"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.