CHAPTER III.

PREDESTINATION.

OUR objections to the Calvinistic view of predestination are numerous, a few of which we will enumerate.

1. It renders all preaching vain. The elect do not need it, their salvation being secured on other grounds. It is useless to the reprobate, for he cannot possibly be saved. So that, in reference to both, our preaching is vain, and their hearing is also vain.

2. It directly tends to destroy all religion. We do not say none who hold it are religious. Many of them are better than their creeds would indicate. But, assuming that every man is elected or reprobated, from eternity, and cannot alter his destiny, it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it so frequently proposed in the Scriptures, the hope of future reward and fear of punishment, the hope of heaven and the fear of hell. That these "shall go away into everlasting punishment," and these "into life eternal," is no motive to him to struggle for life, who believes his lot is cast already. His destiny is fixed, and he cannot alter it; why, therefore, should he try? "But he don't know what it is!" True; but that alters not the case; he believes it is unalterably determined, and "what is the use?

3. It naturally begets a feeling of asperity towards thosí

who need the largest sympathy. All sincere worshippers philosophically become assimilated to the character of the being they worship. To contemplate a God who, out of his own will, and merely because it was his own good pleasure to do so, has created myriads of human beings for the express purpose of tormenting them eternally, and who will give no other explanation of his conduct, but silences all inquiry by exclaiming, "Who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?" can but produce the most unlovely tempers toward those we regard to be the objects of his wrath. The historian who seeks to account for the fate of Servetus, and the severity often experienced by the Arminians, and other reputed or real heretics, at the hand of ultra-Calvinists, need look no farther. One who regards himself as the favorite of such a Being, may infer, without logical extravagance, that he is doing him commendable service in torturing those he supposes Him to have hated from everlasting. Many Calvinists have never suffered themselves to fall into this delusion; but this does not invalidate our objection. The tendency of the doctrine is, nevertheless, just what we have asserted, but has been counteracted by other and better principles.

4. It is also calculated to engender enmity toward the Creator. "The carnal mind," we know, "is enmity against God," independent of any such consideration; but it sees, and often feels, the injustice of it under correct views of his benignity toward his creatures. In the belief of this sentiment, one who considers himself a reprobate, not only feels the enmity naturally arising from his unlikeness to God, but all the revenge incident to unmerited and unmitigated injury and injustice, and feels that it is deserved. Nor does it admit of the best of feelings in the elect. Im

partial justice disallows of our esteeming a benefactor whom we know to be unkind and cruel to others. It would seem, therefore, that none but the most conceited and selfish of beings could enjoy election, associated, as it necessarily is, with the idea that a vast majority of mankind were made vessels of wrath, and doomed to perdition by mere sove reign caprice.

5. This doctrine directly tends to destroy our zeal for good works. First, as it naturally destroys our love for those whom God hates without reason; and, secondly, as it extinguishes all hope of saving them. Is it said, "we do not know who the reprobates are," we reply, but if you believe that every one's doom is fixed, why trouble yourself about them?

6. It also tends to destroy the Christian revelation. The enemies of religion claim that revelation is not necessary; and are they not right on this hypothesis? God's decree is sufficient to save the elect without it, and to damn the reprobate in spite of it.

It tends to overthrow revelation, also, by making it contradict itself. For it makes parts of it plainly to contradict other parts, and even its whole scope and design. God says in his word, as if to vindicate himself against this aspersion, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth," that "He is not willing that any should perish," but that "all should come to repentance." This Calvinists deny, and avow that of his own good pleasure he created some men for everlasting death. Thus they make the decree of predestination the cause of the sinner's ruin, whereas the Bible attributes it to himself, in rejecting the counsel of God, and refusing to come to Christ. "Because I have called, and ye refused, [saith the Lord;] I have stretched out my hand,

and no man regarded; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh?"

7. It contradicts the counsels of God in reference to the atonement. The Scriptures teach us that "God sent his Son into the world, that the world through him might be lieve;" that Jesus " gave himself a ransom for all; " that

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life." But this doctrine teaches us that it is not so; God never loved the world, that he gave his Son to die only for the elect, and that he did not come to save any other.

8. It discards the judgment, or, what is still worse, repre sents it as a solemn farce. The doctrine of the Bible is, that God will "judge the world in righteousness," that then

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every one shall receive according to the deeds done in the body." We are premonished that the Judge will say to the wicked, "Depart, ye cursed; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; a stranger, and ye took me not in; I was naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.' Thus attributing the rejection of the poor wretches to their own fault; whereas, according to Calvinism, it is attributable solely to a decree of reprobation, lying back of their existence, even, determining not only their destiny, but the very circumstances to which it is to be falsely charged. Now, if this be so, why will they be speechless? For no other reason, certainly, than that they are deceived, in being made to feel themselves guilty for answering the exact ends of their creation, and fulfilling the decree of their Maker.

The deception, it would seem, is to be carried out on

the other side, also. For the elect are to be rewarded, whereas they will be no more entitled to reward than the wicked are deserving of punishment. This doctrine, therefore, represents the Bible as a complicated lie, and the divine government as a system of fraud and legerdemain For there can be no reward or punishment, as there can be no virtue or vice, properly speaking, where there is no moral freedom. And there can be no moral freedom where every thing is bound by an almighty decree.

9. It impeaches the goodness of God.

Revelation

teaches us that he is love that his love reaches even to the "evil and the unthankful," "to every man, and his mercy is over all his works.”

But how can it be said that he is good to reprobates, the victims of his eternal hatred, whom he " passes by," and leaves in blindness and corruption, that they may be damned ? Does he give them food? It is but to fatten them for the slaughter. Are they endowed with personal excellencies? It is to heap coals of fire upon their heads. Is it said, he gives them grace, too? We ask, what grace? Not saving grace. That is only for the elect. Not grace to convert them, but merely to convince; not to deprive them of sin, but of excuse; not to make them feel happy, but guilty, not to remove an evil conscience, but to increase its power of tormenting. Is it not damning grace? What else can it be? It never has saved a soul, and we are told it never will save one. And yet, it is made the basis of guilt and

punishment.

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10. But this is not its worst feature; it is full of blasphemy. We say it with profound regret; but the truth de mands it. It represents "Jesus Christ, the righteous," a hypocrite, a deceiver of the people. For it cannot be denied, that he every where spoke as if he were willing that