A Defense of
Calvinism
By Charles
Spurgeon
"The old truth that Calvin preached, that
Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth
that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my
conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know
of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a
doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which
thundered through Scotland must thunder through England
again."—C. H. Spurgeon
IT IS A GREAT THING
to begin the Christian life by believing good solid
doctrine. Some people have received twenty different
"gospels" in as many years; how many more they will
accept before they get to their journey's end, it would
be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early
taught me the gospel, and I
have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not
want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure
loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a
year, you will not need to build a very large loft in
which to store the apples. When people are always
shifting their doctrinal principles, they are not likely
to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. It is
good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon
those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has
taught in His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach
about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts
for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it;
but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with
an everlasting salvation, when I know that He gives to
them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He
settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting
love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting
kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that
such a blessing as this should ever have been given to
me!
"Pause, my soul! adore, and
wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to
me?'
Grace hath put me in the
number
Of the Saviour's
family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal
thanks, to Thee!"
I suppose there are some persons whose minds
naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I
can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the
doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some
of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my
heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God
has never let me act as they have done! I have thought,
if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His
grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should
have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the
very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any
vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that
I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had
let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am
saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so.
I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind
of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine
grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is
only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me,
and that will was that I should be with Him where He is,
and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere
but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me
from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past
life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God;
of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light
the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence
my spiritual life—no, I rather kicked, and struggled
against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a
time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred
in my soul of everything holy and good. Wooings were
lost upon me—warnings were cast to the wind—thunders
were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they
were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity.
But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of
myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He who turned
my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I
can in very deed, say with Doddridge and
Toplady—
"Grace taught my soul to
pray,
And made my eyes
o'erflow;"
and coming to this
moment, I can add—
"'Tis grace
has kept me to this
day,
And will not let me
go."
Well can I remember the manner in which I learned
the doctrines of grace in a single instant. Born, as all
of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the
old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and
did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to
Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though
I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was
seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first
aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when
first I received those truths in my own soul—when they
were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a
hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had
grown on a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made
progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found,
once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One
week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I
was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I
did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did
you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord.
But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth
flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have
sought Him unless there had been some previous influence
in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought
I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I
was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How
came I to read the Scriptures? I
did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a
moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and
that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole
doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that
doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire
to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my
change wholly to
God."
I once attended a
service where the text happened to be, "He shall
choose our inheritance for us;" and the good man who
occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an
Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, "This
passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it
has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny,
for," said he, "we do not want Christ to choose for us
in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and
easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense
will choose Heaven, and any person would know better
than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior
intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or
hell for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we
have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means
to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he very
logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus
Christ, or anyone, to make a choice for us. We could
choose the inheritance for ourselves without any
assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it
may be very true that we could, but I think we
should want something more than common sense before we
should choose
aright."
First, let me ask, must we not
all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and the
appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby
we came into this world? Those men who think that,
afterwards, we are left to our own free-will to choose
this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit
that our entrance into the world was not of our own
will, but that God had then to choose for us. What
circumstances were those in our power which led us to
elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything
to do with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents,
native place, and friends? Could He not have caused me
to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth
by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her "kraal,"
and teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily
as to have given me a pious mother, who would each
morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf?
Or, might He not, if He had pleased, have given me some
profligate to have been my parent, from whose lips I
might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene
language? Might He not have placed me where I should
have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in
a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the
chains of crime? Was it not God's Providence that I had
so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children,
and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the
Lord?
John Newton used to tell a
whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman
who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election,
"Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born,
or else He would not have seen anything in me to love
afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe
the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain
that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have
chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born,
or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He
must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I
never could find any reason in myself why He should have
looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to
accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an
Arminian brother telling me that he had read the
Scriptures through a score or more times, and could
never find the doctrine of election in them. He added
that he was sure he would have done so if it had been
there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him,
"I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable
posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair, you
would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by
all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece
of superstition to think there is anything in the
posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and as
to reading through the Bible twenty times without having
found anything about the doctrine of election, the
wonder is that you found anything at all: you must have
galloped through it at such a rate that you were not
likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of
the Scriptures."
If it would be
marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth
full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring
from which all the rivers of the earth should at once
come bubbling up, a million of them born at a birth?
What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet
the love of God is that fountain, from which all the
rivers of mercy, which have ever gladdened our race—all
the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter—take
their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred
fountain-head, and adore and magnify, for ever and ever,
God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the very
beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of
God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the
echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were
brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through
the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there
was any created being—when the ether was not fanned by
an angel's wing, when space itself had not an existence,
when there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that
loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and
profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen.
Their names were written on His heart, and then were
they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the
foundation of the world—even from eternity! and when He
called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved
thee with an everlasting
love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee."
Then, in the fulness of time, He
purchased me with His blood; He let His heart run out in
one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea,
when He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He
knocked at the door, and asked for entrance, did I not
drive Him away, and do despite to His grace? Ah, I can
remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the
power of His effectual grace, He said, "I must, I will
come in;" and then He turned my heart, and made me love
Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had
it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased
me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a
consequence necessary and logical, that He must have
loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I
believed on Him? No; I was not then in existence; I had
then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died
because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born?
Could that have been possible? Could that have been the
origin of the Saviour's love towards me? Oh! no; my
Saviour died for me long before I believed. "But," says
someone, "He foresaw that you would have faith; and,
therefore, He loved you." What did He foresee about my
faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith
myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself? No;
Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man
will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift
and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met
with a great many believers, and talked with them about
this matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand
on his heart, and say, "I believed in Jesus without the
assistance of the Holy
Spirit."
I am bound to the
doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I
find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs
that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. If God
enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so
insignificant a creature that it must be an act of
gracious condescension on the Lord's part; but if God
enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so offensive a creature that it
must be, on God's part, an act of pure, free, rich,
sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant
with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing
else but grace. When I remember what a den of unclean
beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my
unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the
sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined
to take the very lowest room in my Father's house, and
when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less
than the least of all saints, and with the chief of
sinners.
The late lamented
Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most
admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just
an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of
it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist,
I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of
the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other
doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He
only is my rock and my
salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and
it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find
its essence here, that it has departed from this great,
this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and
my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the
addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus
Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to
assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of
Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of
the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the
touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own
private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching
Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays
is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it
Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I
do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not
preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless
we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of
grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable,
eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I
think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon
the special and particular redemption of His elect and
chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross;
nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall
away after they are called, and suffers the children of
God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having
once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I
abhor.
"If ever it should come to
pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall
away,
My fickle, feeble soul,
alas!
Would fall a thousand
times a day."
If one dear saint of
God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant
ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel
promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is
nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel
at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever
fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will
love me for ever. God has a master-mind; He arranged
everything in His gigantic intellect long before He did
it; and once having settled it, He never alters it,
"This shall be done," saith He, and the iron hand of
destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. "This
is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth or hell
alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it,
ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye
devils, if ye can; but ye cannot alter the decree, it
shall stand for ever." God altereth not His plans; why
should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His
pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and
therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should He? He
is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before
His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye
worthless atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping
insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may change
your plans, but He shall never, never change
His. Has He told me that His
plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever
safe.
"My name from the palms of His
hands
Eternity will not
erase;
Impress'd on His heart it
remains,
In marks of indelible
grace."
I do not know how some people, who believe that a
Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It
must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to
get through a day without despair. If I did not believe
the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I
think I should be of all men the most miserable, because
I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say,
whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be
like a well-spring of water, whose stream fails not; I
should rather have to take the comparison of an
intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a
reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always
be full. I believe that the happiest of Christians and
the truest of Christians are those who never dare to
doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands,
and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling
assured that if God has said it, it will be so. I bear
my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even the
shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge
Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God
is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends,
and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted
believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the
long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is
not to be found in the three realms a single person who
can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the
faithfulness of God, or weaken His claim to be trusted
by His servants. There are many things that may or may
not happen, but this I know shall happen—
"He
shall present my
soul,
Unblemish'd and
complete,
Before the glory of His
face,
With joys divinely
great."
All the purposes of
man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The
promises of man may be broken—many of them are made to
be broken—but the promises of God shall all be
fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was a
promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every
one of His people shall prove it to be so. This is my
grateful, personal confidence, "The Lord will
perfect that which concerneth me"—unworthy
me, lost and ruined me. He will yet save me;
and—
"I, among the blood-wash'd
throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the
crown,
And shout loud
victory."
I go to a land which the plough
of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener than
earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant
harvests ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous
architecture than man hath ever builded; it is not of
mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall
know and enjoy in Heaven, will be given to me by the
Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear before
Him—
"Grace all the work shall
crown
Through everlasting
days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost
stone,
And well deserves the
praise."
I know there are some who think it necessary to
their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood
of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a
limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I
dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind,
it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished
work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no
bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be
sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had
so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world,
but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed
their Maker's law. Once admit infinity into the matter,
and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine Person
for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of
limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable
to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine
purpose fixes the application
of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a
finite work. Think of the numbers upon whom God has
bestowed His grace already. Think of the countless hosts
in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou
wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands
of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are before
the throne even now. They have come from the East, and
from the West, from the North, and from the South, and
they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and
with Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in
Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be
God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I
believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than
these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes
brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The
Father's love is not for a few only, but for an
exceeding great company. "A great multitude, which no
man could number," will be found in Heaven. A man can
reckon up to very high figures; set to work your
Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can count
great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the
multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more
in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think
so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have
the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how He could
have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the
dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have
never read that there is to be in hell a great
multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know
that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die,
speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude
there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven
unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made
perfect—the redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues up till now; and there are better
times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be
universal; when—
"He shall reign from pole to
pole,
With illimitable
sway;"
when whole kingdoms shall bow
down before Him, and nations shall be born in a day, and
in the thousand years of the great millennial state
there will be enough saved to make up all the
deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone
before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His
praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have
the pre-eminence at last; His train shall be far larger
than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim
monarch of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal
atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful. It is a
lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it
commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of
humanity; there is something in it full of joy and
beauty." I admit there is, but beauty may be often
associated with falsehood. There is much which I might
admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will
just show what the supposition necessarily involves. If
Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He
intended to save those who were lost before He died. If
the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He
died for some who were in hell before He came into this
world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there
who had been cast away because of their sins. Once
again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how
deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own
testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire
and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast
some of the very persons who, according to the theory of
universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That
seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive
than any of those consequences which are said to be
associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine
of special and particular redemption. To think that my
Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a
supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine
for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons
of men, and that God, having first punished the
Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves,
seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice.
That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction
for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of
those very men should be punished for the sins for which
Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most
monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to
Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the
most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we
should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and
good!
There is no soul living who holds
more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if
any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a
Calvinist, I answer—I wish to be called nothing but a
Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal
views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in
the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be
it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but
Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there
are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious
things have been spoken about the character and
spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of
Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I
detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for
the man himself I have a reverence second to no
Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be
added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that
there could be found two men more fit to be so added
than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of
John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for
self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God;
he lived far above the ordinary level of common
Christians, and was one "of whom the world was not
worthy." I believe there are multitudes of men who
cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them
in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have
received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the
heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist in
or out of Heaven.
I do not think I
differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what
I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not
believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold
a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth
revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few
cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship
North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word,
we shall begin to learn something about the North-west
and North-east, and all else that lies between the four
cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the
Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and
no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he
knows how to look at the two lines at once. For
instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit
and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say,
Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am
taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that
"it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God
in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I
cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and
that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to
his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man
was so free to act that there was no control of God over
his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism;
and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so
over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be
responsible, I should be driven at once into
Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet
that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see
clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and
contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in
one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained,
that is true; and if I find, in another
Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions,
that is true; and it is only
my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths
can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they
can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but
they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two
lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind
which pursues them farthest will never discover that
they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet
somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God,
whence all truth doth
spring.
It is often said
that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us
to sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that
those high doctrines which we love, and which we find in
the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not know who
will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when
they consider that the holiest of men have been
believers in them. I ask the man who dares to say that
Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of
the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield,
who in successive ages were the great exponents of the
system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans,
whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian
in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest
heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as
the heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have
gone back to the old school; we can trace our descent from the apostles. It is
that vein of free-grace, running through the sermonizing
of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were
it not for that, we should not stand where we are today.
We can run a golden line up to Jesus Christ Himself,
through a holy succession of mighty fathers, who all
held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning
them, "Where will you find holier and better men in the
world?" No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man
from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who
have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know
anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they
little knew that their own vile stuff was the most
licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace
of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no
preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are
elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is
nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and
the immutability of my Father's affection, which can
keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude.
Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth.
A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man
cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having
an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally
begets the other. Of all men, those have the most
disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most
ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by
grace, without works, through faith, and that not of
themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should
take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any
means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an
open shame.
