decrees of the synod of Dort, which, it will be seen under that article,
were purposely drawn up in a politic and wary manner, so as to quadrate
with the opinions, and not to outrage the feelings, of any grade of
Calvinists. Prior to the convention of that celebrated assembly, the
doctrines of Calvin had been refined upon and incautiously carried out
to some of their legitimate consequences, in a manner almost without
precedent, except that of the Mohammedan doctors on the absolute fate
which holds a distinguished place in the Koran. Several of the brightest
and most acute wits in Europe occupied themselves in sublimating to the
height of extravagance the two kindred branches of predestination,--the
eternal and absolute election of certain men to everlasting glory, and
the reprobation of the rest of mankind to endless punishment, without
regard in the divine mind to the foreseen faith of one class or to the
foreseen unbelief of the other. This course was commenced by Beza, the
contemporary and successor of Calvin, who possessed neither his genius
nor his caution; and his writings contain several rash assertions on
these points, which, it is probable, would never have obtained the
approbation of his departed friend and instructer. Zanchius, with true
Italian astuteness, carried on this process of refinement in high style;
and his predestinarian _improvements_ were only equalled by those of
Piscator, Pareus, Keckerman, Hommius, Kimedontius, Polanus, Sturmius,
Danæus, Thysius, Donteklock, Bogerman, Gomar, Smoutius, Triglandius,
down to the minor tribe of Contra-Remonstrants, Damman, Maccovius, and
Sibrandus Lubbertus. Nor were the clever divines of our own country a
whit behind the foreigners in accomplishing this grand object; and the
theological reader, on seeing the names of Perkins, Whitaker, Abbot, and
Twisse, will instantly recognise men whose doctrinal vagaries were
familiar to all the Calvinists in Europe. No one can form an adequate
conception of the injury thus inflicted on the divine attributes of
wisdom, goodness, and mercy, as they have been revealed in the
Scriptures, unless he has read the immense mass of quotations from the
writings of these and other divines, which were presented to the notice
of the synod of Dort by the Remonstrants, especially in their _Rejection
of Errors_ under each of the five points in dispute; the proofs of which
were quoted from their respective authors, and the accuracy and
faithfulness of which were never called in question. Not only would the
minds of all sober Christians in these days be shocked when perusing the
monstrous sentiments propounded in those extracts, but even the
tolerably stiff Calvinists of Oliver Cromwell’s time felt themselves
scandalized by any allusion to them, and would not admit that their
opinions had the least affinity to such desecrating dogmas. Little more
than twenty years after the synod of Dort, that distinguished polemical
divine and accurate scholar, Dr. Thomas Pierce, published his able and
very interesting pamphlet, entitled, “A Correct Copy of Some Notes
concerning God’s Decrees;” in which, without naming the authors, he gave
ten extracts from celebrated Calvinistic treatises, to prove, that
“there are men of no small name who have told the world, that all the
evil of sin which is in man proceedeth from God only as the author, and
from man only as the instrument.” Four of these extracts will furnish
sufficient matter to every judicious mind for mournful reflections on
the strange obliquities to which the human understanding is
liable:--(1.) “A wicked man, by the just impulse of God, doeth that
which is not lawful for him to do.” (2.) “When God makes an angel or a
man a transgressor, he himself doth not transgress, because he doth not
break a law. The very same sin, namely, adultery or murder, inasmuch as
it is the work of God, the author, mover, and compeller, is not a crime;
but inasmuch as it is of man, it is a wickedness.” (3.) “God can will
that man shall not fall, by his will which is called _voluntas signi_;
and in the mean while he can ordain that the same man shall infallibly
and efficaciously fall, by his will which is called _voluntas
beneplaciti_. The former will of God is improperly called his will, for
it only signifieth what man ought to do by right; but the latter will is
properly called a will, because by that he decreed what should
inevitably come to pass.” (4.) “God’s will doth pass, not only into the
permission of the sin, but into the sin itself which is permitted. The
Dominicans,” the high predestinarian order in the church of Rome, “do
imperfectly and obscurely relate the truth whilst, beside God’s
concurrence to the making way for sin, they require nothing but the
negation of efficacious grace, when it is manifest that there is a
farther prostitution of sin required.” Of these four passages the first
is from Calvin himself, the second from Zuinglius, and the third and
fourth from Dr. Twisse. This pamphlet was the first in a smart
controversy, in which Doctor (afterward Bishop) Reynolds, Baxter,
Hickman, and Barlee, took part against Dr. Pierce, but in which those
eminent men virtually disclaimed all community of sentiment between
themselves and such high predestinarians. In their warmth, however, they
accused the Doctor of having “rifled the well-furnished cabinet of the
Batavian Remonstrant writings,” and of not having hesitated “to be
beholden to very thieves, namely, such roguish pamphlets as _Fur
Predestinatus_ and others are, rather than want materials for invectives
against Calvin, Beza, Twisse,” &c. In his reply, the Doctor says, “When
I published my papers on God’s decrees, I had never so much as seen that
well-furnished cabinet, the ‘_Acta Synodalia Remonstrantium_;’” and he
proves that he has copied none of his extracts from _Fur Predestinatus_.
As his opponents were “so unthankful for the lenity” which he had
displayed in giving “so _short_ a catalogue,” he added other
affirmations of a still more revolting import, if that were possible.
The four extracts which follow, will serve as a correct specimen of the
gross and unguarded assertions of some of those good men who were thus
exposed; the first two are from Zanchius, the other two from Piscator,
both of them men of renown in that age:--(1.) “Reprobates are compelled
with a necessity of sinning, and so of perishing, by this ordination of
God; and so compelled that they cannot choose but sin and perish.” (2.)
“God works all things in all men, not only in the godly, but also in the
ungodly.” (3.) “Judas could not but betray Christ, seeing that God’s
decrees are immutable; and whether a man bless or curse, he always doth
it necessarily in respect of God’s providence, and in so doing he doeth
always according to the will of God.” (4.) “It doth or at least may
appear from the word of God, that we neither can do more good than we
do, nor omit more evil than we omit; because God from eternity hath
precisely decreed that both [the good and the evil] should so be done.
It is fatally constituted when, and how, and how much, every one of us
ought to study and love piety, or not to love it.” In that newly
emancipated age, the ample discussion of these topics could not fail to
produce much good; and the result in the course of a few years was, that
a vast number of those who had implicitly followed the guidance of
Calvin, deserted his standard, and either went completely over to the
ranks of Arminius, or halted midway under the command of Baxter. From
that time to the middle of the eighteenth century, those dogmas which
are usually designated as ultra-Calvinian or Antinomian, received no
support except from such shallow divines as Dr. Crisp and his immediate
admirers. But when the Rev. John Wesley and his brother, as Arminians,
propounded the doctrines of the Gospel in as evangelical a manner, and
with as marked success, as any Calvinist, a number of those excellent
men, both in the church and among the Dissenters, who had been early
benefited by the ministry of the two brothers, thought, as many now do,
that it was impossible for any thing to be evangelical that was not
Calvinistic; and, apparently with the design of being at as great a
remove as possible from a reputed heresy, they became in principle real
Antinomians. In forming this conclusion, and in running to a supposed
opposite extreme, such persons seem to have forgotten that those truly
evangelical principles,--which in Germany and the neighbouring states
effected the reformation from Popery, which transformed sinners into
Christians and martyrs, and which, in the perverted state of society
that then obtained, but too painfully reminded the sainted sufferers of
the domestic, municipal, and national grievances and persecutions to
which the earliest confessors of the name of Christ were subjected,--had
been in beneficial operation long before Calvin’s doctrinal system was
brought to maturity, and when he was known only as the humble and
diligent pastor of the church of Geneva. And even after the publication
of his “Institutes,” which contained the peculiarities of his creed, he
had to wait many years, to labour hard, not always in the most
sanctified spirit, both from the pulpit and the press, and to endure
many personal mortifications, before he was able to obtrude his novel
dogmas on his own immediate connections, or to make any sensible
impression on the generally received theology of his learned
contemporaries. Such persons ought also to recollect, that, as Dr. Watts
justly observes, “some of the most rigid and narrow limitations of grace
to men are found chiefly in Calvin’s _Institutions_, which were written
in his youth. But his comments on Scripture were the labours of his
riper years and maturer judgment.”
11. His first tract on predestination was published in 1552; and the
first complete edition of his “Institutes” did not see the light till
the year 1558; but the change in Melancthon’s opinions, from the
fatality of Stoicism, to the universality of the Gospel, occurred at
least six years prior to 1535, when the second edition of his “Common
Places” was published, that contained his amended creed, and strong
cautions against the contrary doctrines. One of the most eloquent and
best informed writers of the present age has, in reference to this
subject, justly observed: “Both Luther and Melancthon, after their creed
became permanently settled at the diet of Augsburg, (A. D. 1530,) kept
one object constantly in view,--to inculcate only what was plain and
practical, and never to attempt philosophizing. They perceived, that
before the reformation the doctrine of divine foreknowledge had been
grossly misconceived and abused, although guarded by all the logic of
the schools; and they felt, that, after it, they had themselves at first
contributed to increase the evil, by grounding upon the same high
argument, although for a very different purpose, the position of an
infallible necessity. Thenceforward, therefore, they only taught a
predestination which the Christian religion explains, and the Christian
life exemplifies. Thus, while their adversaries philosophized upon a
predestination of individuals, preferred one before another by divine
regard because worthy of such a preference, they taught only that which
has been revealed with certainty,--the predestination of a peculiar
description of persons, of _a people zealous of good works_, of the
Christian church contemplated as an aggregate, not on account of its own
dignity, but on account of Christ its supreme Head, and _the author of
eternal salvation to all who obey him_. While restoring Scriptural
simplicity to the doctrine of predestination, perplexed and disfigured
by the vanity of the schools, they studiously and anxiously preserved
every trace of that universal benevolence by which Christianity is
particularly distinguished. ‘Let us,’ they said, ‘with both our hands,
or rather with all our heart, hold fast the true and pious maxim, that
God is not the author of sin, that he sits not in heaven writing Stoical
laws in the volumes of fate; but, endowed with a perfect freedom
himself, he communicates a liberty of action to his creatures; firmly
opposing the position of necessity as false, and pernicious to morals
and religion. God, we may be assured, is no cruel and merciless tyrant;
he does not hate and reject men, but loves them as a parent loves his
children.’ Universal grace, indeed, was at all times a favourite topic
with the Lutherans; nor would they admit of any predestination except
that of a beneficent Deity, who was _in Christ reconciling the world to
himself_; except a predestination conformable with that order of things
which he has established, and with the use or abuse of the means which
he has ordained. ‘The Almighty,’ they said, ‘has seriously willed and
decreed, from eternity, all men to be saved and to enjoy everlasting
felicity; let us not therefore indulge in evil suggestions, and separate
ourselves from his grace, which is as expanded as the space between
heaven and earth; let us not restrain the general promise, in which he
offers his favour to all without discrimination, nor confine it to those
who, affecting a peculiar garb, wish to be alone esteemed pious and
sanctified. If many perish, the fault is not to be imputed to the divine
will, but to human obstinacy, which despises that will, and disregards a
salvation destined for all men.’ ‘And because _many are called, but few
are chosen_, let us not,’ they added, ‘entertain an opinion highly
impious,--that God tenders his grace to many, but communicates it only
to a few; for should we not in the greatest degree detest a Deity by
whose arbitrary will we believed ourselves to be excluded from
salvation?’ Upon the important point likewise of the conditional
acceptance of the individual, their ideas were not more distinct than
their language was explicit. ‘If God chose,’ they argued, ‘certain
persons only in order to unite them to himself, and rejected the
remainder in all respects alike, would not such AN ELECTION WITHOUT
CAUSES seem tyrannical? Let us therefore be persuaded, that some cause
exists in us, as some difference is to be found between those who are,
and those who are not, accepted.’ Thus they conceived that,
predestinating his elect in Christ, or the Christian church, to eternal
salvation, he excludes none from that number by a partial adoption of
favourites, but calls all equally, and accepts of all who obey his
calling, or, in other words, who become true Christians by possessing
the qualifications which Christianity requires.--'He,' they stated, who
‘falls from grace, cannot but perish, completely losing remission of
sin, with the other benefits which Christ has purchased for him, and
acquiring in their stead divine wrath and death eternal.’ Melancthon,
who in his private correspondence expressly termed Calvin the Zeno of
his day, says, ‘Let us execrate the Stoical disputations which some
introduce, who imagine that the elect always retain the Holy Spirit,
even when they commit atrocious crimes,--a manifest and highly
reprehensible error; and let us not confirm in fools security and
blindness.’”
These quotations might be augmented by others from the earliest Lutheran
authors, more Arminian in their import than any which Arminius ever
wrote: but the preceding are sufficient to show, that, during upward of
thirty years, the Protestant church in Germany was nourished by
doctrines most manifestly at variance with the refinements afterward
promulgated by Calvin. Real conversions of sinners were never more
abundant than in that golden age; yet these were produced by the
blessing of God upon an evangelical agency that had scarcely any thing
in common with the Genevan dogmas. With these and similar facts before
him, therefore, no Calvinist can in common honesty claim for the
peculiarities of his creed, for those doctrines which distinguish it
from the Melancthonism of the Protestant churches of England and
Germany, the exclusive title of EVANGELICAL. Equally fallacious is the
ground on which he can prefer any such claim on account of the alleged
counsel and advice given by Calvin to our reformers while they were
engaged in the formation of our Articles and Liturgy. On no fact in the
ecclesiastical history of this country are our annalists more completely
at agreement than on this,--that Calvin’s name and writings were
scarcely known in England till the time when the persecution under Queen
Mary forced many of our best divines into banishment; and that, to the
great future disquietude of the church, several of these exiles on their
return imported a personal bias either in favour of his discipline or of
his dogmas. Anterior to that period he had received no such pressing
invitations from our reformers, and from the king himself, as Melancthon
had done, for his friendly theological aid in drawing up the doctrinal
and disciplinary formulæ of our national church. The man who asserts the
contrary to this, and who has the hardihood to deny the Melancthonian
origin of the Articles and Liturgy, discovers at once his want of
correct information on these subjects, and has never read the convincing
documents appended to the Archbishop of Cashel’s (Dr. Laurence’s) “Eight
Sermons,” being the Bampton Lectures for 1804, and entitled, “_An
Attempt to Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the
Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical_;” Todd’s treatise “_On
Original Sin, Free Will, &c, as maintained by certain Declarations of
our Reformers_;” Plaifere’s “_Appello Evangelium_;” nor even the
portable yet convincing pamphlets of Kipling and Winchester, the former
entitled “_The Articles not Calvinistic_;” the latter, “_A Dissertation
on the Seventeenth Article of the Church_.”
12. There is one fact connected with these assumed yet unfounded claims,
which has never yet been placed in its proper light, but which it may be
well briefly to notice in this place. Calvin himself, in 1535, wrote the
following truly Melancthonian paragraphs as part of his preface to the
New Testament in French: “This Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, was the
only, true, and eternal Son of God, whom the Father was about to send
into the world, that he might collect all men together from this horrid
dispersion and devastation. When, at length, that fulness of time
arrived, that day preordained by the Lord, he openly showed himself as
that Messiah who had for so many ages been the desire of all nations,
and hath most abundantly performed all those things which were necessary
for the redemption of all men. But this great blessing was not confined
solely within the boundaries of the land of Israel, since, on the
contrary, it was intended [_porrigendum_] to be held out for the
acceptance of the whole human race; because through Christ alone the
entire family of man was to be reconciled to God, as will be seen, and
most amply demonstrated, in these pages of the New Testament.” “To this
inheritance of our heavenly Father’s kingdom we are all called without
respect of persons,--whether we be men or women, high or low, masters or
servants, teachers or disciples, [_doctores_] divines or laics, Jews or
Greeks, Frenchmen or [_Romani_] Italians. From this inheritance no one
is excluded, if he only so receive Christ as he is offered by the Father
for the salvation of all men, and embrace him when received.” Great
research has been displayed by the Calvinists at different periods, in
endeavouring to discover, in the public formularies of the church, or in
the private productions of our reformers, some trace of affinity between
them and the writings of Calvin. Only two cases of such affinity have
yet been found; and, unfortunately for the validity of all pretensions
of this kind, neither of them contains a single peculiarity of
Calvinism, but, on the contrary, both are of the moderate and
_evangelical_ class of the Melancthonian school. One of the passages
thus discovered is here subjoined from Cranmer’s “_Defence of the True
and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament_,” &c; and bears all the marks of
verisimilitude to the second of the preceding paragraphs from Calvin,
though written fifteen years after it:--“Almighty God, without respect
of person, accepteth the oblation and sacrifice of priest and lay
person, of king and subject, of master and servant, of man and woman, of
young and old, yea, of English, French, Scot, Greek, Latin, Jew, and
Gentile; of every man according to his faithful and obedient heart unto
him, and that through the sacrifice propitiatory of Jesus Christ.” Had
either this or the other passage contained the least tinge of what is
now considered as belonging exclusively to the system of Calvin, the
English admirers of that great man would have had some grounds for the
assertions which have been too confidently made, because so easily
refuted.
13. Having given this summary of the sentiments of Calvin himself, and
of the ancient or strict Calvinists, it is proper to observe, that there
are, and always have been, many who generally embrace the Calvinistic
system, but object to some particular _parts_, and to the strong
language in which some of the propositions are expressed. These are
called _moderate_ or _modern_ Calvinists, who differ from Calvin, and
the synod of Dort, chiefly on two points,--the doctrine of reprobation,
and the extent of the death of Christ. The theory of Baxter has already
been noticed. This and all other mitigated schemes rest on two
principles, the sufficiency of the atonement for all mankind, and the
sufficiency of grace for those who do not believe. Still something more
is held to be necessary than this sufficiency of grace in order to
actual salvation; namely, an acceptance by man, which can only be made
under that degree of effectual supernatural aid which is dispensed only
to a certain number of persons, who are thus distinguished as the “elect
of God.” The main characteristic of all these theories, from the first
to the last, from the highest to the lowest, is, that a part of mankind
are shut out from the mercies of God, on some ground irrespective of
their refusal of a sincere offer to them of salvation through Christ,
made with a communicated power of embracing it. Some power they allow to
the reprobate, as natural power, and degrees of superadded moral power;
but in no case the power to believe unto salvation; and thus, as one
well observes, “When they have cut some fair trenches, as if they would
bring the water of life unto the dwellings of the reprobate, on a sudden
they open a sluice which carries it off again.” The whole labour of
these theories is to find out some plausible reason for the infliction
of punishment on them that perish, independent of the only cause
assigned by the word of God--their rejection of a mercy free for all,
and made attainable by all. See BAXTERIANISM.