These persons may, or may not, be members of the spiritual or invisible Church; that is known only to the Searcher of the heart. They may or may not be the most holy and sincere individuals in the several churches or denominations with which they hold external communion; that also remains to be confirmed or refuted by “the final sentence and unalterable doom.” But they do not constitute what is commonly understood by the visible Church of God. They have no ministry, no worship, no administration of the sacraments, visibly distinct from the mass of persons who are of the same external fellowship with themselves; and the error of assigning to them the distinction of being alone the true Church arises from the ambiguity of the word Church, on which changes are rung, producing a confusion of ideas—a double confusion of ideas, “confusion worse confounded.” What is the mental process by which Mr. Noel arrives at this point? First, the invisible Church is tacitly put and mistaken for the visible, the truly spiritual for the nominal, it being assumed that we can know the hearts of others. Then, secondly, this invisible Church is supposed to become visible, and to be alone visible, in the persons of those who maintain the doctrines of grace; while the really external Church, consisting of the entire body of professing Christians throughout the world, vanishes out of sight, and is declared to have no ecclesiastical existence! The truth is, that Calvinism and a visible Church are incongruous ideas, and that no man, of whatever talent he may be possessed, can make them harmonize. The Calvinist believes, and is consistent in his belief, that the elect only are “the Church,” but since it is impossible to discriminate them from others, it is impossible to unite them in an exclusive visible fellowship. And, if it were possible, they would form such a Church as never before existed. Calvinism is irreconcileable with the order which has descended from the apostolic age, by the consent of the Catholic Church, and with any visible constitution.
If Mr. Noel has succeeded in making converts to his theory of a visible Church, from the difficulty they find in detecting its fallacies, it only proves, that
“Sheer no-meaning puzzles more than wit.”
The dissenter who, on objecting to a Church rate, said, that “If all Churchmen were like Mr. Noel, neither he nor his brethren would object to join them,” does not seem to have been aware that they were already members of Mr. Noel’s Church. Or, what is more probable, it was designed significantly to hint to that reverend gentleman, that he was no more attached than themselves to the Church of which he is a pastor, and whose ordination vows are upon him,—and that with Churchmen who are prepared so to betray or deny their Church, under an erroneous sense of duty, dissenters may without difficulty form an alliance[5].
[IV.—CALVINISM IS PRODUCTIVE OF POSITIVELY INJURIOUS EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER, AND ON SOCIAL HAPPINESS.]
When Lord Chatham taunted the Church with having “a Calvinistic creed, a popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy,” that illustrious person was the author of a libel on this holy and apostolical institution. Her creed is not Calvinistic, for it says nothing about absolute predestination; her liturgy it not popish, for there is no worship of saints or of the Virgin; her clergy are not Arminian, for their moderation has preserved them, as a body, from all extremes in doctrine, and that, as well as their unrivalled erudition and intellectual power, has been the admiration of the most eminent protestant divines and men of letters in Europe. And to her truly scriptural character, especially her rejection of the Calvinistic theology, with its gloomy, turbulent, and intolerant spirit, may be traced the high tone of moral feeling and practical reverence of religion which have honourably distinguished the people of England. Happily, Calvinism in its palmy days was confined to the Puritanical party, which made comparatively small progress within the pale of the Church; while the most influential of her clergy, and the great majority of her well educated laity, embraced the doctrines of a more generous and scriptural theology. Without falling into Pelagianism, a charge made by Calvinists on all who reject the system improperly called “the doctrines of grace,” they held the great evangelic truth that Christ “died for all,” and its correspondent views of the benevolence of God, and the moral dignity of human nature, impaired, but not destroyed, by the fall.
The principles of the remonstrants, without being servilely embraced, influenced and modified the religious opinions of the people of England, who were never generally favourable, either to the dogmas or the discipline of the Genevan reformer, and to this circumstance are we largely indebted for the manly and the moral character of our country.
This statement, founded on the history of the Reformation and the times which followed, is not intended as an indiscriminate attack on the moral character of Calvinists. Many of them are to be classed with the holiest of men; not because they are Calvinists, but because their erroneous notions are rendered innoxious, by the prevalence of a sincere piety, and by a secret and practical disbelief of the principles which, in speculation or imagination, they seem to hold.
It would be both unjust and uncharitable to judge any class of persons simply by the creed they subscribe, or to impute to them the consequences which might be supposed to follow from a rigid adherence to its doctrines. There are antagonist principles at work; there is the law written on the heart; there is grace to counteract the tendency of false impressions; there is the love of God and of man to render those who are truly good men superior to any bad principles they have unhappily imbibed. Their Christianity is dominant, and their Calvinism is made harmless.