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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 everlasting
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 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 spiritual lifeno, 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
mewarnings were cast to the windthunders 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
*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 manthat I
had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, 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
thinking 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 momentI 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 Scriptures? 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 commenced, he said, "This passage refers
entirely to our temporal inheritance, 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 Providence, and the
appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into this world? Those men
who think that, afterwards, 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 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 Providence 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 understand 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 of
mercy, which have ever gladdened our raceall the rivers of grace in time, and of
glory hereaftertake 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 beingwhen the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing,
when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God aloneeven
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 worldeven from
eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved
thee
with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness 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 Saviour, 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 Saviour'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 He 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."
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
unrenewed 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 Christthe 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 touchstone, 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, conquering 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.
"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall 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 everything 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 intermittent 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 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 joys divinely great."
All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises
of man may be brokenmany of them are made to be brokenbut 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-wash'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 house 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 deserves the praise."
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
everything, 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 perfectthe 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
"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 millennial 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 redemption, were bought with
His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those
consequences 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!
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 answerI 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, I
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 whom 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-Calvinistic 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 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 to each other. If, then, I find taught
in one part of the Bible that everything 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 contradict
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 eternity, 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 would 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 today. 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 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 a 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.
FOOTNOTE
*See the letter, dated April 6, 1850, on p .115, and the entry in Diary on p. 125,
April 7: "Arminianism does not suit me now."
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