₦airaland Forum

This article hopefully will expatiate on what I have written above.

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          The Events Leading up to the Great Synod

The history of the events leading up to the Synod of Dordt in 1618-19 is a record of deceit, intrigue, and endurance. By this we refer to the incredible deceit of the Arminians, the political intrigue played out largely by the supporters of the heretics, and the endurance of those committed to the Reformed faith, in the face of
arduous struggle and hardship.

The seeds of deception were sown already in the Reformation in the Netherlands in the mid-1500s. When the Protestant Reformation swept through the Netherlands, many who were not truly converted to the  Reformed faith joined the Reformed churches. This had a weakening effect on the church. It was especially disastrous when priests became ministers in the Reformed churches, but still clung to their Romish beliefs.  (Significantly, Rome's doctrine was, and is, Semi-Pelagian, at best, and Pelagian at worst.) At various times in the fifty years before the Synod of Dordt, synods had disciplined ministers who manifested their antipathy to the Reformed faith in their preaching and/or godless walk. It was undoubtedly this element that fiercely contested the practice of ministers subscribing to the creeds (the Heidelberg Catechism and the [Belgic] Confession of Faith.)

Jacob Arminius himself was a master of deception. He was born in 1560 into the bosom of the Reformed churches. Any early reservations Arminius had about the Reformed faith he kept to himself.  Two Reformed ministers sponsored his training at the Academy at Leiden, and the merchant guild of Amsterdam financed his further studies in Geneva under Beza.  Arminius returned to the Netherlands and became a minister in the church in Amsterdam in 1588.

Arminius was  a  gifted preacher, though there were suspicions about his soundness in the Reformed faith early on in his ministry. His consistory asked him to refute the works of a certain Dirk Volkertszoon Coornhert (1552-1609), a Roman Catholic writer.  Coornhert published powerful attacks on the doctrines of the Reformation, particularly predestination.  However, Arminius never did reply to Coornhert. He kept putting off a response with one excuse or another. The real reason was that Arminius found that he agreed with Coornhert! It is generally thought that Arminius' views on the doctrine of salvation crystallized through his reading of Coornhert. These views became apparent in his series of sermons on Romans. From election to the final perseverance, Arminius placed the real power of salvation in the hand of man.

Up to this point, Arminius was under the supervision of a sound, Reformed consistory, and could do little to promote his views. Under the providential hand of God, this was about to change.

In 1602 the professor of Sacred Theology at Leiden, Dr. Franciscus Junius, died. Uytenbogaert, a personal friend of Arminius with much influence in the political sphere, highly recommended Jacob Arminius for the position. However, deputies of the church objected to his appointment out of concern for his orthodoxy, and the consistory in Amsterdam refused to give Arminius a testimonial of dismissal to take the position. Under continued pressure, the consistory finally granted the testimonial upon two conditions.  

First, Arminius was required to have a conference with the staunch Dr. Franciscus Gomarus, a professor at Leiden who opposed Arminius.

Secondly, he was obligated to express his views before a conference of theologians. This latter conference was held in 1603 by the Curator of the university and the deputies of the synod. At that time Arminius testified that he expressly rejected the chief points of the doctrine of the Pelagians:

"Concerning natural grace, concerning the powers of the free will, concerning original sin, concerning the perfection of man in this life, concerning predestination, and others. He testified also that he agreed with all that which Augustine and other Fathers had written against the Pelagians,  Moreover, he promised at the same time that he would teach nothing which conflicted with the adopted doctrine of the church."(1)

Arminius was appointed as professor to the seminary, but he had lied to get the appointment. He soon used his position to teach the opposite of what he had promised.  Calling the Reformed doctrines of grace into question,"he recommended the writings of Castalio, Coornhert, Suarez, and such like to his pupils, and spoke deprecatingly of the writings of Calvin, Beza, Martyr, Zanchius, Ursinus, and other outstanding leaders of the Reformed faith." (2)

The result was predictable.  "His students, when they came home from the Academy or departed to other Academies, brazenly took position against the Reformed Churches, disputing, contradicting, and criticizing the doctrine." (3)

Reformed men in the churches were alarmed. The deputies of the synods of both North and South Holland soon approached Arminius with questions about his views.  He refused to discuss anything unless they agreed not to report it to their synods, a condition they rejected.

In 1604 the consistory of Leiden (where Arminius was a member) admonished him to come to a friendly conference of theologians in the presence of the consistory.  He balked, making excuses for not coming.

Arminius and his followers  used every trick imaginable to avoid being condemned. They resisted all attempts to have a hearing before a synod. They managed to get the condition added, that if a national synod were called, part of the agenda would be the revision of the creeds. If they were called to account by a consistory, they claimed that they were answerable to the States, not the churches.

Later, in 1608, when the High Council of the States-General called Arminius to a conference with Gomarus, Arminius refused to set forth his views. When the synod of the South Holland churches demanded that he express any disagreements he had with the confessions, he promised to submit them in writing. He never did.

Arminius died in 1609, having, by means of deception and delay, escaped official condemnation.

Arminius' death did not bring an end to the struggle. His followers were not only active, they were far more bold in advocating his positions. They continued the same pattern of protraction, refusing to submit their views to any church body with the power to condemn them.

By 1610, however, the followers of Arminius, called the Remonstrants, were confident enough of their power that they gathered together at Gouda and drew up a document summarizing their doctrines in five main points.

The second notable feature of this history is the political maneuvering for the cause of the Remonstrants.   That political forces could play so prominent a role in this struggle was due to the unusual relation of the church to the state at this time. The church, being virtually the state church, was dominated by the state. At the 1586 synod at the Hague the Reformed churches had adopted a church order which gave the church most of the power to govern herself. The States-General (the legislature of the Netherlands) had rejected this change and steadfastly refused to allow another national synod for some thirty-two years!

This power of the state over the affairs of the church was pressed into the service of the Remonstrants. This is due primarily to the great influence of the elder states-man, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.  Oldenbarnevelt, an advisor first to Prince William and later to his son Maurice, figured large in the political arena in the five decades that preceded the Synod of Dordt.  Though officially he held office in just one of the eleven provinces of the Netherlands, Oldenbarnevelt exercised tremendous influence in all branches of the national government.

The significance of this is that Oldenbarnevelt sided with the Remonstrants. He desired political stability and unity and therefore wanted the Reformed churches to tolerate a broad spectrum—essentially all who rejected the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore he did all in his power to protect the Remonstrants and hinder any effort at church discipline of any minister with errant views.

The result was schism and chaos in the churches. Godless ministers could not be disciplined.  When a minister was condemned, be it even for more radical heresies than the Remonstrants, government officials prevented any discipline from being executed, often reinstating the suspended ministers.  In other places the authorities deposed faithful ministers. Congregations split.

The anti-confessional views were dividing the churches. Faithful consistories were desperate for a national synod to settle the differences and to deal with the doctrinal issues. But Oldenbarnevelt, pressing for tolerance, was determined that the Arminians not be condemned, and his influence carried the day. No amount of pleading from the churches could gain the permission of the States-General to hold a national synod.

Meanwhile, the supposed tolerance of differences evaporated wherever the Remonstrants gained the upper hand. In such places, ministers who courageously defended the Reformed faith were suspended, some deposed. As a result the faithful took to the fields to hear Reformed preaching, even though they suffered persecution for attending these outlawed meetings.

In the face of such opposition, the faithful battled for the truth of sovereign grace. Professor Gomarus is a prime example. Unshakable he was in his commitment to the truth of sovereign grace.  Tirelessly he defended the truth at  every opportunity. No matter that Arminius and his followers lied, covered up their true beliefs, and refused all demands for accountability. Gomarus and others continued to defend the faith.

However, the Remonstrants were gaining in numbers and influence. By 1617, the Reformed believers must have well nigh despaired of ever rooting out these errors.

Then something remarkable happened. For whatever motive, Prince Maurice publicly aligned himself with the Reformed by attending a worship service of the separated faithful in the Hague.

Oldenbarnevelt and company were alarmed. Within a month they rushed through the States of Holland a resolution that allowed municipalities to muster their own standing armies. The goal of Oldenbarnevelt was to enable these municipalities to defend the Remonstrants, in the event that a national synod were called which condemned them!

Again, God moved the heart of Prince Maurice. At an opportune moment he discharged the regiments of soldiers commissioned by the municipalities, and removed Oldenbarnevelt and others from office.

The way was now open for the provincial synods to purge the ranks of the ministers guilty of godless living and/or heresy. This was done, although those who were accused only of supporting the Remonstrants' doctrines were not tried. This was left for the national synod. For, yes, finally, the States-General agreed that a national synod was necessary to resolve the issues tearing apart the churches and the nation. The synod was set to meet in 1618, in the city of Dordrecht.

From the Historical Foreword to the Acts of the Synod of Dordt, p. 48. At least two translations of this Historical Foreword Addressed to the Reformed Churches of Christ are readily available. It is found in Homer  Hoeksema's excellent and thorough exposition of the Canons of Dordt, The Voice of Our Fathers, (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1980), pp. 45-102, from which all references in this article have been taken. It is also included in Thomas Scott's translation. The Articles of the Synod of Dordt, (Harrison: Sprinkle Publications, 1993), pp. 94-240.                                                              
Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609)
Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641)

2 Historical Foreword, p. 49.                                                    
                                                         
Professor Russell Dykstra
Professor of Church History and New Testament
Protestant Reformed Seminary
Published in Standard Bearer
October 15,1997


Sovereign Potter



http://www.sovereignpotter.com/Events_Leading_Up_To_The_Great_Synod.html

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don33310:
Most christians don't know the difference between CALVINST and ARMINIANS.

Thanks for your interest. A Calvinist is one who believes in the teachings of the reformed faith.This teachings are the very teachings of the reformers – Luther,Bucer,Zwingli,Calvin and others. To sum up, he is one who believes in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints (that a believer cannot lose salvation). The present popular doctrine that a believer can lose salvation was alien to the reformers and only began towards the end of the sixteenth century. It was started by one Jacobus Arminius. His followers would later be called Arminians. He disagreed with the position of the  established church in virtually all the points concerning the salvation of man such as grace,original sin , election,the atonement,the perseverance of the saints e.t.c. He was consistenly called forward to make known his teachings which he was doing in ‘a corner’ , he kept avoiding the protestants. Understand that then one was either clearly catholic or protestant and that the very first break in Protestantism was to come some years later due to the teachings of Arminius. Arminius never defended his teachings and when he died some years later, his followers would come up with a document they called ,’ the remonstrant’ in which they listed five points in which they deferred from the reformers (the reformers teachings). The points are as follows:

1. God has decreed to save through Jesus Christ those of the fallen and sinful race who through the grace of the Holy Spirit believe in him, but leaves in sin the incorrigible and unbelieving. 

2. Christ died for all men (not just for the elect), but no one except the believer has remission of sin.

3. Man can neither of himself nor of his free will do anything truly good until he is born again of God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. 

4. All good deeds or movements in the regenerate must be ascribed to the grace of God but his grace is not irresistible.

5. Those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith have power given them through the assisting grace of the Holy Spirit to persevere in the faith. But it is possible for a believer to fall from grace.

The reformers called a synod to examine the proposition of the Arminians and after thorough deliberations all five points proposed by the Arminians were unanimously rejected and they were charged not to preach this ‘gospel’. The reformers saw this teaching as the teachings of Pelagius (who denied original sin and taught that man could of  his own save himself ) neatly garnished. They then countered this teaching by what is now called ,the Canons of Dordt (for it was in Dordt  in the Netherland that this synod took place). Note that this Synod had delegates from across the world. The Canons of Dordt is more known today as the five points of Calvinism and they are as follows:

•1. that fallen man was totally unable to save himself (Total Depravity)

•2. that God's electing purpose was not conditioned by anything in man (Unconditional Election)

3.• that Christ's atoning death was sufficient to save all men, but efficient only for the elect (Limited Atonement)

4.• that the gift of faith, sovereignly given by God's Holy Spirit, cannot be resisted by the elect (Irresistible Grace)

•5. that those who are regenerated and justified will persevere in the faith (Perseverance of the saints)
Note also that the fifth point of the Arminians was not definitely that a believer can lose salvation at the time, it was rather that the synod should consider if it was not possible for a believer to be lost.
Arminianism is popular today because of the duplicity of the Arminians.
Articles on this issue abound in the internet search them out for yourself and know that I will always answer any further question as far as I am able.

frosbel:
EVERYONE can COME to JESUS and be SAVED !!

This surely is an offshoot of Pelagianism.

Imagine the duplicity of the Arminians as you read this. It was written by Augustus Montague Toplady (author of the hymn,'Rock of Ages') to protest John Wesley's secret and malicious abridgement of a book on predestination, he (Toplady) translated from Latin to the English language.

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A Letter To The Rev. John Wesley Relative to His Pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination


by Augustus Toplady (1740-1778)
 
 
This following text was extracted from The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (1794; re-released in America by Sprinkle Publications in 1987) pp. 719-728. The electronic edition of this text was scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. It is in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.


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March 26, 1770,

Sir, Possibly the following letter may fall into the hands of some who are unacquainted with the merits of the occasion on which I write. For the information of such, I must premise that, in November, 1769, I published a Two Shilling Pamphlet, entitled "The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination stated and asserted: with a preliminary Discourse on the Divine Attributes. Translated, in great measure, from the Latin of Jerom Zanchius."

Though you are neither mentioned, nor alluded to, throughout the whole book, yet it could hardly be imagined that a treatise apparently tending to lay the axe to the root of those pernicious doctrines which, for more than thirty years past, you have endeavoured to palm on your credulous followers, with all the sophistry of a jesuit, and the dictatorial authority of a pope, should long pass without some censure from the hand of a restless Arminian, who has so eagerly endeavoured to distinguish himself as the bellwether of his deluded thousands.

Accordingly, in the month of March, 1770, out sneaks a printed paper (consisting of one sheet, folded into twelve pages; price one penny) entitled, "The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination stated and asserted, by the Reverend Mr. A T ." Wherein you pretend to give an abridgment of the pamphlet above referred to. But,

1. Why did you not make your abridgment truly public? For an apparent reason that, if possible it might elude my knowledge, and so escape the rod. Born of a stole's embrace, it was needful for the spurious pusillanimous perforniance to steal its way into the world. It privately crept abroad from the Foundry, the seat of its nativity; it was sold indeed, but sold under the rose; it was carefully circulated in the dark, and the friends of Mr. Wesley were designed to be the sole sphere of its acquaintance. Thus every one that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deed should be reproved. In such conduct, I can discern much of the Jesuit, but nothing of the saint. --I had to this hour remained unapprized of the secret stab, but for the information received from some of superior integrity to yourself. --I will put Christianity quite out of the question, and suppose it to have no kind of influence. But should you not at least act as a man of common honour? Come forth openly, sir, in future, like an honest generous assailant; and, from this moment forward, disdain to act the ignoble part of a lurking sly assassin.

2. Why did you not abridge me faithfully and fairly? Why must you lard your ridiculous compendium with additions and interpolations of your own; especially as you took the liberty of prefixing my name to it? Your reasons are obvious. My publication had spread among some of your people: and the longer it continued to diffuse itself, the more you trembled for your Diana. Hence, Demetrius like, you found it needful, by the help of a pious fraud, to prejudice your Ephesians against the doctrines of St. Paul. The book was likely to give the Arminian Babel a shake: therefore, no way so effectual to secure it as by endeavouring to spike the cannon which was planted against it. That you might seem to gratify the curiosity of your partisans, and keep them really hood-winked at the same time, you draw up a flimsy, partial compendium of Zanchius: a compendium which exhibits a few detached propositions, placed in the most disadvantageous point of view, and without including any part of the evidence on which they stand.

But this alone was not sufficient to compass the desired end. Unsatisfied with carefully and totally suppressing every proof alleged by Zanchius in support of his argument; a false colouring must likewise be superinduced, by inserting a sentence or two now and then of your own foisting in. After which you close the motley piece, with an entire paragraph, forged every word of it by yourself: and conclude all, as you began, with subjoining the initials of my name: to make the ignorant believe that the whole, with your omissions, additions and alterations, actually came from me. --An instance of audacity and falsehood hardly to be paralleled!

I am very far from desiring the reader to take my word in proof of the charge alleged agninst you. As an instance of your want of honour, veracity, and justice, I refer to the following paragraph, 1. as published by me; and, 2. as quoted by you.

1. When all the transactions of providence and grace are wound up in the last day, he (Christ) will then properly sit as judge, and openly publish, and solemnly ratify, if I may so, say his everlasting decrees, by receiving the elect, body and soul into glory: and by passing sentence on the non-elect (not for having done what they could not help, but) for their wilful ignorance of divine things and their obstinate unbelief; for their omissions of moral duty, and for their repeated iniquities and transgressions." Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

2. "In the last day Christ will sit as Judge and openly publish and solemnly ratify his everlasting decrees, by receiving the elect into glory, and by passing sentence on the non-elect (not for having done what they could not help, but) for their wilful ignorance of divine things and their obstinate unbelief; for their omissions of moral duty, and for their repeated iniquities and transgressions which they could not help." Wesley's Abridgement, p.9.

Whether my view of the doctrine itself be, in fact, right or wrong is no part of the present enquiry: the question is, have you quoted me fairly? Blush, Mr. Wesley, if you are capable of blushing. For once publicly acknowledge yourself to have acted criminally: "unless," to use your own words on another occasion, "shame and you have shook hands and parted."

Your concluding paragraph, which you have the effrontery to palm on the world as mine, runs thus: "The sum of all this: one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall he damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand, A T ."

In almost any other case, a similar forgery would transmit the criminal to Virginia or Maryland, if not to Tyburn. If such an opponent can be deemed an honest man, where shall we find a knave? --What would you think of me, were I infamous enough to abridge any treatise of yours, sprinkle it with interpolations, and conclude it thus: Reader, buy this book, or be damned, Witness my hand, John Wesley?"

And is it thus you contend for victory? are these the weapons of your warfare? Is this bearing down those who differ from you with meekness? Do you call this binding with cords of love? Away, for shame, with such disingenuous artifices. At least, endeavour to conceal that narrow sectarian spirit, which betrays itself more or less in almost every thing you write. Renuouce the low serpentine cunning, which puts you on falsifying what you find yourself unable to refute. And, as you regard your character and the cause you espouse, dismiss those dirty subterfuges (the last resources Of mean malicious impotence), which degrade the man of parts into a lying sophister, and sink a divine beneath the level of an oyster-woman. Cease to fight like the French, with old nails and broken glass. Charge fairly and fire as forcibly as you can. But if you persist to employ the weapons of scurrility and falsehood, the splinters will not only recoil on yourself, but you will continue to be posted for a theological coward.

And why should you, of all people in the world, be so very angry with the doctrines of grace? Forget not the days and months that are past. Remember that it once depended on the toss of a shilling, whether you yourself should be a Calvinist or an Arminian. Tails fell uppermost, and you resolved to be an universalist. It was a happy throw which consigned you to the tents of Arminius: for it saved us from the company of a man who, by a kind of religious gambling peculiarly his own, risked his faith on the most contemptible of all lots; and was capable of tossing up for his creed as porters or chairmen toss up for a halfpenny.

I have read of princes and other eminent persons, who, having risen from ignoble life to greatness, took care to have some striking memorials of their former obscurity frequently in their view, by way of a counterpoise to pride, and as a preservative from being exalted above measure. When from the pinnacle of your own imporance you look down upon the advocates for free-grace, and consider them as reptiles, to be treated as you please, only recollect the humbling circumstance of which I have just reminded you: and repress the complacent swellings of self-adulation, by some such soliloquy as this: " I have been in danger myself of believing that St. Paul says true, when he declares that God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. How precious was the shilling, and above all how lucky was the throw, which convinced me of St. Paul's mistake!" Forgive us if we as implicitly determine our faith by the Scriptures as you determined yours by the fall of the splendid shilling.

But even since this memorable epoch, you have by no means proved yourself that steady Arminian you would have the world believe. Proteus like, you disdain to be shackled and circumscribed by any certain form. Her ladyship of Loretto, though she has a different suit for every day in the year, is semper eadem, when compared with the quondam fellow of Lincoln College. There are times when you vary as much from your preceding self, as you do at all times from the rest of mankind. Possessed of more than serpentine elability, you cast your slough not once a year, but almost once an hour. Hence your innumerable inconsistencies and flagrant self-contradictions; the jarring of your principles (ever at intestine war with each other), and the incoherence of your religious system. Your scheme of doctrines reminds me of the feet of a certain visionary image, which, as the sacred penman acquaints us, seemed to he composed of iron and clay--heterogeneous materials which may, indeed he put together, but will never incorporate with each other. Somewhat like the necromantic soup, of which you have probably read in the tragedy of Macbeth; your doctrines may be stirred into a chaotic jumble, but witchcraft itself would strive in vain to bring them in coalition. --On the contrary, evangelical truth knows nothing of this harlequin assemblage. It is not like Joseph's coat of many colours; nor made up of a patch from Donatus, of another from Pelagius, and a third from Arminius: but is invariably Simple, uniform, and harmonious; resembling the robe of its adorable Teacher, which was without seam, and woven from the top throughout.

On one occasion you had the candour to own your levity, as to points of faith. I am acquainted with a very respectable person (Mr. J. D.) who, not many years ago, taking the freedom to tell you that "your prejudices, like armed men, stood with their swords ready drawn, to guard all the passes of conviction, and hew down every truth as fast as it presented itself to your mind;" you had the unusual honesty to answer, "Ah! sir! if you knew how distressed I have been what doctrines I should embrace, and how I have been tossed about from system to system, you would think me the most open to conviction, and the least liable to prejudice of any man you ever knew." --This answer did you real honour, for I am persuaded you spoke true. Yet why should you, who have been so remarkably tossed about, take upon you to revile those who have been enabled to stand fast? I hope for your own sake that you will never cease tossing about, until you have gained the harbour of truth: and that, amidst all your manifold shifting from system to system, you will at length be enabled to fix on the only right system, which asserts the lawfulness of God's doing what he will with his own.

I am told the penny-sheet (which occasions this free address), is to be followed, Some time hence, by a four-penny pamphlet against Zanchius: wherein you are to besiege the doctrine of predestination in form. Commence the siege, and welcome. Open your trenches and plant your batteries. Bring forth your strong arguments and play them off with vigour. I publicly profess, and subscribe my name to it, that if I Cannot beat you back, I will freely capitulate and own myself conquered. But remember that if you would do any thing to purpose you must make a regular attack. You must encounter the whole of Zanchius, and take his arguments in their regular connection and dependency on each other. You must go through with my preface, which I prefixed to my translation of that great man. Having carried and dismantled the out-work, you must next proceed to demolish the dissertation on the divine attributes: which having destroyed, you are then to assail the citadel; I mean those five stubborn chapters which make up the body of the treatise itself. All the allies or the arguments drawn from Scripture and reason, must likewise be put to the sword. This should you attempt to do in a manner worthy of a scholar and a divine, I shall have no objection (if life and health continue) to measuring swords, or breaking a pike, with you. Controversy properly conducted is a friend to truth, and no enemy to benevolence. When the flint and the steel are in conflict some sparks may issue, which may both warm and enlighten. --But I have no notion of encountering a wind-mill in lieu of a giant. If, therefore you come against me (as now) with straws instead of artillery, and with chaff in the room of ammunition, I shall disdain to give you battle: I shall only laugh at you from the ramparts.

Much less, if you descend to your customary resource of false quotations, despicable invective, and unsupported dogmatisms, shall I hold myself obliged again to enter the lists with you. An opponent who thinks to add weight to his arguments by scurrility and abuse, resembles the insane person, who rolled himself in mud, in order to make himself fine. I would no more enter into a formal controversy with such a scribbler, than I would contend for the wall with a chimney-sweeper.

When some of your friends gave out, two or three months before your late doughty publication, that Mr. John (as they call you) was shutting himself up b, in order to answer the translator of Zanchius; I really imagined that something tolerably respectable was going to make its appearance. But Quid dignum tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu? After the teeming mountain had been shut up a competent time, long enough to have been brought to bed of a Hercules, forth creeps a puny toothless mouse! a mouse of heterogeneous kind: having little more than its head and tail c from you; and the main of its body made up of some mangled, castrated citations from Zanchius.

Currente rota, cur urceus exit? If I may judge of the future, by the past, and unless you amend greatly in a short time, your four-penny supplement, when it appears, will be no less inconsiderable than the penny sheet already extant. And, as the mouse is not cheap at a penny, I am very apprehensive the rat, when it ventures out, will be far too dear at a groat.

Hitherto your treatment of Zanchius resembles that of some clumsy, bungling anatomist: who in the dissection of an animal dwells much on the larger and more obvious particulars; but quite omits nerves, the lymphatics, the muscles, and the most interesting parts of the complicate machine. Thus, in your piddling extract from the pamphlet, you have thought proper to curtail, you only give a few of the larger outlines; without at all entering into the spirit of the subject, or so much as producing (so far from attempting to refute) any of the turning points, on which the argument depends. Wrench the finest eye that ever shone in a lady's head from its socket, and it will appear frightful and deformed: whereas, in its natural connection, the symetry and brilliancy, the expressiveness and the beauty, are conspicuous. So it often fares with authors. A detached sentence, artfully misplaced, or unseasonably introduced, maliciously applied, or unfairly cited, may appear to carry an idea the very reverse of its real meaning. But re-place dislocated passage, and its propriety and importance are restored. I would wish every unprejudiced person, into whose hands your abridgment of my translation has fallen, to suspend his judgment concerning it until he sees the translation itself. On comparing the two together, he will at once perceive how candid and honest you are; and what quantity of confidence may be reposed on your integrity as a citer.

When I advert to the unjust and indecent manner in which you attacked the late excellent Mr. Hervey; above all, when I consider how daringly free you have made with the Scriptures themselves, both in your commentaries, and in your alterations of the text itself; I cease to wonder at the audacious licentiousness of your pen respecting me. I should rather wonder if you treated any opponent with equity, or canvassed any subject impartially. Rise but once to this, and I shall both wonder and rejoice.

You give me to understand that I am but "a young translator?" Granted. Better however to be a young translator than an old plagiary. Which of our ancient divines have you not evaporated and spoiled? and then made them speak a language, when dead, which they would have started from, with horror, when alive?

Yet Brutus is an honourable man!

How miserably have you pillaged even my publication? Books, when sent into the world, are no doubt in some sense public property. Zanchius, if you chose to buy him, was yours to read; and, if you thought yourself equal to the undertaking, was yours to answer: but he was not yours to mangle. Remember how narrowly you escaped a prosecution some years ago, for pirating the Poems of Dr. Young.

I would wish you to keep your hands from literary picking and stealing. However, if you cannot refrain from this kind of stealth, you can abstain from murdering what you steal. You ought not, with Ahab, to kill as well as take possession: nor, giant like, to strew the area of your den with the bones of such authors as you have seized and slain.

On most occasions you are too prone to set up your own infalliable judgment as the very lapis lydius of right and wrong. Hence the firebrands, arrows and death, which you hurl at those, who presume to vary from the oracles you dictate. Hence-particularly your illiberal and malevolent spleen against the Protestant dissenters; e though yourself are, in many respects a dissenter of the worst kind. I would not however by this declaration be understood if I meant to dishonour that respectable body by classing you with them; for you stand alone, and are a dissenter of a cast peculiar to yourself. And yet, like Henry I., you are for making the length of your own arm the standard-measure for every body else. No wonder therefore that you eminently inherit the fate of Ishmael; that your hand is against every man, and every man's hand against you. Strange! that one who pleads so strenuously for universal love in the Deity should adopt so little of the love for which he pleads! that a person of principles so large should have a heart so narrow! bigots of every denomination are much the same: and of all vices, bigotry is one of the meanest and most mischievous. Its shrivelled, contracted breast leaves no room for the noble virtues to dilate and play. Candour, benevolence, and forbearance, become smothered and extinguished: partly from being cramped littleness of mind, partly from being overwhelmed with intellectual dust. Bigotry is a determined enemy to truth; inasmuch as it essentially interferes with freedom of enquiry, restrains the grand indefeasible right of private judgment, confines our reguards to a party, and, by limiting the extent of moderation and mutual good-will, tears up charity by the very roots. In short, bigotry is the very essence of Popery; and too often leads its votaries, before they are aware, into the bosom of that pretended Church, whose doctrines and maxims are the worst corruption of the best religion that ever was. And though this baneful vice is so uncomfortable in itself; so contrary to the genius of the gospel; and so extensively pernicious in its effects ; yet is it not as common as it is detestable? May all God's chiIdren be enabled to cast it, with the rest of their idols, to the moles and to the bats!

You have obliquely given me a sneering lecture upon "modesty, self-diffidence, and tenderness" to opponents: and it must be owned, that the lesson comes with a peculiar grace and quite in character from you. The words sound well: but, like many other prescribers, you say and do not. Else why do you represent me as telling my readers that they must, "upon pain of damnation believe, that only one person in twenty is elected?" Why do you introduce me as enjoining them to believe under the same penalty that "the elect shall be saved, do what they will; and the reprobate damned, do what they can?" This is a sample indeed of your own modesty, tenderness, and self-diffidence: but God forbid that I should give such dismal proof of mine. I believe and preach that the chosen and ransomed of the Lord are appointed to salvation though sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth: and, with regard to the rest, that they will be condemned, not for doing what they can in a moral way, but for not doing what they can: for not believing the gospel report; and for not ordering their conversation according to it.

Let me likewise ask you when or where I ever presumed to ascertain the number of God's elect? Point out the treatise and the page, wherein I assert that only "One in twenty of mankind are elected." The book of life is not in your keeping, nor in mine. The Lord, and the Lord only, knoweth them that are his. He alone who telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names, calleth also his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out, first from a state of sin into a state of grace, and then into the state of glory. Yet, as the learned and devout Beza expresses himself, "I shall never blush to abide by that simplicity which the Holy Spirit, speaking in the Scriptures, hath been pleased to adopt:" (f) and it is but too certain that in the Scriptures are such awful passages as these: Broad is the way and wide is the gate which leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat: while on the other hand, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it". --Many are called, but few chosen." --"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." --"There is a remnant, according to the election of grace". Declarations of this tremendous import, instead of furnishing you with fuel for contention, and setting you on a presumptuous and fruitless calculation of the number that shall be saved or lost, should rather bring you on your knees before God, with your hand upon your breast and this cry in your lips: "Search me, 0 Lord, and try me; prove me also and examine my thoughts. Shew me to which class I belong. Give me solid proof that my name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, by making it clear to me that I am in the faith." And ever remember that true faith utterly disclaims all ground of pretension to justification and eternal life, but on the sole footing of God's absolute grace and the Messiah's finished redemption. Pelagianism is for serving the Deity as pope Celestine Ill. is said to have treated the emperor Hen. VI. It quite kicks off the crown from the head of Sovereign grace; and makes the will of God bend and truckle and shape itself to the caprice of man. Arminianism, somewhat more specious, but altogether as pernicious, cuts the crown in two, by dividing the praise of salvation between God and man, and fairly runs away with half. On the contrary, that faith which is of divine operation acts like th emperor Charles V. when he retired from the throne: it resigns the crown entirely and renounces it for ever, without reserving so much as a single jewel for itself.

Should the Holy Spirit vouchsafe to lead you thus far you will then no longer be ready to object that "the elect shall be saved, do what they will:" for you will know by heart-felt experience that the converted elect are, and cannot but be, ambitious to perform all those good works in which God hath ordained them to walk; and to act worthy of him who hath graciously and effectually called them to his kingdon and glory.

Your pretended fear of Antinomianism like your real fear of the comet, which was expected to have appeared a few years back, is perfectly idle and chimerical. You publicly testified your apprehensions that the latter would dry up our rivers, and burn up our vegetables if not reduce the earth itself to a cinder. But your prophesies proved to be "the baseless fabric of a vision;" and our rivers, trees, and earth remain as they were. --Nor will the doctrines of grace, experimentally received into the heart, destroy or weaken the obligation of moral virtue. On the contrary they will operate on the practice, not like your scorching comet on our globe, but like the genial beams of the sun, which diffuse gladness, and occasion fruitfulness wherever they arise. Whoever wishes in earnest to lead a new life must first cordially embrace the good old doctrine of salvation by grace alone. --ln short, your own tenet of sinless perfection leads directly to the grossest Antinomianism. I once knew a lady who you had inveigled into your pale, and who in a short space professed herself perfect. Being in her company some time after I pointed out a part or her conduct which to me seemed hardly compatible with a sinless state. Her answer was to this effect: "You are no competent judge of my behaviour. You are not yourself perfectly sanctified; and therefore see my tempers and actions through a false medium. I may to you seem angry: but my anger is only Christian zeal." --I could, moreover mention the names of some of your quondam followers who, from professing themselves sinless, have cast off all appearance of godliness, and are working all manner of iniquity with greediness. If you are in search of Antinomians, truly and justly so called, you must look for them, not among those whom you term Calvinist, but among your own hair-brained h perfectionists. Had not you yourself (to remind you of but one instance) a proof of it not very long ago? You formed a scheme of collecting as many perfect ones as you could, to live together under one roof. A number of these flowers were accordingly transplanted from some of your nursery-beds to the hot-house. And a hothouse it soon proved. For would we believe it? the sinless people quarelled in a short time at so violent a rate that you found yourself forced to disband the select regiment. Had you kept them together much longer, that line would have been literally verified in these squabbling members of your Church Militant;

The males pulled noses, and the females caps. A very small house, I am persuaded, would hold the really perfect upon earth. You might drive them all into a nutshell. But to return.

I cannot dismiss your objection concerning the supposed fewness of God's truly elect people without observing that, how few soever they may appear, and really be in a single generation, and as balanced with the many unrighteous among whom they live below, yet when the whole number of the Redeemer's jewels is made up--when the entire harvest of his saints is gathe in--when his complete mystic body is presented collectively before the throne of His Father; they will amount to an exceeding great multitude which no man can number. On earth the company of the faithful may to us, who know but in part, resemble Elijah's cloud, which, at first, seemed no bigger than a man's hand; whereas, in the day of God, they will be found to overspread the whole heavens. They may appear now, to use Isaiah's phrase, but as two or three berries on the top of a bough, or as four or five in the most fruitful branches thereof; but they shall then be like the tree in Nebuchadnezzar's vision, the height of which reached unto heaven, and the sight of it to the end of all the earth; the leaves thereof were fair and the fruit thereof much. The kingdom of glory will both be more largely and more variously peopled than bigots of all denominations are either able to think, or willing to allow.

Go now, sir, and dazzle the credulous with your mock victory over the supposed reprobation of "nineteen in twenty." Go on to chalk hideous figures on your wainscot; and enjoy the glorious triumph of battering your knuckles in fighting them. But father no more of your hideous figures on me. Do not dress up scare-crows of your own, and then affect to run away from them as mine. I do not expect to be treated by Mr. John Wesley with the candour of a gentleman, or the meekness of a Christian; but I wish him, for his reputation's sake, to write and act with the honesty of a heathen.

You affect to be deemed a minister of the national Church. Why then do you decry her doctrines, and, as far as in you lies, sap her discipline? That you decry her doctrines needs no proof: witness, for example, the wide discrepancy between her decisions and yours on the articles of freewill, justification, predestination, perseverance, and sinless perfection; to say nothing concerning your new-fangled doctrine of the intermediate state of departed souls

That you likewise do not overflow with zeal for the discipline k of the Church of England is manifest, not only from the numerous and intricate regulations, with which you fetter l your societies, but from the measures you lately pursued, when a foreign mendicant was in England, who went by the name of Erasmus and stiled himself bishop of Arcadia. This old gentleman passed for a prelate of the Greek Church; though to me it seems not improbable that he might rather be a member of the Romish. Thus much, however, is certain; that the chaplains of the then Russian ambassador here knew nothing about him: and that to this day, the Greek Church in Amsterdam believed him to have been an impostor. With regard to this person, I take the liberty of putting one or two queries to you.

1. Did you or did you not get him m to ordain several of your lay preachers according to the manner of what he called the Greek Ritual?

2. Did these lay preachers of yours, or did they not, both dress and officiate as clergymen of the Church of England, in consequence of that ordination? And under the sanction of your own avowed approbation notwithstanding, putting matters at the best they could only be ministers of the Greet Church, and which could give them no legal right to act as ministers of the Church of England. Nay, did you not repeatedly declare that their ordination was, to all intent and purposes, as valid as your own which you received forty years ago at Oxford?

3. Did you or did you not strongly press this supposed Greek bishop to consecrate you a bishop at large, that you might be invested with a power of ordaining what ministers you pleased to officiate in your societies as clergymen? And did he not refuse to consecrate you, alleging this for his reason, That according to the canons of the Greek Church more than one bishop must be present to assist at the consecration of a new one?

4. In all this, did you or did you not palpably violate a certain oath which you have repeatedly taken? I mean the oath of supremacy; part of which runs thus: And I do declare, that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm: so help me God.

Now is not the conferring of orders an act of the highest ecclesiastical power and authority? And was not this man a foreigner? And were not the steps you took a positive acknowledgment of a foreign power and jurisdiction? And was not such acknowledgment a breach of your oath?

It matters not whether Erasmus was in fact an impostor or a genuine Greek bishop. Unless you were very insincere you took him to be what he passed for. If you did not, you were a party to a fraud. Either way, pretend no longer to love the Church of England! you who so lately endeavoured to set up imperium in imperio! If you are honest, you will either publicly confess your fault, or for ever throw aside your gown and cassock. You will either return to the service of the Church, or cease to wear her livery. You may think, perhaps, that I make too free in expostulating with you so plainly. And yet, on maturer thought, I question whether you may or not. How can Mr. Wesley, who on all occasions makes so very free with others, be angry with young translators for copying (though at humble distance) so venerable an example? Nor, indeed, ought a person who, beyond even what truth and decency permit, takes so great liberties with the rest of his contemporaries, to wonder if, so far as decency and truth allow, the rest of his contemporaries take as great liberties with him.

You complain, I am told, that the evangelical clergy are leaviug no stone unturned "to raise John Calvin's ghost, in all quarters of the land." If you think the doctrines of that eminent and blessed reformer to be formidable as a ghost, you are welcome to do all you can towards laying them. Begin your incantations as soon as you please. The press is open, and you never had a fairer opportunity of trying your strength upon John Calvin than at present. Only take care that you do not, with all your skill in theological magic, get yourself into a circle, out of which you may find it difficult to retreat. And, a little to mitigate your wrath against the raisers of Calvin's ghost, remember that you yourself have heen a great ghost-raiser in your time. Who raised the ghosts of John Goodwin, the Arminian regicide; and Thomas Grantham, the Arminian baptist? Who raised the ghost of Monsieur n DeRenty, the French Papist; and of many other Romish enthusiasts; by translating their lives into English, for the edification of Protestant readers?

Should you take any notice of this letter, I have three requests to make; or rather, there are three particulars on which I have a right to insist:

1. Do not quote unfairly.

2. Do not answer evasively.

3. Do not print clandestinely.

Canvass the points of doctrine wherein we differ, as stricfly as you can. They will stand the test. They scorn disguise. They disdain to sue for quarter. Truth, like our first parents in the state of innocence, can shew herself naked, without being either afraid or ashamed: and he that doth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.

May you at last begin to act from this principle, and no longer prostitute your time and talents to the wiredrawing of chicanery, and the circulation of error! I am not insensible of your parts: but alas! what is distinguished ability, if not wedded to integrity? No less just than ingenious is the remark of a learned and noble writer: "The riches of the mind, like those of fortune, may be employed so perversely as to become a nuisance and a pest, instead of an ornament and support to society."

 
I am Yours, &c.,
AUGUSTUS TOPLADY

 
 
 
 
January, 9 1771.
NINE months are now elapsed since the first publication of this letter; in all which time Mr. W. has neither apologized for the misdemeanor which occasioned his hearing from me in this public manner, nor attempted answer the charges entered against him. Judging, probably, that the former would be too condescending in one who has erected himself into the leader of a sect, and that the latter would prove rather too difficult a task, and involve him in a subsequent train of fresh detections, he has prudently omitted both.

Some of his followers, however, have not been so tamely inactive, on this occasion, as their pastor. Anxious, at once, to paliate his offence and to screen his timidity, several penny and two-penny defences have successively appeared: wherein the anonymous scribblers wretchedly endeavoured to gather up, and put together, the fragments of a shattered reputation. The very printers, the mid-wives who handed these "insects of a day" into public existence, were ashamed to subjoin their names at the bottom of the title pages.

Two lay-preachers, in particular, have feebly taken up the cudgels for their master. Of one I shall say very little, as he writes with some degree of decency. Of the other I shall not say much; for both his talents and his morals sink him far below the dignity of chastisement This illiterate "haberdabher of small wares" entitles his penny effusion, as well as I remember, "A Letter of thanks to the Reverend Mr. Toplady, in the Names of all the hardened Sinners in London and Westminster." The poor creature, it is plain from his title-page, aims at humour; and yet unhappily for such a design, he is in reality but too literally qualified to act as secretary in chief to the sinners of London and Westminster. For he has given very numerous and ample proofs of his own sinnership, and that there can hardly exist, in those two cities, a more atrocious sinner than himself. I will not pollute this paper with a recital of his crimes. They who know the man are no strangers to his communication. Though a doctrinal Pharisee, his life has, long ago, evinced him a practical Sadducee. Surely, Arminianism is likely to flourish mainly under the auspices of such able and virtuous advocates!

And so much for Mr. Wesley's redoubtable subalterns.

What image of their fury can we form? Dulness and rage. A puddle in a storm. If my advice carries any weight with them, they will carefully peruse their spelling- books before they make another sally from the press. As to themselves and their refined productions, I mean to take no farther notice of either. I am quite of Mr. Gay's opinion;

To shoot at crows is powder thrown away. I had almost forgot the monthly reviewers. One word concerning them, and I have done. The two reverend gentlemen who are hired to dissect and characterize whatever comes within the divinity-department, a calendis ad calendas, would fain have it, in their superficial strictures on the first edition of this letter, than I am angry with Mr. Wesley. If, by anger, the ingenious animadverters mean a just and becoming disapprobation of Mr. Wesley's lying abridgment, and of the surreptitious manner in which he smuggled it into the world, I acknowledge myself, in this respect, angry. I hope the reverend reviewers will not, in their turn, be angry too, at seeing themselves tacked to the list of Mr. Wesley's allies: since, in their mode (if representing my dispute (or, to adopt their own military term, my battle) with that gentleman, they seem to rank themselves in the number of his seconds. The reason is obvious. Mr. W. is a red-hot Arminian: and the sagacious doctors can discern, with half an eye, that Arminiaism lies within a bow-shot of Socinianisin and Deism. Yet, notwithstanding the alliance is thus not altogether unnatural, why should these two divines, who are, certainly, possessed of abilities which might do honour to human nature, by a narrow, sordid attachment to party, render those abilities less respectable?

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY





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This article was made available on the internet via REFORMATION INK (www.markers.com/ink). Refer any correspondence to Shane Rosenthal: ReformationInk at mac.com (connect and write as @mac.com -- when I connect them I get a lot of junk mail).

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http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/attoptowes.htm

Pastor AIO:
Why sleeping bags?

I wonder.

InesQor:
He will save His People from their sins. WHO are those that are not His people? Any ideas, Obalende?

He was quoting The Bible. You might as well ask the The Bible. But to answer your question, they are those who end up unsaved-the non-elects.

frosbel:
Once upon a time there was this certain boy… He grew up. He studied law. Got his doctorate in law and became an attorney. After reading philosophies of “admirable” religious philosophers, he had a “conversion experience” and started reading his Bible. He then proceeded to write things about the Bible himself, but alas, since his opinions were quite “unorthodox” for the era… writing more and more, became a self-proclaimed theologian and “authoritative” writer.

Wow, for a moment I thought you were talking of that heresiarch Charles G. Finney. Almost all the above describe him. One difference however was that he probably never read from others but taught as it seemeth good to him.

frosbel:
: “The longer I live the clearer does it appear that his system is the nearest to perfection.” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon) And, “I believe he was a great instrument of God; and that he was a wise and pious individual.” (John Wesley) And, “It is doubtful whether any other theologian has ever played so significant a part in world history.” (J. I. Packer)

Lol. You amuse me. You neither know your roots nor ilk. You don’t know perhaps that John Wesley was an Arminian. He was dubbed, The Prince of the Arminians. And what a tribute from him about the ‘evil theologian’. In this hear him!

Frosbel says Calvinists teachings encourage licentiousness. Let us hear George Whitfield as he answers John Wesley on this charge and others.

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George Whitefield to John Wesley: "No, dear Sir, you mistake."
 


A Letter
from
George Whitefield
to the
Rev. Mr. John Wesley
IN ANSWER TO MR. WESLEY'S SERMON ENTITLED
"Free Grace"

"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Gal. 2:11).
(Iain Murray has written an excellent article explaining the historical background of this exchange between Whitefield and Wesley.)
PREFACE

am very well aware what different effects publishing this letter against the dear Mr. Wesley's Sermon will produce. Many of my friends who are strenuous advocates for universal redemption will immediately be offended. Many who are zealous on the other side will be much rejoiced. They who are lukewarm on both sides and are carried away with carnal reasoning will wish this matter had never been brought under debate.
The reasons I have given at the beginning of the letter, I think are sufficient to satisfy all of my conduct herein. I desire therefore that they who hold election would not triumph, or make a party on one hand (for I detest any such thing)—and that they who are prejudiced against that doctrine be not too much concerned or offended on the other.
Known unto God are all his ways from the beginning of the world. The great day will discover why the Lord permits dear Mr. Wesley and me to be of a different way of thinking. At present, I shall make no enquiry into that matter, beyond the account which he has given of it himself in the following letter, which I lately received from his own dear hands:

London, August 9, 1740
My dear Brother,
I thank you for yours, May the 24th. The case is quite plain. There are bigots both for predestination and against it. God is sending a message to those on either side. But neither will receive it, unless from one who is of their own opinion. Therefore, for a time you are suffered to be of one opinion, and I of another. But when his time is come, God will do what man cannot, namely, make us both of one mind. Then persecution will flame out, and it will be seen whether we count our lives dear unto ourselves, so that we may finish our course with joy. I am, my dearest brother,
Ever yours,

J. WESLEY

Thus my honoured friend, I heartily pray God to hasten the time, for his being clearly enlightened into all the doctrines of divine revelation, that we may thus be closely united in principle and judgment as well as heart and affection. And then if the Lord should call us to it, I care not if I go with him to prison, or to death. For like Paul and Silas, I hope we shall sing praises to God, and count it our highest honour to suffer for Christ's sake, and to lay down our lives for the brethren.



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WHITEFIELD'S LETTER TO WESLEY
Bethesda in Georgia, Dec. 24, 1740
Reverend and very dear Brother,

od only knows what unspeakable sorrow of heart I have felt on your account since I left England last. Whether it be my infirmity or not, I frankly confess, that Jonah could not go with more reluctance against Nineveh, than I now take pen in hand to write against you. Was nature to speak, I had rather die than do it; and yet if I am faithful to God, and to my own and others' souls, I must not stand neutral any longer. I am very apprehensive that our common adversaries will rejoice to see us differing among ourselves. But what can I say? The children of God are in danger of falling into error. Nay, numbers have been misled, whom God has been pleased to work upon by my ministry, and a greater number are still calling aloud upon me to show also my opinion. I must then show that I know no man after the flesh, and that I have no respect to persons, any further than is consistent with my duty to my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.
This letter, no doubt, will lose me many friends: and for this cause perhaps God has laid this difficult task upon me, even to see whether I am willing to forsake all for him, or not. From such considerations as these, I think it my duty to bear an humble testimony, and earnestly to plead for the truths which, I am convinced, are clearly revealed in the Word of God. In the defence whereof I must use great plainness of speech, and treat my dearest friends upon earth with the greatest simplicity, faithfulness, and freedom, leaving the consequences of all to God.
For some time before, and especially since my last departure from England, both in public and private, by preaching and printing, you have been propagating the doctrine of universal redemption. And when I remember how Paul reproved Peter for his dissimulation, I fear I have been sinfully silent too long. O then be not angry with me, dear and honoured Sir, if now I deliver my soul, by telling you that I think in this you greatly err.
'Tis not my design to enter into a long debate on God's decrees. I refer you to Dr. Edwards his Veritas Redux [1], which, I think is unanswerable—except in a certain point, concerning a middle sort between elect and reprobate, which he himself in effect afterwards condemns.
I shall only make a few remarks upon your sermon, entitled Free Grace." And before I enter upon the discourse itself, give me leave to take a little notice of what in your Preface you term an indispensable obligation to make it public to all the world. I must own, that I always thought you were quite mistaken upon that head.
The case (you know) stands thus: When you were at Bristol, I think you received a letter from a private hand, charging you with not preaching the gospel, because you did not preach up election. Upon this you drew a lot: the answer was "preach and print." I have often questioned, as I do now, whether in so doing, you did not tempt the Lord. A due exercise of religious prudence, without [the drawing of] a lot, would have directed you in that matter. Besides, I never heard that you enquired of God, whether or not election was a gospel doctrine.
But, I fear, taking it for granted [that election was not a biblical truth], you only enquired whether you should be silent or preach and print against it.
However this be, the lot came out "preach and print"; accordingly you preached and printed against election. At my desire, you suppressed the publishing of the sermon whilst I was in England; but you soon sent it into the world after my departure. O that you had kept it in! However, if that sermon was printed in answer to a lot, I am apt to think, one reason why God should so suffer you to be deceived, was, that hereby a special obligation might be laid upon me, faithfully to declare the Scripture doctrine of election, that thus the Lord might give me a fresh opportunity of seeing what was in my heart, and whether I would be true to his cause or not; as you could not but grant, he did once before, by giving you such another lot at Deal.
The morning I sailed from Deal for Gibraltar [2 February 1738], you arrived from Georgia. Instead of giving me an opportunity to converse with you, though the ship was not far off the shore, you drew a lot, and immediately set forward to London. You left a letter behind you, in which were words to this effect: "When I saw [that] God, by the wind which was carrying you out, brought me in, I asked counsel of God. His answer you have enclosed." This was a piece of paper, in which were written these words, "Let him return to London."
When I received this, I was somewhat surprised. Here was a good man telling me he had cast a lot, and that God would have me return to London. On the other hand, I knew my call was to Georgia, and that I had taken leave of London, and could not justly go from the soldiers, who were committed to my charge. I betook myself with a friend to prayer. That passage in 1 Kings 13 was powerfully impressed upon my soul, where we are told that the Prophet was slain by a lion when he was tempted to go back (contrary to God's express order) upon another Prophet's telling him God would have him do so. I wrote you word that I could not return to London. We sailed immediately.
Some months after, I received a letter from you at Georgia, wherein you wrote words to this effect: "Though God never before gave me a wrong lot, yet, perhaps, he suffered me to have such a lot at that time, to try what was in your heart." I should never have published this private transaction to the world, did not the glory of God call me to it. It is plain you had a wrong lot given you here, and justly, because you tempted God in drawing one. And thus I believe it is in the present case. And if so, let not the children of God who are mine and your intimate friends, and also advocates for universal redemption, think that doctrine true—because you preached it up in compliance with a lot given out from God.
This, I think, may serve as an answer to that part of the Preface to your printed sermon, wherein you say, "Nothing but the strongest conviction, not only that what is here advanced is the truth as it is in Jesus, but also that I am indispensably obliged to declare this truth to all the world." That you believe what you have written to be truth, and that you honestly aim at God's glory in writing, I do not in the least doubt. But then, honoured Sir, I cannot but think you have been much mistaken in imagining that your tempting God, by casting a lot in the manner you did could lay you under an indispensable obligation to any action, much less to publish your sermon against the doctrine of predestination to life.
I must next observe, that as you have been unhappy in printing at all upon such an imaginary warrant, so you have been as unhappy in the choice of your text. Honoured Sir, how could it enter into your heart to choose a text to disprove the doctrine of election out of Romans 8, where this doctrine is so plainly asserted? Once I spoke with a Quaker upon this subject, and he had no other way of evading the force of the Apostle's assertion than by saying, "I believe Paul was in the wrong." And another friend lately, who was once highly prejudiced against election, ingenuously confessed that he used to think St. Paul himself was mistaken, or that he was not truly translated.
Indeed, honoured Sir, it is plain beyond all contradiction that St. Paul, through the whole of Romans 8, is speaking of the privileges of those only who are really in Christ. And let any unprejudiced person read what goes before and what follows your text, and he must confess the word "all" only signifies those that are in Christ. And the latter part of the text plainly proves, what, I find, dear Mr. Wesley will, by no means, grant. I mean the final perseverance of the children of God: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, [i.e., all Saints] how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32). [He shall give us] grace, in particular, to enable us to persevere, and every thing else necessary to carry us home to our Father's heavenly kingdom.
Had any one a mind to prove the doctrine of election, as well as of final perseverance, he could hardly wish for a text more fit for his purpose than that which you have chosen to disprove it! One who did not know you would suspect that you were aware of this, for after the first paragraph, I scarce know whether you have mentioned [the text] so much as once through your whole sermon.
But your discourse, in my opinion, is as little to the purpose as your text, and instead of warping, does but more and more confirm me in the belief of the doctrine of God's eternal election.
I shall not mention how illogically you have proceeded. Had you written clearly, you should first, honoured Sir, have proved your proposition: "God's grace is free to all." And then by way of inference [you might have] exclaimed against what you call the horrible decree. But you knew that people (because Arminianism, of late, has so much abounded among us) were generally prejudiced against the doctrine of reprobation, and therefore thought if you kept up their dislike of that, you could overthrow the doctrine of election entirely. For, without doubt, the doctrine of election and reprobation must stand or fall together.
But passing by this, as also your equivocal definition of the word grace, and your false definition of the word free, and that I may be as short as possible, I frankly acknowledge: I believe the doctrine of reprobation, in this view, that God intends to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number, and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left of God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages.
This is the established doctrine of Scripture, and acknowledged as such in the 17th article of the Church of England, as Bishop Burnet himself confesses. Yet dear Mr. Wesley absolutely denies it.
But the most important objections you have urged against this doctrine as reasons why you reject it, being seriously considered, and faithfully tried by the Word of God, will appear to be of no force at all. Let the matter be humbly and calmly reviewed, as to the following heads:
irst, you say that if this be so (i.e., if there be an election) then is all preaching vain: it is needless to them that are elected; for they, whether with preaching or without, will infallibly be saved. Therefore, the end of preaching to save souls is void with regard to them. And it is useless to them that are not elected, for they cannot possibly be saved. They, whether with preaching or without, will infallibly be damned. The end of preaching is therefore void with regard to them likewise. So that in either case our preaching is vain, and your hearing also vain. Page 10, paragraph 9.
O dear Sir, what kind of reasoning—or rather sophistry—is this! Hath not God, who hath appointed salvation for a certain number, appointed also the preaching of the Word as a means to bring them to it? Does anyone hold election in any other sense? And if so, how is preaching needless to them that are elected, when the gospel is designated by God himself to be the power of God unto their eternal salvation? And since we know not who are elect and who reprobate, we are to preach promiscuously to all. For the Word may be useful, even to the non-elect, in restraining them from much wickedness and sin. However, it is enough to excite to the utmost diligence in preaching and hearing, when we consider that by these means, some, even as many as the Lord hath ordained to eternal life, shall certainly be quickened and enabled to believe. And who that attends, especially with reverence and care, can tell but he may be found of that happy number?
econd, you say that the doctrine of election and reprobation directly tends to destroy holiness, which is the end of all the ordinances of God. For (says the dear mistaken Mr. Wesley) "it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it, so frequently proposed in Scripture. The hope of future reward, and fear of punishment, the hope of heaven, and the fear of hell, et cetera."
I thought that one who carries perfection to such an exalted pitch as dear Mr. Wesley does, would know that a true lover of the Lord Jesus Christ would strive to be holy for the sake of being holy, and work for Christ out of love and gratitude, without any regard to the rewards of heaven, or fear of hell. You remember, dear Sir, what Scougal says, "Love's a more powerful motive that does them move." But passing by this, and granting that rewards and punishments (as they certainly are) may be motives from which a Christian may be honestly stirred up to act for God, how does the doctrine of election destroy these motives? Do not the elect know that the more good works they do, the greater will be their reward? And is not that encouragement enough to set them upon, and cause them to persevere in working for Jesus Christ? And how does the doctrine of election destroy holiness? Who ever preached any other election than what the Apostle preached, when he said, "Chosen . . . through sanctification of the Spirit?" (2 Thess. 2:13). Nay, is not holiness made a mark of our election by all that preach it? And how then can the doctrine of election destroy holiness?
The instance which you bring to illustrate your assertion, indeed, dear Sir, is quite impertinent. For you say, "If a sick man knows that he must unavoidably die or unavoidably recover, though he knows not which, it is not reasonable to take any physic at all." Dear Sir, what absurd reasoning is here? Were you ever sick in your life? If so, did not the bare probability or possibility of your recovering, though you knew it was unalterably fixed that you must live or die, encourage you to take physic? For how did you know but that very physic might be the means God intended to recover you by?
Just thus it is as to the doctrine of election. I know that it is unalterably fixed (one may say) that I must be damned or saved; but since I know not which for a certainty, why should I not strive, though at present in a state of nature, since I know not but this striving may be the means God has intended to bless, in order to bring me into a state of grace?
Dear Sir, consider these things. Make an impartial application, and then judge what little reason you had to conclude the 10th paragraph, page 12, with these words: "So directly does this doctrine tend to shut the very gate of holiness in general, to hinder unholy men from ever approaching thereto, or striving to enter in thereat."
"As directly," you say, "does the doctrine tend to destroy several particular branches of holiness, such as meekness, love, et cetera." I shall say little, dear Sir, in answer to this paragraph. Dear Mr. Wesley perhaps has been disputing with some warm narrow-spirited men that held election, and then he infers that their warmth and narrowness of spirit was owing to their principles? But does not dear Mr. Wesley know many dear children of God, who are predestinarians, and yet are meek, lowly, pitiful, courteous, tender- hearted, kind, of a catholic spirit, and hope to see the most vile and profligate of men converted? And why? because they know God saved themselves by an act of his electing love, and they know not but he may have elected those who now seem to be the most abandoned.
But, dear Sir, we must not judge of the truth of principles in general, nor of this of election in particular, entirely from the practice of some that profess to hold them. If so, I am sure much might be said against your own. For I appeal to your own heart, whether or not you have not felt in yourself, or observed in others, a narrow-spiritedness, and some disunion of soul respecting those that hold universal redemption. If so, then according to your own rule, universal redemption is wrong, because it destroys several branches of holiness, such as meekness, love, et cetera. But not to insist upon this, I beg you would observe that your inference is entirely set aside by the force of the Apostle's argument, and the language which he expressly uses in Colossians 3:12-13: "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."
Here we see that the Apostle exhorts them to put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, et cetera, upon this consideration: namely, because they were elect of God. And all who have experientially felt this doctrine in their hearts feel that these graces are the genuine effects of their being elected of God.
But perhaps dear Mr. Wesley may be mistaken in this point, and call that passion which is only zeal for God's truths. You know, dear Sir, the Apostle exhorts us to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). Therefore you must not condemn all that appear zealous for the doctrine of election as narrow-spirited, or persecutors, just because they think it their duty to oppose you. I am sure, I love you in the bowels of Jesus Christ, and think I could lay down my life for your sake; but yet, dear Sir, I cannot help strenuously opposing your errors upon this important subject, because I think you warmly, though not designedly, oppose the truth, as it is in Jesus. May the Lord remove the scales of prejudice from off the eyes of your mind and give you a zeal according to true Christian knowledge!
hird, says your sermon, "This doctrine tends to destroy the comforts of religion, the happiness of Christianity, et cetera."
But how does Mr. Wesley know this, who never believed election? I believe they who have experienced it will agree with our 17th article, that "the godly consideration of predestination, and election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing their minds to high and heavenly things, as well because it does greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation, to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God," et cetera.
This plainly shows that our godly reformers did not think election destroyed holiness or the comforts of religion. As for my own part, this doctrine is my daily support. I should utterly sink under a dread of my impending trials, were I not firmly persuaded that God has chosen me in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and that now being effectually called, he will allow no one to pluck me out of his almighty hand.
You proceed thus: "This is evident as to all those who believe themselves to be reprobate, or only suspect or fear it; all the great and precious promises are lost to them; they afford them no ray of comfort."
In answer to this, let me observe that none living, especially none who are desirous of salvation, can know that they are not of the number of God's elect. None but the unconverted, can have any just reason so much as to fear it. And would dear Mr. Wesley give comfort, or dare you apply the precious promises of the gospel, being children's bread, to men in a natural state, while they continue so? God forbid! What if the doctrine of election and reprobation does put some upon doubting? So does that of regeneration. But, is not this doubting a good means to put them upon searching and striving; and that striving, a good means to make their calling and their election sure?
This is one reason among many others why I admire the doctrine of election and am convinced that it should have a place in gospel ministrations and should be insisted on with faithfulness and care. It has a natural tendency to rouse the soul out of its carnal security. And therefore many carnal men cry out against it. Whereas universal redemption is a notion sadly adapted to keep the soul in its lethargic sleepy condition, and therefore so many natural men admire and applaud it.
Your 13th, 14th and 15th paragraphs come next to be considered. "The witness of the Spirit," you say, "experience shows to be much obstructed by this doctrine."
But, dear Sir, whose experience? Not your own; for in your journal, from your embarking for Georgia, to your return to London, you seem to acknowledge that you have it not, and therefore you are no competent judge in this matter. You must mean then the experience of others. For you say in the same paragraph, "Even in those who have tasted of that good gift, who yet have soon lost it again," (I suppose you mean lost the sense of it again) "and fallen back into doubts and fears and darkness, even horrible darkness that might be felt, et cetera." Now, as to the darkness of desertion, was not this the case of Jesus Christ himself, after he had received an unmeasurable unction of the Holy Ghost? Was not his soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, in the garden? And was he not surrounded with an horrible darkness, even a darkness that might be felt, when on the cross he cried out, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
And that all his followers are liable to the same, is it not evident from Scripture? For, says the Apostle, "He was tempted in all things like as we are" (Heb 4:15) so that he himself might be able to succour those that are tempted (Heb. 2:18). And is not their liableness thereunto consistent with that conformity to him in suffering, which his members are to bear (Phil. 3:10)? Why then should persons falling into darkness, after they have received the witness of the Spirit, be any argument against the doctrine of election?
"Yet," you say, "many, very many of those that hold it not, in all parts of the earth, have enjoyed the uninterrupted witness of the Spirit, the continual light of God's countenance, from the moment wherein they first believed, for many months or years, to this very day." But how does dear Mr. Wesley know this? Has he consulted the experience of many, very many in all parts of the earth? Or could he be sure of what he hath advanced without sufficient grounds, would it follow that their being kept in this light is owing to their not believing the doctrine of election? No, this [doctrine], according to the sentiments of our church, "greatly confirms and establishes a true Christian's faith of eternal salvation through Christ," and is an anchor of hope, both sure and steadfast, when he walks in darkness and sees no light; as certainly he may, even after he hath received the witness of the Spirit, whatever you or others may unadvisedly assert to the contrary.
Then, to have respect to God's everlasting covenant, and to throw himself upon the free distinguishing love of that God who changeth not, will make him lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.
But without the belief of the doctrine of election, and the immutability of the free love of God, I cannot see how it is possible that any should have a comfortable assurance of eternal salvation. What could it signify to a man whose conscience is thoroughly awakened, and who is warned in good earnest to seek deliverance from the wrath to come, though he should be assured that all his past sins be forgiven, and that he is now a child of God; if notwithstanding this, he may hereafter become a child of the devil, and be cast into hell at last? Could such an assurance yield any solid, lasting comfort to a person convinced of the corruption and treachery of his own heart, and of the malice, subtlety, and power of Satan? No! That which alone deserves the name of a full assurance of faith is such an assurance as emboldens the believer, under the sense of his interest in distinguishing love, to give the challenge to all his adversaries, whether men or devils, and that with regard to all their future, as well as present, attempts to destroy—saying with the Apostle,


Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or unclothedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:33-39).

This, dear Sir, is the triumphant language of every soul that has attained a full assurance of faith. And this assurance can only arise from a belief of God's electing everlasting love. That many have an assurance they are in Christ today, but take no thought for, or are not assured they shall be in him tomorrow—nay to all eternity—is rather their imperfection and unhappiness than their privilege. I pray God to bring all such to a sense of his eternal love, that they may no longer build upon their own faithfulness, but on the unchangeableness of that God whose gifts and callings are without repentance. For those whom God has once justified, he also will glorify.
I observed before, dear Sir, it is not always a safe rule to judge of the truth of principles from people's practice. And therefore, supposing that all who hold universal redemption in your way of explaining it, after they received faith, enjoyed the continual uninterrupted sight of God's countenance, it does not follow that this is a fruit of their principle. For that I am sure has a natural tendency to keep the soul in darkness for ever, because the creature thereby is taught that his being kept in a state of salvation is owing to his own free will. And what a sandy foundation is that for a poor creature to build his hopes of perseverance upon? Every relapse into sin, every surprise by temptation, must throw him "into doubts and fears, into horrible darkness, even darkness that may be felt."
Hence it is that the letters which have been lately sent me by those who hold universal redemption are dead and lifeless, dry and inconsistent, in comparison of those I receive from persons on the contrary side. Those who settle in the universal scheme, though they might begin in the Spirit, (whatever they may say to the contrary) are ending in the flesh, and building up a righteousness founded on their own free will: whilst the others triumph in hope of the glory of God, and build upon God's never-failing promise and unchangeable love, even when his sensible presence is withdrawn from them.
But I would not judge of the truth of election by the experience of any particular persons: if I did (O bear with me in this foolishness of boasting) I think I myself might glory in election. For these five or six years I have received the witness of God's Spirit; since that, blessed be God, I have not doubted a quarter of an hour of a saving interest in Jesus Christ: but with grief and humble shame I do acknowledge, I have fallen into sin often since that. Though I do not—dare not—allow of any one transgression, yet hitherto I have not been (nor do I expect that while I am in this present world I ever shall be) able to live one day perfectly free from all defects and sin. And since the Scriptures declare that there is not a just man upon earth (no, not among those of the highest attainments in grace) that doeth good and sinneth not (Eccl. 7:20), we are sure that this will be the case of all the children of God.
The universal experience and acknowledgement of this among the godly in every age is abundantly sufficient to confute the error of those who hold in an absolute sense that after a man is born again he cannot commit sin. Especially since the Holy Spirit condemns the persons who say they have no sin as deceiving themselves, as being destitute of the truth, and as making God a liar (1 Jn. 1:8, 10). I have been also in heaviness through manifold temptations, and expect to be often so before I die. Thus were the Apostles and primitive Christians themselves. Thus was Luther, that man of God, who, as far as I can find, did not peremptorily, at least, hold election; and the great John Arndt was in the utmost perplexity, but a quarter of an hour before he died, and yet he was no predestinarian.
And if I must speak freely, I believe your fighting so strenuously against the doctrine of election and pleading so vehemently for a sinless perfection are among the reasons or culpable causes, why you are kept out of the liberties of the gospel, and from that full assurance of faith which they enjoy, who have experimentally tasted, and daily feed upon God's electing, everlasting love.
But perhaps you may say, that Luther and Arndt were no Christians, at least very weak ones. I know you think meanly of Abraham, though he was eminently called the friend of God: and, I believe, also of David, the man after God's own heart. No wonder, therefore, that in a letter you sent me not long since, you should tell me that no Baptist or Presbyterian writer whom you have read knew anything of the liberties of Christ. What? Neither Bunyan, Henry, Flavel, Halyburton, nor any of the New England and Scots divines? See, dear Sir, what narrow-spiritedness and want of charity arise from your principles, and then do not cry out against election any more on account of its being "destructive of meekness and love."
ourth, I shall now proceed to another head. Says the dear Mr. Wesley, "How uncomfortable a thought is this, that thousands and millions of men, without any preceding offence or fault of theirs, were unchangeably doomed to everlasting burnings?"
But who ever asserted, that thousands and millions of men, without any preceding offence or fault of theirs, were unchangeably doomed to everlasting burnings? Do not they who believe God's dooming men to everlasting burnings, also believe, that God looked upon them as men fallen in Adam? And that the decree which ordained the punishment first regarded the crime by which it was deserved? How then are they doomed without any preceding fault? Surely Mr. Wesley will own God's justice in imputing Adam's sin to his posterity. And also, after Adam fell, and his posterity in him, God might justly have passed them all by, without sending his own Son to be a saviour for any one. Unless you heartily agree to both these points, you do not believe original sin aright. If you do own them, then you must acknowledge the doctrine of election and reprobation to be highly just and reasonable. For if God might justly impute Adam's sin to all, and afterwards have passed by all, then he might justly pass by some. Turn on the right hand, or on the left; you are reduced to an inextricable dilemma. And, if you would be consistent, you must either give up the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin, or receive the amiable doctrine of election, with a holy and righteous reprobation as its consequent. For whether you can believe it or not, the Word of God abides faithful: "The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Rom. 11:7).
Your 17th paragraph, page 16, I pass over. What has been said on the 9th and 10th paragraphs, with a little alteration, will answer it. I shall only say, it is the doctrine of election that most presses me to abound in good works. I am willing to suffer all things for the elect's sake. This makes me to preach with comfort, because I know salvation does not depend on man's free will, but the Lord makes willing in the day of his power, and can make use of me to bring some of his elect home, when and where he pleases.
ut, Fifth, you say, "This doctrine has a direct manifest tendency to overthrow the whole Christian religion. For," say you, "supposing that eternal, unchangeable decree, one part of mankind must be saved, though the Christian revelation were not in being."
But, dear Sir, how does that follow? Since it is only by the Christian revelation that we are acquainted with God's design of saving his church by the death of his Son. Yea, it is settled in the everlasting covenant that this salvation shall be applied to the elect through the knowledge and faith of him. As the prophet says in Isaiah 53:11, "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." How then has the doctrine of election a direct tendency to overthrow the whole Christian revelation? Who ever thought that God's declaration to Noah, that seed-time and harvest should never cease, could afford an argument for the neglect of plowing or sowing? Or that the unchangeable purpose of God, that harvest should not fail, rendered the heat of the sun, or the influence of the heavenly bodies unnecessary to produce it? No more does God's absolute purpose of saving his chosen preclude the necessity of the gospel revelation, or the use of any of the means through which he has determined the decree shall take effect. Nor will the right understanding, or the reverent belief of God's decree, ever allow or suffer a Christian in any case to separate the means from the end, or the end from the means.
And since we are taught by the revelation itself that this was intended and given by God as a means of bringing home his elect, we therefore receive it with joy, prize it highly, use it in faith, and endeavour to spread it through all the world, in the full assurance, that wherever God sends it, sooner or later, it shall be savingly useful to all the elect within its call.
How then, in holding this doctrine, do we join with modern unbelievers in making the Christian revelation unnecessary? No, dear Sir, you mistake. Infidels of all kinds are on your side of the question. Deists, Arians, and Socinians arraign God's sovereignty and stand up for universal redemption. I pray God that dear Mr. Wesley's sermon, as it has grieved the hearts of many of God's children, may not also strengthen the hands of many of his most avowed enemies!
Here I could almost lie down and weep. "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph" (2 Sam. 1:20).
Further, you say, "This doctrine makes revelation contradict itself." For instance, say you, "The assertors of this doctrine interpret that text of Scripture, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated, as implying that God, in a literal sense, hated Esau and all the reprobates from eternity!" And, when considered as fallen in Adam, were they not objects of his hatred? And might not God, of his own good pleasure, love or show mercy to Jacob and the elect—and yet at the same time do the reprobate no wrong? But you say, "God is love." And cannot God be love, unless he shows the same mercy to all?
Again, says dear Mr. Wesley, "They infer from that text, 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,' that God is merciful only to some men, viz the elect; and that he has mercy for those only, flatly contrary to which is the whole tenor of the Scripture, as is that express declaration in particular, 'The Lord is loving to every man, and his mercy is over all his works.'"
And so it is, but not his saving mercy. God is loving to every man: he sends his rain upon the evil and upon the good. But you say, "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). No! For every one, whether Jew or Gentile, that believeth on Jesus, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him. "But he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mk. 16:16). For God is no respecter of persons, upon the account of any outward condition or circumstance in life whatever; nor does the doctrine of election in the least suppose him to be so. But as the sovereign Lord of all, who is debtor to none, he has a right to do what he will with his own, and to dispense his favours to what objects he sees fit, merely at his pleasure. And his supreme right herein is clearly and strongly asserted in those passages of Scripture, where he says, "Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:15, Exod. 33:19).
Further, from the text, "the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her [Rebekah], The elder shall serve the younger" (Rom. 9:11-12)—you represent us as inferring that our predestination to life in no way depends on the foreknowledge of God.
But who infers this, dear Sir? For if foreknowledge signifies approbation, as it does in several parts of Scripture, then we confess that predestination and election do depend on God's foreknowledge. But if by God's foreknowledge you understand God's fore-seeing some good works done by his creatures as the foundation or reason of choosing them and therefore electing them, then we say that in this sense predestination does not any way depend on God's foreknowledge.
But I referred you, at the beginning of this letter, to Dr. Edwards's Veritas Redux, which I recommended to you also in a late letter, with Elisha Coles on God's Sovereignty. Be pleased to read these, and also the excellent sermons of Mr. Cooper of Boston in New England (which I also sent you) and I doubt not but you will see all your objections answered. Though I would observe, that after all our reading on both sides the question, we shall never in this life be able to search out God's decrees to perfection. No, we must humbly adore what we cannot comprehend, and with the great Apostle at the end of our enquiries cry out, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?" (Rom. 11:33-34)—or with our Lord, when he was admiring God's sovereignty, "Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight" (Matt. 11:26).
However, it may not be amiss to take notice, that if those texts, "The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9) and "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11)—and such like—be taken in their strictest sense, then no one will be damned.
But here's the distinction. God taketh no pleasure in the death of sinners, so as to delight simply in their death; but he delights to magnify his justice, by inflicting the punishment which their iniquities have deserved. As a righteous judge who takes no pleasure in condemning a criminal, may yet justly command him to be executed, that law and justice may be satisfied, even though it be in his power to procure him a reprieve.
I would hint further, that you unjustly charge the doctrine of reprobation with blasphemy, whereas the doctrine of universal redemption, as you set it forth, is really the highest reproach upon the dignity of the Son of God, and the merit of his blood. Consider whether it be not rather blasphemy to say as you do, "Christ not only died for those that are saved, but also for those that perish."
The text you have misapplied to gloss over this, see explained by Ridgely, Edwards, Henry; and I purposely omit answering your texts myself so that you may be brought to read such treatises, which, under God, would show you your error. You cannot make good the assertion that Christ died for them that perish without holding (as Peter Bohler, one of the Moravian brethren, in order to make out universal redemption, lately frankly confessed in a letter) that all the damned souls would hereafter be brought out of hell. I cannot think Mr. Wesley is thus minded. And yet unless this can be proved, universal redemption, taken in a literal sense, falls entirely to the ground. For how can all be universally redeemed, if all are not finally saved?
Dear Sir, for Jesus Christ's sake, consider how you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend not on God's free grace, but on man's free-will. And if thus, it is more than probable, Jesus Christ would not have had the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his death in the eternal salvation of one soul. Our preaching would then be vain, and all invitations for people to believe in him would also be in vain.
But, blessed be God, our Lord knew for whom he died. There was an eternal compact between the Father and the Son. A certain number was then given him as the purchase and reward of his obedience and death. For these he prayed (Jn. 17:9), and not for the world. For these elect ones, and these only, he is now interceding, and with their salvation he will be fully satisfied.
I purposely omit making any further particular remarks on the several last pages of your sermon. Indeed had not your name, dear Sir, been prefixed to the sermon, I could not have been so uncharitable as to think you were the author of such sophistry. You beg the question, in saying that God has declared, (notwithstanding you own, I suppose, some will be damned) that he will save all— i.e., every individual person. You take it for granted (for solid proof you have none) that God is unjust, if he passes by any, and then you exclaim against the "horrible decree": and yet, as I before hinted, in holding the doctrine of original sin, you profess to believe that he might justly have passed by all.
Dear, dear Sir, O be not offended! For Christ's sake be not rash! Give yourself to reading. Study the covenant of grace. Down with your carnal reasoning. Be a little child; and then, instead of pawning your salvation, as you have done in a late hymn book, if the doctrine of universal redemption be not true; instead of talking of sinless perfection, as you have done in the preface to that hymn book, and making man's salvation to depend on his own free will, as you have in this sermon; you will compose a hymn in praise of sovereign distinguishing love. You will caution believers against striving to work a perfection out of their own hearts, and print another sermon the reverse of this, and entitle it "Free Grace Indeed." Free, not because free to all; but free, because God may withhold or give it to whom and when he pleases.
Till you do this, I must doubt whether or not you know yourself. In the meanwhile, I cannot but blame you for censuring the clergy of our church for not keeping to their articles, when you yourself by your principles, positively deny the 9th, 10th and 17th.
Dear Sir, these things ought not so to be. God knows my heart, as I told you before, so I declare again, nothing but a single regard to the honour of Christ has forced this letter from me. I love and honour you for his sake; and when I come to judgment, will thank you before men and angels, for what you have, under God, done for my soul.
There, I am persuaded, I shall see dear Mr. Wesley convinced of election and everlasting love. And it often fills me with pleasure to think how I shall behold you casting your crown down at the feet of the Lamb, and as it were filled with a holy blushing for opposing the divine sovereignty in the manner you have done.
But I hope the Lord will show you this before you go hence. O how do I long for that day! If the Lord should be pleased to make use of this letter for that purpose, it would abundantly rejoice the heart of, dear and honoured Sir,
Yours affectionate, though unworthy brother and servant in Christ,
EORGE HITEFIELD.



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NOTE
1. This refers to a work by Dr. John Edwards of Cambridge, not Jonathan Edwards, the famous American pastor-theologian. (Return to text.)

   
. . . or why not visit

on your way out?
Copyright © 2001 by Phillip R. Johnson. All rights reserved. hits







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http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/wesley.htm

Image123:
OK, so i thought it was to the house of rep. What's the basis/criteria for this election, what are we to do to be elected, are people who don't believe calvin elected, and how do we have free and fair elections?

If I tell you, would you believe me? I think not! However the Lord Jesus is here, let me put him on the line !

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25 ¶ ,  I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

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Matthew 11

What Charles G. Finney did 'for' the church, so Frosbel and his ilk we do now, if we let them.
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A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
How Charles Finney's Theology Ravaged the Evangelical Movement


Copyright © 1998, 1999 by Phillip R. Johnson. All rights reserved.


IT IS IRONIC that Charles Grandison Finney has become a poster boy for so many modern evangelicals. His theology was far from evangelical. As a Christian leader, he was hardly the model of humility or spirituality. Even Finney's autobiography paints a questionable character. In his own retelling of his life's story, Finney comes across as stubborn, arrogant—and sometimes even a bit devious.

Playing with Fraud from the Outset
Finney's ministry was founded on duplicity from the beginning. He obtained his license to preach as a Presbyterian minister by professing adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith. But he later admitted that he was almost totally ignorant of what the document taught. Here, in Finney's own words, is a description of what occurred when he went before the council whose task it was to determine if he was spiritually qualified and doctrinally sound:


Unexpectedly to myself they asked me if I received the Confession of faith of the Presbyterian church. I had not examined it;—that is, the large work, containing the Catechisms and Presbyterian Confession. This had made no part of my study. I replied that I received it for substance of doctrine, so far as I understood it. But I spoke in a way that plainly implied, I think, that I did not pretend to know much about it. However, I answered honestly, as I understood it at the time [Charles Finney, The Memoirs of Charles Finney: The Complete Restored Text (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1989), 53-54].
Despite his Clintonesque insistence that he "answered honestly," it is clear that Finney deliberately misled his examiners. (His ability to parse legal terms would have served him well had he been a politician in the late Twentieth Century. But he betrays an appalling brashness for a clergyman in his own era.) Rather than plainly admitting he was utterly ignorant of his denomination's doctrinal standards, he says he "spoke in a way" that implied ("I think" that he did not know "much" about those documents. The truth is that he had never even examined the Confession of Faith and knew nothing at all about it. He was woefully unprepared for ordination, and he had no business seeking a license to preach under the presbytery's auspices. "I was not aware that the rules of the presbytery required them to ask a candidate if he accepted the Presbyterian Confession of faith," Finney wrote. "Hence I had never read it" [Memoirs, 60.] So when he told his ordination council that he received the Confession "for substance of doctrine," nothing could have been further from the truth! Nonetheless, the council naively (and all too willingly) took Finney at his word and licensed him to preach.
Finney's credibility is further marred by the fact that when he later read the Westminster Standards and realized he disagreed on almost every crucial point, he did not resign the commission he had received under false pretenses. Instead, he accepted the platform he had duped those men into giving him—then used it for the rest of his life to attack their doctrinal convictions. "As soon as I learned what were the unambiguous teachings of the Confession of faith upon these points, I did not hesitate at all on all suitable occasions to declare my dissent from them," he boasted. "I repudiated and exposed them. Wherever I found that any class of persons were hidden behind these dogmas, I did not hesitate to demolish them, to the best of my ability" [Memoirs, 60]. The fact that Finney had obtained his own preaching credentials by professing adherence to the Confession did not faze him at all. "When I came to read the Confession of faith, and saw the passages that were quoted to sustain these peculiar positions, I was absolutely ashamed of it," he frankly stated. "I could not feel any respect for a document that would undertake to impose on mankind such dogmas as those" [Memoirs, 61].
Baggage from the Years of Unbelief
Finney's disagreements with his denomination's doctrinal standards clearly were not opinions he formed after his examination by the council. By his own admission, he had consciously rejected the basic theological framework of the Presbyterian confession long before he stood before those men. He writes of doctrinal debates he had provoked with his pastor, George W. Gale: "I could not receive his views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the Will, or any of their kindred doctrines" [Memoirs, 46].
Even prior to his conversion, Finney had raised many of the very same issues and objected strongly to Gale's teaching on such points. He wrote,


I now think that I sometimes criticised his sermons unmercifully. I raised such objections against his positions as forced themselves upon my attention. . . .  What did he mean by repentance? Was it a mere feeling of sorrow for sin? Was it altogether a passive state of mind? or did it involve a voluntary element? If it was a change of mind, in what respect was it a change of mind? What did he mean by the term regeneration? What did such language mean when spoken of as a spiritual change? What did he mean by faith? Was it merely an intellectual state? Was it merely a conviction, or persuasion, that the things stated in the Gospel were true? [Memoirs, 10-12.]
Finney's "conversion" does not seem to have altered his skepticism about his denomination's stance on any of these crucial evangelical doctrines. After his experiential crisis, those were the very issues on which he dissented from the Presbyterian Confession—only now with more vigor than ever. The intense emotional experience Finney regarded as his new birth seems merely to have confirmed his feeling that he was right about Christianity and Scripture—and that most of the leaders of his denomination were either silly or deluded.
In fact, in his own account of his conversion and theological "training," Finney comes across as utterly unteachable. He meticulously recounts the issues on which he and Pastor Gale disagreed. They are for the most part the same points Finney says he objected to before his conversion. Never once does Finney acknowledge conceding any point to Gale (or to anyone else, for that matter). He obviously believed that his intuitive grasp of spiritual truth, combined with his legal training, automatically made him more doctrinally adept than all the seminary-trained Presbyterian preachers combined. He consistently portrays church leaders who adhered to the Confession of Faith as dupes and dullards. He was convinced they had nothing to teach him, and from the point of his conversion on, he casts himself in the superior role, as a reformer of their outdated and indefensible doctrines. He writes,

The fact is that Brother Gale's education for the ministry had been entirely defective. He had imbibed a set of opinions, both theological and practical, that were a strait jacket to him. He could accomplish very little or nothing if he carried out his own principles. I had the use of his library, and ransacked it thoroughly on all the questions of theology which came up for examination; and the more I examined the books, the more I was dissatisfied. [Memoirs, 55.]
Now convinced that his tutor (Pastor Gale) and all the Reformed and Puritan books in Gale's library were utterly worthless, Finney set out to devise a theological system more to his own liking.

At first, being no theologian, my attitude in respect to [Gale's] peculiar views was rather that of negation or denial, than that of opposing any positive view to his. I said, your positions are not proved." I often said, "They are insusceptible of proof." So I thought then, and so I think now. . . . I had nowhere to go but directly to the Bible, and to the philosophy or workings of my own mind as they were revealed in consciousness. My views took on a positive type but slowly. I at first found myself unable to receive his peculiar views; and secondly, gradually formed views of my own in opposition to them, which appeared to me to be unequivocally taught in the Bible. [Memoirs, 55, emphasis added.]
In other words, Finney's earliest opinions on "the subject[s] of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will, [and] kindred doctrines" became baggage he dragged along into his own peculiar systematic theology. Having objected to Pastor Gale's doctrinal stance on these issues since before his conversion—and especially now that Finney realized these ideas came from the Confession itself—he grew to despise "Old School" doctrinal standards. He was not about to study books that defended such doctrines.
Without any "positive view" of his own (other than his obvious contempt for Reformed doctrine), he was content for a while to rebuff Gale's tutoring with "negation or denial." But Finney soon realized he needed something more than denial to answer the doctrines of the Presbyterian Confession. So he set to work scouring the pages of Scripture in search of arguments against the doctrines he despised, while devising new doctrines more suited to "the philosophy or workings of [his] own mind." Ideas Finney had toyed with since his pre-conversion days thus became the heart of the theology he espoused until the end of his life. In other words, as a new "convert," Finney simply devised a theology that fit his already-established prejudices.
In his Memoirs, his Lectures on Revival, and his Systematic Theology, what comes through, frankly, is not a man with a high regard for Scripture, but a man with an inflated view of himself. Where Scripture does not suit him, Finney resorts to sophistry to explain it away. Whole sections of his Systematic Theology contain paragraph after paragraph of philosophizing and moralizing—sometimes without a single reference to Scripture for many pages.[1]
Finney vs. Hyper-Calvinism
Finney is often portrayed as a moderate who fought against hyper-Calvinist influences. It's true that hyper-Calvinism (a corruption of Calvinist doctrine that nullifies or minimizes human responsibility) was on the rise in New England, and Finney had probably been exposed to it. In fact, it is fair to say that hyper-Calvinism had a major hand in creating the cold spiritual climate in which Finney's errors flourished. The popular reception of Finney's teaching was certainly in large part an overreaction against the errors of hyper-Calvinism.
Finney regarded his own theology as a necessary antidote to hyper-Calvinism. He wrote,


I have everywhere found that the peculiarities of hyper-Calvinism have been the stumbling block both of the church and of the world. A nature sinful in itself, a total inability to accept Christ and to obey God, condemnation to eternal death for the sin of Adam and for a sinful nature,—and all the kindred and resultant dogmas of that peculiar school, have been the stumbling block of believers and the ruin of sinners." [Memoirs, 444].
But Finney was too much of a novice to distinguish between biblical, orthodox Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. He lumped them together and ended up rejecting much sound doctrine along with what he thought was "hyper-Calvinism." Far from being a "moderate," Finney answered hyper-Calvinism by shifting to the opposite extreme—Pelagianism.
Notice that under the guise of condemning "hyper-Calvinism," Finney expressly attacked the idea that people are fallen and depraved because of a sinful nature inherited from Adam. That is the doctrine of original sin, not a hyper-Calvinist dogma, but a standard tenet of Christian doctrine—and recognized as such by all mainstream Christians since the Pelagian heresy of the Fifth Century. Note, too, that Finney rejected the idea that sinners are totally unable to please God (contra Rom. 8:7-. Again, total inability is no hyper-Calvinist notion, but a biblical truth defended by Augustine and the Protestant Reformers alike.
Many of the doctrines Finney rejected were central to the gospel itself. Remember his comments about his own pastor's views? ("I could not receive his views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the Will, or any of their kindred doctrines." Again, not one of the issues he lists deals with any error that arises out of hyper-Calvinism. Instead, what Finney was rejecting were basic biblical doctrines and long-standing tenets of Christian orthodoxy. He jettisoned several essential aspects of Protestant and Reformed doctrine related to "the atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will." Many of the doctrines he argued most vehemently against are, in fact, core biblical truths.
In other words, it was not merely hyper-Calvinism—or even simple Calvinism—that Finney rejected, but the biblical essentials of sola fide and sola gratia (justification by faith alone through grace alone). In effect, Finney also abandoned sola scriptura (the authority and sufficiency of Scripture), as shown by his constant appeal to rationalism in support of his new theology. The movement he led therefore represents the wholesale abandonment of historic Protestant principles.
Finney vs. Justification by Faith
Specifically, what were Finney's most serious errors? At the top of the list stands his rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith. Finney denied that the righteousness of Christ is the sole ground of our justification, teaching instead that sinners must reform their own hearts in order to be acceptable to God. (His emphasis on self-reformation apart from divine enablement is again a strong echo of Pelagianism.)
Finney spends a considerable amount of time in several of his works arguing against "that theological fiction of imputation" [Memoirs, 58]. Those who have any grasp of Protestant doctrine will see immediately that his attack at this point is a blatant rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide). It places him outside the pale of true evangelical Protestantism. The doctrine of imputed righteousness is the very heart of the historic difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The whole doctrine of justification by faith hinges on this concept. But Finney flatly rejected it. He derided the concept of imputation as unjust: "I could not but regard and treat this whole question of imputation as a theological fiction, somewhat related to our legal fiction of John Doe and Richard Roe" [Memoirs, 60]. Dismissing the many biblical texts that expressly say righteousness is imputed to believers for their justification, he wrote,


These and similar passages are relied upon, as teaching the doctrine of an imputed righteousness; and such as these: "The Lord our righteousness" (Phil. 3:9). . . . "Christ our righteousness" is Christ the author or procurer of our justification. But this does not imply that He procures our justification by imputing His obedience to us. . . [Charles Finney, Systematic Theology (Minneapolis: Bethany), 372-73].

Here Finney offers no cogent explanation of what he imagines Scripture does mean when it speaks repeatedly of the imputation of righteousness to believers (e.g., Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:4-6). But throughout all his discussions of imputation Finney repeatedly insists that neither merit nor guilt can righteously be imputed from one person to another. Therefore, Finney argues, the righteousness of Christ can provide no ground for the justification of sinners. Furthermore, he continues:
[Subhead:] Foundation of the justification of penitent believers in Christ. What is the ultimate ground or reason of their justification?
1. It is not founded in Christ's literally suffering the exact penalty of the law for them, and in this sense literally purchasing their justification and eternal salvation [Systematic Theology, 373].


By employing terms such as "exact" and "literal," Finney caricatured the position he was opposing. (The immediate context of this quotation makes clear that he was arguing against the position outlined in the Westminster Confession, which accords with all major Protestant creeds and theologians on the matter of justification.) But Finney could not obscure his own position: Having decided that the doctrine of imputation was a "theological fiction," he was forced to deny not only the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers, but also the imputation of the sinner's guilt to Christ on the cross. Under Finney's system, Christ could not have actually borne anyone else's sin or suffered sin's full penalty in their place and in their stead (contra Isaiah 53:6; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2). Finney therefore rejected the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. (We shall deal with this in more detail below).
Finney's position on these matters also caused him to define justification in subjective, rather than objective, terms. Protestants have historically insisted that justification is a purely forensic declaration, giving the penitent sinner an immediate right standing before God on the merit of Christ's righteousness, not their own (cf. Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:9). By forensic, we mean that it is a legal declaration, like a courtroom verdict or a marriage pronouncement ("I now pronounce you husband and wife". It changes the person's external status rather than affecting some kind of internal change; it is a wholly objective reality.
The subjective transformation of the believer that conforms us to Christ's image is sanctification—a subsequent and separate reality, distinct from justification. Since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the virtually unanimous Protestant consensus has been that justification is in no sense grounded in or conditioned on our sanctification. Catholicism, on the other hand, mingles justification and sanctification, making sanctification a prerequisite to final justification.
Finney sided with Rome on this point. His rejection of the doctrine of imputation left him with no alternative: "Gospel justification is not to be regarded as a forensic or judicial proceeding" [Systematic Theology, 360].
Finney departed further from historic Protestantism by expressly denying that Christ's righteousness is the sole ground of the believer's justification, arguing instead that justification is grounded only in the benevolence of God. (This position is identical to that of Socinians and theological liberals.)
Obfuscating the issue further, Finney listed several "necessary conditions" (insisting these are not, technically, grounds) of justification. These "necessary conditions" included Christ's atoning death, the Christian's own faith, repentance, sanctification, and—most ominously—the believer's ongoing obedience to the law. Finney wrote,

There can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground[2] of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law. This is of course denied by those who hold that gospel justification, or the justification of penitent sinners, is of the nature of a forensic or judicial justification. They hold to the legal maxim, that what a man does by another he does by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ's obedience as ours, on the ground that He obeyed for us [Systematic Theology, 362].

Of course, Finney denied that Christ "obeyed for us," claiming that since Christ was Himself obligated to render full obedience to the law, His obedience could justify Himself alone. "It can never be imputed to us," Finney intoned [Systematic Theology, 362].
The clear implication of Finney's view is that justification ultimately hinges on the believer's own obedience, and God will not truly and finally pardon the repentant sinner until after that penitent one completes a lifetime of faithful obedience. Finney himself said as much, employing the undiluted language of perfectionism. He wrote,

By sanctification being a condition of justification, the following things are intended:
(1.) That present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and His service, is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God. (2.) That the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues. If he falls from his first love into the spirit of self-pleasing, he falls again into bondage to sin and to the law, is condemned, and must repent and do his "first work," must turn to Christ, and renew his faith and love, as a condition of his salvation. . . .
Perseverance in faith and obedience, or in consecration to God, is also an unalterable condition of justification, or of pardon and acceptance with God. By this language in this connection, you will of course understand me to mean, that perseverance in faith and obedience is a condition, not of present, but of final or ultimate acceptance and salvation [Systematic Theology, 368-69].

Thus Finney insisted that justification ultimately hinges on the believer's own performance, not Christ's. Here Finney once more turns his guns against the doctrine of imputation:
Those who hold that justification by imputed righteousness is a forensic proceeding, take a view of final or ultimate justification, according with their view of the nature of the transaction. With them, faith receives an imputed righteousness, and a judicial justification. The first act of faith, according to them, introduces the sinner into this relation, and obtains for him a perpetual justification. They maintain that after this first act of faith it is impossible for the sinner to come into condemnation; [Systematic Theology, 369].

But isn't that precisely what Scripture teaches? John 3:18: "He that believeth on him is not condemned." John 5:24: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Galatians 3:13: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." It was immediately following his great discourse on justification by faith that the apostle Paul wrote, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). But Charles Finney was unwilling to let Christians rest in the promise of "no condemnation," and he ridiculed the idea of security in Christ as a notion that would lead to licentious living. He continues, again caricaturing the position he opposes:
that, being once justified, he is always thereafter justified, whatever he may do; indeed that he is never justified by grace, as to sins that are past, upon condition that he ceases to sin; that Christ's righteousness is the ground, and that his own present obedience is not even a condition of his justification, so that, in fact, his own present or future obedience to the law of God is, in no case, and in no sense, a sine qua non of his justification, present or ultimate.
Now this is certainly another gospel from the one I am inculcating. It is not a difference merely upon some speculative or theoretic point. It is a point fundamental to the gospel and to salvation, if any one can be [Systematic Theology, 369.]
As the final paragraph of that excerpt makes clear, Finney himself clearly understood that what he proclaimed was a different gospel from that of historic Protestantism. By denying the forensic nature of justification, Finney was left with no option but to regard justification as a subjective thing grounded not in Christ's redemptive work but in the believer's own obedience—and therefore a matter of works, not faith alone.
Finney vs. Original Sin
As noted above, Finney rejected the notion that Adam's guilty, sinful nature is inherited by all his offspring. In doing so, he was repudiating the clear teaching of Scripture:


The judgment arose from one transgression [Adam's sin] resulting in condemnation . . . . By the transgression of the one [Adam], death reigned . . . . Through one transgression [Adam's sin] there resulted condemnation to all men . . . . Through the one man's disobedience [Adam's sin] the many were made sinners (Rom. 5:16-19).
Predictably, Finney appealed to human wisdom to justify his rejection of clear biblical teaching: "What law have we violated in inheriting this [sin] nature? What law requires us to have a different nature from that which we possess? Does reason affirm that we are deserving of the wrath and curse of God for ever, for inheriting from Adam a sinful nature?" [Systematic Theology, 320].
Naturally, Finney's denial of original sin also led him to reject the doctrine of human depravity. He flatly denied that fallen humanity suffers from any "constitutional sinfulness" or sinful corruption of human nature:

"Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of nature or constitution, nor in any lapsed or fallen state of nature. . . . Moral depravity, as I use the term, does not consist in, nor imply a sinful nature, in the sense that the human soul is sinful in itself. It is not a constitutional sinfulness" [Systematic Theology, 245].
Instead, Finney insisted, "depravity" is a purely voluntary condition, and therefore, sinners have the power simply to will otherwise. In other words, Finney was insisting that all men and women have a natural ability to obey God. Sin results from wrong choices, not from a fallen nature. According to Finney, sinners can freely reform their own hearts, and must do so themselves if they are to be redeemed. Once again, this is sheer Pelagianism:

"[Sinners] are under the necessity of first changing their hearts, or their choice of an end, before they can put forth any volitions to secure any other than a selfish end. And this is plainly the everywhere assumed philosophy of the Bible. That uniformly represents the unregenerate as totally depraved,[3] and calls upon them to repent, to make themselves a new heart" [Systematic Theology, 249].
Finney was therefore not ashamed to take credit for his own conversion. Having rejected sola gratia, Finney had destroyed the gospel's safeguard against boasting (Eph. 2:9). As John MacArthur points out,
In Finney's telling of [his conversion] story, it becomes clear that he believed his own will was the determinative factor that brought about his salvation: "On a Sabbath evening [in the autumn of 1821,] I made up my mind that I would settle the question of my soul's salvation at-once, that if it were possible I would make my peace with God" [Memoirs, 16, emphasis added]. Evidently under intense conviction, Finney went into the woods, where he made a promise "that I would give my heart to God [that day] or die in the attempt [Memoirs, 16]. [John MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1993), 236.]
Finney vs. Substitutionary Atonement
What seemed to chafe Finney most about evangelical Christianity was the belief that Christ's atonement is a penal satisfaction offered to God. Finney wrote, "I had read nothing on the subject [of the atonement] except my Bible, & what I had there found on the subject I had interpreted as I would have understood the same or like passages in a law book" [Memoirs, 42].
Thus applying nineteenth-century American legal standards to the biblical doctrine of atonement, he concluded that it would be legally unjust to impute the sinner's guilt to Christ or to impute Christ's righteousness to the sinner. As noted above, Finney labeled imputation a "theological fiction" [Memoirs, 58-61]. In essence, this was a denial of the core of evangelical theology, repudiating the heart of Paul's argument about justification by faith in Romans 3-5 (see especially Rom. 4:5)—in effect nullifying the whole gospel!
Further, by ruling out the imputation of guilt and righteousness, Finney was forced to argue that Christ's death should not be regarded as an actual atonement for others' sins. Finney replaced the doctrine of substitutionary atonement with a version of Grotius's "governmental theory" (the same view being revived by those today who tout "moral government theology".
The Grotian view of the atonement is laden with strong Pelagian tendencies. By cutting the sinner off from the imputation of Christ's righteousness, this view automatically requires sinners to attain a righteousness of their own (contra Rom. 10:3). When he embraced such a view of the atonement, Finney had no choice but to adopt a theology that magnifies human ability and minimizes God's role in changing human hearts. He wrote, for example,

There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. . . . A revival is as naturally a result of the use of means as a crop is of the use of its appropriate means" [Charles Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), 4-5].
Thus Finney constantly downplayed God's work in our salvation, understated the hopelessness of the sinner's condition, and overestimated the power of sinners to change their own hearts. When those errors are traced to their source, what we find is a deficient view of the atonement. Indeed, Finney's denial of vicarious atonement underlies and explains virtually all his theological aberrations.
The Fallout from Finney's Doctrines
Predictably, most of Finney's spiritual heirs lapsed into apostasy, Socinianism, mere moralism, cultlike perfectionism, and other related errors. In short, Finney's chief legacy was confusion and doctrinal compromise. Evangelical Christianity virtually disappeared from western New York in Finney's own lifetime. Despite Finney's accounts of glorious "revivals," most of the vast region of New England where he held his revival campaigns fell into a permanent spiritual coldness during Finney's lifetime and more than a hundred years later still has not emerged from that malaise. This is directly owing to the influence of Finney and others who were simultaneously promoting similar ideas.
The Western half of New York became known as "the burnt-over district," because of the negative effects of the revivalist movement that culminated in Finney's work there. These facts are often obscured in the popular lore about Finney. But even Finney himself spoke of "a burnt district" [Memoirs, 78], and he lamented the absence of any lasting fruit from his evangelistic efforts. He wrote,


I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state [cited in B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1932), 2:24].
One of Finney's contemporaries registered a similar assessment, but more bluntly:

During ten years, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is admitted, that real converts are comparatively few. It is declared, even by [Finney] himself, that "the great body of them are a disgrace to religion" [cited in Warfield, 2:23].
B. B. Warfield cited the testimony of Asa Mahan, one of Finney's close associates,
. . . who tells us—to put it briefly—that everyone who was concerned in these revivals suffered a sad subsequent lapse: the people were left like a dead coal which could not be reignited; the pastors were shorn of all their spiritual power; and the evangelists—"among them all," he says, "and I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them—I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor."
Thus the great "Western Revivals" ran out into disaster. . . . Over and over again, when he proposed to revisit one of the churches, delegations were sent him or other means used, to prevent what was thought of as an affliction. . . . Even after a generation had passed by, these burnt children had no liking for the fire [Warfield, 2:26-28].
Finney grew discouraged with the revival campaigns and tried his hand at pastoring in New York City before accepting the presidency of Oberlin College. During those post-revivalist years, he turned his attention to devising a doctrine of Christian perfectionism. Perfectionist ideas, in vogue at the time, were a whole new playground for serious heresy on the fringes of evangelicalism—and Finney became one of the best-known advocates of perfectionism. The evil legacy of the perfectionism touted by Finney and friends in the mid-nineteenth century has been thoroughly critiqued by B. B. Warfield in his important work Studies in Perfectionism. Perfectionism was the logical consequence of Finney's Pelagianism, and its predictable result was spiritual disaster.
A Fire Not To Be Played With
Charles Grandison Finney was a heretic. That language is not too strong. Though he excelled at cloaking his opinions in ambiguous language and biblical-sounding expressions, his views were almost pure Pelagianism. The arguments he employed to sustain those views were nearly always rationalistic and philosophical, not biblical. To canonize this man as an evangelical hero is to ignore the facts of what he stood for.
Don't be duped by sanitized 20th-century editions of Finney's works. Read the "Complete and Newly Expanded" 1878 edition of Finney's Systematic Theology, recently published by Bethany house Publishers (the unabridged 1878 version with a couple of Finney's later lectures added). This volume shows the real character of Finney's doctrine. (The unabridged 1851 version is now online, and it also exposes Finney's errors in language not toned down by later redactors.) By no stretch of the imagination does Finney deserve to be regarded as an evangelical. By corrupting the doctrine of justification by faith; by denying the doctrines of original sin and total depravity; by minimizing the sovereignty of God while enthroning the power of the human will; and above all, by undermining the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, Finney filled the bloodstream of American evangelicalism with poisons that have kept the movement maimed even to this day.
That's why you'll find Finney listed in the "Really Bad Theology" category of my bookmarks, and in the "Unorthodox" wing of The Hall of Church History.



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Footnotes:

1. See, for example, Lecture 16, "Moral Depravity." Finney rambles on about "physical" vs. "moral" depravity for several pages (nearly 5 in the Bethany edition) before he ever cites a single verse of Scripture. All his polemic about "physical depravity" is wasted anyway, because not one of Finney's theological opponents ever argued that human depravity is a physical issue. Again, in the whole of Lecture 10 ("What Constitutes Disobedience to Moral Law?" Finney cites snippets of only two verses of Scripture—a total of eleven words quoted from the Bible in the entire lecture. Many—perhaps most—pages contain no Scripture references at all. By contrast, the typical evangelical systematic theology textbook contains dozens of references per page. The whole point of "systematic theology" is to start with Scripture and systematize a point-by-point comprehensive theology. A sound systematic theology is therefore biblical to begin with. By contrast, Finney constructed a philosophical system based on legal and logical arguments and relying more on his own instinct and speculation than he did on the Bible. [Return to article.]
2. Notice that Finney confused the very terms he was ostensibly keeping distinct, essentially admitting that he regarded the believer's obedience as a ground of justification. [Return to article.]

3. Although Finney employs the expression totally depraved, he makes clear that he speaks of a purely voluntary condition, not a constitutional depravity. [Return to article.]





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Other Resources:


"Assessing the Influence of Religious Ideas: Charles Finney's Perfectionism," by Leo P. Hirrel.
"C.F.W. Walther Versus Charles Grandison Finney," by Dr. Tom Baker.
"Charles Finney and the Disappearance of Revival" by Clive Taylor.
"Charles Finney vs. The Westminster Confession," by Michael Horton.
"Charles Finney's Doctrine of Justification," by David H. Linden
"Finney: The Aftermath," by Monte E. Wilson.
"The Legacy of Charles Finney," by Michael Horton.
On Revivals of Religion: A Review of Charles G. Finney, by Albert Dod. (Be sure to see also Part 2 of this fine article, a critique of Finney by one of his contemporaries.)

   
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Copyright © 2001 by Phillip R. Johnson. All rights reserved.
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/finney.htm
[/Quote]

@Jesoul

Thanks a lot for the information and Vote Of Confidence   .

Image123:
OK, so i thought it was to the house of rep. What's the basis/criteria for this election, what are we to do to be elected, are people who don't believe calvin elected, and how do we have free and fair elections?

Is that all you have to say? You surely are not going to cavil this verse?

For those who desire to know the true Calvinist Position on predestination and perseverance, this is a very useful link to the free online

book,''PREDESTINATION and the SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE, STATED AND DEFENDED'' by Patrick Hues Mell.

http://solochristo.com/theology/Salvation/PHMell_1_PredestinationPerseverance_Index.html

Idehn:
I do not understand why you are so opposed to Calvinism. John Calvin only took the doctrines of original sin, onimax properties, and salvation to their logical conclusions. That it is "God" not man that decides who ultimately is saved and who is not.

Please instruct him. He has so much zeal but obviously not according to knowledge.

Obalende:
only d elect will b saved, d rest r cursed.

So painful, so offensive, yet so true.

Image123:
So we're elected to what?

Salvation.

13 ¶ But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

2 Thess. 2:13

chima2011:
Thanks man for the clarification: Old man "Perfectionism" is the right choice of word.

It is that fastest way to breed procrastination in any man or woman.

I completely agree.

don33310:
Most christians don't know the difference between CALVINST and ARMINIANS.

Ok, I will try to put up a little something.

If you escaped being banned for those posts, then I would like to know how you managed it  .

Hi Jesoul,

I got banned today while trying to reply to the topic, 'Is Perfection An Enemy To Success?', before then I had created two new threads where I pasted articles. I created another I.D ,d5solas, with the aim of reporting the incident but was promptly banned again. The experience was very painful. About an hour later both I.Ds were unbanned. I have rested the new I.D, did I flout the rules in any way? The new threads are, 'Election' and 'The Pelagian Captivity Of The Church'.

Not only are the Arminians all over us, the Pelagians are all over us as well! Lord have mercy.

The Pelagian Captivity of the Church
by R.C. Sproul
Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen — that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.

I’ve often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can’t answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church. Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation — sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia — Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of solo fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.

In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:

These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters?1

Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:

Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology, but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration.2

That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”

What Is Pelagianism?
Now, let’s return briefly to my title, “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” What are we talking about? Pelagius was a monk who lived in Britain in the fifth century. He was a contemporary of the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Church history if not of all time, Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. We have heard of St. Augustine, of his great works in theology, of his City of God, of his Confessions, and so on, which remain Christian classics.

Augustine, in addition to being a titanic theologian and a prodigious intellect, was also a man of deep spirituality and prayer. In one of his famous prayers, Augustine made a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” Now, would that give you apoplexy — to hear a prayer like that? Well it certainly set Pelagius, this British monk, into orbit. When he heard that, he protested vociferously, even appealing to Rome to have this ghastly prayer censured from the pen of Augustine. Here’s why. He said, “Are you saying, Augustine, that God has the inherent right to command anything that he so desires from his creatures? Nobody is going to dispute that. God inherently, as the creator of heaven and earth, has the right to impose obligations on his creatures and say, ‘Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ ‘Command whatever thou would’ — it’s a perfectly legitimate prayer.”

It’s the second part of the prayer that Pelagius abhorred when Augustine said, “and grant what thou dost command.” He said, “What are you talking about? If God is just, if God is righteous and God is holy, and God commands of the creature to do something, certainly that creature must have the power within himself, the moral ability within himself, to perform it or God would never require it in the first place.” Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? What Pelagius was saying is that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability or, simply, moral ability. So why would we have to pray, “God grant me, give me the gift of being able to do what you command me to do”? Pelagius saw in this statement a shadow being cast over the integrity of God himself, who would hold people responsible for doing something they cannot do.

So in the ensuing debate, Augustine made it clear that in creation, God commanded nothing from Adam or Eve that they were incapable of performing. But once transgression entered and mankind became fallen, God’s law was not repealed nor did God adjust his holy requirements downward to accommodate the weakened, fallen condition of his creation. God did punish his creation by visiting upon them the judgment of original sin, so that everyone after Adam and Eve who was born into this world was born already dead in sin. Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin; it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are not born in a neutral state of innocence, but we are born in a sinful, fallen condition. Virtually every church in the historic World Council of Churches at some point in their history and in their creedal development articulates some doctrine of original sin. So clear is that to the biblical revelation that it would take a repudiation of the biblical view of mankind to deny original sin altogether.

This is precisely what was at issue in the battle between Augustine and Pelagius in the fifth century. Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve. Everyone is born in the same state of innocence in which Adam was created. And, he said, for a person to live a life of obedience to God, a life of moral perfection, is possible without any help from Jesus or without any help from the grace of God. Pelagius said that grace — and here’s the key distinction — facilitates righteousness. What does “facilitate” mean?

It helps, it makes it more facile, it makes it easier, but you don’t have to have it. You can be perfect without it. Pelagius further stated that it is not only theoretically possible for some folks to live a perfect life without any assistance from divine grace, but there are in fact people who do it. Augustine said, “No, no, no, no . . . we are infected by sin by nature, to the very depths and core of our being — so much so that no human being has the moral power to incline himself to cooperate with the grace of God. The human will, as a result of original sin, still has the power to choose, but it is in bondage to its evil desires and inclinations. The condition of fallen humanity is one that Augustine would describe as the inability to not sin. In simple English, what Augustine was saying is that in the Fall, man loses his moral ability to do the things of God and he is held captive by his own evil inclinations.

In the fifth century the Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange, and it was condemned again at the Council of Florence, the Council of Carthage, and also, ironically, at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century in the first three anathemas of the Canons of the Sixth Session. So, consistently throughout Church history, the Church has roundly and soundly condemned Pelagianism — because Pelagianism denies the fallenness of our nature; it denies the doctrine of original sin.

Now what is called semi-Pelagianism, as the prefix “semi” suggests, was a somewhat middle ground between full-orbed Augustinianism and full-orbed Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism said this: yes, there was a fall; yes, there is such a thing as original sin; yes, the constituent nature of humanity has been changed by this state of corruption and all parts of our humanity have been significantly weakened by the fall, so much so that without the assistance of divine grace nobody can possibly be redeemed, so that grace is not only helpful but it’s absolutely necessary for salvation. While we are so fallen that we can’t be saved without grace, we are not so fallen that we don’t have the ability to accept or reject the grace when it’s offered to us. The will is weakened but is not enslaved. There remains in the core of our being an island of righteousness that remains untouched by the fall. It’s out of that little island of righteousness, that little parcel of goodness that is still intact in the soul or in the will that is the determinative difference between heaven and hell. It’s that little island that must be exercised when God does his thousand steps of reaching out to us, but in the final analysis it’s that one step that we take that determines whether we go to heaven or hell — whether we exercise that little righteousness that is in the core of our being or whether we don’t. That little island Augustine wouldn’t even recognize as an atoll in the South Pacific. He said it’s a mythical island, that the will is enslaved, and that man is dead in his sin and trespasses.

Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with — and assent to — the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.

At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father” — that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.

Evangelicals and Faith
Modern Evangelicalism almost uniformly and universally teaches that in order for a person to be born again, he must first exercise faith. You have to choose to be born again. Isn’t that what you hear? In a George Barna poll, more than seventy percent of “professing evangelical Christians” in America expressed the belief that man is basically good. And more than eighty percent articulated the view that God helps those who help themselves. These positions — or let me say it negatively — neither of these positions is semi-Pelagian. They’re both Pelagian. To say that we’re basically good is the Pelagian view. I would be willing to assume that in at least thirty percent of the people who are reading this issue, and probably more, if we really examine their thinking in depth, we would find hearts that are beating Pelagianism. We’re overwhelmed with it. We’re surrounded by it. We’re immersed in it. We hear it every day. We hear it every day in the secular culture. And not only do we hear it every day in the secular culture, we hear it every day on Christian television and on Christian radio.

In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.

The Island of Righteousness
One thing is clear: that you can be purely Pelagian and be completely welcome in the evangelical movement today. It’s not simply that the camel sticks his nose into the tent; he doesn’t just come in the tent — he kicks the owner of the tent out. Modern Evangelicalism today looks with suspicion at Reformed theology, which has become sort of the third-class citizen of Evangelicalism. Now you say, “Wait a minute, R. C. Let’s not tar everybody with the extreme brush of Pelagianism, because, after all, Billy Graham and the rest of these people are saying there was a Fall; you’ve got to have grace; there is such a thing as original sin; and semi-Pelagians do not agree with Pelagius’ facile and sanguine view of unfallen human nature.” And that’s true. No question about it. But it’s that little island of righteousness where man still has the ability, in and of himself, to turn, to change, to incline, to dispose, to embrace the offer of grace that reveals why historically semi-Pelagianism is not called semi-Augustinianism, but semi-Pelagianism.
I heard an evangelist use two analogies to describe what happens in our redemption. He said sin has such a strong hold on us, a stranglehold, that it’s like a person who can’t swim, who falls overboard in a raging sea, and he’s going under for the third time and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water; and unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of survival, his death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver, he can’t possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right where his fingers are still extended out of the water, and hit him so that he can grasp hold of it. It has to be perfectly pitched. But still that man will drown unless he takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver and God will rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.

The other analogy is this: A man is desperately ill, sick unto death, lying in his hospital bed with a disease that is fatal. There is no way he can be cured unless somebody from outside comes up with a cure, a medicine that will take care of this fatal disease. And God has the cure and walks into the room with the medicine. But the man is so weak he can’t even help himself to the medicine; God has to pour it on the spoon. The man is so sick he’s almost comatose. He can’t even open his mouth, and God has to lean over and open up his mouth for him. God has to bring the spoon to the man’s lips, but the man still has to swallow it.

Now, if we’re going to use analogies, let’s be accurate. The man isn’t going under for the third time; he is stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to the bottom of the sea and took that drowned corpse and breathed into it the breath of his life and raised you from the dead. And it’s not that you were dying in a hospital bed of a certain illness, but rather, when you were born you were born D.O.A. That’s what the Bible says: that we are morally stillborn.

Do we have a will? Yes, of course we have a will. Calvin said, if you mean by a free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration then, said Calvin, free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human being.

The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us.

None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don’t hear the Apostle Paul say, “You know, it’s sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody’s perfect. But be of good cheer. We’re basically good.” Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this?

Now back to Luther. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to us to fulfill? Is your faith a work? Is it the one work that God leaves for you to do? I had a discussion with some folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently. I was speaking on sola gratia, and one fellow was upset.

He said, “Are you trying to tell me that in the final analysis it’s God who either does or doesn’t sovereignly regenerate a heart?”

And I said, “Yes;” and he was very upset about that. I said, “Let me ask you this: are you a Christian?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Do you have friends who aren’t Christians?”

He said, “Well, of course.”

I said, “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? Is it because you’re more righteous than they are?” He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to say, “Of course it’s because I’m more righteous. I did the right thing and my friend didn’t.” He knew where I was going with that question.

And he said, “Oh, no, no, no.”

I said, “Tell me why. Is it because you are smarter than your friend?”

And he said, “No.”

But he would not agree that the final, decisive issue was the grace of God. He wouldn’t come to that. And after we discussed this for fifteen minutes, he said, “OK! I’ll say it. I’m a Christian because I did the right thing, I made the right response, and my friend didn’t.”

What was this person trusting in for his salvation? Not in his works in general, but in the one work that he performed. And he was a Protestant, an evangelical. But his view of salvation was no different from the Roman view.

God’s Sovereignty in Salvation
This is the issue: Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it in our own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, that it ultimately depends on something we do for ourselves, thereby deny humanity’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being, in principle, both a return to Rome because, in effect, it turned faith into a meritorious work, and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. For to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle than to rely on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.

And yet this view is the overwhelming majority report today in professing evangelical circles. And as long as semi-Pelagianism, which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core — as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone. Soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.





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Notes
1. J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, “Introduction” to the The Bondage of the Will (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1957) pp. 59-60.

2. Ibid







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Bible Research > Pelagianism

http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html

As far as the components of Calvinism are known, thus far will it be difficult for Arminians to deceive the gullible. Election is a biblical doctrine, believe me!

ELECTION
The verb elect means “to select, or choose out.” The biblical doctrine of election is that before Creation God selected out of the human race, foreseen as fallen, those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify, and glorify in and through Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:28-39; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 2 Tim. 1:9-10). This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for it is unconstrained and unconditional, not merited by anything in those who are its subjects. God owes sinners no mercy of any kind, only condemnation; so it is a wonder, and matter for endless praise, that he should choose to save any of us; and doubly so when his choice involved the giving of his own Son to suffer as sin-bearer for the elect (Rom. 8:32).
The doctrine of election, like every truth about God, involves mystery and sometimes stirs controversy. But in Scripture it is a pastoral doctrine, brought in to help Christians see how great is the grace that saves them, and to move them to humility, confidence, joy, praise, faithfulness, and holiness in response. It is the family secret of the children of God. We do not know who else he has chosen among those who do not yet believe, nor why it was his good pleasure to choose us in particular. What we do know is, first, that had we not been chosen for life we would not be believers now (for only the elect are brought to faith), and, second, that as elect believers we may rely on God to finish in us the good work that he started (1 Cor. 1:8-9; Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:23-24; 2 Tim. 1:12; 4:18). Knowledge of one’s election thus brings comfort and joy.
Peter tells us we should be “eager to make [our] calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1:10)—that is, certain to us. Election is known by its fruits. Paul knew the election of the Thessalonians from their faith, hope, and love, the inward and outward transformation of their lives that the gospel had brought about (1 Thess. 1:3-6). The more that the qualities to which Peter has been exhorting his readers appear in our lives (goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love: 2 Pet. 1:5-7), the surer of our own election we are entitled to be.
The elect are, from one standpoint, the Father’s gift to the Son (John 6:39; 10:29; 17:2, 24). Jesus testifies that he came into this world specifically to save them (John 6:37-40; 10:14-16, 26-29; 15:16; 17:6-26; Eph. 5:25-27), and any account of his mission must emphasize this.
Reprobation is the name given to God’s eternal decision regarding those sinners whom he has not chosen for life. His decision is in essence a decision not to change them, as the elect are destined to be changed, but to leave them to sin as in their hearts they already want to do, and finally to judge them as they deserve for what they have done. When in particular instances God gives them over to their sins (i.e., removes restraints on their doing the disobedient things they desire), this is itself the beginning of judgment. It is called “hardening” (Rom. 9:18; 11:25; cf. Ps. 81:12; Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), and it inevitably leads to greater guilt.
Reprobation is a biblical reality (Rom. 9:14-24; 1 Pet. 2:, but not one that bears directly on Christian behavior. The reprobates are faceless so far as Christians are concerned, and it is not for us to try to identify them. Rather, we should live in light of the certainty that anyone may be saved if he or she will but repent and put faith in Christ.
We should view all persons that we meet as possibly being numbered among the elect.
This article was excerpted from Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs by J. I. Packer.

@MyJoe
I permit you to count a group of verses as a single verse.
VERSE 4 (In the proof of election)
Ephesians 1
3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

chima2011:
Is Perfection an enemy of success?[/Quote]
No.
[quote author=chima2011 link=topic=696969.msg8572396#msg8572396 date=1308790294]For me I don't only believe that being perfect is an enemy of success. It is also a recipe for failure
SEE MY REASONS:
http://stories.com.ng/2011/06/perfection-is-an-enemy-o-f-success-a-recipe-for-failure/

Perfection is a virtue. So I don’t see it as a recipe for failure, far from it! If perfection is attainable in this life is another matter.

chima2011:
What's your opinion

I believe in the whole substance of your post. The enemy is perfectionism, not perfection. The following definition will shed more light hopefully.
[Quote]
Perfectionism:
1.demand for perfection: rigorous rejection of anything less than perfect
2.belief in existence of perfection: the doctrine that perfection is possible in human beings
Perfectionist:
1. demanding person: somebody who demands or seeks to achieve nothing less than perfection
2. believer in perfectionism: a believer in the philosophical doctrine of perfectionism
Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.[/quote]

Pastor AIO:
Maybe Jesus' death on the cross atones for past sins, but thereafter if you sin in the present or the future you have to forgive other people before you can get any forgiveness yourself.

Thanks for your contribution and linking of the thread with yours on atonement.

[Quote]

Also closely linked to this thread is Frosbel's thread on 'Calvinist Mumbo Jumbo'.
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-693487.0.html

[/Quote]

More like, 'Frosbel's Mumbo Jumbos'

MyJoe:
For starters.

You'd have to get on with the rest, as what you have provided for starters does not lend much support to the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. Jesus was there merely stressing the point that you can't get to know the Father without learning from him, the Son.

Besides, how do you square off that idea with Jesus's statement at John 3:16 - whosoever believes. . . ?

Mere cavillation. I will give you thirty more verses.

FIRST AND SECOND VERSE
[Quote]
JOHN 6
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
[/Quote]
Please tell us what Jesus was merely saying above.

@unphilaz[quote]hello frosbel, before what u further wrote after this
line of tot, u have to clarify what 5solas has brought
up first. [/Quote]
Thanks. The clarification is for starters.

One of the fallacies that is repeated in many churches is that when you become a Christian, all sins–past, present, and future–are forgiven, and God no longer acknowledges your present or future sin.

So what sins do you imagine are forgiven the sinner on believing? Only their past sins? If so, does Christ have to die each time forgiveness is sought to forgive them their present sins? How about their future sins? And how could He die for any sins before they were committed?

Calvinists do not say God does not aknowledge present or future sins of believers, they say rather that, He does not ''lay anything to their charge'' nor does He impute ''their trespasses unto them''(Rom.8:33 and 2Cor.5:19).

And what does Calvinism have to do with 'many churches'? How well known is it today?

Matthew 11:27
All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

For starters.

MyJoe:
So do you believe some people are elect for salvation?

Yes, it is all over the Bible.

@ Frosbel
Why don't you come up with actual Calvinist teachings instead of straw man arguments?
I will answer you then.

naijacutee:
I was "born" into the Catholic church, but was raised in Deeper life. As with most things in life, raising kids in Deeper Life church has its good and bad aspects. In my opinion, yes the church teaches mostly sound doctrine - however, upon growing up, I realise that the "sound doctrine" is selective. They (As with most other christian gatherings, anyway) lay more emphasis certain aspects of the Bible than others. (But, I do not hold this against them as each christian gathering is different. - Some specialise on praise, others specialise in The Holy Spirit, others specialise in Giving through Tithes and Offering, others specialise in Miracles, others specialise in Teaching the word, others specialise in Christian Missions.) No one is wrong per se. . . As Paul put it ". . . we are all parts of the same body".

Now, that's the teaching aspect done. The practices i.e dress code, and behavioural code is one thing I do not fully come to terms with. Requiring people (and this affects women, especially) to have a "modest appearance" is quite different from creating a list of what to, and what not to wear. I believe that adults can use their discretion to distinguish a piece of cloth shows enough cleavage to cause a man to sin from a piece of cloth which is generally decent, and well-presented. I believe that when humans start to determine dress codes and behavioural codes - not so much as relaying what the Bible says - but actually giving people your own interpretation of "what the Bible says" and defining them into Do's and Don'ts. . . It starts to turn into a culture - created by man. . . And these practices are no longer carried out to please God anymore - but to look like other members of the church, to fit into the church, to please man. That is where the point is lost.

So teaching - yes. But practices - no. But then, is there anyone/church who absolutely gets everything right? We could try, but that doesn't mean that we will be perfect while we are still here. But hey, that's why trying counts.

Great post.