Thorndike says, in reference to Calvinism: “It seems that God’s predestination must of force appoint salvation to them that are to be saved, in the first place; from thence proceeding to design the way and order by which the person designed to it may be induced of his own free choice to accept the means of it. This slight mistake,” he observes, “seems to have been the occasion of many horrible imaginations, which even Christian Divines have had, of God’s design from everlasting to create the most part of men on purpose to glorify Himself by condemning them to everlasting torments, though in consideration of the sins which they shall have done.” “The mistake is,” he remarks, “that the end of the creature by God’s appointment, is taken for God’s end, which though it be His end because He appointeth it for His creature, yet it is not any end that He seeks for Himself.” God, being of Himself sufficient for Himself, can have no end upon human beings. He is personally disinterested. Nothing accrues to Him, nothing is lost by Him; all the gain or loss is by the creature; and, having given a moral law to intelligent beings, He will abide by that law, and bestow happiness upon them accordingly. Salvation is through the satisfaction of Christ, who, by His propitiatory sacrifice perfected in death, paid the ransom of human souls. He expiates our sin by bearing the punishment of it, and we are reconciled to God by the Gospel in consideration of Christ’s obedience. This is taught by the sacrifices according to the law, by the prophet Isaiah, and in the New Testament. Socinus is altogether in error, and the doctrine that Divine grace rests on a satisfaction made for guilt is the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Yet neither according to Scripture nor according to patristic teaching, are our sins imputable to Christ, or His sufferings imputable to us: the latter are but the meritorious causes of the Christian covenant, and the promises of the Gospel depend upon His active as well as His passive obedience. Yet though all this be true--though salvation is now actually conveyed only through the work of Christ--yet God might have reconciled man to Himself in some other way.[385] Salvation is not secured by a decree of perseverance, but the saying of the schoolman is true--_Deus neminem deserit, nisi desertus_, God leaves no man that leaves not Him first; and, though the assurance of salvation is not included in the act of justifying faith, it follows as the consequence of it.[386]