A DEFENSE OF CALVINISM
C.H.
SPURGEON
IT IS A GREAT THING to begin the Christian life by believing good solid
doctrine. Some people have received twenty different "gospels" in as
many years; how many more they will accept before they get to their journey's
end, it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the
gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want to
know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken
up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very large loft in
which to store the apples. When people are always shifting their doctrinal
principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God.
It is good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great
fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in His Word. Why, if I believed
what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts for a
time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it; but when I know that those
whom God saves He saves with an everlasting salvation, when I know that He
gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on
an everlasting foundation of everlasting love, and that He will bring them to
His everlasting kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a
blessing as this should ever have been given to me!
"Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour's family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee!"
I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards
the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally
towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the
worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears
of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought,
if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great
sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin,
dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or
folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king
of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am
saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look
ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a
partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only
because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I
should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown
nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going
down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of
it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the
sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life—no, I
rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me,
for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of
everything holy and good. Wooings were lost upon me—warnings were cast to the
wind—thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were
rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now,
speaking on behalf of myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He
who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very
deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady—
"Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'erflow;"
and coming to this moment, I can add—
" 'Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go."
Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of
grace in a single instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I
still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did
not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it
all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was
seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can
recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul
*—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron,
and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a
man—that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found,
once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting
in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I
did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian?
I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed
across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been
some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I,
but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading
the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what
led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all,
and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace
opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I
desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly to
God."
I once attended a service where the text happened to be, "He shall
choose our inheritance for us;" and the good man who occupied the pulpit
was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said,
"This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing
whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for," said he, "we do
not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so
plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose
Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need
of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell
for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us,
sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he
very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone, to
make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any
assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it may be
very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common
sense before we should choose aright."
FIRST, let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence,
and the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into
this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own
free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit that
our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God had then to
choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which led us to elect
certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do with it? Did not God
Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends? Could He not have
caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth by a filthy
mother who would nurse me in her "kraal," and teach me to bow down to
Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me a pious mother, who would each
morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He
had pleased, have given me some profligate to have been my parent, from whose
lips I might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene language? Might He
not have placed me where I should have had a drunken father, who would have
immured me in a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of
crime? Was it not God's Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my
parents were His children, and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the
Lord?
John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good
woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the
Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen
anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I
believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had
not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before
I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have
elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in
myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to
accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian brother telling me
that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and could never
find the doctrine of election in them. He added that he was sure he would have
done so if it had been there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him,
"I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable posture, and if you
had read it in your easy chair, you would have been more likely to understand
it. Pray, by all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece of
superstition to think there is anything in the posture in which a man puts
himself for reading: and as to reading through the Bible twenty times without
having found anything about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you
found anything at all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that
you were not likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the
Scriptures."
If it would be marvellous to see one river leap up from the earth
full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the
rivers of the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at
a birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love of
God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have ever
gladdened our race—all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter—take
their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head, and adore and
magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the
very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn
forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the
mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky,
God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being—when the
ether was not fanned by an angel's wing, when space itself had not an
existence, when there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that loneliness
of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for
His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to
His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world—even from
eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved
thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee."
Then, in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood; He let His
heart run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when
He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door, and
asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to His grace? Ah,
I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the power of His effectual
grace, He said, "I must, I will come in;" and then He turned my
heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had
it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased me when I was dead in
sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary and logical, that He must
have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I believed on Him? No; I
was not then in existence; I had then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore,
have died because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born? Could that have
been possible? Could that have been the origin of the Saviour's love towards
me? Oh! no; my Saviour died for me long before I believed. "But,"
says someone, "He foresaw that you would have faith; and, therefore, He
loved you." What did He foresee about my faith? Did He foresee that I
should get that faith myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself? No;
Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man will ever say that
faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy
Spirit. I have met with a great many believers, and talked with them about this
matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say,
"I believed in Jesus without the assistance of the Holy Spirit."
I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I
find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there
dwelleth no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is
so insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension on
the Lord's part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so
offensive a creature that it must be, on God's part, an act of pure, free,
rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant with me, I am sure
that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When I remember what a den of
unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my unrenewed will,
how obstinate and rebellious against the sovereignty of the Divine rule, I
always feel inclined to take the very lowest room in my Father's house, and
when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less than the least of all
saints, and with the chief of sinners.
The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most
admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome
of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I
mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, " He is one who says, Salvation is of
the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is
the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell
me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy,
and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this
fundamental, this rock- truth, "God is my rock and my salvation."
What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits
of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our
justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of
something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the
touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there
is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what
nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism
is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if
we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach
the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the
electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do
I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and
particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out
upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after
they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of
damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day."
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the
covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true,
but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will
be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall
finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God has a
master-mind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long before He
did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, "This shall be
done," saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is
brought to pass. "This is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth
or hell alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it,
ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but
ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever." God altereth not His
plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His pleasure.
Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly.
Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before His
plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless atoms of earth,
ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may
change your plans, but He shall never, never change His. Has He told me that
His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.
"My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."
I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from
grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be
able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of
the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most
miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say,
whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring of
water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of
an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I
had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the happiest of
Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God,
but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions,
just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so. I bear my willing
testimony that I have no reason, nor even the shadow of a reason, to doubt my
Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God
is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends, and from this earth I
call the tried and afflicted believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge
the long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is not to be found in
the three realms a single person who can bear witness to one fact which can
disprove the faithfulness of God, or weaken His claim to be trusted by His
servants. There are many things that may or may not happen, but this I know
shall happen—
"He shall present my soul,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great."
All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The
promises of man may be broken—many of them are made to be broken—but the
promises of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was
a promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people
shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, "The
Lord will perfect that which concerneth me"—unworthy me, lost and ruined
me, he will yet save me; and—
"I, among the blood-wash'd throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory."
I go to a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is
greener than earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests
ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath ever
builded; it is not of mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall know and enjoy in
Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear
before Him—
"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise."
I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to
limit the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a
limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the
thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In
Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my
eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of
Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but
all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their Maker's law. Once admit
infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine
Person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value;
bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of
the Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not
change it into a finite work.
Think of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of
the countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou
wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count
the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from the
East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they are
sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom of
God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be
God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days are
coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon
multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The Father's
love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company. "A great
multitude, which no man could number," will be found in Heaven. A man can
reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your mightiest
calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell
the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in Heaven than in
hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in
everything, is to "have the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how
He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of
Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to be in hell
a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know that the souls
of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a
multitude there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven unnumbered myriads
of the spirits of just men made perfect—the redeemed of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues up till now; and there are better times
coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal; when—
"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;"
when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall be born in
a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be
enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that
have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His praise shall be
sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last; His train
shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim monarch
of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say,
"It is so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for
all men; it commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of
humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty." I admit there
is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which I
might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what
the supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross intended to save
every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the
doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in
hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads
there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was
Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed,
for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons
who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His
blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any
of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and
Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my
Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible
for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all
the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards
punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine
justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of
all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the
sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most
monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to
the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid
that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!
There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than
I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I
answer—I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I
hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the
main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me even to imagine
that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that
there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been
spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern
prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of
the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence
second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the
number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more
fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of
John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness,
and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common
Christians, and was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I believe
there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot
see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ
as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the
soundest Calvinist in or out of Heaven.
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I
do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold
any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of
the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal
doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as
we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and
North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system
of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two;
and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look
at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible,
"The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come.
And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word,
that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over
all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and
that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now,
if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of
God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the
other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not
free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or
fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts
that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and
contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible
that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another
Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is
only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever
contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon
any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two
lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them
farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they
will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth
doth spring.
It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to
sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines which
we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not
know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when they consider
that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask the man who dares to
say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of
Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great
exponents of the system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans, whose
works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have
been accounted the vilest heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the
heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can
trace our descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running
through the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were
it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden
line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers,
who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, "Where
will you find holier and better men in the world?" No doctrine is so
calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God.
Those who have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know
anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own
vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the
grace of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from
lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the
world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the
immutability of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a
motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the
truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an
erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one
thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most disinterested
piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they
are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves,
it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is
so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open
shame