Produced by Keith G. Richardson
ON CALVINISM.
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM HULL,
PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. GREGORY'S, NORWICH.
Touton gar hapase psyche physikon nomon boethon aute kai symmachon
epi ton prakteon ho ton holon demiourgos hupestato. Dia men tou
nomou ten eutheian aute paradeixas hodon: dia de tes aute
dedoremenes autexousiou eleutherias ten ton kreittonon airesin
epainou kai apodoches axian apophenas geron te kai meizonon
epathlon.--Eusebius.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD,
AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.
1841.
LONDON:
GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
TO
THE HONOURABLE AND VERY REVEREND
DR. PELLEW,
DEAN OF NORWICH.
Sir,
When I venture to inscribe to you the following pages, I am fearless
of having applied to me Johnson's definition of a dedicator, "one
who inscribes his work to a patron with compliment and servility."
Adulation, Sir, from any quarter, _you_ would resent as an
indignity, and the tenor of my own life and writings will secure me
from the imputation of _servile_ deference to others, with whatever
reverence I may contemplate their rank, their talents, or their
virtues.
When, Sir, under unusual circumstances, I engaged in the ministry of
the Church, the presentation which I received from the Chapter was,
on my part, unsolicited and unexpected, and, on yours, a favour done
on public principle to one who was personally unknown to you.
In respectfully presenting to your attention this short treatise, I
do not prejudge your opinion of its contents, whether favourable or
adverse. The responsibility rests exclusively with the writer.
But I cherish the persuasion that it contains no sentiments, and
expresses no feelings, which can be justly displeasing to a
dignified clergyman, who has firmly professed his attachment to the
great principles of the Church in times more dangerous to her
interests, and more difficult for her ministers, than any which have
heretofore occurred since the great Rebellion.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
your obliged and faithful servant,
WILLIAM HULL.
Eaton next Norwich,
Sept. 1841.
PREFACE.
That strenuous attempts are now in progress to propagate Calvinism
in its most objectionable forms, by impressing into its service that
spirit of earnest, but often misinformed piety which has been
awakened within the bosom of the Church, is too notorious to require
proof or to admit of refutation.
The following sheets have been written, and are now published, under
the solemn conviction, that the danger to be apprehended from the
extensive diffusion of this creed, both to religion and the Church,
renders it impossible that it should be allowed to pursue its
unmolested course, without correspondent efforts, on the part of
sound Churchmen, to counteract its baleful influence.
Superstition, which lays undue stress on outward forms, and
fanaticism, which gives credit to preternatural impulses, and
professes a particular kind of inspiration differing not at all from
infallibility, are the Scylla and Charybdis, through which, over
stormy waters or serene, we have to make our steady way. Both are
equally intolerant, and both are condemned by the genius of
Protestantism, the constitution of the Church, and the spirit of the
Bible.
It is devoutly to be desired, that none who are more regardful of
truth than of party, that none who are alive to the real state of
the times, and to the character of the respective interests which
may hereafter be brought into unhappy collision, may hesitate,
through fear or favour, to act in this crisis with moral courage
tempered with holy charity. Let them discountenance all extreme
innovations, from whatsoever quarter they may proceed, or by
whatsoever distinguished names they may be sanctioned. Let them rise
with manly integrity above the mean suggestions of temporizing
policy, and look only to the substantial and permanent interests of
the Church, which are those of truth and charity, of freedom in
alliance with order, of Christianity in its most ennobling form, and
of the public welfare of the British Empire.
If the spirit of rigid Calvinism, under any plausible disguise,
should be widely diffused through the Anglican Church, we need no
prophetic mind to announce, that it will lead to consequences fatal
to her peace and liberty, introducing a spiritual despotism whose
power will be felt throughout the length and breadth of the land,
overawing, as in the days of John Knox, the majesty of princes, and
spreading its morbid gloom to the sequestered cottage of the
peasant, in the remotest regions and most unfrequented provinces.
History proves, that the men who are deeply imbued with this spirit,
merge all other interests in their devoted zeal to its propagation.
Those of that party who, like Mr. Noel, think "our venerable Church"
means no more than "our venerable _selves_," will be ready to betray
her into the hands of her adversaries, whensoever they may be deemed
strong enough to carry her outworks, and to supplant the orthodox
clergyman by the Calvinistic minister;--while those who reverence
the Apostolical succession, or the general order of the Church, will
form within our pale an intolerant party, intriguing for dominion,
restless and oppressive, never to be satisfied until they have
crushed or excluded all who have dared to profess their rejection of
the Calvinistic theology.
In the spirit already exemplified by the Pastoral Aid Society, for
the detection of whose sectarian principles we are indebted to the
Christian courage of Dr. Molesworth, they will throw obstacles in
the way of candidates for ordination or parochial cures, if they
come not up to the doctrinal standard of their _triers_: the
episcopal functions will be usurped or controlled by the ruthless
zeal of an ecclesiastical faction; the Church societies for the
extension of Christian knowledge and piety will lose their catholic
character, dwindling into ignoble channels for spreading abroad the
bigotry of an exclusive school; and gone for ever will be those
beautiful charities, and that liberal regard to the just exercise of
Christian and clerical freedom, which have been recently elicited,
and expressed with deliberate solemnity, in the correspondence of
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, with the
reverend Canon Wodehouse, on the subject of subscription.
The author of this tract has aimed at conciseness, so far as the
nature of the argument would allow, not employing "those arts by
which a big book is made." But if the smallness of the work does not
seem to accord with the magnitude of the subject, it is not to be
inferred that the sentiments have been hastily formed or rashly
vindicated. For many years they have been taking deep root in the
mind of the writer; nor would he have engaged in the ministry of the
Church, but on the conviction, after serious inquiry, that her faith
was primitive and not Calvinistic.
He has spared no "plainness of speech," in his exposure of dangerous
error, but from principle and feeling he has abstained from the
malice of personal vituperation. His warfare is with pernicious
opinions, not with those who hold them, many of whom are impressed
with the religious persuasion, that what they have believed they
have received from divine teaching, and that in upholding their
creed they glorify God.
Such divine teaching as the Calvinist claims, and which, if it means
any thing, amounts to plenary inspiration, the writer does not
suppose to have superintended his own thoughts while engaged in the
composition of these pages. He would deem it unwarrantable
presumption to look for such miraculous effusion of the Spirit in
the ordinary condition of the Church. But he confidently believes,
that, to those who seek it in humble faith, such grace is given as
may purify the dispositions of the heart, and thus guard it from all
predilection for error and all prejudice against _the truth_.
Entertaining these views of the office of the Holy Spirit under the
evangelical dispensation, the writer humbly commits this work, not
executed without dependence on his preventing grace, to Him who is
the eternal source and the faithful patron of truth; uniting in the
prayer of this beautiful collect, with all those, who, whatsoever
their doctrinal views of religion, seek for truth as the richest of
treasures.
"O Lord, from whom all good things do come; grant to us thy humble
servants, that by thy holy inspiration, we may think those things
that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same,
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
CONTENTS.
General remarks
Particular objections
I. Calvinism impugns the moral character of the Deity
II. Calvinism is not to be reconciled with the moral responsibility
of man
III. Calvinism is opposed to the constitution and the purposes of a
visible Church
IV. Calvinism is productive of positively injurious effects, on
individual character and on social happiness
V. Calvinism is not the doctrine of Scripture, nor of the Anglican
Church
VI. Calvinism has led to the corruption of Christian doctrine, that
the Scriptures may be accommodated to extreme views of the divine
decrees
Appendix
ON CALVINISM.
PART I.
GENERAL REMARKS.
To St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, belongs the equivocal
distinction of having originated in the Christian Church a
controversy respecting the Divine decrees, a controversy which dates
its origin from the fifth century, and which, after the lapse of
thirteen hundred years, exhibits no symptoms of approaching to its
end. In the Roman Communion, it was the source of those bitter
animosities, which reciprocally exasperated the Jesuits and
Jansenists. The Protestant Churches, in the early days of the
Reformation, were disturbed by the agitation of this perplexed and
perilous subject. And when Calvin appeared as the vindicator of the
Divine sovereignty in predetermining the fates of men, he only
introduced to the Churches of the Reformation a doctrine which had
been transmitted from earlier times, but which, perhaps, he defined
with more precision, expounded with more fearless consistency, and
invested with the authority of his own great and illustrious name.
In the present discussion the word _Calvinism_ is used, not to
signify those doctrines of the Church which Calvin held in common
with the fathers of the Reformation, but those only which relate to
his extreme views of the Divine decrees, to his predestinarian
theology, and to his modification of other scripture truths to
render them harmonious with his principal tenets.
Whatever therefore may be the merits or the final result of this
grave and earnest controversy, it leaves untouched the corruption of
human nature, the deity and atonement of Christ, justification by
faith, the necessity of Divine influence to renew and purify the
heart, and the scriptural doctrine of predestination, according to
the fore-knowledge of God. This distinction is important; since, if
it be overlooked, the rejectors of Calvinism may be supposed to have
also rejected the capital doctrines of the Reformed faith. Fuller
has unwarrantably, perhaps undesignedly, given his sanction to this
imputation in his "Calvinistic and Socinian Systems compared[1]."
But the rejectors of _Calvinistic_ predestination may be not less
remote from Socinianism, and much nearer to genuine Christianity,
than the most rigid disciple of that eminent Reformer, who, in the
protestant city of Geneva, committed Servetus to the flames. The
Socinian controversy relates to doctrines, which are the common
faith of the Catholic Church; with the peculiarities of Calvinism it
has no concern. And it is worthy of remark, that if one class of
doctrinalists more than another symbolizes in any instance with
Socinians, the followers of Calvin form that class; since it is not
easy to discover where lies the essential difference between the
doctrine of _philosophical necessity_, as held by the greater number
of Socinians, and that of _predestination_, as maintained by
Calvinists.
Both parties rest their dogmas on the same metaphysical grounds. At
the same time, as moral reasoners, the palm of superiority must be
awarded to Socinians, who reject most consistently the doctrine of
human corruption, and the atonement of Christ, together with the
correspondent doctrines of the Gospel, as altogether out of place in
a scheme which denies the freedom of human actions and reduces all
independent agency to that of the Deity alone; while the Calvinist
subjects the human race to an inevitable necessity of sinning,
denies to them individually, even the semblance of a probationary
course--makes them accountable, yet withholds the powers necessary
to a moral agent, and then most unrighteously dooms to perdition all
but the elect! In rejecting such a theory of religion, we reject not
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; we only vindicate them
from objections, which, if unanswerable, are fatal; and we hold to
the Gospel with a firmer conviction and a livelier faith, when we
behold its accordance with the righteousness of the Divine
administration and with the moral constitution of man.
On a subject, which has been so long and so laboriously
investigated, and to the illustration of which the most vigorous and
profound of human intellects have directed their energies, it would
be vain to expect any novelty of argument. On either side, it may be
presumed, the question has been exhausted, or, that the human mind
has done all that its powers can accomplish, however unsatisfactory
or inconclusive, in some respects, the result.
It appears to the writer of these pages, on a calm and summary
review of the arguments by which the doctrines of _freedom_ and
_necessity_ have been respectively supported, that those reasonings
which are purely _philosophical_ or _metaphysical_ decidedly
preponderate on the side of Necessity. The prescience of the Deity
cannot, _on any known principle_, be reconciled with the contingency
which attaches to the actions or determinations of man, on the
hypothesis of freedom[2]. And, moreover, if every event requires a
cause, and every volition is guided by motives, what are called the
spontaneous acts of the mind must be the necessary result of motives
which direct and command its elections. "To say that in our choice
we reject the stronger motive, and that we choose a thing merely
because we choose it, is sheer nonsense and absurdity. And whoever,
with a sound understanding, will fix his mind upon the state of the
question, will perceive its impossibility."
But, all correct _moral_ reasoning ranges on the side of freedom. In
opposition to the subtle or forcible reasonings of the metaphysician,
every individual can plead his inward consciousness of voluntary
agency. He feels, he knows, that he is free. The exercise of the
moral sense, the judgment which the mind pronounces on its own good
or evil movements, the conviction of having done or neglected a
duty, the calm satisfaction of the virtuous mind, and the fierce
or sullen remorse of the criminal, are associated with the
insuppressible persuasion of liberty. Destroy this persuasion,
and virtue is despoiled of its loveliness, vice of its deformity.
But it cannot be destroyed. It is the voice of nature. The Creator
has so formed us, that we cannot throw off from ourselves the sense
of responsibility, nor regard our fellow creatures as unfit for
praise or blame, for love or hatred. Men treat each other as free
agents in all the transactions of human life, and God administers
the government of the world, on the principle that mankind are
capable of self-control, regulating their conduct by the hope of
reward or fear of punishment. If the consciousness of freedom be a
delusion, it follows that moral obligation, duty, reward, guilt,
punishment, are delusions, and that religion, however salutary in
its effects, is nothing better than a magnificent imposture.
Calvinism is an attempt to found the religion of Christ on the
doctrine of necessity, and to accommodate its truths, which suppose
and require free agency in man, to a dark and appalling fatalism.
But in a case like the present, in which metaphysical reasonings,
however profound or conclusive, so far as they go, are at variance
with practical truth, with consciousness, with the actual state of
things, and with the unquestionable procedures of the Divine
government, as confirmed by the scriptures, wisdom would seem to
dictate our adhesion to that side of the question, which is
supported by moral arguments.
In taking this part, it does not follow that we are to repudiate, as
totally without foundation, the philosophy and the metaphysics of
the necessarian--_aequo pretio aestimentur_. We may admit, that the
force of his argument, in the present imperfect state of human
knowledge, renders the question perplexed and difficult; that it
accounts for the divided opinions of the erudite and the devout, and
that it precludes the hope of a speedy termination of the
controversy. But in assigning to moral reasoning the superior
authority, we are governed by a just regard to the nature of the
question at issue, which, being related to the destinies of moral
agents, and the principles on which the Deity conducts his moral
government, must be determined, not by metaphysical, but by moral
arguments. When brought to this test, Calvinism appears utterly
indefensible, as being a system at variance with the attributes of
the Deity, and irreconcileable with the moral constitution of human
beings, and with the obligations laid upon them by their Creator. It
is falsified by facts.
That the predestinarian theology, which denies the freedom of the
will, is supported by names of great consideration, is cheerfully
granted. No man, for example, was ever endowed with a genius more
commanding, with logical powers more acute, with a faculty more
surprising of writing on recondite subjects with force, perspicuity,
and nervous eloquence, than President Edwards. Nevertheless, the
correctness of his views is not implicitly to be inferred from his
transcendant intellect and fervent piety.
All the great errors, which have been propagated in the Christian
Church, have found advocates in men of the first character for
intellectual power and moral dignity, or they would have passed away
with their authors into immediate oblivion.
In estimating the authority of Edwards as a theologian, it is
requisite that we should know the temperament and habits of that
very remarkable person. It is not, perhaps, generally considered,
that great as were the energy and acuteness of his reasoning powers,
he was less under the dominion of these than of his imagination and
feelings. In early life this is not unfrequently the case with
persons of imaginative character; but, commonly, the ardent
enthusiasm of youth gives way afterwards to the ascendancy of the
higher faculties. Edwards was, constitutionally, too much the
creature of dreams and impulses ever to escape from their control.
His gigantic mind was held in perpetual bondage. His natural
temperament was fostered throughout the whole period which moulds
and fixes the character, by his holding little converse with human
beings beyond the sphere of a particular religious community in an
obscure American town, and by an almost uninterrupted contemplation
of nature in her gloomy and awful forms, amid the silence of
uncultivated plains, and the solitude of interminable forests. The
profound feeling, the intense excitement, which accompanied his
early devotional exercises, were such as to insure a permanent
attachment to every principle and every impression of that
susceptible age. The visions of a warm, and often morbid,
imagination continued to be cherished with religious confidence and
love for ever afterwards. Every doubt, of what he once had received
for truth, was anxiously suppressed in the manhood of his mind as an
infernal suggestion; and the acuteness of his reasoning powers, by
supplying him at all times with an argument, for what he conceived
it _his duty_ to believe, served, not to emancipate him from false
apprehensions of truth, but to rivet upon him more firmly the chains
of ignorance or error. When argument was doubtful, a dogged
fanaticism supplied its place. This may be illustrated by a
particular instance, and bearing directly on the subject of our
present discussion.
It cannot be doubted, by any person qualified to appreciate his
writings, that his views of the Divine sovereignty are resolvable
into a system of absolute fatalism, so far as the actions and
destinies of men are concerned. Reason and conscience revolt from
the consequences involved in such a system; all our moral instincts
condemn it. But it was instilled into his mind by Calvinistic
instructors in the days of his boyhood; his imagination was
perpetually haunted by it; and having identified it with the truth
of divine revelation, which he held in religious veneration and awe,
he finally vanquished every doubt respecting it, not by the
deliberate exercise of his judgment, on a calm investigation of
evidence, but by the force of his religious feelings, and of his
ascendant imagination. Let him tell his own story.
"From my childhood up," he says, "my mind had been full of
objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty, in choosing
whom He would to eternal life, and rejecting whom He pleased;
leaving them eternally to perish, and to be everlastingly tormented
in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I
remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced and fully
satisfied as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in thus
eternally disposing of men, according to his sovereign pleasure.
_But never could give any account, how, or by what means I was thus
convinced_, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time
after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God's Spirit in
it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the
justice and reasonableness of it." In this extraordinary passage,
the most instructive he ever penned, he confesses, undesignedly but
clearly, that his faith in the Calvinistic theology did not rest on
those arguments by which he has confirmed so many others in that
tremendous creed, but was the result of supposed supernatural
illumination. The true solution would be, "Sit pro ratione
voluntas!"
Much as we find to admire and revere in this eminent man, the
history of his mind forbids us to rely on him with implicit
confidence as an expositor of divine truth. His religion was
exalted, his genius wonderful, but the subordination of his judgment
to his imagination was an immense evil, producing an almost
superstitious dread of the operations of his own mighty mind,
suppressing its energies, its growth, and its expansion. He presents
an example, not less of the weakness than of the majesty of human
nature. We cease to wonder, when he describes the happiness of the
spirits of the redeemed in heaven, as being derived, in part, from
their listening to the groans and lamentations of lost souls in
hell. Nor can we doubt, that if he had been born and educated a
member of the Church of Rome, he would have lived and died, like
Fenelon or Pascal, a splendid ornament of that impure communion, a
conscientious advocate of that servile faith.
Calvinism has never had another advocate equally qualified with
Edwards to vindicate its awful dogmata; and if, by his own
confession, his most potent arguments would have failed to produce
conviction in his own mind, without God's special influence, we see
reason to suspect the validity of these arguments, until we have
proof that he did indeed receive from heaven miraculous
illumination. Such _special influence_ we may with propriety
question, since a claim to inspiration can be supported only by the
exercise of miraculous powers. Deny, therefore, the inspiration of
this profound writer, of which there is no proof, and we have his
own authority against the conclusiveness of his own arguments; since
he confesses that by their cogency alone they are insufficient to
produce conviction in opposition to our just and natural conceptions
of the righteous character of God.
Let us not, therefore, crouch with timid servility to great names.
The opinions of men of erudition, and genius, and holy zeal for
religion, are to be examined with modest deference, but not to be
received with implicit credulity. In the most enlightened and holy
men, who, since the decease of the apostles, have served God and his
Christ; in the fathers of the ancient Church; in those who headed
the Protestant Reformation, and lived as saints, or died as martyrs;
in Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, we discover humiliating proofs of
imperfection and fallibility. And, while the fundamental truths of
Christianity have been preserved in the Catholic Church, those
truths have been mingled or associated with errors so injurious and
degrading, that no blind faith is to be rested on any _human
authority_. Let us uphold the majesty of divine revelation, and
vindicate our right and our duty to interpret the sacred page--not
by the traditions of fallible men, not by the metaphysics of the
schools, not by the "special influences" which an enthusiastic mind
may construe into divine teaching, and which may be pleaded, with
equal truth or falsehood, for every form of error; but by a sober
reference to those moral perfections of the Deity, and to those
essential attributes of human nature, the knowledge of which lies at
the foundation of all sound religious belief. These are to be
learned from the Scriptures, and are the key to their right
interpretation.
Edwards, incomparably the most able advocate of Calvinism, since the
days of the reformer himself, is not a solitary example of the way
in which a zealous pleader may, unwarily, betray and weaken his own
cause.
Mr. Scott, in his "force of truth," gives an account of his own
conversion to Calvinism not very dissimilar to that of Edwards, and
not in any degree more honourable to the cause he proposes to
defend. The argument of that work may be summed up in few words. Mr.
Scott entertained a great dislike of Calvinistic doctrines. He
rejected the evidence by which they were supported, as being
insufficient to establish a creed which appeared to him most
objectionable. Yet, strong as were his prejudices against it, they
ultimately gave way, and, _therefore_, Calvinism must be the truth.
But, in both instances, the impression designed to be made on the
mind of the reader is the same, that is, that the Spirit of God
accomplished what the force of argument had failed to do. Mr. Scott,
therefore, adds his testimony to that of President Edwards,
confessing that Calvinism is not supported by proofs sufficient in
themselves to carry conviction to the human mind, without special
illumination from above; an illumination, which, assuredly, the
_religious opposers_ may as righteously claim, as the religious
defenders of Calvinism. For what Christian man does not pray for the
guidance of God's good Spirit? The dispassionate reader of "_The
Force of Truth_," will naturally say, that the arguments for the
Calvinistic creed were either sound or unsound. If the former, then
Mr. Scott was either very obtuse or very obstinate to resist so long
their power. If the latter, he acted with great weakness in yielding
at length to insufficient evidence, on the score of an undefinable
impulse. In either case, his name is divested of commanding
authority in the view of reasonable men. Yet it can hardly be
doubted, that this claim to _special teaching_ from the fountain of
wisdom and of truth, has done more, incalculably more, to awe the
minds of men into submission, and thus to obtain currency for their
opinions, than the _joint confession_ of these popular writers, to
the insufficiency of their own arguments, has availed to render
suspected the force of their reasoning. The impression made on the
generality of minds would be, that men so good, and so candid in
confessing their own obstinacy, could not be mistaken, in believing
themselves, at a subsequent period, to be inspired and infallible[3].
The advocates of Calvinism differ remarkably from each other in the
tone and spirit of their writings, as their habits of thought and
feeling are modified by circumstances. The American divines of the
school of Edwards have carried out his principles with unflinching
consistency, not hesitating to impute to the Deity, in unqualified
terms, the eternal decrees which fix the weal or woe of the human
race for ever. The cold and heartless manner in which these men
treat the subject, and the stoical apathy with which they
contemplate the result of their hard metaphysics, are extremely
remote from our usual conceptions of piety and humanity. Well might
that superlative woman, Mrs. Susanna Wesley, say, "The doctrine of
_predestination_, as maintained by rigid Calvinists, is very
shocking, and ought utterly to be abhorred." The dark spirit of
inflexible wrath which the American Calvinists have imputed to the
Deity, together with their coarse caricatures of the Gospel, may
account for, but cannot justify, the terms in which Dr. Chancing has
thought fit to assail _the orthodox faith_, confounding on all
occasions scriptural Christianity, as held by the Catholic Church,
with the dogmas of an extravagant creed. To understand his eloquent
and indignant declamations, we must read the transatlantic
expounders of the Calvinistic theology.
In general, the English writers of any name, are more guarded and
less unfeeling. They do not at once and directly charge God with
being the author of sin. The late Dr. Williams of Rotherham composed
a voluminous work on the subject, entitled "equity and sovereignty,"
in which he gives, what he considers, a new theory of the origin of
moral evil. To redeem the divine character from the imputation of
harshness in the decree of reprobation, he supposes mankind under a
_necessary tendency to moral defection_, as dependent and created
beings; and that it was in mere _equity_, that the wicked were
_left_, not decreed, to perdition. The hypothesis of Dr. Williams is
already exploded. It was examined and refuted by the Rev. William
Parry, of Wymondly, in a piece entitled "Strictures on the Origin of
Moral Evil." For reasoning, acute, profound, and perspicuous, both
metaphysical and moral, this work has seldom been surpassed. And the
devout and courteous spirit in which it is written, presents an
example, beautiful and instructive, of dispassionate controversy.
"Upon a review of the argument," Mr. Parry writes, "there appear to
be strong reasons for considering the whole of Dr. Williams'
hypothesis, to account for the origin of evil, as highly
objectionable, and worthy of rejection; because it is founded on a
false principle, which identifies physical and moral tendency; is
incompatible with the nature and phenomena of mind; involves the
existence of an antecedent fate or absolute necessity, which
controlled the divine operations; is inconsistent with the natural
and moral perfections of God, and the scriptural account of the
state in which man was created; is expressed in obscure and
inapplicable language; and is so far from agreeing with _equity_,
that, when taken together, it represents the Divine Being as having
at first, created intelligent and accountable creatures with such
powers as would enable them to sin, but with none which would enable
them to avoid it."
The theory of Dr. Williams found favour with many Calvinists,
because it assumed somewhat of a philosophical aspect, and was put
forth as a clear "_demonstration_." But some of its ablest defenders
have since abandoned it to that oblivion, from which no efforts can
save an elaborate speculation, ungrounded in reason or revelation,
and repugnant to common sense.
In England the public mind has been so powerfully and happily
influenced by the anti-calvinistic genius of the liturgy, offices,
and discipline of the Anglican Church, that the grossness and
extravagancy of the American divines have been tolerated chiefly by
those who have not fallen under her instructions, or who have not
had the advantage of a liberal education and extensive reading. In
general, whether within or without the pale of the Church, its more
intelligent advocates have, until lately, exhibited it in a modified
form, and thrown over it a veil of mystery which has hidden its most
appalling deformities from the sight, while by the less skilful or
sagacious only, it has been adapted more to the fears or affections
of women, than to the understandings of men. Unhappily, the grosser
representations of this doctrine are now coming into repute in
quarters where, formerly, they would not have been endured, and thus
afford another warning example of the "_facilis descensus Averni_."
But under all possible modifications, it is essentially erroneous;
and this small treatise has originated in no love of discord, or
taste for polemic excitement, but in a solemn sense of duty,--the
duty of aiding, in some humble measure, the more learned and
important labours of others who are "set for the defence of the
truth." The writer aims only at a _common sense_ view of the
subject, showing that Calvinism is a dangerous speculation, useless
for every holy and salutary purpose, inapplicable to the hopes and
the duties of a religious life, at variance with our knowledge of
God, our obligations as Christians, and all our finer sentiments and
more generous sympathies as men. So far as its influence is exerted,
it contracts the understanding and hardens the heart.
Bishop Tomline's "Refutation of Calvinism," is too well known and
justly appreciated to need recommendation from the writer of these
papers. Faber "on the Primitive Doctrine of Election," is an
important work, composed with logical precision, and founded on a
laborious analysis of the Scriptures. The intelligent reader will be
instructed and deeply interested by "An Inquiry into the Doctrines
of Necessity and Predestination," by Dr. Copleston, the Bishop of
Llandaff.
From the latter work is extracted the following summary of the
peculiar and distinctive doctrines of the Calvinistic creed, in
which it is exhibited, not in a moderated and qualified form, as it
sometimes appears in the writings of individuals, but in its true
and undisguised character, as maintained by a grave assembly of
predestinarian divines.
CONCLUSIONS OF THE SYNOD OF DOST, AS EXHIBITED BY TILENUS.
ART. 1. OF DIVINE PREDESTINATION.
That God, by an absolute decree, hath elected to salvation a very
small number of men, without any regard to their faith or obedience
whatsoever; and secluded from saving grace all the rest of mankind,
and appointed them by the same decree to eternal damnation, without
any regard to their infidelity or impenitency.
ART. 2. OF THE MERIT AND EFFECT OF CHRIST'S DEATH.
That Jesus Christ hath not suffered death for any other, but for
those elect only; having neither had any intent nor commandment of
his Father to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
ART. 3. OF MAN'S WILL IN THE STATE OF NATURE.
That by Adam's fall, his posterity lost their free-will, being put
to an unavoidable necessity to do or not to do, whatsoever they do
or do not, whether it be good or evil, being thereunto predestinated
by the eternal and effectual secret decree of God.
ART. 4. OF THE MANNER OF CONVERSION.
That God, to save his elect from the corrupt mass, doth beget faith
in them, by a power equal to that whereby He created the world and
raised up the dead; insomuch, that such unto whom He gives that
grace, cannot reject it, and the rest, being reprobate, cannot
accept it.
ART. 5. OF THE CERTAINTY OF PERSEVERANCE.
That such as have once received that grace by faith, can never fall
from it finally or totally, notwithstanding the most enormous sins
they can commit.
PART II.
PARTICULAR OBJECTIONS.
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 reverences 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!