Calvinistic Controversy

If your servant had left you unjustly, and deserted the service he was obligated to perform, and you should finally tell him, if he would return and resume his duties you would forgive the past, and accept of him for the future, would it be inconsistent to say, you were pleased when he began to listen to the proposal, and pleased when he took the first and every succeeding step, as being suitable and necessary to the end proposed, although, in view of his duty and your claim, you would not be pleased with him, as your acceptable servant, until he was actually and faithfully employed in your service?

Let it not be inferred from the above that I advocate a gradual conversion. I do not. I believe when God renews the heart he does it at once; but the preparatory steps are nevertheless indispensable to the accomplishment of this work. And God is well pleased with the first step of attention on the part of the sinner, and with every succeeding step of prayer, anxious inquiry, feeling of moral obligation, purpose to forsake sin, looking after and attempting to believe in Christ, not because these are all that he requires, but because they are the necessary preparatives for what is to follow.

3. The foregoing remarks will prepare the way to meet a similar objection to the last, and one to some extent the same in substance. It is this: “Are these conditional acts of the mind holy or unholy exercises? If holy, then the work of regeneration is accomplished already, and therefore these cannot be the conditions of that change. If unholy, then they can be no other than offensive to a holy God, and therefore cannot be conditions well pleasing to him.” In addition to what has been already said, having a bearing upon this question, it may be stated that the terms holy and unholy may be equivocal, as used in this connection; and thus the supposed dilemma would be more in words than in fact, more in appearance than in reality. This dilemma is urged in the argument under the idea that there can be but the two kinds of exercises, holy and unholy. And this may be true enough, only let us understand what is meant. If by holy exercises are meant those in which the entire feeling is on the side of God, I readily answer, No, the mind before regeneration has no such exercises. If by holiness is meant, that the judgment and conscience are on the side of truth, I answer, Yes, this is the state of the mind when it is truly awakened by the Holy Spirit and by Divine truth. It is entirely immaterial to me, therefore, whether the objector call the exercise holy or unholy, provided he draw no special inferences from the use of a general term that the positions here assumed do not authorize. Sure I am that the objector cannot say there is nothing in the exercises of the unregenerate, awakened sinner, such as God would have for the end proposed, until he is prepared to say that a fear of the consequences of sin, an enlightened judgment, the remorse of conscience for the past, the feelings of obligation for the future, and the hope of victory over sin through Christ, all combining to induce the sinner to flee for refuge, and lay hold upon the hope set before him, are all wrong, and not as God would have them? But when a man is prepared to say this, it is difficult to see how he could be reasoned with farther, for he would seem to have given up reason and Scripture. And yet who does not know that these are the exercises of the soul awakened to a sense of sin and its consequences, even while as yet his unholy affections hang upon him like a body of death: – Yea, who does not know that it is this body of death, from which he cannot escape, and this abhorrence of sin and its consequences, that rein him up, and incline him to a surrender of his soul into the hands of Christ, from whom, as a consequence, he receives power to become a son of God. “But what is the motive?” it is asked, “is not this unholy?” And pray what does this inquiry mean? If by motive is meant the moving cause out of the mind; that cannot be unholy, for it is the Holy Spirit, and the holy word of God, that are thus urging the sinner to Christ. If by motive is meant the judgments and feelings of the mind, that prompt to these voluntary efforts to avoid sin and its consequences, these are the enlightened understanding and the feelings of obligation, already alluded to, which, I repeat, the objector is welcome to call holy or unholy as he pleases; all I claim is, they are what God approves of, and are the necessary conditions of his subsequent work of renewing the heart.

But perhaps it may be asked here, Is not the sinner, in the performance of these conditions, partly converted? I answer, This again depends entirely upon what you mean by conversion. If by conversion you understand the whole of the preparatory work of awakening and seeking, as well as the change of the heart – then of course you would say he is partly converted. If you mean by conversion only a change of views and a consequent change of purpose, by which the sinner determines to seek, that he may find the pearl of great price – the blessing of a new heart and of forgiveness, then you would say he is wholly converted. But if you mean, by conversion, the change of heart itself, the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, then not only is not the work done, but it is not begun. The way of the Lord is prepared and the renewal will follow.

Thus the objections that have been thought so formidable against the doctrine of conditional regeneration are found, on a closer inspection, to be more in appearance than in reality. They receive their influence, as objections, rather from their indefiniteness and the ambiguity of terms, than from any intrinsic force.

There is, however, one form more in which an objection may be urged in a general way against the ideas of the new birth here advanced. And as I wish fearlessly and candidly to state and meet, if possible, every difficulty, it will be necessary to touch upon this. It may be urged that “the only exercises that can be claimed as conditions of regeneration on Bible grounds are repentance and faith; for ‘repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ are laid at the foundation of all Gospel requirements. Whenever the awakened sinner came to the apostles to know what he should do to be saved, they always met him with, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ Whenever the apostles went out to preach the Gospel, they preached ‘every where that men should repent.’” “But,” continues the objector, “if repentance and faith are the only duties or exercises which can be claimed as conditions, it is evident there are no such conditions; for repentance and faith, so far from being conditions of regeneration, are either the new birth itself, or are Christian graces, implying the new birth.”

The premises, in the above objection, will not be denied. Repentance and faith are supposed to be the Gospel conditions of regeneration. But it is denied that these are necessarily regeneration itself, or that they imply regeneration in any other sense, than as antecedents to it. There are, it is acknowledged, a repentance and a faith that are Christian graces, and imply the new birth. This is the faith that “is the substance of things hoped for.” It is that principle of spiritual life which the Christian has in his soul when he can say, “The life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God.” This is that repentance, also, which keeps the soul continually at the foot of the cross, and leads it constantly to feel,

“Every moment, Lord, I needThe merit of thy death.”

But because repentance and faith are the necessary characteristics of the Christian, and because they are the more perfect as the Christian character ripens, it does not therefore follow that there are no repentance and faith conditional to the new birth. The very fact that repentance and faith were urged by Christ and his apostles, as the initiatory step to salvation, proves the opposite of this. They do not say, Repent and believe the Gospel, and this is salvation, but, “Repent and believe, and ye shall (on this condition) be saved.” And surely it is unnecessary to prove here that salvation in the New Testament generally means a meetness for heaven or holiness. Our blessed Saviour was called Jesus, because he saved his people from their sins.

Beside, it may well be argued, that faith and repentance are acts of the mind, and cannot therefore be considered as the new birth itself, unless the mind converts itself, especially since they are enjoined duties, and must therefore be voluntary acts. It is no where said that God repents and believes for us; but it is expressly and repeatedly taught, that God renews us. – Repentance and faith, then, are our work, but regeneration is his. I know it is said in one place, Acts v, 31, that Christ was exalted “to give repentance to Israel.” But the act itself of repentance cannot be said to be given. This would be an absurdity. How can any one give me a mental act? Hence Dr. Doddridge, although a Calvinist, very candidly and very justly remarks, on this passage, that “to give repentance signifies to give place, or room for repentance,” to sustain which interpretation he quotes Josephus and others who use the phrase in this sense. If then repentance and faith are enjoined upon us, as our duties, and if they are every where spoken of as prerequisites in the work of salvation, and as preparatory steps and conditions to the process of holiness, how can it be otherwise than that these are antecedent, in the order of nature, to regeneration?

It may farther be argued, in support of this view of faith and repentance, that no sin can be forgiven until repented of – repentance therefore must precede remission of sins. This I suppose Calvinists allow, but they say that, in the order of nature, the heart is renewed before sin is forgiven – and that repentance, therefore, which is either the new birth itself, or the immediate fruit of it, is a condition of justification, but not of regeneration. If this be correct, then the soul is made holy before it is forgiven. But St. Paul informs us, Romans iv, 5, that God through faith “justifieth the ungodly.” If then there be any antecedence in the order of the two parts of the work of grace, we must suppose that justification has the precedence, and that regeneration follows, and hence repentance and faith precede regeneration. Indeed I cannot see why repentance is not as necessary to remove the sin of the heart as to forgive the sin of the life. If God will not forgive sin without repentance, will he renew the heart without it? Has he any where promised this? If not, but if, on the contrary, he every where seems to have suspended the working out of our salvation in us, upon our repentance, then may we safely conclude – nay, then we must necessarily believe that we repent in order to be renewed. The same may be said of faith. Faith in fact seems to be the exclusive channel through which every gracious effect is produced upon the mind. The sinner cannot be awakened without faith, for it precedes every judgment in favour of truth, and every motion of moral feeling, and of course every favourable concurrence of the will. The sinner never could throw himself upon the Divine mercy, never would embrace Christ as his Saviour, until he believed. Hence the Scriptures lay such great stress upon faith, and make it the grand, and indeed the only immediate condition of the work of grace upon the heart. Repentance is a condition only remotely, in order to justifying faith; agreeable to the teaching of Christ, “And ye, when ye had heard, afterward repented not that ye might believe on him.” But faith is necessary immediately, as that mental state directly antecedent to the giving up of the soul into the hands of Divine mercy. And shall we still be told that faith is not the condition of regeneration? The order of the work seems to be – 1. A degree of faith in order to repentance. 2. Repentance, in order to such an increase of faith as will lead the soul to throw itself upon Christ. – 3. The giving up of the soul to Christ as the only ground of hope. 4. The change of heart by the efficient operation of the Holy Spirit. – Now on whichever of these four stages of the process, except the first, the objector lays his finger and says, That is not a condition of regeneration, for it is regeneration itself, it will be seen that that very part is conditional. If, for instance, he fix on the second stage, and contend that that is regeneration, which I call repentance in order to regenerating faith; even that would be conditional regeneration, for it is preceded by faith – and so of all that follow. And surely no one will pretend that what I call the first stage, the faith which precedes awakening and remorse of conscience, and the exciting alternations of fear and hope in the anxious and inquiring sinner, is regeneration. And if this first degree of faith is not the change, then it is utterly inconsistent to talk of unconditional regeneration, for this faith stands at the head of all that follows – it is a mental act necessarily preparatory to the whole work. And as we shall presently see, it is an act that depends upon the agency of the will. Hence we are brought again to our conclusion, that the change called the new birth is effected by the Holy Spirit, on the ground of certain conditional acts of him who is the subject of the change.

“But the very nature of repentance and of faith, the very definition of the two mental states expressed by these terms,” it is said, “proves that a person, to possess them, must be regenerate; or at any rate, that these states cannot be conditions of regeneration, to be performed by the sinner.” Let us attend for a moment to this objection in detail.

What is repentance? “It is,” say some Calvinistic writers, “a change of mind. The original means this, and so it should have been rendered; and if it had been so rendered, it would have set this controversy at rest.” But what if we should grant (what I do not believe) that the original word means this, and this only, still it would not follow that the change of mind called the new birth is meant by this term. A change of judgment is a change of mind – a change of purpose is a change of mind – any change of the general current of feeling, such as that from carelessness and stupidity in to a state of anxiety and earnest inquiry, what shall I do to be saved? is a change of mind. – And such a change of mind indispensably precedes regeneration. No person ever, from being a careless, hardened sinner, becomes an anxious and earnest inquirer after salvation, without an important change in his judgment, moral feeling, and volitions. Hence this definition does not at all help the objector, unless he can prove that the Scriptures always mean by this term that change which they elsewhere call the new birth. Indeed, since we have already shown that repentance is our work, and the renewing of the heart exclusively God’s work, it follows incontrovertibly, that the change of mind called repentance is not the new birth.

If repentance meant that change of mind called the new birth, then the regenerate would be often born again, and that, too, without backsliding; for those who are growing the fastest in grace repent the most constantly and the most deeply.

Again: it is objected, that “faith is not a voluntary state of mind, and therefore cannot be considered a condition, performed by the sinner, in order to regeneration.” To believe is doubtless, in many instances, perfectly involuntary. There are numerous cases in which a man is obliged to believe, both against his will and against his desires. There are other cases, again, in which the will is not only much concerned in believing, but in which its action is indispensable in order to believe. And the faith of the Gospel is pre-eminently an instance of this kind. “Faith,” saith the word, “cometh by hearing.” But hearing implies attention; and every deliberate act of attention implies an act of the will. A man can no more leap, by one transition, from a state of entire carelessness into the faith that justifies the soul, than he can make a world. But he can take the steps that lead to this result. To believe to the saving of the soul requires consideration, self examination, a knowledge of the object of faith, or the truth to be believed, earnest looking, and prayerful seeking. But is there no act of the will in all these? It is said that “the Spirit takes of the things of Jesus Christ, and shows them unto us.” And it is doubtless true, that the soul cannot get such a view of Christ as encourages him to throw himself unreservedly upon the mercy of the Saviour, until the Spirit makes, to the mind’s eye, this special exhibition of the “things of Christ.” But when does he do this? Does he come to the sinner when he is careless and inattentive, and show him the things of Christ? No! it is only to the inquiring and self – despairing sinner, who is earnestly groaning out the sentiment in the bitterness of his heart, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And is there no voluntary action in all this?

But it will perhaps be wearisome to the reader to pursue these objections farther. I should not have gone so fully into this part of the subject, but for the fact, that this sentiment of unconditional regeneration is considered the strong hold of Calvinism. This point moreover appears to have been but slightly handled by most of the anti-Calvinistic writers; and therefore I have felt it the more necessary to attempt an answer to all the most important arguments that are adduced in opposition to our view of this doctrine. I am far from thinking I have done the subject justice, and may have cause perhaps hereafter to acknowledge that some of my minor positions are untenable, and that some of my expressions need modifying or explaining, although I have used what care and circumspection my time and circumstances would permit in reference not only to the doctrine itself, but also in reference to the forms of expression. And as it respects the leading doctrines here inculcated, I repose upon them with entire confidence. However the theory clashes with that of many great and good men, it is believed to be the only theory that will consistently explain the practice and preaching of these very men. It is, in my view, the only theory that will satisfactorily and consistently explain those great and leading principles by which evangelical Christians expect to convert the world to Christ. And, if this be true, the sooner the Christian Church is established on this foundation, the better. We have already seen that a mixture of error in the essential doctrines leads to various mutations from extreme to extreme of dangerous heresy. How long before the Church shall be rooted and grounded in the truth! May He who said, Let light be; and light was, hasten that glorious day!

THE END

1

Many objections have been made, by the reviewers, to my manner of stating the doctrine of predestination. It is objected, that the great body of Calvinists believe, no more than the Arminians, that God “efficiently controls and actuates the human will.” On a careful, and I hope, candid revision of the subject, however, I cannot satisfy myself that the objection is valid. I am quite sure God must control the will, or he cannot, as Calvinists teach, secure the proposed end, by the prescribed means. It is readily granted that Calvinists deny such a control as destroys the freedom of the will. But it is the object of the sermon and of the following controversy to show that Calvinistic predestination is, on any ground of consistency, utterly irreconcilable with mental freedom. How far this has been done, of course, each will judge for himself.

2

It seems, to the author of the sermon, but little better than trifling, to object, as some have, to this argument on foreknowledge, that “God must predetermine his works before he could certainly know what would take place; and hence, in the order of cause and effect, he must decree in order to know.” It is readily conceded, that, in the order of nature, the Divine Being could not foreknow that a world would certainly exist, until he had determined to create it. But was there no prescience back of this? Did he determine to create a universe, independent of a view of all the bearings in the case? If so, he created at random and in ignorance. If not, then a view of all the results preceded his determination to create; and thus we are led irresistibly to the doctrine of the sermon, that “God foreknows in order to predestinate,”

3

The review of the sermon, in the Christian Spectator, is understood to be from the pen of Doctor Fitch, professor of divinity in Yale College.

4

See Christian Spectator, Vol. iv, No. 3.

5

A part of this sermon has lately been published, in a tract form, and circulated with the avowed purpose of counteracting the influence of the sermon “on predestination.”

6

A man was afflicted with the hydrophobia. When his paroxysms were coming on he was aware of it, and gave warning to his friends to be on their guard, that he might not injure them. Suppose, however, he knew of a sure remedy, but voluntarily neglected to avail himself of it. Would he not in that case be guilty, not only of all the evils that might result to others from his malady; but also of self murder? And yet this man’s madness was entirely beyond the direct control of his will.