The Rev. Dr. Musgrave says, &c.: “In the former chapter, we endeavored to explain and prove the three following propositions:—
“1. That all things that come to pass in time, have been eternally and unchangeably foreordained, because most certainly foreknown to the infinitely perfect Jehovah.” (p. 18.)
The Rev. Dr. Boardman, of this city, in his discourses on the doctrine of election, not only quotes with approbation that part of the Confession of Faith which says, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (p. 49), but also says: “Some persons appear to think that the Divine decrees are restricted to spiritual matters. This is so far from being a correct opinion, that the Scriptures represent all events, however trivial, as being embraced in those decrees.” In this connection, he also affirms “that the Divine decrees embrace not only ends but means, and that both in temporal and spiritual things, where an end is decreed, the means by which it is to be reached or accomplished are also decreed.” (pp. 56, 57.)
Dr. Chalmers, in his discourse on Predestination, says: “Let us not conceive that the agency of man can bring about one single iota of deviation from the plans and the purposes of God, or that he can be compelled to vary in a single case by the movement of any of those subordinate beings whom he hath himself created. There may be a diversity of operations, but it is God who worketh all in all. Look at the resolute and independent man, and you then see the purposes of the human mind entered upon with decision, and followed up by vigorous and successful exertions. But these only make up one diversity of God’s operations. The will of man, active, and spontaneous, and fluctuating as it appears to be, is an instrument in his hand—and he turns it at his pleasure—and he brings other instruments to act upon it—and he plies it with all its excitements—and he measures the force and proportion of each of them—and every step of every individual receives as determinate a character from the hand of God, as every mile of a planet’s orbit, or every gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, or every particle of flying dust, or every rivulet of flowing water. This power of God knows no exception. It is absolute and unlimited, and while it embraces the vast, it carries its resistless influence to all the minute and unnoticed diversities of existence. It reigns and operates through all the secrecies of the inner man. It gives birth to every purpose. It gives impulse to every desire. It gives shape and color to every conception. It wields an entire ascendency over every attribute of the mind, and the will, and the fancy, and the understanding, with all the countless variety of their hidden and fugitive operations, are submitted to it.”
It may be supposed that while we have shown clearly and indubitably that the doctrine which we propose to examine and refute is held by Old School Presbyterians, it would be an act of injustice upon our part, should we impute it to those of the New School. Many think that the New School have rejected the leading doctrines of Calvinism, as set forth in the Confession of Faith. This is a very erroneous impression. A writer in the Presbyterian Quarterly Review—a work recently originated and sustained by New School Presbyterians—remarks as follows: “Whatever difficulties there may be in the philosophy of the fact, it is certain that the idea of Presbyterianism actuates itself theologically in Calvinism.” (Vol. i. No. I. p. 18.)
Again: “So far as we are informed, there is not a minister of our body who does not love and cherish the Westminster Confession of Faith as the best human delineation of Biblical theology.” (p. 5.)
Again: “After fifteen years, in the body with which we are connected, no man has moved to alter a tittle of the Confession of Faith.” (p. 3.)
Again: “As we love the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, we shall stand ready to vindicate them from Arminian, Socinian, and infidel assaults on the one side, as well as Antinomian glosses on the other.” (p. 10.)
Again: “We must then, if we would obey the voice of God’s providence, teach our children the priceless glories of their faith” (p. 152). “Who tells them that the Westminster Confession of Faith is a model of noble writing?” (p. 153.)
The Westminster Confession of Faith, with the Catechisms, has recently been republished by the authority of the New School General Assembly, as the creed of their Church. Had they made any material changes in their creed, so far as Calvinism is concerned, this would have been the time to manifest them. But the New School Confession of Faith is a mere reprint of that of the Old School.