A Defense of Calvinism
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 ever-
lasting 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
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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 spirituai 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(1)-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,
1)See the letter, dated April 6, 1850, on page 115, and the entry in
Diary on page 125- April 7 :-"Arminianism does not suit me now."
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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 think-
ing 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 Scrip-
tures? 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 com-
menced, he said, "This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheri-
tance, 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 Provi-
dence, and the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means
whereby we came into this world? Those men who tkink that, after-
wards, 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
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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 Provi-
dence 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 under-
stand 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 marvellous 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
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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 withloving-
kindness 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 Savior, 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 Savior'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 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."
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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 un-
renewed 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 touch-
stone, 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, conquerirg 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.
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"lf ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fill 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 every-
thing 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 inter-
mittent 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
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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 joy 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-wosh'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 home 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 deservs the praise."
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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 every-
thing, 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-
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"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 millenial
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 re-
demption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a con-
ception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those conse-
quences 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!
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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, l 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 wbom 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-Calviaistic 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
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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, but they are not. The
fault is in our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory
to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that every-
thing 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 contr-
dict 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 etenity,
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 wourd 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 to-day. 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
12
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 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.
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