his creatures, Calvinism models to its own purpose
all those doctrines of Christianity which are in beautiful
accordance with the truth that “God is love.”
It denies that the atonement of Christ was intended
to make satisfaction for “the sins of the whole
world.” It announces that the non-elect
are laid under an irresistible necessity of sinning
to destruction, and that no spiritual grace is imparted
to rescue them from the dominion of native, incurable,
uncontrolled depravity.
The gracious invitations and promises
of the Gospel are reduced to unmeaning terms, so far
as the many are concerned. And while Calvinism
is denominated by its admirers “the doctrines
of grace,” it obliterates from the Scriptures
every trace of sincere mercy, and robs the diadem
of heaven of its purest and brightest gem. Calvinism
and grace are heterogeneous terms, representing
discordant ideas.
The motives to a holy life, governed
by piety and adorned with virtue, must be impaired
by the views here given of the Deity. No human
mind can be habituated to the contemplation of the
divine conduct, as it is seen distorted by the predestinarian
theology, and retain its just sentiments of what is
right, what is just, what is honourable, what is lovely
in goodness. The man who imitates the God of
the Calvinist, that phantasm of a morbid or dreaming
imagination, cannot fail to have his moral sentiments
corrupted, and to become deceptive, shuffling, treacherous,
and eventually insensible to the misery of others.
The Calvinistic doctrines of regeneration
and perseverance are not calculated to rectify
these evils. These are made to harmonize with
the fatalism which bears all men along with irresistible
energy, the reprobate to perdition, the redeemed to
blessedness. The new birth is described as a
sudden transformation of our spiritual nature, effected
by sovereign grace, unconnected with the preceding
states of the mind, whether good or evil, and attended
with the communication of spiritual life which can
never afterwards be forfeited or lost. No sins,
however enormous, can endanger the elect, although
they may for a time cloud their evidences. The
effects produced by this doctrine on the mind of that
individual who believes himself to be thus specially
distinguished, must be of a very dangerous kind, unless
counteracted as it frequently is by other principles,
or restrained by the genuine spirit of Christianity
operating with antagonist energy.
It is this necessary corruption
of the great truths of the Gospel that renders Calvinism
an object of distrust and alarm. If it was a
mere speculation, which was intended, in the calm spirit
of Christian philosophy, to solve a problem in theology
or morals, leaving untouched the essential character
of revealed religion, it might pass without rebuke.
But it weakens the moral sense, and it leads to the
subversion of all that is consolatory in our prospects
of the final destinies of the human race, leaving us
no security for the salvation even of the supposed
elect; for what hope can repose with confidence on
the supreme Arbiter of events, when He is believed
to be the author of a religion which represents Him
as acting without any intelligible moral motive, destroying
the majority of the human race for offences not their
own, and saving the remnant without regard to their
Christian virtues!
It is remarkable that, while in modern
times many disavow their belief in those views of
the divine decrees which form the basis of
the Calvinistic creed, and which have occasioned this
corruption of Christian truth, they still hold to
these corruptions, and write and preach on the
implied principle that the grace of God is limited
by decree to those whom they specially designate his
children. They have been driven from the foundation,
and still they cleave to the superstructure.
They assume the designation of moderate Calvinists,
not perceiving that the doctrines of particular redemption,
and special grace, and exclusive assumption of a filial
relation to God, are untenable when absolute predestination
is exploded. Calvinism, after all, is their creed,
since the system to which they adhere cannot rest
on any other foundation.
It is to be inferred, therefore, that
for persons of a certain temperament this doctrine
has charms so powerful as to negative the calm dictates
of the judgment, and practically to render the mind
insensible to the force of truth.
And what are its recommendations to
those who embrace it?
1. Calvinism is both exciting
and sedative, exciting to the imagination, and sedative
to the conscience. Thus it is accommodated to
two of the leading principles of human nature, the
love of the awful, the terrific, the deeply tragic,
and the natural anxiety which all men feel, to be
rid of the consciousness of guilt and of personal
danger. Nothing can exceed the tremendous scenes
opened to the imagination by that system of theology,
which dooms to perdition the great mass of human beings,
who are permitted by their Creator to sport or suffer
upon earth through a few rapid revolutions of time,
and are then swept away for ever into an abyss of ruin;
while, with confounding and dreadful mystery, the
Author of their being is represented as the great
agent in this work of appalling desolation. To
redeem his character for mercy, He rescues an elect
few, but leaves the devoted multitude without pity
and without hope, to everlasting torment. Whether
we contemplate this fearful character of the Deity,
or endeavour to realize the scenes which await the
departure of lost souls, or attempt in imagination
to identify ourselves with the happy spirits of the
redeemed, who have escaped, they know not why,
the general destruction of all that is dear to man,
we must be sensible that all the ordinary conceptions
of the human mind are comparatively powerless for
pity, or terror, or intense expectation of what is
to come.
At the same time its tendency, excepting
in the case of a few sensitive and tender spirits,
is to deaden the consciousness of guilt, to still
the remonstrances of the self-convicted mind, and to
enable men of no religion and of no morals to hear
these doctrines proclaimed from the pulpit without
any salutary disquietude of heart. They do not
really believe them, or they find in them an apology
for their corruption. It has sometimes been said,
by way of severe reflection, of a moral sermon, that
it could not be the Gospel, for that a Socinian might
have heard it without offence. The objection
is very absurd; but what then ought to be the inference
drawn by the same persons, respecting the character
of doctrines which, although in speculation they are
fearful and appalling to the utmost, tend in reality
to stupify the moral sense, and can be listened to
by the profane and the profligate with complacency
or apathy? While it explains their popularity,
it is a presumption against their truth.
2. This doctrine has the recommendation
of freeing those who hold it from anxiety about the
practical part of religion, by substituting a system
of belief purely speculative. When examined
in all its bearings, it may be seen to consist of
faith and assurance: faith in the divine decrees;
assurance of being numbered with the elect. Get
clear views of the divine sovereignty, believe that
Christ died for you in particular, construe
the persuasion of your safety into an especial witness
of the Holy Spirit; doubt nothing, fear nothing; look
entirely out of yourselves; and remember that there
is a finished salvation for the elect; and all is
well! This is Calvinism. And this is speculation.
If repentance, self-government, virtue, and the duties
of Christian piety and obedience are inculcated, these
must be enforced on grounds not supplied by the predestinarian
theology, and irreconcileable with that scheme of
doctrine. Doubtless, the best writers of this
school insist on holiness of temper, and sanctity
of life, and enforce these by motives derived from
the moral perfections of God, the turpitude of sin,
and the necessity of a renewed heart as being essential
to religion here and happiness hereafter. But
all these considerations are totally independent of
the speculations of the fatalist, and are rendered
powerless as incentives to action exactly in proportion
to the practical influence of these speculations on
the mind and the heart.
Let the professor of Christianity
give up his thoughts to eternal decrees, and special
grace, and the soothing dream of irrevocable promises
sealed to the heart by the clear witness of the Spirit,
and the moral conflict with sin and temptation will
languish with the salutary fear of danger. This
is suited to the depraved indolence of man. All
false systems of religion have in view the indulgence
of this perilous but seductive peace. Any thing
is acceptable to corrupt human nature that supplies
a substitute for the duties of moral righteousness
and a sublime virtue, lulling the conscience into
a state of artificial repose. And to produce this
effect, no scheme of religious belief, that ever emanated
from the perverse ingenuity of the human mind, was
ever so perfectly contrived as the Calvinistic notion
of predestinating grace.
3. Of the multitudes of truly
religious persons, who embrace this doctrine or give
their passive assent to it, but few are competent
to detect its fallacies, or to trace its evil consequences.
They are to be found chiefly among
the lower ranks of life, or the uneducated portions
of the middle and the higher classes. If there
are any whose minds have been disciplined by sound
instruction, and expanded by liberal acquirements,
they are, for the most part, the children of Calvinistic
families, who, having been taught to reverence these
opinions in their childhood, have not had energy of
mind to rise above their early impressions. That
multitudes of persons piously disposed, but without
the requisite knowledge, or intellectual culture,
should be influenced by the arguments of men skilful
in dialectics, and zealous to make prosélytes,
cannot be deemed matter of wonderment. Especially
let it be noticed, that these teachers and preachers
know well how to appeal to ignorant timidity and to
sincere but unguarded piety.
They are told, that to reject these
doctrines shows “a heart secretly disaffected
to the government of God,” and daring to oppose
presumption and ignorance to the wisdom of the Eternal.
As if it were not the fact, that Calvinism has been
viewed with abhorrence by men of the humblest and
the purest piety, by men of seraphic minds and of
the sublimest intellect.
They are also instructed to believe,
that the grace of the Redeemer is magnified by degrading
human nature to the utmost, and making the redeemed
passive recipients of predestinated and exclusive grace.
But they do not perceive that Calvinism destroys all
ideas of grace, by making God the author of
the misery which He affects to pity, and by tracing
the divine conduct to mere motiveless caprice, to
blind and arbitrary choice or rejection.
These distinctions are lost upon the
superficial minds of the multitude. And when
they are told that Calvinism honours the sovereignty
of God, and exalts the grace of Christ, their religious
and holy feelings are enlisted in a cause which little
deserves these high and evangelic eulogies. While
the love of God in Christ, to themselves in particular,
is made the prevailing topic, the gloomy and suspicious
parts of the system are kept in the back ground, or
positively denied.
If there be truth in the preceding
remarks, the degree of popularity which attaches to
this view of religion, far from yielding a presumptive
argument in its favour, is, at least, a reason for
regarding it with suspicion. It has not the recommendation
of being the faith of the most numerous portion of
the wise, of the holy, of the virtuous. It appeals
to the weaknesses rather than to the nobler principles
of human nature. It can never be the sincere and
cherished belief of an enlightened, community.
The advocates of this creed appear
to be aware of this, and therefore supply their want
of conclusive argument by fulminations intended to
effect by fear, what more honourable means could not
accomplish.
They not only contend for the truth
of their doctrine, they make the belief of it essential
to salvation. None are elect who do not receive
their views of election. All others are reprobate.
“Shall I tell you,” says one of their
most eminent men, “some of the ends that may
be answered by preaching this doctrine? One important
end is, to detect hearts which are unwilling that
God should reign; to lay open those smooth, selfish
spirits, which, while they cry Hosannah, are hostile
to the dominion of Jéhovah. The more fully God
and the system of his government are brought out to
view, the more clearly are the secrets of all hearts
revealed.” Men, who fancy themselves impelled
by a “special influence” to receive this
creed, may consistently pronounce judgment on those
who reject it. The absurdity in one case, is
not greater than in the other. But their attempts
at intimidation will have no other effect with persons
of dispassionate reflection, than to render more repulsive
those errors which foster insolent conceit in vulgar
minds, and encourage those who appear to have but
a superficial knowledge of themselves to pass sentence
of condemnation on the hearts of others.
Formally to disclaim a charge so gross
and misapplied as that of “hostility to the
dominion of Jéhovah,” would be to treat it with
more respect than it deserves. But it may not
be improper to remark, that the charge proceeds with
the worst possible grace from the vindicators of a
creed which obliterates from the divine government
every trace of wisdom, of rectitude, of goodness, and
so represents the Ruler of the word, as to make Him
an object of detestation and terror to his creatures.
Other sentiments must inspire the heart before we
can reverence the divine administration, and unite
in “the song of Moses the servant of God, and
the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous
are thy works, Lord God Almighty: just
and true are thy ways, Thou king of saints.”