St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of England — John Shaqi
St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of EnglandArnold, Matthew
Religion
St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of England
Arnold, Matthew
Church of England -- Controversial literature; Paul, the Apostle, Saint; Protestantism; Puritans
resurrection, and they remain thenceforth for ever with Christ in glory;
while all the wicked are sent away into hell with Satan, whom they have
served.
We have here set down the main doctrines of Calvinistic Puritanism
almost entirely in words of its own choosing. It is not necessary to
enter into distinctions such as those between sublapsarians and
supralapsarians, between Calvinists who believe that God's decree of
election and reprobation was passed in foresight of original sin and on
account of it, and Calvinists who believe that it was passed absolutely
and independently. The important points of Calvinism,--original sin,
free election, effectual calling, justification through imputed
righteousness,--are common to both. The passiveness of man, the activity
of God, are the great features in this scheme; there is very little of
what man thinks and does, very much of what God thinks and does; and
what God thinks and does is described with such particularity that the
figure we have used of the man in the next street cannot but recur
strongly to our minds.
The positive Protestantism of Puritanism, with which we are here
concerned, as distinguished from the negative Protestantism of the
Church of England, has nourished itself with ardour on this scheme of
doctrine. It informs and fashions the whole religion of Scotland,
established and nonconforming. It is the doctrine which Puritan flocks
delight to hear from their ministers. It was Puritanism's constant
reproach against the Church of England, that this essential doctrine was
not firmly enough held and set forth by her. At the Hampton Court
Conference in 1604, in the Committee of Divines appointed by the House
of Lords in 1641, and again at the Savoy Conference in 1661, the
reproach regularly appeared. 'Some have defended,' is the Puritan
complaint, 'the whole gross substance of Arminianism, that the act of
conversion depends upon the concurrence of man's free will; some do
teach and preach that good works are concauses with faith in the act of
justification; some have defended universal grace, some have absolutely
denied original sin.' As Puritanism grew, the Calvinistic scheme of
doctrine hardened and became stricter. Of the Calvinistic confessions of
faith of the sixteenth century,--the Helvetic Confession, the Belgic
Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism,--the Calvinism is so moderate as
to astonish any one who has been used only to its later developments.
Even the much abused canons of the Synod of Dort no one can read
attentively through without finding in parts of them a genuine movement
of thought,--sometimes even a philosophic depth,--and a powerful
religious feeling. In the documents of the Westminster Assembly,
twenty-five years later, this has disappeared; and what we call the
British Philistine stands in his religious capacity, sheer and stark,
before us. Seriousness is the one merit of these documents, but it is a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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