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 proselytes, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account