By the phrase "in Christ," I understand all the supernatural aids
vouchsafed and conditionally promised in the Christian dispensation;
and among them the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot receive,
were it only that the knowledge of _spiritual_ Truth is of necessity
immediate and _intuitive_: and the World or Natural Man possesses no
higher intuitions than those of the pure _Sense_, which are the
subjects of _mathematical_ science. But _aids_, observe! Therefore,
not _by_ Will of man alone; but neither _without_ the Will. The
doctrine of modern Calvinism as laid down by Jonathan Edwards and the
late Dr. Williams, which represents a Will absolutely passive, clay in
the hands of a potter, destroys all Will, takes away its essence and
definition, as effectually as in saying: This circle is square--I
should deny the figure to be a circle at all. It was in strict
consistency therefore, that these writers supported the Necessitarian
scheme, and made the relation of Cause and Effect the Law of the
Universe, subjecting to its mechanism the moral World no less than the
material or physical. It follows, that all is Nature. Thus, though few
writers use the term Spirit more frequently, they in effect deny its
existence, and evacuate the term of all its proper meaning. With such
a system not the wit of man nor all the Theodicies ever framed by
human ingenuity before and since the attempt of the celebrated
Leibnitz, can reconcile the Sense of Responsibility, nor the fact of
the difference _in kind_ between REGRET AND REMORSE. The same
compulsion of consequence drove the Fathers of Modern (or Pseudo-)
Calvinism to the origination of Holiness in power, of Justice in right
of Property, and whatever other outrages on the common sense and moral
feelings of mankind they have sought to cover, under the fair name of
_Sovereign Grace_.
I will not take on me to defend sundry harsh and inconvenient
expressions in the works of Calvin. Phrases equally strong and
assertions not less rash and startling are no rarities in the writings
of Luther; for catachresis was the favourite figure of speech in that
age. But let not the opinions of either on this most fundamental
subject be confounded with the New England System, now entitled
Calvinistic. The fact is simply this. Luther considered the
pretensions to Free-will _boastful_, and better suited to the "budge
doctors of the Stoic Fur," than to the preachers of the Gospel, whose
great theme is the Redemption of the Will from Slavery; the
restoration of the Will to perfect Freedom being the _end_ and
consummation of the redemptive process, and the same with the entrance
of the Soul into Glory, that is, its union with Christ: "GLORY"
(_John_ xvii. 5.) being one of the names or tokens or symbols of the
Spiritual Messiah. Prospectively to this we are to understand the
words of our Lord. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father,
and ye in me," John xiv. 20: the freedom of a finite will being
possible under this condition only, that it has become one with the
will of God. Now as the difference of a captive and enslaved Will,
and _no_ Will at all, such is the difference between the
_Lutheranism_ of Calvin and the Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards.