We have now examined
the Calvinistic system in considerable detail, and have seen its influence in
the Church, in the State, in society, and in education. We have also
considered the objections which are commonly brought against it, and have
considered the practical importance of the system. It now remains for us to
make a few general observations in regard to the system as a whole.
A sure test of the
character of individuals or of systems is found in Christ's own words: "By
their fruits ye shall know them." By that test Calvinists and Calvinism will
gladly be judged. The lives and the influences of those who have held the
Reformed Faith is one of the best and most conclusive arguments in its favor.
Smith refers to "that divinely vital and exuberant Calvinism, !he creator of
the modern world, the mother of heroes, saints and martyrs in number without
number, which history, judging the tree by its fruits, crowns as the greatest
creed of Christendom."1 The impartial verdict of history is that as
a character builder and as a proclaimer of liberty to men and nations
Calvinism stands supreme among all the religious systems of the world. In
calling the roll of the great men of our own country the number of
Presbyterian presidents, legislators, jurists, authors, editors, teachers and
business men is vastly disproportionate to the membership of the
Church. Every impartial historian will admit that it was the Protestant revolt
against Rome which gave the modern world its first taste of genuine religious
and civil liberty, and,that the nations which have achieved and enjoyed the
greatest freedom have been those which were most fully brought under the
influence of Calvinism. Furthermore that great life-giving stream of religious
and civil liberty has been made by Calvinism to flow over all the broad plains
of modern history. When we compare countries such as England, Scotland and
America, with countries such as France, Spain and Italy, which never came
under the influences of Calvinism, we readily see what the practical results
are. The economic and moral depression in Roman Catholic countries has brought
about such a decrease even in the birth rate that the population in those
countries hah become almost stationary, while the population in these
other countries has steadily increased.
A brief examination
of Church history, or of the historic creeds of Protestantism, readily shows
that the doctrines which today are known as Calvinism were the ones which
brought about the Reformation and preserved its benefits. He who is most
familiar with the history of Europe and America will readily agree with the
startling statement of Dr. Cunningham that, "next to Paul, John Calvin has
done most for the world." And Dr. Smith has well said: "Surely it should stop
the mouths of the detractors of Calvinism to remember that from men of that
creed we inherit, as the fruits of their blood and toil, their prayers and
teachings, our civil liberty, our Protestant faith, our Christian homes. The
thoughtful reader, noting that these three blessings lie at the root of all
that is best and greatest in the modern world, may be startled at the implied
claim that our present Christian civilization is but the fruitage of
Calvinism."2
We do but repeat the
very clear testimony of history when we say that Calvinism has been the creed
of saints and heroes. "Whatever the cause," says Froude, "the Calvinists were
the only fighting Protestants. It was they whose faith gave them courage to
stand up for the Reformation, and but for them the Reformation would have been
lost." During those centuries in which spiritual tyranny was numbering its
victims by the thousands; when in England, Scotland, Holland and Switzerland,
Protestantism had to maintain itself with the sword, Calvinism proved itself
the only system able to cope with and destroy the great powers of the Romish
Church. Its unequalled array of martyrs is one of its crowns of glory. In the
address of the Methodist Conference to the Presbyterian Alliance of 1896 it
was graciously said: "Your Church has furnished the memorable and inspiring
spectacle, not simply of a solitary heroic soul here and there, but of
generations of faithful souls ready for the sake of Christ and His truth to go
cheerfully to prison and to death. This rare honor you rightly esteem as the
most precious part of your priceless heritage." "There is no other system of
religion in the world," says McFetridge, which has such a glorious array of
martyrs to the faith. "Almost every man and woman who walked to the flames
rather than deny the faith or leave a stain on conscience was the devout
follower, not only, and first of all, of the Son of God, but also of that
minister of God who made Geneva the light of Europe, John Calvin."3
To the Divine vitality and fruitfulness of this system the modern world owes a
debt of gratitude which in recent years it is slowly beginning to recognize
but can never repay.
We have said that
Calvinistic theology develops a liberty loving people. Where it flourishes
despotism cannot abide. As might have been expected, it early gave rise to a
revolutionary form of Church government, in which the people of the Church
were to be governed and ministered to, not by the appointees of any one man or
set of men placed over them, but by pastors and officers elected by
themselves. Religion was then with the people, not over them. Testimony from a
remarkable source as to the efficiency of this government is that of the
distinguished Roman Catholic, Archbishop Hughes of New York: "Though it is my
privilege to regard the authority exercised by the General Assembly as
usurpation, still I must say, with every man acquainted with the mode in which
it is organized, that for the purpose of popular and political government its
structure is little inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts on the
principle of a radiating center, and is without an equal or a rival among the
other denominations of the country."4
From freedom and
responsibility in the Church it was only a step to freedom and responsibility
in the State; and historically the cause of freedom has found no braver nor
more resolute champions than the followers of Calvin.
"Calvinism," says
Warburton, "is no dreamy, theoretical creed. It does not, — despite all the
assertions of its adversaries, — encourage a man to fold his arms in a spirit
of fatalistic indifference, and ignore the needs of those around him, together
with the crying evils which lie, like putrifying sores, upon the open face of
society."5 Wherever it has gone marvelous moral transformations
have followed in its wake. For purity of life, for temperance, industry, and
charity, the Calvinists have stood without superiors.
James Anthony Froude
has been recognized as one of England's most able historians and men of
letters. For a number of years he was professor of History at Oxford,
England's greatest university. While he accepted another system for himself,
and while his writings are such that he is often spoken of as an opponent of
Calvinism, he was free from prejudice, and the ignorant attacks upon Calvinism
which have been so common in recent years aroused in him the learned scholar's
just impatience.
"I am going to ask
you," says Froude, "to consider how it came to pass that if Calvinism is
indeed the hard and unreasonable creed which modern enlightenment declares it
to be, it has possessed such singular attractions in past times for some of
the greatest men that ever lived; and how — being as we are told, fatal to
morality, because it denies free will — the first symptom of its operation,
wherever it established itself, was to obliterate the distinction between sins
and crimes, and to make the moral law the rule of life for States as well as
persons. I shall ask you, again, why, if it be a creed of intellectual
servitude, it was able to inspire and sustain the bravest efforts ever made by
man to break the yoke of unjust authority. When all else has failed, — when
patriotism has covered its face and human courage has broken down, — when
intellect has yielded, as Gibbon says, 'with a smile or a sigh,' content to
philosophize in the closet, and abroad worship with the vulgar, — when
emotion, and sentiment, and tender imaginative piety have become the handmaids
of superstition, and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is
any difference between lies and truth, — the slavish form of belief called
Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, has borne ever an inflexible
front to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred rather to be ground to
powder like flint than to bend before violence or melt under enervating
temptation."
To illustrate this
Froude mentions William the Silent, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Coligny, Cromwell,
Milton, and Bunyan, and says of them: "These men are possessed of all the
qualities which give nobility and grandeur to human nature, — men whose life
was as upright as their intellect was commanding and their public aims
untainted with selfishness; unalterably just where duty required them to be
stern, but with the tenderness of a woman in their hearts; frank, true,
cheerful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine
anyone, and able in some way to sound the key-note to which every brave and
faithful heart in Europe instinctively vibrated."6
We shall now turn our
attention to Calvinism as an evangelizing force. A very practical test for any
system of religious doctrine is, "Has it, in comparison with other systems,
proved itself a success in the evangelization of the world ?" To save sinners
and convert them to practical godliness is the chief purpose of the Church in
this world; and the system which will not measure up to this test must be set
aside, no matter how popular it may be in other respects.
The first great
Christian revival, in which three thousand people were converted, occurred
under the preaching of Peter in Jerusalem, who employed such language as this:
"Him being delivered up by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God,
ye by the hands of lawless men did crucify and slay," Acts 2:23. And the
company of disciples, when in earnest prayer shortly afterward, spoke in these
words: "For of a truth in this city against thy holy servant Jesus,
whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and
the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and
thy counsel foreordained to come to pass," Acts 4:27, 28. That is Calvinism
rigid enough.
The next great
revival in the Church, which occurred in the fourth century through the
influence of Augustine, was based on these doctrines, as is readily
seen by anyone who reads the literature on that period. The Reformation, which
is admitted by all to have been incomparably the greatest revival of true
religion since New Testament times, occurred under the soundly predestinarian
preaching of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. To Calvin and Admiral Coligny
belongs the credit of having inspired the first Protestant foreign missionary
enterprise, the expedition to Brazil in 1555. True, the venture proved
unsuccessful, and the religious wars in Europe prevented the renewal of the
enterprise for a considerable period.
McFetridge has given
us some interesting and comparatively unknown facts about the rise of the
Methodist Church. Says he: "We speak of the Methodist Church beginning in a
revival. And so it did. But the first and chief actor in that revival was not
Wesley, but Whitefield (an uncompromising Calvinist). Though a younger man
than Wesley, it was he who first went forth preaching in the fields and
gathering multitudes of followers, and raising money and building chapels. It
was Whitefield who invoked the two Wesleys to his aid. And he had to employ
much argument and persuasion to overcome their prejudices against the
movement. Whitefield began the great work at Bristol and Kingswood, and had
found thousands flocking to his side, ready to be organized into churches,
when he appealed to Wesley for assistance. Wesley, with all his zeal, had been
quite a High-Churchman in many of his views. He believed in immersing even the
infants, and demanded that dissenters should be rebaptized before being taken
into the Church. He could not think of preaching in any place but in a church.
'He should have thought,' as he said, 'the saving of souls almost a sin if it
had not been done in a church.' Hence when Whitefield called on John Wesley to
engage with him in the popular movement, he shrank back. Finally, he yielded
to Whitefield's persuasions, but, he allowed himself to be governed in the
decision by what many would rate as a superstition. He and Charles first
opened their Bibles at random to see if their eyes should fall on a text which
might decide them. But the texts were all foreign to the subject. Then he had
recourse to sortilege, and cast lots to decide the matter. The lot drawn was
the one marked for him to consent, and so he consented. Thus he was led to
undertake the work with which his name has been so intimately and honorably
associated ever since.
"So largely was the
Methodist movement owing to Whitefield that he was called 'the Calvinistic
establisher of Methodism,' and to the end of his life he remained the
representative of it in the eyes of the learned world. Walpole, in his
Letters, speaks only once of Wesley in connection with the rise of Methodism,
while he frequently speaks of Whitefield in connection with it. Mant,
in his course of lectures against Methodism, speaks of it as an entirely
Calvinistic affair. Neither the mechanism nor the force which gave rise to it
originated with Wesley. Field-preaching, which gave the whole movement its
aggressive character, and fitted and enabled it to cope with the powerful
agencies which were armed against it, was begun by Whitefield, whilst 'Wesley
was dragged into it reluctantly.' In the polite language of the day
'Calvinism' and 'Methodism' were synonymous terms, and the Methodists
were called 'another sect of Presbyterians.' ....
"It was
Calvinism, and not Arminianism, which originated (so far as any system of
doctrine originated) the great religious movement in which the Methodist
Church was born.
"While, therefore,
Wesley is to be honored for his work in behalf of that Church, we should not
fail to remember the great Calvinist, George Whitefield, who gave that Church
her first beginnings and her most distinctive character. Had he lived longer,
and not shrunk from the thought of being the founder of a Church, far
different would have been the results of his labors. As it was, he gathered
congregations for others to form into Churches, and built chapels for others
to preach in."7
It should also be
said at this point that Wesley was a believer in witchcraft. Failure to
believe in witches was looked upon by him as a concession to infidels and
rationalists. Many of his biographers have passed over this subject in
silence, although some of those most friendly to his cause have admitted that
he stated his beliefs in words which cannot be misunderstood. In his Journal
we read this report of a girl who was subject to fits: "When old Doctor
Alexander was asked what her disorder was, he answered, 'It is what formerly
they would have called being bewitched.' And why should they not call it so
now? Because the infidels have hooted witchcraft out of the world; and the
complaisant Christians, in large numbers, have joined them in the cry."
Although Calvin lived two and a quarter centuries before Wesley and had not
the advantages of the scientific and intellectual progress that had been made
during that time, we find no such strange credulity in him. His writings are
not only free from witchcraft but contain numerous warnings against such
belief.
The famous English
Baptist Charles Hadden Spurgeon (1834-1892), one of the world's greatest
preachers, spoke as follows:
"I am never ashamed
to avow myself a Calvinist. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but
if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, 'It is Jesus Christ.'"
And again, "Many of
our Calvinistic preachers do not feed God's people. They believe election, but
they do not preach it. They think particular redemption true, but they lock it
in the chest of their creed, and never bring it out in their ministry. They
hold final perseverance, but they persevere in keeping quiet about it. They
think there is such a thing as effectual calling, but they do not think they
are called frequently to preach it. The great fault we find with them is, that
they do not speak right out what they believe. You could not know if you heard
them fifty times what were the doctrines of the Gospel, or what was their
system of salvation. And hence God's people get starved."
When we come to a
study of foreign missions we find that this system of belief has been the most
important agency in carrying the Gospel to the heathen nations. St. Paul, whom
the more liberal opponents of Calvinism admit to have been responsible for the
Calvinistic cast of the theological thought of the Church, was the greatest
and most influential of missionaries. If we call the roll of the hemes of
Protestant Missions we find that almost without exception they have been
disciples of Calvin. We find Carey and Martyn in India, Linvingstone and
Moffat in Africa, Morrison in China, Paton in the South Seas, and a great host
of others. These men professed and possessed a Calvinism which was not static
but dynamic; it was not their creed only, but their conduct.
And in regard to
foreign missions, Dr. F. W. Loetscher has said: "Though like all our sister
Churches we have reason, in view of our unprecedented resources and the
appalling needs of heathen lands, to lament that we have not accomplished
more, we may at least thank God that our venerated fathers made so good a
beginning in establishing missions all over the world; that the Calvinistic
Churches today surpass all others in their gifts to this cause; and in
particular that our own denomination has the unique honor and privilege of
discharging her far-reaching responsibities by actually confronting every one
of the great non-Christian religions, and preaching the gospel on more
continents, and among more nations, peoples, and tongues, than any other
evangelical Church in the world."8
Although to some it
may sound like an unwarranted exaggeration, we have no hesitation in saying
that through the centuries Calvinism, fearlessly and ringingly polemic in its
insistence upon, and defense of, sound doctrine, has been the real strength of
the Christian Church. The traditionally high standards of the Calvinistic
Churches in regard to ministerial training and culture have borne a great
harvest in bringing multitudes to the feet of Jesus, not in temporary
excitement, but in perpetual covenant. Judged by its fruits Calvinism has
proven itself incomparably the greatest evangelizing force in the world.
The enemies of
Calvinism are not able honestly to confront the testimony of history.
Certainly a glorious record belongs to this system in the history of modern
civilization. None more noble can be found anywhere. "It has ever been
a mystery to the so-called liberals," says Henry Ward Beecher, "that the
Calvinists, with what they have considered their harshly despotic and rigid
views and doctrines, should always have been the staunchest and bravest
defenders of freedom. The working for liberty of these severe principles in
the minds of those that adopted them has been a puzzle. But the truth lies
here: Calvinism has done what no other religion has ever been able to do. It
presents the highest human ideal to the world, and sweeps the whole road to
destruction with the most appalling battery that can be imagined.
"It intensifies,
beyond all example, the individuality of man, and shows in a clear and
overpowering light his responsibility to God and his relations to eternity. It
points out man as entering life under the weight of a tremendous
responsibility, having on his march toward the grave, this one sole solace —
of securing heaven and of escaping hell.
"Thus the Calvinist
sees man pressed, burdened, urged on, by the most mighty influencing forces.
He is on the march for eternity, and is soon to stand crowned in heaven or to
lie sweltering in hell, thus to continue for ever and ever. Who shall dare to
fetter such a being? Get out of his way ! Hinder him not, or do it at the
peril of your own soul. Leave him free to find his way to God. Meddle not with
him or with his rights. Let him work out his own salvation as he can. No hand
must be laid crushingly upon a creature who is on such a race as this — a race
whose end is to be eternal glory or unutterable woe for ever and ever."9
"This tree," to adopt
the eloquent paragraph of another, "may have, to prejudiced eyes, a rough
bark, a gnarled stem, and boughs twisted often into knotted shapes of
ungraceful strength. But, remember, it is not a willow-wand of yesterday.
These boughs have wrestled with the storms of a thousand years; this stem has
been wreathed with the red lightning and scarred by the thunderbolt; and all
over its rough rind are the marks of the battle-axe and the bullet. This old
oak has not the pliant grace and silky softness of a greenhouse plant, but it
has a majesty above grace, and a grandeur beyond beauty. Its roots may be
strangely contorted, but some of them are rich with the blood of glorious
battlefields, some of them are clasped around the stakes of martyrs; some of
them hidden in solitary cells and lonely libraries, where deep thinkers have
mused and prayed, as in some apocalyptic Patmos; and its great tap-root runs
back, until it twines in living and loving embrace around the cross of
Calvary. Its boughs may be gnarled, but they hang clad with all that is
richest and strongest in the civilization and Christianity of human history."10
As we survey this
system we feel as one sitting at the manual of a great organ. Our fingers
touch the keys, as stop after stop opens of the swell, until the full chorus
responds, a grand harmony. Calvinism touches all the music of life because it
seeks the Creator first and above all and finds Him everywhere. Or again, we
have been out upon the deep, the great celestial dome overhead, the wide
expanse of eternity all around our souls and in and above all, there is GOD.
Or again, we stand, as it were, at the rifting of the rocks, with the
landscape behind, the gorge before us, the mighty river of time flowing forth
out of and into eternity, the sun in its zenith overhead, all ablaze with
light and warmth, and in a whisper first, our souls have echoed back the
words, "0 the depth of the riches!" For Calvinism shows us God and traces His
footsteps, — God, in all His greatness, majesty, wisdom, holiness, justice,
love. Calvinism shows us God high and lifted up; and our souls cry out again,
"What is man that THOU . . . art mindful of him?"
This is no vain and
empty eulogy of Calvinism. With the above facts and observations every
enlightened and impartial reader of history will agree. Furthermore, the
author would say of this book what Dr. E. W. Smith in his book, "The Creed of
Presbyterians," said at the close of the chapter on, "The Creed Tested By Its
Fruits," — namely that these facts and observations are "set forth, not to
stimulate denominational vanity, but to fill us with gratitude to God for that
past history and that present eminence which should be to every one of us
'A vantage-ground for
nobleness';
and above all to
kindle in our hearts a holy enthusiasm for that Divine system of truth, which,
under God, has been the foremost factor in the making of America and the
modern world."
In conclusion we
would say that in this book the reader has found some very old-fashioned
divinity — divinity as old as the Bible, as old and older than the world
itself, since this plan of redemption was hidden in the eternal counsels of
God. No attempt has been made to cloak the fact that the doctrines advocated
and defended in these pages are really wonderful and startling. They are
enough to electrify the sleepy sinner who has taken it for granted all his
life long that he can square matters with God any time he pleases, and they
are sufficient to horrify the sleepy "saint" who has been deluding himself in
the deadening repose of a carnal religion. But why should they not cause
astonishment ? Does not nature teem with wonders ? Why should not revelation ?
One needs to read but little to become aware that Science brings to light many
astonishing truths which an uneducated man finds it hard, if not impossible,
to believe; and why should it not be so with the truths of Revelation and the
spiritually uneducated ? If the Gospel does not startle and terrify and amaze
a man when presented to him, it is not the true Gospel. But who was ever
amazed at Arminianism with its doctrine that every man carves out his own
destiny? It will not suffice merely to ignore or ridicule these doctrines as
many are inclined to do. The question is, Are these doctrines true? If they
are true, why ridicule them? If they are not true, disprove them. We close
with the statement that this great system of religious thought which bears
Calvin's name is nothing more or less than the hope of the world.
Footnotes:
1The Creed
of Presbyterians, p. vii.
2The Creed of Presbyterians, p. 74.
3Calvinism in History, p. 113.
4Presbyterians and the Revolution, p. 140.
5Calvinism. p. 78
6Calvinism, p. 8.
7Calvinism in History, pp. 151-153.
8Address before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church,
U.S.A., 1929.
9Plymouth Pulpit, article, Calvinism.
10Power and Claims of a Calvinistic Literature, p. 35, quoted from
Smith, The Creed of Presbyterians, p. 105.
