Will it be said, All this is not argument. I answer, The sermon, it is supposed, contains arguments—arguments which professed predestinarians themselves tell us are unanswerable against the prevailing modes of stating and explaining the doctrine. Now let them be answered, if they can be. Let them be answered, not by giving up predestination, in the Calvinistic sense, and still professing to hold it—not by attempting to avoid the logical consequences, by giving the system the thousandth explanation, when the nine hundred and ninety-nine already given have made it no plainer, nor evaded at all the just consequences, so often charged upon it; and when these are answered, it will then be time enough to call for new arguments.
Having prepared the way, as I hope, by the preceding numbers, for the proper understanding of the controversy; and having, by the remarks just made, attempted (with what success the reader must judge) to repel the charges of misrepresentation and bearing false witness, made against me, as the author of the sermon which gave rise to the controversy, I am now prepared, in my next number to commence an examination of some of the questions of doctrine, connected with this discussion. In doing which, my object will be, to let “Greek with Greek contend” so far as to show, if possible, the inconsistency of both, and then present the doctrine which we believe to be the true system, and show how it stands untouched by the conflicting elements around it as the immovable foundation of the Church of God. I shall begin with the Divine purposes including foreknowledge; then take up human agency and responsibility; and last, regeneration, connected with the doctrine of human depravity, Divine and human agency, &c. May He that said, “Let light be, and light was,” “shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.”
[ NUMBER VI. ]
PREDESTINATION.
Definitions are the foundations of reasoning. Hence in any reply to my sermon on predestination and election it was natural and fair that the first inquiry should be, Are the definitions correct? The definition of predestination assumed in the sermon was, that unalterable purpose and efficient decree of God, by which the moral character and responsible acts of man were definitely fixed and efficiently produced. On this point the sermon joined issue. To this definition most of the notices and reviews, to the number of six or seven, which I have seen, have taken exceptions. The review in the Boston Telegraph, however, is not of this number.—That, as has already been noticed, agrees with the charge in the sermon, that “the fiat of God brought forth sin as directly as it made the world.” We have only to leave those Calvinists, who accord to that sentiment, to struggle, as they can, against the arguments of the sermon—against the common sense of the world—against their own convictions of right and wrong—and, I may add, against their own brethren of “the class,” some of whom have already publicly denounced the sentiment as “horrid blasphemy.” At this day of light, in which naked Calvinism is abhorred by most of those who bear the name of Calvinists, it is hardly necessary to give a formal answer to such a review. We approve of the logical consistency of these men—we admire the moral courage that, from assumed premises, pushes out a theory to its legitimate results without flinching; but we are astonished at the moral nerve that can contemplate such results with complacency. For myself I confess when I see this naked system of Calvinism fulminating the curse of reprobation in the teeth of the miserable wretch whose only crime is, that his God has made him a sinner, my heart recoils with indescribable horror! Let him contemplate this picture who can. I covet not his head or his heart.
Of others who have expressed their views of the sermon there are two classes: 1. The conductors of the Christian Spectator and those who favour their views; and 2. Those who in a former number were called Reformed Hopkinsians. The latter comprehend the larger portion of Calvinists in New-England, and probably in the United States. Their views on predestination shall be noticed in another number. At present I shall direct my remarks to the letters of Mr. Metcalf and to the first and second notices of the sermon in the Christian Spectator. And here let me say, once for all, that I do not consider either of these gentlemen, or any who think with them, responsible for the doctrine of predestination as stated and opposed in the sermon. This I hope will be satisfactory. If these gentlemen should ask me why I published my sermon in terms that included Calvinists generally, without making the exception in their favour, I answer, 1. The views of Dr. Taylor and “those who believe with him,” on this particular point, were unknown to me at the time. Nor is this strange, for it is but lately that those views have been fully developed—never so fully before, probably, as in Dr. Fitch’s review of my sermon, already alluded to. 2. It never occurred to me that any man or any set of men holding, in respect to predestination, the doctrine of James Arminius, John Wesley, and the whole body of Methodists, would call themselves Calvinists!! This is all the apology I have, and whether or not it is sufficient, the public must judge. By acknowledging the views of these gentlemen to be Methodistical on the subject of predestination, I by no means would be understood to say this of their system as a whole—the objectionable parts will be noticed in their place. But whatever is true is none the less so for being mixed with error. There are some things, however, to be regretted and exposed in the manner in which these reviewers have expressed their doctrine of predestination, and also in the manner in which they have opposed the sermon and Arminianism generally. They complain of my definition of predestination. Mr. M. thinks it is bearing false witness. The reviewer thinks it is obviously erroneous and unjust. And yet they themselves acknowledge that the sermon is an unanswerable refutation of predestination as held by Dr. Tyler and others who oppose their views. But what is a matter of the greatest surprise is the determination with which these gentlemen persist in holding up the idea that their views essentially differ from ours. Dr. Fitch, in his answer to my reply, says:—
“There are three views, and only three, which can be taken of the Divine purposes in relation to a moral kingdom:—
1. That God, foreseeing the certainty of the conduct of his creatures, purposes merely to treat them in a corresponding manner.
2. That he, first of all, resolves what the conduct of his creatures shall be, and next resolves on such measures as shall bring them to that conduct.