Chapter
XX -
That It Is Unfavorable To Good
Morality
1.
The Means as Well as the Ends are Foreordained. 2.
Love and Gratitude to God for What He Has Done for Us is
the Strongest Possible and Only Permanent Basis for Morality. 3.
The Practical Fruits of Calvinism in History are its Best
Vindication.
1. THE MEANS AS WELL AS THE ENDS ARE FOREORDAINED
The objection is sometimes made that this system
encourages men to be careless and indifferent about their moral conduct
and their growth in grace, on the ground that their eternal welfare has
already been secured. This objection is primarily directed against the
doctrines of Election, and the Perseverance of the Saints.
This objection, however, like the one to the effect that
this system discourages all motives to exertion, is completely answered
by the great principle which we hold and teach, namely, that the means
as well as the ends are foreordained. God's decree that the earth should
be fruitful did not exclude, but included, the sunlight, the showers,
the tillage of the husbandman, etc. If God has foreordained a man to
have a crop of corn, He has also foreordained him to plow and plant and
cultivate and to do all other necessary things to secure the crop. Just
as a purpose to build includes the hewing of stone, the squaring of
timbers, and the preparation of all other materials which enter into the
structure; and as a declaration of war implies arms, ammunition, ships,
and all other necessary equipment; so the election of some to the
eternal enjoyment of heaven includes their election to holiness here.
It is not the individual as such, but the individual as holy
and virtuous, that is predestinated to eternal life.
In the plainest of language Paul taught that the very
purpose of election is, "That we should be holy and without blemish
before Him in love," Ephesians 1:4; that we are "foreordained to be
conformed to the image of His Son," Romans 8:29; and that "God chose you
from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and
belief of the truth," 2 Thessalonians 2:13. "As many as were ordained to
eternal life believed," Acts 13:48. The predestinated, called,
justified, glorified ones are the same, Romans 8:29, 30. Therefore the
purpose of God according to election must stand, Romans 9:11.
The belief of Calvinists concerning this subject is well
expressed in the Westminster Confession, where we read: "As God hath
appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free
purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore
they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are
effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due
season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power
through faith unto salvation." (III: 6).
"God decreed that fifteen years should be added to
Hezekiah's life; this made him neither careless of his health, nor
negligent of his food; he said not, 'Though I run into the fire, or into
the water, or drink poison, I shall nevertheless live so long'; but
natural providence, in the due use of means co-wrought so as to bring
him on to that period of time pre-ordained by him."1 Since
all events are more or less intimately connected, and since God works by
means, if He did not determine the means as well as the events,
the certainty
as to the events themselves would be destroyed. In the redemption of man
He determined not only the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, but
also the faith, repentance and perseverance of all His people.
When this same doctrine was preached by Paul on another
occasion and this same objection was brought against it — namely, that
he "made the law of none effect through faith," or in other words, that
since we are saved through faith we do not need to keep the moral law —
his emphatic reply was, "God forbid; nay, we establish the law," Romans
3 :31. There is, then, an invariable connection established between
eternal salvation as an end, and faith and holiness as a means leading
to that end.
The ideal Christian, of course, would commit no sin at
all. Though certainly saved, he is saved for good works, and is
commanded to "give no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our
ministration be not blamed," 2 Corinthians 6:3. The Scriptures know of
no perseverance which is not a perseverance in holiness, and they give
no encouragement to any sense of security which is not connected with a
present and ever increasing holiness. Virtue and piety, therefore, are
the effect and not the cause of election, for which no cause is to be
assigned except God's sovereign good pleasure. It is true that some
become much more advanced in holiness here and continue in that state
over a much longer period of time than do others; yet it is vain for any
who do not partake in some degree of holiness in this world to hope to
enjoy happiness in the next. All those whom God has designed to render
perfectly happy in eternity, He has designed to make in part happy in
this world; and as holiness is essential to the happiness of an
intelligent creature, so there is begun in them in this world that
holiness without which no one shall see the Lord.
2. LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO GOD FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR US
IS THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE AND ONLY PERMANENT BASIS FOR MORALITY
Those who make the objection that we are now considering
assume that believers — those who through the almighty power of God have
been brought from death to life, from sin to holiness; who have
partially beheld the love and glory of God as it is revealed in Christ —
are still incapable of being influenced by any motives except those
which arise from a selfish and exclusive regard to their own safety and
happiness. And, as Cunningham says, they do virtually make a confession,
"first, that any outward decency which their conduct may at present
exhibit, is to be traced solely to the fear of punishment; and,
secondly, that if they were only secured against punishment, they would
find much greater satisfaction in serving the Devil than in serving God;
and that they would never think of showing any gratitude to Him who had
conferred the safety and deliverance on which they place so much
reliance." 2
The contrast between the Calvinistic and the Arminian
basis for morality is clearly stated in the following section from
McFetridge: "The two great springs by which men are moved are, on the
one hand, conviction and idea, on the other, emotion
and sentiment; as these control, so the moral character will be
shaped. The man who is ruled by convictions and ideas is the man of
stability; he cannot be changed until his conscience is changed; the man
who is ruled by emotion and sentiment is the man of instability. Now,
the appeal of Arminianism is chiefly to the sentiments. Regarding man as
having the absolute free moral control of himself, and as able at any
moment to determine his own eternal state, it naturally applies itself
to the arousing of his emotions. Whatever can lawfully awaken the
feelings it considers expedient. Accordingly, the senses, above all
things, must be addressed and affected. Hence the Arminian is,
religiously, a man of feeling, of sentiment, and consequently disposed
to all those things which interest the eye and please the ear. His
morality, therefore, as depending chiefly upon the emotions, is, in the
nature of the case, liable to frequent fluctuation, rising or falling
with the wave of sensation upon which it rides. Calvinism, on the other
hand, is a system which appeals to idea rather than sentiment, to
conscience rather than emotion. In its views all things are under a
great and perfect system of divine laws, which operate in defiance of
feeling, and which must be obeyed at the peril of the soul . . . . Its
thought is not sentiment, but conviction . . . . It makes
the voice of God, speaking in the soul, a guide in all conduct. It seeks
rather to convince men than to fill them with a transient
sensation. Thus a deep sense of duty is the greatest thing in the
moral life of the Calvinist. His first and last question is, Is it
right? Of that he must first be convinced. Hence with him
conscience has the first place in all practical questions . . . . In
the Calvinistic conception God has marked out the way in which man is to
walk — a way which He will not change; and man is required to walk in
it, joyously or sorrowfully, with as much or as little sentiment as he
pleases. Hence the Calvinist is not, religiously, a man of
demonstrations, but rather a man of thoughtfulness; so that his
morality, whatever it may be otherwise, is characterized by stability
and strength, which may sometimes lapse into stubbornness and
harshness." 3
Our love to God would at best be only lukewarm if we
believed that His love and favor toward us depended only on our good
behavior. His love toward us is as an immense sun, which shone without
beginning and which will shine without end, while ours toward Him is, at
its best, as only a little flame. Hence the assurance that the objects
of God's love shall never be permitted to fall away. Love which is
founded on self-interest is commonly recognized as not being moral in
the highest sense; yet Calvinism is the only system of faith which
presents a purely unselfish motive, namely the consciousness that it is
alone the free grace and unmerited love of God, to the exclusion of all
human merit, that saves men. When the Christian remembers that he was
saved only through the suffering and death of Christ his substitute,
love and gratitude overflow his heart; and, like Paul, he feels that the
least he can offer Christ in return is his whole life in loving service.
Seeing himself saved by grace alone, he learns to love God for His own
sake and finds it the joy of his life to serve Him with the whole heart.
Obedience becomes not only the obligatory but the preferable good.
The motive which actuates the saints on earth is the same
in principle, though not so intense, as that which actuates the saints
in glory, whose constant delight is to perform the noblest actions and
service, namely, that of praising God, and punctually performing His
will without interruptions or defeats. "As they have always a ravishing
sense of His goodness to them, so they exercise their perfectly pure
minds in ascriptions of praise and glory to him for delivering them from
deserved ruin, and placing them in the blissful mansions where they find
themselves possessed of ease, delight, complacency, and glory wholly
unmerited." 4
Pure love and gratitude to God, and not selfish fear, is
the very fuel of acceptable obedience, and these are the elements from
which alone anything like high and pure morality will ever proceed.
Jesus had no fear that a sense of eternal security would lead to
licentiousness in His disciples, for He said to them, "Rejoice that your
names are written in heaven." The elect, therefore, have the utmost
reason to love and glorify God which any beings can have, and it is a
sheer calumny to represent the doctrine of Predestination as tending to
licentiousness and as unfavorable to good morality.
3. THE PRACTICAL FRUITS OF CALVINISM IN HISTORY ARE ITS
BEST VINDICATION
Calvinism answers the charge that it is unfavorable to
good morality, not merely by opposing reason against reason, but by
putting facts of world-wide reputation over against these fictitious
claims. It simply asks, What rival fruits can other systems oppose if we
point to the achievements of the Protestant leaders of the Reformation
period, and to the high moral earnestness of the Puritans? Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli, and their immediate helpers were all thorough-going
"Calvinists," and the greatest spiritual revival of all time was brought
about under their influence. Those in England who held this system of
faith were so very strict regarding purity of doctrine, purity of
worship, and purity of daily life, that by their very enemies, who thus
were their best witnesses, they were called "Puritans." The Puritans in
England, the Covenanters in Scotland, and the Huguenots in France, were
men of the same religious faith and of like moral qualities. That the
system of Calvin should have developed precisely the same kind of men in
each of these different countries is a proof of its power in the
formation of character.
Concerning the Puritans in this country McFetridge says:
"Amongst all the people in the American colonies, they (the Puritans,
Calvinists of New England) stood morally without peers. They were the
men and the women of conscience, of sterling convictions. They were not,
indeed, greatly given to sentimentalism. With mere spectacular
observances in religion they had no sympathy. Life to them was an
experience too noble and earnest and solemn to be frittered away in
pious ejaculations and emotional rhapsodies. They believed with all
their soul in a just God, a heaven and a hell. They felt, in the
innermost core of their hearts, that life was short and its
responsibilities great. Hence their religion was their life. All their
thoughts and relations were imbued with it. Not only men, but beasts
also, were made to feel its favorable influences. Cruelty to animals was
a civil offense. In this respect they were two centuries in advance of
the bulk of mankind. They were industrious, frugal and enterprising, and
consequently affluence followed in their path and descended to their
children and children's children. Drunkenness, profanity and beggary
were things little known to them. They needed neither lock nor
burglarproof to secure their honestly-gotten possessions. The simple
wooden bolt was enough to protect them and their wealth where honesty
was the rule of life. As the result of such a life they were healthy and
vigorous. They lived long and happily, reared large and devoted
families, and descended to the grave 'like as a shock of corn cometh in
his season,' in peace with God and their fellow-men, rejoicing in the
hope of a blessed resurrection." 5
It is further to be remembered as a diadem upon the brow
of Calvinistic morality, that in all the history of the Puritans there
is said to have been not one case of divorce. What a crying need
there is for some such influence today! Lawlessness in general was
scarcely, if ever, more unknown than among the Puritans. If, then,
Calvinism was actually unfavorable to morality, as charged, it would
indeed be a strange coincidence that where there has been the most of
Calvinism there has been the least of crime. "This is the problem," says
Froude, "Grapes do not grow on bramble bushes. Illustrious natures do
not form themselves upon narrow and cruel theories. Spiritual life is
full of apparent paradoxes . . . . The practical effect of a belief is
the real test of its soundness. Where we find heroic life appearing as
the uniform fruit of a particular opinion, it is childish to argue in
the face of fact that the result ought to have been different." 6
"There is no system," says Henry Ward Beecher, "which
equals Calvinism in intensifying, to the last degree, ideas of moral
excellence and purity of character. There never was a system since the
world stood which puts upon man such motives to holiness, or which
builds batteries which sweep the whole ground of sin with such horrible
artillery. They tell us that Calvinism plies men with hammer and with
chisel. It does; and the result is monumental marble. Other systems
leave men soft and dirty; Calvinism makes them of white marble, to
endure forever." 7
Instead of being a system which leads to immorality and
despair, it has worked out exactly the opposite way in every-day life.
No other system has so fired people with ideals of religious and civil
freedom, nor led to such high ideals of morality and endeavor in all
phases of human life. Wherever the Reformed Faith has gone it has made
the country to blossom like the rose, even though it was a poor country
like Holland, or Scotland, or New England. This has been admitted by
Macaulay and many others, and is a very comforting thought.
