8. And how can we avoid adopting as a legitimate conclusion, the licentious infidel maxim, that “whatever is, is right”?
9. It is obvious, at the first glance, that this doctrine destroys all reasonable ground for repentance. Of what shall we repent? Of sinning? Let it first be proved that, according to this doctrine, any one has sinned, or can sin. But, if sin be possible, yet in every instance of sinning we have done the will of God. He freely and unchangeably predestinated the act from all eternity. His providence brought it to pass. Before we feel ourselves authorized to repent we should be sure that God has repented of his purposes and acts. And, even then, there would be no good reason for repentance upon the part of his creatures. For, if we, for the sake of the argument, allow that they are able to act otherwise than as they do, notwithstanding the Divine decrees, they are morally bound to submit cordially to those decrees, leaving to God the responsibility of decreeing wisely. Hence there is no room for repentance.
This is precisely the application made of this doctrine by an intelligent Calvinistic lady of New England, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, daughter of the late Prof. Stuart, of Andover, and authoress of certain very popular works. In the memorial of her, prefixed to The Last Leaf of Sunny Side, she is quoted as saying in her diary: “I never could understand or divine before, my claim upon the Deity’s overruling care. Now I do get a glimpse of it—enough to make me feel like an infant in its mother’s arms. Every event, of every day, of every hour, is unalterably fixed. Each day is but the turning over a new leaf of my history, already written by the finger of God—every letter of it. Should I wish to re-write—to alter—one? Oh, no! no!! no!!!” Here, you perceive, is no ground for repentance. It is repudiated. She would not alter an event of her life, a letter of her history. She carries this acquiescence in the Divine decrees so far as to say in another place: “I have no hope but in my Saviour and if He has not saved me, then this too, I know, is just, and God’s decrees I would not change.”
10. Nor can prayer be more reasonable than repentance. For what shall we pray? That God would reverse his eternal decrees? This would be to reflect upon his attributes. Are his decrees wrong? Besides, the doctrine in question affirms them to be unchangeable. Shall we pray that God may accomplish them? This can add nothing to the certainty of their accomplishment; for they cannot be defeated. So we are distinctly assured by the advocates of this theory. The only apology that can be offered for prayer, on the part of those who believe this doctrine, is that it is decreed they shall pray. But a prayer offered in strict logical accordance with this theory would be a manifest absurdity.
11. Another legitimate consequence of this doctrine is that man is not in a state of probation. There is a flat contradiction between the idea that man is in a state of probation and the affirmation that the whole series of volitions, states, actions, and events of his life is fixed, unchangeably, by the Divine decree, before he comes into existence. I have long regarded this as an inevitable deduction from the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees, but it was not until lately that I found it actually advanced as a doctrine by a Calvinistic writer. On page 77 of Fisher’s Catechism, the following occurs:—
“Q. Is there any danger in asserting that man is not now in a state of probation, as Adam was?—Ans. No.”
“Q. What, then, is the dangerous consequence of asserting that fallen man is still in a state of probation?—Ans. This dangerous consequence would follow, that mankind are hereby supposed to be still under a covenant of works that can justify the doer!”
I do not mean to be understood that this dogma is held by all Calvinists, but, whether held or not, it is a legitimate inference.
12. Let us now notice the bearing of this strange tenet upon some of the leading doctrines and facts of Christianity. Take the doctrine of the Fall—which is understood to be that God made man in his own image—holy; righteous, capable of standing in his integrity, yet liable to be seduced from it; and that man voluntarily transgressed, brought guilt and depravity upon himself, and involved his posterity in moral degradation and ruin. But, if the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees be true, there was obviously no fall in the case. There was a change in the condition of Adam, but that change was a part of God’s eternal plan. Nothing occurred but what belonged to the divinely predetermined series of events. If Adam had acted otherwise than as he did, God’s original purposes would have been frustrated. If there were any fall, it should be predicated of the Divine decrees rather than of the human subject thereof.
13. Again: The plan of redemption, it is supposed, was designed to rescue him from a deplorable, desperate condition, in which his perverseness had placed him; but, if the doctrine we are considering be true, the redemption, so called, is nothing but a part of a chain of predetermined events. He was, and is, at no time, in any other condition than was devised and decreed by Jehovah as most conducive to his own glory and the highest good of the universe. Thus, the redemption, about which so much is said, is resolved into a mere nullity.