BX
78715
CAV6N LIBRARY
KNOX COLLEGr
TORONTO
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
BY THE
REV. N. S. McFETRIDGE.
PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET.
r CAVIN LIBRARY
KNOX roi I
78715
COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY
THE TRUSTEES OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
WESTCOTT & THOMSON,
Stereotype and Eleclrotypers, Philada.
4 -
TO THE
REV. WILLIAM C. CATTELL, D.D., LL.D.,
PRESIDENT OF LAFAYETTE COLLEGE,
WHOSE INSTRUCTION IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO RECEIVE,
WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IT IS MY HONOR TO SHARE,
THIS LITTLE BOOK
gVffctiionafelg febicattb.
TO THE READER.
THIS little book is made up of six Lectures
which were delivered in the \Vakefield Presby
terian Church, Germantowu, and of whose pub
lication I had, at the time, no thought. The
Lectures were the result of my leisure reading
on the subject during several years of a busy
pastorate. On leaving the theological school at
Allegheny, I hardly knew whether I was a Cal-
vinist or an Arminian, or a nameless compound
of both," although I had had the benefit of Dr.
A. A. Hodge s matchless teaching, which I now
regard as one of the greatest blessings of my
life. In that very uncomfortable yet very nat
ural state of mind I set myself to a course of
reading, doctrinal and historical, as opportunity
offeretTT One of the results of that readino-
o
was these Lectures. My main object in these
discourses was to look into the workings of the
system of doctrines called " Calvinistic," and by
6 TO THE READER.
its effects upon those who most heartily adopted
it to form some definite estimate of its character.
Therefore it is that I have brought forward the
testimony of a large number of accepted author
ities, many of whom are not Calvinists, and con
sequently not prejudiced in favor of Calvinism.
One difficulty with which I constantly met in
writing these Lectures was that of getting so large
a subject within limits so narrow. And although
I have gone over the ground enthusiastically, I
have endeavored to examine the subject honestly,
my own peculiar state of mind precluding all
controversial designs. Certainly, I can say that
not one unfair statement has been intended; and
I trust that the cast of the language employed
will not lead any one to infer the opposite.
Hoping, then, that this little book, which to me
has been a labor of love, will be of some use, and
that it may speak a word in favor of a system of
doctrine which, however regarded, is based on the
truths of God s word and the facts of human
experience, I send it forth into the great world
of letters.
N. S. McFETKIDGE.
GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA,
Jan. 2, 1882.
CONTENTS.
i.
PAGE.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE 7
II.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE IN THE HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES 59
III.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE.... .. 103
IV.
CALVINISM AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE 132
7
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
i.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE,
is nothing which so constantly controls
*- the mind of a man, and so intensely affects his
character, as the jyiews which he entertains of the
Deity. These take up their abode in the inmost
sanctuary of the heart, and give tone to all its
powers and coloring to all its actions. Whatever
the forms and activities of the outward life, as a
man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Men do,
undoubtedly, liken God, in a measure, to themselves,
and transfer to him somewhat of their own passions
and predominating moral qualities, and determine
the choice of their religion by the prevailing senti
ments of their hearts and the habits in which they
have been trained;* but it is also true that their
conceptions of God have a controlling influence in
forming their character and regulating their con-
* See McCwh, Divine Government, p. 463.
9
10 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
duct. The unfaithful servant in the parable of
the Talents gave as the reason for his idleness
his conception of the master as a hard an ^_ex-_
acting man. He shaped his conduct not by what
the master was, but by what he believed him to
be. And if that divine parable have a world
wide application, it discloses the secret spring of
a man s life in the conceptions which he has of
God. As these are true or false, so his character
and life will be. "As long as we look upon God
as an exactor, not a giver, exactors, and not givers,
shall we be." "All the value of service rendered."
says Dr. Arnot, "by intellectual and moral beings
depends on the thoughts of God which they en
tertain." Hence no sincerity of purpose and no ^
intensity of zeal can atone for a false creed or
save a man from the fatal consequences of wrong
principles.
There can be, therefore, no better criterion of the
character of a man s belief than the effects which
that belief produces. "Grapes do not grow on
bramble-bushes. Llustrious natures do not form
themselves on narrow and cruel theories. . . . The
practical effect of a belief is the real test of its
soundness. Where we find an heroic life appear
ing as the uniform fruit of a particular mode of
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 11
opinion, it is childish to argue in the face of fact
that the result ought to have been different."*
"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither
can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." It is
by this test that I would now subject Calvinism
to a brief historical criticism. Let its works wit
ness to it, and be its justification or condemnation.
What, then, do we mean by Calvinism? It is
foreign to my purpose to enter into any minute
detail of the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism or
to give in any way a controversial cast to these
Lectures; for while I believe Calvinism to be the
system of doctrine set forth in the word and works
of God, and therefore most favorable to all godli
ness, I am free cordially to allow to all who differ
from us the right of private judgment, and sin
cerely to rejoice in all that they are able to accom
plish for the well-being of men and the glory of
God. It is the right and privilege of every man
and of every body of men to give a reason for the
hope that is in them, and to maintain by all lawful
means what they conceive to be the truth. Intol
erance is no part of our creed, unless it be the in
tolerance of all shams and lies and hypocrisies.
Of such things we all are, I trust, intolerant.
* Fronde, Cnlrinixm, p. 8.
12 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
But as regards the sacred rights and privileges
of men, Calvinism is one of the most tolerant and
liberal of all systems of belief. Its adherents are
ever found ready to recognize the brotherhood and
equality of all evangelical churches, and to unite
with them in all liberal ideas and Christian en
terprises.
What, then, do we mean by Calvinism ? I will
let one answer who has gained the right to answer,
and than whom no one is better qualified to answer
the Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge.
He says: " Calvinism 7 is a term used to desig
nate, not the opinions of an individual, but a mode
of religious thought or a system of religious doc
trines of which the person whose name it bears
was an eminent expounder. There have been from
the beginning only three generically dictinct sys
tems of doctrine, or modes of conceiving and ad
justing the facts and principles understood to be
revealed in the Scriptures : the Pelagian, which
denies the guilt, corruption and moral impotence
of man, and makes him independent of the super
natural assistance of God. At the opposite pole is
the Calvinistic, which emphasizes the guilt and
moral impotence of man, exalts the justice and
sovereignty of God, and refers salvation absolutely
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 13
to the vundeserved favor and new creative energy
of God. Between these comes the manifold and
elastic .system of compromise once known as Semi-
I elagiaiiism, and in modern times as Arminianism,
which admits man s original corruption, but denies
his guilt ; regards redemption as a compensation
for innate, and consequently irresponsible, disabil
ities; and refers the moral restoration of the indi
vidual to the co-operation of the human with the
divine energy, the determining factor being the
human will."*
We have here, in succinct form, an accurate def
inition of the two systems of theology which are
in active operation to-day, and which, Dr. Pusey
says, " are now, and probably for the last time, in
conflict" f Calvinism and Arminianism, the former
taking its name from John Calvin, a Frenchman,
born in 1519, and the latter taking its name from
James Herman or (in Latin dress) Arminius, a
Dutchman, born in 1560. These men did not
originate the systems of doctrine which bear their
names, but only expounded them more fully and
developed them into a more perfect form. The
same views were maintained at least as early as
* Johntoris Cyclopaedia, art. " Calvinism."
+ His Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury
14 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
the fourth century, when Augustine and Pelagius
stood in much the same attitude to each other as
Calvin and Arminius in the sixteenth century.
Hence Calvinism is frequently and correctly called
Augustinianism ; and Arminianism, Semi- Pelagian-
ism. These are the two systems which are now
most extensively held, and with the one or the
other of them all other Christian theological sys
tems have organic sympathies.
Out of Arianism grew Socinianism, and out of
that modern Unitarianism, which makes Christ
neither a man nor God, but a created being some
where above angels and between humanity and
Deity.* And while Arminianism is neither Arian
nor Socinian nor Unitarian, these all are Armin-
ian. As the writer of the article "Arminianism"
in the American Cyclopaedia says, "Every new
phase of Arianism, to this day, is infallibly Ar-
minian, though the organic connection of the two
is not so manifest from the distinctively Arminian
side, at least in modern times."
Their organic connection might be easily traced,
and their natural affinity easily shown, did it come
within our present purpose. But there are other
* See Channing s Works, and Joseph Cook s exposition of
them in The Independent, March, 1880.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 15
connections and affinities of these doctrines which
demand our present consideration. Each of these
two systems, Calvinism and Arminianism, has an
organic connection and a natural affinity with a
distinct form of church government the Calvin-
istic with the presbyterial or independent form,
and the Arminian with the prelatioal or episcopal
form. As a matter of fact, this has always been
so. The Roman Episcopal Church has always
been, as a Church, Arminian in doctrine; the
Protestant Episcopal Church soon became, as a
Church, Arminian in doctrine, although her Thir
ty-nine Articles of Faith are Calvinistic. I once
asked a learned Episcopal rector how it came that
while his Confession of Faith is Calvinistic his
Church is Arminian. Smiling, he replied, "The
Calvinism in the Articles is so weak that you
could drive a horse and cart through it at some
points." That, I presume, accounts for it. It is
not strong enough to hold the Church up to it
or to resist the powerful tendency of Episcopacy
to Arminian doctrines. The Methodist Episcopal
Church also is, as a Church, Arminian. The fact,
then, is that Arminianism and Episcopacy do nat
urally sympathize and affiliate. There is that in
the Arminian doctrines of emotions and works
16 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
which leads directly to the external forms and
ceremonies of Prelacy or Episcopacy.
On the other hand, the Reformed churches
which took the Presbyterian form of government
have always been Calvinistic. As the Rev. Albert
Barnes says, "There are no permanent Arminian,
Pelagian, Socinian presbyteries, synods, general as
semblies on earth. There are no permanent in
stances where these forms of belief or unbelief
take on the presbyterial form. There are no
Presbyterian forms of ecclesiastical administration
where they would be long retained."*
This connection between the doctrine and the
form of worship is not superficial or accidental,
but inherent. A system of doctrine, as Pelagian-
ism, which teaches salvation by our own good
works, or, as Arminianism, which teaches salvation
partly by works and partly by grace, of necessity
sympathizes and affiliates with rites and ceremonies,
and lays, in the very spirit of it, the foundation for
a ritualistic service. Romanism, which is rigid
Arminianism, and Presbyterianism, which is strict
Calvinism, are the very antipodes of each other,
and have always been in the most uncompromis-
* As quoted by Breed, Presbyterianism Three Hundred Years
Ago, p. 11.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 17
ing hostility. Hence the historical fact that the
higher the "Churchman" the more intensely Ar-
miniaii he is. " It is a conspicuous fact of Eng
lish history," says Dr. Hodge, "that high views as
to the prerogatives of the ministry have always
antagonized Calvinistic doctrines."* Hence also
the simple republican form of worship hi the
Calvinistic churches.
Buckle, who, himself a fatalist, cannot be charged
with partiality toward any Church, says: " It is an
interesting fact that the doctrines which in England
are called Calvinistic have always been connected
with ^democratic spirit, while those of Arm inian-
isrn have found most favor among the aristocratic,
or protective, party. In the republics of Switzer
land, of North America and of Holland, Calvinism
was always the popular creed. On the other hand,
in those evil days immediately after the death of
Elizabeth, when our liberties were in imminent
peril, when the Church of England, aided by the
Crown, attempted to subjugate the consciences of
men, and when the monstrous claim of the divine
right of Episcopacy was first put forward, then it
was that Arminianism became the cherished doctrine
of the ablest and most ambitious of the ecclesiastic-
* Johnson s Cyclopedia, art. " Calvinism."
<>
18 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
al party. And in that sharp retribution which
followed, the Puritans and Independents, by whom
the punishment was inflicted, were, with scarcely an
exception, Calvinists ; nor should we forget that the
first open movement against Charles proceeded from
Scotland, where the principles of Calvin had long
been in the ascendant." *
Thus we see how Arminianism, taking to an aris
tocratic form of church government, tends toward
a monarchy in civil affairs, while Calvinism, taking
to a republican form of church government, tends
toward a democracy in civil aifairs.
Allow me to quote again from this eminent Eng
lish author. He says : " The first circumstance by
which we must be struck is, that Calvinism is a
doctrine for the poor and Arminianism for the rich.
A creed which insists upon the necessity of faith
must be less costly than one which insists upon the
necessity of works. In the former case the sinner
seeks salvation by the strength of his belief; in the
latter case he seeks it by the fullness of his con
tributions" . . . "This is the first great practical
divergence of the two creeds." ... "It is also
observable that the Church of Rome, whose wor
ship is addressed mainly to the senses, and which
* Histm-y of Civilization, i. 611.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 19
delights in splendid cathedrals and pompous cere
monies, has always displayed against the Calvinists
an animosity far greater than she has done against
any other Protestant sect." Continuing in this
strain, he observes what he calls "the aristocratic
tendency of Arininiauism and the democratic tend
ency of Calvinism," and says : " The more any
society tends to equality, the more likely it is that
its theological opinions will be Calviuistic; while
the more a society tends toward inequality, the
greater the probability of those opinions being
Armiuian." *
These views of this writer are abundantly con
firmed by the history bearing upon the subject.
The historical fact is that Arminianism tends to
beget and to foster classes and castes in society, and
to build up a gorgeous ritual wherever it gains a
foothold. And so it comes to be true, on the other
hand, what the historian Bancroft observes, that "a
richly-endowed Church always leads to Arminian
ism and justification by works." f
Now let us glance at the explanation of this his
torical fact.
The prelatical or episcopal form of church gov-
* History English Civil., i. pp. 612, 613.
t History United States, ix. p. 503.
20 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
ernment, which has always been connected with
Arminian doctrines, asserts that all church power
is vested in the clergy ; while the republican form,
which has always accompanied Calvinistic doc
trines, asserts that all church power is vested in
the Church; that is, in the people. This is a
radical difference, and " touches the very essence
of things." If all the power be in the clergy, then
the people are practically bound to passive obedi
ence in all matters of faith and practice ; but if all
power be in the Church, then the people have a
right to participate in all matters pertaining to
questions of faith and practice. Thus the one
system subjects the people to the autocratic orders
of a superior, the centre principle of monarchy
and despotism; while the other system elevates
the people to an equality in authority, the centre
principle of democracy.
On this point I will quote a few sentences from
the late Dr. Charles Hodge. "The theory," he
observes, " that all church power vests in a divine
ly-constituted hierarchy begets the theory that all
civil power vests, of divine right, in kings and
nobles. And the theory that church power vests
in the Church itself, and all church officers are
servants of the Church, of necessity begets the
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 21
theory that civil power vests in the people, and
that civil magistrates are servants of the people.
These theories God has joined together, and no
man can put them asunder. It was therefore by
an infallible instinct that the unfortunate Charles
of England said, No bishop, no king; by which
he meant that if there is no despotic power in the
Church, there can be no despotic power in the State,
or if there be liberty in the Church, there will be
liberty in the State."*
We find, then, these three propositions proved
by historical fact and logical sequence: First, Ar-
minianism associates itself with an episcopal form
of church government, and Calvinism with a re
publican form of church government; second, ,?
Episcopacy fosters ideas of inequality in society ^
and of monarchy and one-man power in civil
affairs; and, third, Arminianism is unfavorable to
civil liberty, and Calvinism is unfavorable to des
potism. The despotic rulers of former days were
not slow to observe the correctness of these prop
ositions, and, claiming the divine right of kings,
feared Calvinism as republicanism itself.
Now, consider, for a moment, some of the rea
sons which lie in the system of Calvinism for its
* What it Pr&tbyterifinismf p. 11.
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
strong hostility to all despotism and its powerful
influence in favor of civil liberty.
*
^> < One reason for this may be found in the bound-
* )\ Y ary-lme which it draws between Church and State.
It gives to each its distinct sphere, and demands
that the one shall not assume the prerogatives of
the other. In this it differs from Lutheranism,
"which soon settled down at peace with princes,
while Calvinism was ever advancing and ever con
tending with the rulers of this world;"* and from
the Anglican system, which began with Henry
VIII. as its head in place of the pope. This
distinction between Church and State is, as the
eminent Yale professor, Dr. Fisher, remarks, "the
first step, the necessary condition, in the develop
ment of religious liberty, without which civil lib
erty is an impossibility. ^
Another reason is found in the republican char
acter of its polity. Its clergy are on a perfect
equality. No one of them stands higher in au
thority than another. They are all alike bishops.
Its laymen share equally with its clergymen in
all official acts in the discussion and decision of
all matters of doctrine and practice. They have
*/ * Dr. Henry B. Smith, Faith ami Philowphy. y -
^^r^^^^t^f^^f * & ~* -r-vi
/ t Hist. Re/ormatjbn.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 23
a most important part given them in the right of
choosing and calling their own pa.stor. Bv being
thus rulers in the Church they are taught to claim
and exercise the same liberty in the State. It is
this feature of the Calvinistic system which has,
from the first, exalted the layman. It constitutes,
not the clergy, but the Christian people, the in
terpreter of the divine will. To it the voice of
the majority is the voice of God, and the issue,
therefore, is, as Bancroft observes, "popular sov
ereignty." *
Another reason why Calvinism is favorable to :>
liberty lies in its theology. " The sense of the ,\
exaltation of the Almighty Ruler," says Dr.
Fisher, "and of his intimate connection with the
minutest incidents and obligations of human life,
which is fostered by this theology, dwarfs all
earthly potentates. An intense spirituality, a con
sciousness that this life is but an infinitesimal frac
tion of human existence, dissipates the feeling of
personal homage for men, however high their sta
tion, and dulls the lustre of all earthly grandeur."
. . . "The Calvinist, unlike the Romanist, dis
penses with a human priesthood, which has not
only often proved a powerful direct auxiliary to
* Hit. U. S., i. pp. 44, 461.
24 CALVINISM JN HISTORY.
temporal rulers, but has educated the sentiments to
a habit of subjection, which renders submission to
such rulers more facile and less easy to shake
off." *
Its doctrine of predestination also is calculated^
to have a tremendous influence on the political
character of its adherents. This has not escaped
the notice of historians. Bancroft, who, while
adopting another religious creed, has awarded to
Calvinism the palm for its influence in favor of
religious and civil liberty, remarks that " the po
litical character of Calvinism, which, with one
consent and with instinctive judgment, the mon-
archs of that day feared as republicanism, is ex
pressed in a single word predestination. Did a
proud aristocracy trace its lineage through gener
ations of a highborn ancestry, the republican Re
formers, with a loftier pride, invaded the invisible
world, and from the book of life brought down
the record of the noblest enfranchisement, decreed
from eternity by the King of kings. . . . They
went forth in confidence, . . . and, standing -surely
amidst the crumbling fabrics of centuries of super
stition, they had faith in one another; and the
martyrdoms of Cambray, the fires of Smithfield,
* See Fisher s Hist. Reformation.
CALVIXISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 25
the surrender of benefices by two thousand non-con
forming Presbyterians, attest their perseverance." *
This doctrine " inspires a resolute, almost defiant,
freedom in those who deem themselves the subjects
of God s electing grace : in all things they are more
than conquerors through the confidence that nothing
shall be able to separate them from the love of God.
No doctrine of the dignity of human nature, of tho
rights of man, of national litarty, of social equal
ity, can create such a resolve for the freedom of the
soul as this personal conviction of God s favoring
and protecting sovereignty. He who has this faith
feels that he is compassed about with everlasting
love, guided with everlasting strength ; his will is
the tempered steel that no fire can melt, no force can
break. Such faith is freedom ; and this spiritual
freedom is the source and strength of all other
freedom." f
Having thus briefly traced the spirit and tendency
of Calvinism in relation to liberty, I will now indi
cate, from the testimony of those most capable of
giving impartial judgment, what Calvinism has
done for civil liberty.
* Hist. U. S., vol. ii. p. 461.
t The United States as a Nation, p. 30, by Rev. Joseph Thomp
son, D. D., LL.D.
26 CALVINISM TN HISTORY
And here let it be remarked that events follow
..principles; that mind rules the world ; that thought
is more powerful than cannon; that "all history; is
in its inmost nature religious;"* and that, as John
von Muller says, " Christ is the key to the history
of the world/ and, as Carlyle says, " the spiritual
will always body itself forth in the temporal history
r^ of men." In the formation of the modern nations
^ religion performed a principal part. The great
A movements out of which the present civilized na
tions sprung were religious through and through.
What part, then, had Calvinism in begetting
and shaping and controlling those movements?
What has it to show as the result of its labors?
V,
A rich possession indeed. A glorious record be
longs to it in the history of modern civilization.
Be it remembered that Luther was an Augustin-
ian or Calvinistic .monk, and that it was from this
rigorous theology that he learned the great truth,
the pivot of the Reformation and the kindling flame
of civilization salvation, not by works, but by
faith alone. True, indeed, that truth was first laid
down in the word of God. We can accept as com
plimentary the sneering remark of Ernest Renan,
that Paul begat Augustine, and Augustine begat
* Dr. H. B. Smith s Faith find Philosophy.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 27
Calvin, and Calvin begat the Jansenists and their
brethren. We glory in the lineal descent. And
we stand willing also to acknowledge the kindness
of Matthew Arnold, when, in his vain attempts to
cut Calvinism out of the New Testament and fling
it away, he declares Paul to have been the author
of it, but excuses the great apostle for being guilty
of it by saying that he allowed himself " to fall
into it" through mistake and through the specu
lative bent of his intellect.* But one might be
tempted to ask Mr. Arnold, Plow could Paul have
"fallen into it" unless it had been already in exist
ence? And from what ground did the great apostle
fall ? Truly the Church is in a sad plight if the
doctrines of the apostles are the errors which they
" fell into " ! It is pleasing, however, to some of us
to find such men as these attributing the paternity
of Calvinism to St. Paul, and to find them driven to
such extremities in their efforts to explain it away
as to be compelled to say that Paul was mad, or, as
an Arminian clergyman of our own city has said,
that " Paul was not converted when he wrote the
book of Romans."
So, then, enemies themselves being witness, Paul
had laid down the grand truth which Luther found
* St. Paid and Puritanism.
28 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
in his study of the Augustinian theology and of the
Bible. The Arminianism of the Church of Rome
had so perverted that truth, and so wrapped it over
with its " works of righteousness," as to make it
practically unknown. It was not till Luther had
grasped it clearly and firmly in his intellect and
heart that it became again a living thing and a
mighty force. Henceforth the secret power and
stirring watchword of the Reformation was justifi
cation by faith olone. It was this cleanly- cut and
strong theology which began the Reformation, and
which carried it on through fire and flood, through
all opposition and terror and persecution and mis
ery, to its glorious consummation. When in the
sreat toil and roar of the conflict the fiery nature
&
of Luther began to chill, and he began to tempor
ize with civil rulers, and to settle down in harmony
with them, it was this same uncompromising the
ology of the Genevan school which heroically and
triumphantly waged the conflict to the end. I but
repeat the testimony of history, friendly and un
friendly to Calvinism, when I say that had it not
been for the strong, unflinching, systematic spirit
and character of the theology of Calvin, the Ref
ormation would have been lost to the world. That
is one thing which Calvinism has done. That is
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 29
one of the fruits which have grown on this vigor
ous old tree.
Hence it was that almost everywhere the Ref
ormation assumed the Calvinistic type, supplanting
or absorbing all other reforming ideas. Even in
the lands, such as Germany and Switzerland, where
the peculiarly Lutheran ideas had first found ac
ceptance, it was "through the influence of Calvin
istic principles that the Protestantism of those lands
assumed an external form and organization, and at
tained to definite dimensions in the history of the
world." " In this system only were found that
vigor and that earnestness which are essential to
the highest success. Even Luther himself, when
the splendor of Calvin s name was outshining his
own, withheld not his admiration and praise from
the strict discipline which prevailed in the Cal-
viuistic churches, and from that lofty earnestness
which pervades the whole Calvinistic system of
reform, and which gave it more and more of that
steady consistency that was requisite in its conflict
with opposing powers, and without which no vic
tory is ever attained.f
"The Lutheran congregations were but half
emancipated from superstition, and shrank from
* Hagenbach s Hist. Ref., vol. ii. p. 350. f Hagenbach.
30 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
pressing the struggle to extremities; and half
measures meant half-heartedness, convictions which
were but half convictions, and truth with an alloy
of falsehood. Half measures, however, would not
quench the bonfires of Philip of Spain or raise
men in France or Scotland who would meet crest
to crest the princes of the house of Lorraine. The
Reformers required a position more sharply defined
and a sterner leader, and that leader they found in
John Calvin. . . . For hard times hard men are
needed, and intellects which can pierce to the roots
where truth and lies part company. It fares ill
with the soldiers of religion when the accursed
thing is in the camp. And this is to be said of
Calvin, that, so far as the state of knowledge per
mitted, no eye could have detected more keenly the
unsound spots in the creed of the Church, nor was
there a Reformer in Europe so resolute to exercise,
tear out and destroy what was distinctly seen to be
false so resolute to establish what was true in its
place, and make truth, to the last fibre of it, the
rule of practical life."*
This is the testimony of a man who has no par
ticular love for Calvinism, but who from the high
ground of learned investigation looks at it and
* Froude, Calvinism, p. 42.
CALVINISM A8 A POLITICAL FORCE. 31
the man whose name it beat s through the light of
historical fact.
And in further explication of this thought allow
me to quote again from the same authority: "Was
it not written long ago, He that will save his soul
shall lose it ? If we think of religion only as a
means of escaping what we call the wrath to come,
we shall not escape it; we are already under it;
we are under the burden of death, for we care only
for ourselves. This was not the religion of your
fathers; this was not the Calvinism which over
threw spiritual wickedness, and hurled kings from
their thrones, and purged England and Scotland,
for a time at least, of lies and charlatanry. Cal
vinism was the spirit which rises in revolt against
untruth the spirit which, as I have shown you,
has appeared and reappeared, and in due time will
appear again unless God be a delusion and man be
as the beasts that perish. For it is but the inflash-
ing upon the conscience of the nature and origin
of the laws by which mankind are governed
laws which exist whether we acknowledge them
or whether we deny them, and will have their way,
to our own weal or woe, according to the attitude
in which we place ourselves toward them inher
ent, like the laws of gravity, in the nature of
32 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
things ; not made by us, not to be altered by us,
but to be discerned and obeyed by us at our ever
lasting peril."*
This was the Calvinism which flashed forth in
the great Reforming days the spirit which, when
Romanists and despots claimed the right to burn
all who differed from them, inspired men and
women and youth to go forth, Bible and sword
in hand, to the greatest daring, appealing for the
justice of their cause and the victory of their arms
to the Lord of hosts. This was the spirit which
acted in those men "who attracted to their ranks
almost every man in Western Europe who hated
a lie;" who when they were crushed down rose
again ; who " abhorred as no body of men ever
more abhorred all conscious mendacity, all impur
ity, all moral wrong of every kind, so far as they
could recognize it ;" who, though they did not ut
terly destroy Romanism, "drew its fangs, and forced
it to abandon that detestable principle that it was
* entitled to murder those who dissented from it."
y^^^-This was the spirit out of which came, and by
*"7 which was nourished, the religious and civil lib-
e rties of Christendom ; of which Bancroft says,
tf More truly benevolent^ to the human race than
47,
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 33
Solon, more self-denying than Lycurgus, the genius
of Calvin infused enduring elements into the in
stitutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern
world the impregnable fortress of popular liberty,
the fertile seed-plot of democracy."*
That religious and civil liberty have an organic
connection and a natural affinity is quite obvious.
They hold together as root and branch. " By the
side of every religion is to be found a political
opinion connected with it by affinity. If the hu
man mind be left to follow its own bent, it will
regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions of
society in a uniform manner, and man will en
deavor, if I may so speak, to harmonize earth
with heaven." f But other influences may be
powerful enough to interfere with this natural con
nection of the religious and political belief. The
Romanist may choose to be a republican rather than
a monarchist, because of the greater advantages
which a republic confers, or because he finds him
self in the midst of republican institutions which
he cannot hope to alter; but when a man is free
to follow his own inclinations, he will body forth
his religion in his political beliefs. Hence it
comes that the influence on our republican insti-
*E**tiyx. f j)e_T<Kxiiieville, Democracy, i. 383.
3
34 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
tutions of a rigid Arminianism, which has always
been wedded to an aristocratic form of church gov
ernment, is unfavorable to their perpetuity. Its
whole tendency, politically, is to educate the sen
timents of the people to a spirit of subjection to
the rich and powerful, and thus to prepare them
for the monarchic form of civil government.
Charles I. of England gave as the reason why
his father, James I., had subverted the republican
form of government of the Scottish Church, that
the presbyterial and monarchical forms of govern
ment do not harmonize.* And De Tocqueville,
admitting the same, calls Calvinism " a democratic
and republican religion." f This is the historical
fact, that, while Calvinism can live and do its
divine work under any form of civil government,
its natural affinities are not with a monarchy, but
with a republic.
This is the reason that it has made so splendid a
record in the history of human freedom. Where it
flourishes despotism cannot abide. This, says the
historian IXAubigne, "chiefly distinguishes the
Reformation of Calvin from that of Luther, that
wherever it was established it brought with it not
only truth, but liberty, and all the great develop-
* Buckle, ii. 206, note 5. t Democracy, i. 384.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 35
mcnts which these two fertile principles carry with
them." *
Now, if we ask what Calvinism did for the cause
of civil and religious liberty in France and the
Netherlands, we have but to turn to the glowing
pages of D Aubigne and to the enchanting his
tories of our own Motley. It created, under God,
the Dutch Republic, and made it "the first free
nation to put a girdle of empire around the world."
Account for it as one will, the fact is, that until
Calvinism took possession of the Netherlanders and
gained the ascendency over all other religious be
liefs, the people made but little headway against
the powerful empire of Spain ; but from that mo
ment they never faltered for well nigh a hundred
years, until their independence was triumphantly
established. Their great leader, William the Si
lent, prince of Orange, was, as it would appear,
forced logically, consistently and necessarily to
give up first his Romanism and next his Luther-
anism, and to become a sincere and rigid Calvin-
ist while fighting for his country s independence.
Then it was that he began to exhibit such vigor
and enthusiasm and perseverance as he had never
before exhibited. Then it was that he began to
* History Ref. Time of Calvin, i. 3.
36 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
make those bleak fields of the North to be the
light and hope of the Protestant world and the
terror of the proud and powerful Philip of Spain.
"It would certainly be unjust and futile/ says
Motley, "to detract from the vast debt which
that republic owed to the Genevan Church. The
Reformation had entered the Netherlands by the
Walloon gate (that is, through the Calvinists). The
earliest and most eloquent preachers, the most im
passioned converts, the sublimest martyrs, had
lived, preached, fought, suffered and died with the
precepts of Calvin in their hearts. The fire which
had consumed the last vestige of royal and sacer
dotal despotism throughout the independent re
public had been lighted by the hands of Calvin
ists.
"Throughout the blood-stained soil of France,
O
too, the men who were fighting the same great
battle as were the Netherlander against Philip
II. and the Inquisition, the valiant cavaliers of
Dauphiny and Provence, knelt on the ground be
fore the battle, smote their iron breasts with their
mailed hands, uttered a Calvinistic prayer, sang
a psalm of Marot, and then charged upon Guise
or upon Joyeuse under the white plume of the
Bearnese. And it was on the Calvinistic weavers
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 37
and clothiers of Kocbclle that the Great Prince
relied in the hour of danger, as much as on his
mounted chivalry. In England, too, the seeds of
liberty, wrapped up in Calvinism and hoarded
through many trying years, were at last destined
to float over land and sea, and to bear largest
harvests of temperate freedom for great common
wealths that were still unborn."* To the Cal-
viniste, "more than to any other class of men,
the political liberties of Holland, England and
America are due." f
Such language might be mistaken for a mere
panegyric of an intense Calyinist, did we not
know that it is the historical testimony of one
who was not_a_Calyinist, but who, with the fire
of freedom burning brightly in his heart, and
with a perfect knowledge of what he is saying,
pays such lofty tributes to the men who dared
maintain the cause of liberty in the earth. This
is sufficient to indicate, as I here can only do,
what was the influence and what the worth of
Calvinism on the liberties of France and the
Netherlands.
Now let us cross the English Channel and see
what Calvinism was as a political force on the
* Netherlands, iii. 120, 121. f Ibid., iv. 547.
38 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
green soil of England and on the Leathered hills
of Scotland.
It will be borne in mind that we make no such
absurd claim as that every one who fought for re
ligious and civil liberty in those days was a Cal-
vinist. We claim only that almost all of them
were Calvinists and that their great leaders were
Calvinists. This is the historical fact, that it was
the Calvinists who did the reforming work, rough
and sore as it was, in England, Ireland and Scot
land. Henry VIII. only transformed the Church ;
he did not reform it. The Anglican Church was
established not from the convictions of the people,
but by the decree of the king, who became its
supreme pontiff. I would not care to say what
Lamartine says about the laying of its founda
tions, lest I might be taken as uncharitable toward
a Church which I greatly venerate, excepting only
that wherein she has been unfaithful to herself and
to Protestantism in her High-Churchism, by which
she has given occasion to Romanists to call her "a
bulwark against the aggressiveness of the non-con
forming churches," and to plead for her continu
ance on that ground. But all understand how she
came into existence not by the faith of the people,
but by the will of the sovereign. Yet no royal
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 39
decree can reform a Church or people. Reforma
tion must be the work of the individual conscience.
Hence, when the Anglican Church was suddenly
cut away from Rome, and had become, as it were,
"an English translation of the Latin," the real
reforming work had still to be done. And who
did it? Was it the Arminians? No; they had
little or no hand in it. As Macaulay says, "The
Lambeth Articles," which were drawn up by Eliz
abeth s favorite bishop in concert with the bishop
of London and other theologians, "affirm the Cal-
vinistic doctrines with a distinctness which would
shock many who in our age are reputed Calvin-
ists." "Arminianism," he continues, "with its more
popular notions, came in later."* Through all the
struggles of those two centuries it was the Calvin-
ists who were always contending, sometimes badly
and bitterly enough, but ever honestly and earn
estly, for the heavenly boon of human freedom.
It was they who reformed Scotland, and lifted
her out of the pit of darkness and misery in
which she had been so long confined.
The spirit in which they carried on the conflict
is well illustrated in the case of Jennie Geddes.
Charles I. had determined to carry out his father s
*Hixt.Eng., vol. i. 23.
40 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
policy of compelling the Scotch Church to adopt
Prelacy. The city of Edinburgh and the church
of_St.jSiles was the place where the public use of
the Liturgy was to be commenced. The church
was crowded, and "a deep, melancholy calm brooded
over the congregation," presaging the fierce tempest
which was about to sweep away every barrier. At
length the dean, attired in his surplice, began to read
the Liturgy, but his voice was speedily drowned in
tumultuous clamor. An old woman, Jennie Geddes,
was the heroine of the occasion. "Villain!" she
cried, "dost thou say mass at my lug?" and with
that she hurled the stool on which she had been
sitting at the dean s head. Others quickly followed
her example, and compelled the dean to fly, leaving
his surplice behind him. This was really the death
blow to the Liturgy in Scotland,* and it exhibits
the earnest, fearless spirit of even the aged and
humble.
But the one man who was the principal instru
ment in the hand of Providence in reforming
Scotland was John Knox. He had learned his
theology at the feet of Calvin in Geneva, and had
known, as a galley-slave, the tender mercies of
Romanism. He was one of the six clerical Johns
* Dr. Craighead s Irish Seeds in American Soil, p. 80.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 41
who composed the first General Assembly of Scot
land. Now, let us take the testimony of history as
to the worth of this man. Thus Fronde speaks :
"John Knox, to whose teaching they (the Scotch)
owed their national existence" . . . "Such was
Knox, the greatest of living Scotchmen." . . . "Xo
grander figure can he found in the entire history
of the Reformation in this island than that of
Knox. Cromwell and Burghley rank beside him
for the work which they effected, but as politicians
and statesmen they had to labor with instruments
with which they soiled their hands in touching,
In purity, in uprightness, in courage, truth and
stainless honor the regent Murray and our English
Latimer were perhaps his equals ; but Murray was
intellectually far below him, and the sphere of
Latimer s influence was on a small scale. The
time has come when English history may do jus
tice to one but for whom the Reformation would
have been overthrown among ourselves ; for the
spirit which Knox created saved Scotland; and
if Scotland had been Catholic again, neither the
wisdom of Elizabeth s ministers, nor the teaching
of her bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would
have preserved England from revolution. His was
the voice which taught the peasant of the Lothians
42 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of
God with the proudest peer or prelate that had
trampled on his forefathers. He was the one an
tagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor
Maitland deceive; he it was that raised the poor
Commons of his country into a stern and rugged
people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious
and fanatical, but who, nevertheless, were men
whom neither king, noble nor priest could force
again to submit to tyranny. And his reward has
been the ingratitude of those who should most
have done honor to his memory."*
Now, take another testimony to the worth and
work of this man that of the man of philosoph
ical literature, Thomas Carlyle. Thus he speaks :
"This that Knox did for his nation, I say, we
may really call a resurrection as from death. It
was not a smooth business; but it was welcome
surely, and cheap at that price had it been far
rougher. On the whole cheap at any price; as
life is. The people began to live ; they needed
first of all to do that, at what cost and costs so
ever. Scotch literature and thought; Scotch in
dustry ; James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott,
Robert Burns, I find Knox and the Reformation
* En ff . Hist., x. 437.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 43
acting in the heart s core of every one of these
persons and phenomena. It seems to me hard
measure that this Scottish man, now after three
hundred years, should have to plead like a cul
prit before the world; intrinsically for having
been, in such way as it was then possible to be,
the bravest of all Scotch men. Had he been a
poor half-and-half, he could have crouched into
the corner, like so many others ; Scotland had not
been delivered ; and Knox had been without
blame. He is the one Scotchman to whom, of
all others, his country and the world owe a debt."
. . . " Honor to him ! His works have not died.
The letter of his works dies, as of all men s ; but
the spirit of it never!"
Such is the estimate of history upon Knox and
his work after three hundred years, a period long
enough for the judging of them correctly, and
long enough to sink most men s works into ob
livion. It was, however, unfortunate for the
reputation of Knox with a certain class of peo
ple that he was compelled by truth and conscience
and the welfare of his nation and Protestantism
to oppose a woman, young, beautiful, bad and
royal Mary Stuart, queen of Scots; with whom
to be a favorite it was necessary to be false to
44 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
Scotland and to the Reformation, and whose
troublous life and unfortunate death softened the .
heart of the world toward her, blinding many to
her serious faults.
Other causes also have contributed to obscure his
glory and to depreciate his real worth and the value
of his services. He belonged to a Church which
was unpopular at court, and which is not yet pop
ular in royal residences. "On the other hand,"
Buckle says, " the sect of Episcopalians in Scotland
are utterly blind to the real grandeur of the man,
and unable to discern his intense love of truth and
the noble fearlessness of his nature." *
In addition to these causes, Knox has had no
competent biographer. The bard in ancient times
was necessary to the hero s fame; so is the histo
rian in these latter days. Knox s bard is yet to
come; and he will come.
As to what the Calvinists did in Scotland during
those trying and important times toward the close
of the sixteenth century, we must content ourselves
with quoting a few sentences from Buckle s History
of Civilization in England : " In their pulpits, in
their presbyteries, and in their general assemblies
they encouraged a democratic and insubordinate
* History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 177, note.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 45
tone, which eventually produced the happiest re
sults by keeping alive, at a critical moment, the
spirit of liberty." . . . "Let us then, not be too
rash in this matter. Let us not be too forward
in censuring the leading actors in that great crisis
through which Scotland passed during the latter
half of the sixteenth century. Much they did
which excites our strongest aversion. But one
thing they achieved which should make us honor
their memory and repute them benefactors of
their species. At a most hazardous moment they
kept alive the spirit of national liberty. What
the nobles and the Crown had put in peril, that
did the clergy save. By their care the dying
spark was kindled into a blaze. When the li^ht
grew dim and flickered on the altar, their hands
trimmed the lamp and fed the sacred flame. This
is their real glory, and on this they may well re
pose. They were the guardians of Scotch free
dom, and they stood to their post. Where danger
was, they were foremost. By their sermons, by
their conduct, both public and private, by the
proceedings of their assemblies, by their bold and
frequent attacks upon persons without regard to
their rank nay, even by the very insolence with
which they treated their superiors they stirred
46 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
up the minds of men, woke them from tljeir
lethargy, formed them to habits of discussion,
and excited that inquisitive and democratic spirit
which is the only effectual guarantee the people
can ever possess against the tyranny of those who
are set over them. This was the work of the
Scotch clergy ; and all hail to them who did it !
To these men England and Scotland owe a debt
they can never pay." *
These, then, were some of the results achieved
by the Calvinists in that great and sore struggle
toward the close of the sixteenth century. But
the struggle did not end with the century ; it was
continued for nearly a century afterward. When
James I. of England, son of Mary Stuart queen
of Scots, ascended the throne in 1603, the conflict
was renewed in earnest. Not caring particularly
either for Episcopacy or Presbytery, excepting so
far as he could use them for the furtherance and
maintenance of his own despotic purposes, but be
lieving Episcopacy to be the natural ally of the
throne, and knowing from past experience that he
could not bend the Presbyterians to his will, he
devoted himself to the overthrow of the Presby
terian form of church government in Scotland,
* Vol. ii. pp. 185, 208, 204.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 47
whicji had been established by Parliament. This
arrayed against him a people who otherwise would
have been loyal to their heart s core to the king
who was their countryman, and who had repeat
edly given his royal assurance that he would de
fend the liberties of his native land. By every
power at his command he sought to impose upon
the Scottish Church a form of government which
was not only odious to her, but which she regarded
as the shadow and symbol of Popery. By royal
decree, by confiscation, by banishment, by a ruth
less and relentless soldiery, by almost every cruel
device, he used his great power to carry out the
dictates of his imperial will and to silence every
voice that was raised in defence of freedom and
against his arbitrary and tyrannical measures.
This infamous work was carried on by his son
and successor, Charles I., until the spirit of free
dom, so long and mercilessly trampled upon, arose
in its flaming wrath, and, led by Oliver Cromwell,
himself a descendant of the royal house of Stuart
through his mother, hurled the proud monarch from
the throne and appeased its vengeance in his blood.
When Cromwell, the great Calvinistic leader and
commoner and Protector, was borne to his grave,
after having formed the finest army that Euroi>o
48 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
had ever seen, and made the name of England
terrible to every nation on the face of the earth,*
and when his son, without his father s ability, re
tired from the government of the nation to which
he had been called, preferring the ease of a country
gentleman to the troublous position of a Lord Pro
tector, the English people welcomed with much
enthusiasm, and yet with great fear, another royal
son to the throne in the person of Charles II.,
whose name and reign are amongst the most in
famous in the annals of English history. If his
predecessors had chastised the people with whips,
he chastised them with scorpions. Unwisely neg
lecting his father s dying counsel, to forgive his
enemies, he made the distress and cry of his in
dependent subjects sore against him. In this he
was imitated by his successor, James II., the ab
ject pensioner of Louis XIV. of France.
During these reigns the Calvinists, and especially
they of Scotland, were subjected to a tyranny so
cruel and exhausting as might have crushed out
for ever the energy of almost any people. Corrupt
and ignorant judges sat upon the bench to issue
decrees in accordance with the wish of the mon
arch, and miserable slaves of men pretty largely
* Macaulay, " Essay on Milton."
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 49
made up the Parliaments. England and Scotland
have seen no darker days in all their history.
History is compelled to confess, though she do it
with confused face and profound sorrow, that
amongst the most zealous aiders and abettors of
these despotic sovereigns were the bishops and
clergy of the Anglican Church. That such men
as William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, and
James Sharp, a renegade Presbyterian, archbishop
of St. Andrews, and John Leslie, bishop of Ra-
phoe, Ireland, should have worn the robes of ec
clesiastical authority, representing the rule of our
Lord and Saviour on the earth, is enough to fill
any Christian heart with grief, and to cause the
Church to which they belonged to seek to blot out
her history for wellnigh a hundred years, and to
silence, until the judgment-day, her absurd and
uncharitable claims to an apostolic succession.
History cannot forget that many of the bishops
of that day openly favored, and often suggested,
the atrocities that were committed, and that when
constitutional liberty and all the rights dearest to
men who have the Anglo-Saxon blood in their
veins, and who speak the English tongue, were
struggling for an existence on earth, they presented
James II. with an address in which they called him
50 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
"the darling of Heaven," and prayed that "God
would give him the hearts of his subjects and the
necks of his enemies."* "We ought never to
forget/ says an eminent English writer, " that the
first and only time the Church of England has
made war upon the Crown was when the Crown
had declared its intention of tolerating, and in
some degree protecting, the rival religions of the
country."! Let li be borne in mind > nowever >
that many of the bishops and archbishops of those
times were consecrated to their offices neither by
God nor the Church, but by the reigning sove
reign. In Ireland alone, among all the numerous
clergy of the Church in the reign of Charles II.,
there were not a hundred of them episcopally
ordained.J
Who, then, sustained the cause of liberty in
those sore and protracted days? Who but the
Calvinists, known as the Puritans, the Covenant
ers, the Roundheads, the Presbyterians, the Inde
pendents? When the people were abandoned to
the lawless fury and wrath of their rulers, when
they were ruthlessly plundered, murdered, and
* Laing s Hist, of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 193.
f Buckle, vol. i. p. 288.
J Craighead, Scotch and Irish Seeds, p. 226.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 51
hunted like wild beasts from place to place, the
Presbyterian clergy never deserted them: for five-
and-eighty years that clergy never wavered, but
were always steady to the good cause and always
on the side of the people.*
Of Cromwell and his work Carlyle says : " In
disputably, this too was a Heroism, and the soul
of it remains part of the eternal soul of things.
Here, of our own land and lineage, in practical
English shape, were heroes on the earth once
more; who knew in every fibre, and with heroic
daring laid to heart, that an Almighty justice
does verily rule this world; and that it is good
to fight on God s side, and bad to fight on the
devil s side ; the essence of all heroisms and
verities that have been or that will be. Perhaps
it was among the nobler, and noblest human
heroisms, this Puritanism of ours." f
Thrice was the crown of England offered to
Cromwell, and pressed upon him, but he as often
refused to accept it. As Lamartine says, "He
ruled as a patriot, who only thought of the great
ness and power of his country." And his rule
" added more strength and prosperity to England
* Buckle, ii. 261, 262.
t Cromweita Letters, vol. i. p. 8, Edinburgh ed.
52 CAL VINISM IN HISTOR Y.
than the nation had ever experienced under her
most illustrious monarchs."*
If we ask again, Who brought the final great
deliverance to English liberty? we are answered
by history, The illustrious Calvinist, William,
prince of Orange, who, as Macaulay says, found
in the strong and sharp logic of the Geneva school
something that suited his intellect and his temper ;
the keystone of whose religion was the doctrine of
predestination ; and who, with his keen logical vis
ion, declared that if he were to abandon the doc
trine of predestination he must abandon with it
all his belief in a superintending Providence, and
must become a mere Epicurean. f And he was
right, for predestination and an overruling Provi
dence are one and the same thing. If we accept
the one, we are in consistency bound to accept the
other.
It was the battle of the Boyne (in Ireland, 1690)
that decided the fate of Protestantism, not only for
Great Britain, but for America ; and for the world
indeed, for had William been defeated there, Prot
estants could not have found a safe shelter on the
face of the earth. " Orangemen " may therefore be
pardoned for their lively interest in that battle.
* Lamartine s Cromwell f Hist. Eng., ii. p. 49.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 53
On one side was James II., whom the poet
Wordsworth appropriately calls
" The vacillating bondman of the pope,"
with an army composed of his Roman Catholic
and sympathizing subjects and allies. On the
other side was his son-in-law, William, whom
the Protestants had called from Holland to their
deliverance a little, but not a small man; pale
and sickly ; the world-acknowledged representative
of the reforming cause; with an army much in
ferior in numbers to that of his royal father-in-
law and opponent, but bound together as one man
by a common faith and a glorious purpose. The
world has never seen such another army. The
entire Calvinistic world was represented in it.
Less than four years before (October 22, 1685)
Louis XIV. of France had published the Revoca
tion of the Edict of Nantes, by which all the
rights and privileges of his Calvinistic subjects,
the Huguenots, were swept away. This drove
thousands upon thousands of them to flee from
their native land and to seek safety and liberty
in other climes. Multitudes of them had fled to
William in Holland, many of whom were of the
best sailors and soldiers of France. This seems
54 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
indeed to have been a providence by which Wil
liam s army was to be reinforced and the great
victory to be won. Under him, at the Boyne,
there were Calvinists from England, Ireland,
Scotland, France, Prussia, Finland, Sweden and
Switzerland, in addition to his own staunch Hol
landers and two hundred English negro servants,
as loyal to Christ and liberty as any under the
Orange flag. Hundreds of them were clad in the
varied and worn garments of private citizens,
which they had brought from their own distant
homes.
The officer next in command to William was
that splendid military chieftain who, as command-
er-in-chief, had many a time led the French army
to victory Marshal Schomberg, a Huguenot refu
gee, now some seventy years of age, and into whose
care the devoted wife of William had committed
her husband in his perilous yet glorious undertak
ing. We can almost pardon King James for all
his follies because he was the father of that Mary,
the noble, devoted, self-sacrificing Protestant wife
of William, prince of Orange. Marshal Schomberg
it was w r ho, with his regiment of refugee country
men, led the charge. Taking his position at their
head, and pointing with his sword across the river
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 55
to the army of James strongly intrenched on the
opposite bank, he uttered the thrilling words, "Al-
lons, mes amis! rappelez votre courage d vos
ressentiments ! Voilcl vos persecuteurs !" That was
enough to arouse in them all their fiery energies.
The memories of the past, their faith and their
fatherland, were the inspirations of the moment.
With these words of their brave old general and
countryman ringing in their hearts, they plunged
into the river under a furious fire from their ene
mies and, followed by all the army, soon gained
the opposite shore, wading in water to the arm
pits; and wavered not until James and his army
were utterly routed.
On these two great leaders, a Hollander and a
Frenchman, to the everlasting glory of their coun
tries, the liberties of the world were then, under
God, depending the one, William, almost unable
to sit on his gray horse from physical weakness
and loss of blood from an arm disabled by a ball
from the enemy; the other, venerable with years
and honors, who there, in the Boyne waters, gave
his precious blood and noble life a sacrifice for
the welfare of mankind. When England forgets
the part taken by the French Huguenots in se
curing her lil>erties she will cover herself with in-
56 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
famy. It might appear as if the historian Macau-
lay would have her forget it ; for, strange to say,
he passes it over in silence. Is it possible that he
would carry the English jealousy of the French
to such a length ? Well and justly may Michelet
protest against his lordship s evidently designed
neglect of his countrymen at the Boyne, and re
mind England that " the army of William was
strong precisely in that Calvinistic element which
James repudiated in England."*
We see, then, what element fought the decisive
battle of Protestantism at the Boyne. The very
watchword of William s army was Westminster, the
word which was before, and has been ever since,
stamped on the symbols of the Calvinistic churches.
Of William himself it is no part of my plan to
speak. Enough it will be here to quote the lines
of Wordsworth regarding him :
" Calm as an under-current, strong to draw
Millions of waves into itself, and run,
From sea to sea, impervious to the sun
And ploughing storm, the spirit of Nassau
Swerves not (how blest if by religious awe
Swayed, and thereby enabled to contend
With the wide world s commotions) from its end
Swerves not diverted by a casual law.
* Hist. Louis XIV., p. 418.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE. 57
Had moral action e er a nobler scope?
The hero comes to liberate, not defy ;
And, while he marches on with steadfast hope,
Conqueror beloved ! expected anxiously !
The vacillating bondman of the pope
Shrinks from the verdict of his steadfast eye."
As to the effect of William s victory and reign
as William III. of England, "the most successful
and the most splendid recorded in the history of
any country," Macaulay says, "It has been, of all
revolutions, the most beneficent; the highest eu
logy that can be pronounced upon it is this, that
it was England s best, and that, for the author
ity of law, for the security of property, for the
peace of our streets, for the happiness of our
homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who
raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to
the Long - Parliament, to the Convention and to
William of Orange." * And David Hume s tes
timony to the worth of the Calvinistic Puritans
is equally strong. "So absolute," he says, "was
the authority of the Crown that the precious
spark of liberty had been kindled and was pre
served by the Puritans alone, and it was to this
sect that the English owe the whole freedom of
* Hint. Eng., ii. pp. 196, 197.
58 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
their constitution" * And Taine, referring to the
Calvinists of Great Britain, says: "These men
are the true heroes of England; they display, in
high relief, the original characteristics and noblest
features of England practical piety, the rule of
conscience, manly resolution, indomitable energy.
They founded England, in spite of the corruption
of the Stuarts and the relaxation of modern man
ners, by the exercise of duty, by the practice of
justice, by obstinate toil, by vindication of right,
by resistance to oppression, by the conquest of
liberty, by the repression of vice. They founded
Scotland ; they founded the United States ; at this
day they are, by their descendants, founding Aus
tralia and colonizing the world." f
* Hist. Eng., v. 134. f Eng. Literature, ii. 472.
II.
CALVINISM AS A POLITICAL FORCE IN THE
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
WE come now to one of the brightest pages of
Calvinistic history, that which records the
political influence of the Calvinists in the forma
tion of the American nation. I need not dwell
on Calvinism in the colonies prior to the struggle
with the mother-country for independence. It is
enough to bear in mind that the Puritans, who
formed the great bulk of the settlers of New
England, were rigid Calvinists, who had brought
with them all their high principles of civil lib
erty, and all their aversion to the ceremonies and
government of the Anglican Church, and all their
devotion to the doctrines of the great Reformers.
Let us come at once to the great Revolutionary
conflict by which the colonies became a free and
independent nation. My proposition is this a
proposition which the history clearly demonstrates :
That this great American nation, which stretches
60 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
her vast and varied territory from sea to sea, and
from the bleak hills of the North to the sunny
plains of the South, was the purchase chiefly of
the Calvinists, and the inheritance which they be
queathed to all liberty-loving people.
It would be almost impossible to give the merest
outline of the influence of the Calvinists on the
civil and religious liberties of this continent with
out seeming to be a mere Calvinistic eulogist; for
the contestants in the great Revolutionary conflict
were, so far as religious opinions prevailed, so gen
erally Calvinistic on the one side and Arminian on
the other as to leave the glory of the result almost
entirely with the Calvinists. They who are best
acquainted with the history will agree most read
ily with the historian, Merle D Aubigne", when he
says: "Calvin was the founder of the greatest of
republics. The Pilgrims who left their country in
the reign of James I., and, landing on the barren
soil of New England, founded populous and mighty
colonies, were his sons, his direct and legitimate
sons; and that American nation which we have
seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the
humble Reformer on the shores of Lake Leman." *
There was no place on this continent where the
* Hist. Re/, in the Time of Calvin, i. 5.
IN THE UNITED STATES. N 61
political agitation which resulted ill independence was
so vigorously kept up as in the city of New York.
The two leading parties of that city, in wealth and
influence, in politics and religion, at that time, were
the Livingstons and De Lanceys. The Livingstons
were Presbyterians, and consequently flaming re
publicans or Whigs, and were supported almost
unanimously by the dissenters; the De Lanceys
were Episcopalians, and staunch loyalists, or To
ries, and were supported as unanimously by the
Episcopalians.* Hence the religious beliefs and
differences contributed very largely to inflame the
spirit of the opposing parties and to sustain it
throughout the conflict; for not then as now, it
will be remembered, did such liberal and fraternal
sentiments pervade the various denominations. It
was a formative, trying period, when the heat of
debate and contention was felt and exhibited by
all parties.
The various bodies of dissenters, mainly Calvin-
ists, which had settled in the colonies, had been
driven away from their fatherland, not by the perse
cutions of the Romish Church, but by the tyranny
of British sovereigns and the intolerance of the
Anglican Church. It is to be remembered that the
* Jones s Hist. N. Y., vol. ii. p. 291.
62 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
settlement of New England was the result, not of
the contest between the Eeforming opinions and the
authority of Eome, but, as Bancroft says, " of the
implacable differences between Protestant dissenters
and the established Anglican Church. ... A young
French refugee (John Calvin) skilled in theology
and civil law, in the duties of magistrates and in
the dialectics of religious controversy, entering the
republic of Geneva, and conforming its ecclesias
tical discipline to the principles of republican sim
plicity, established a party of which Englishmen
became members and New England the asylum." *
The same radical and implacable differences which
existed between the dissenters and the Episcopalians
in England continued between them on this side of
the Atlantic, and finally brought them into open
conflict. The Episcopal Church, being the estab
lished Church of the English nation, having her
supreme authority vested in the English sovereign,
claimed the right to be the only Church to exist
under the British flag. Hence the non-conformists
could not find a place for the soles of their feet on
which to rest wherever that Establishment had the
power. Their only relief was in flight from the
homes of their childhood and the graves of their
* Hist. U. S., vol. i. p. 266.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 63
fathers. They came to this land seeking, not
wealth or fame, but a retreat in which to worship
God and train up their children in the principles
of their religion without incurring the wrath of
princes or bringing upon them the terrors of
inquisitors.
" Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came ;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame.
" Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear ;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
* * * *
" There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that Pilgrim band ;
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood s land ?
" There was woman s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love s truth ;
There was manhood s brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
"What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine ?
The wealth of seas ? the spoils of war?
They sought a faith s pure shrine.
64 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
"Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod !
They have left unstained what there they found
Freedom to worship God." *
This they sought, and this they left to all succeed
ing ages, but this they hardly found for themselves.
The land was too large and fair and fruitful to
be given up to such independent and insubordinate
religionists. The great Church of England must
be planted and maintained wherever her sovereign
swayed his royal sceptre. Therefore she speedily
stretched herself across the seas, and took up her
new abode in the Pilgrims asylum, with all her
authority and all her claims of divine rights of
kings and apostolic succession. Wherever she could
assert her power again in the new land the dissen
ters were made keenly to feel it. In Virginia and
New York the people were taxed for her support,
no matter what was their religious belief taxed to
maintain a hierarchy from which they had fled, and
which they hated taxed without representation in
either Church or State. Even so late as 1707, Fran
cis Makemie, a Presbyterian clergyman, was impris
oned by Lord Cornbury in New York City for being
what the Anglicans called "a strolling preacher,"
* Mrs. Hemans.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 65
and for spreading what they designated " pernicious
doctrines." And up even " to the very moment of
the Declaration of Independence the Presbyterians
were denied a charter of incorporation" in New
York. Thanks, everlasting thanks, to William
lY iin ! all religionists were accorded, in his colony,
equal rights with those whom he called " the hot
Church party."
Such, then, was the religious feature of the Rev
olutionary conflict; and it was one of the principal
causes of the war for independence. That war was
not by any means a mere civil and political strife.
Religion was at the very heart s core of it. In
1815, John Adams wrote these significant words:
" The apprehension of Episcopacy contributed, fifty
years ago, as much as any other cause to arouse the
attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of
the common people, and urge them to close think
ing on the constitutional power of Parliament over
the colonies. . . . Passive obedience and non-resist
ance in the most unqualified and unlimited sense
were the principles in government ; and the power
of the Church to decree rites and ceremonies, and
the authority of the Church in controversies of
faith, were explicitly avowed. ... In Virginia the
Church of England was established by law in ex-
66 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
elusion, and without toleration, of any other denom
ination. In New York it displayed its essential
character of intolerance. Large grants of land were
made to it, while other denominations could obtain
none ; and even Dr. Rodgers s congregation in New
York, numerous and respected as it was, could never
obtain a legal title to a spot to bury its dead" * In
the same letter he adduces facts to prove what he
terms " the bigotry, intrigue, intolerance and per
secution" of the Establishment, and to confirm his
statement that the dread of Episcopacy was one of
the chief causes of the revolt of the colonies against
Great Britain. It might be difficult to separate
Monarchy and Episcopacy in the minds of the dis
senting colonists, for they regarded them as twins ;
but to one who is acquainted with the struggles of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it will be
evident enough that the dissenters feared Episcopacy
quite as much as they feared Monarchy, and that
this fear was among the first and mightiest influ
ences which led to the war against King George.
In further confirmation of this we have most
excellent and reliable testimony in the words of
the Rev. Charles Inglis, rector of Trinity Church,
New York, during the Revolution. He says, in a
* Presbyterian Tracts, vol. iv. 194.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 67
letter written to the Episcopal Church Missionary
Society of London, Oct. 31, 1776: "The king s
troops, totally abandoning this province, reduced
the friends of government here to a most disagree
able and dangerous situation, especially the clergy,
who were viewed with peculiar envy and malignity
by the disaffected ; for although civil liberty was the
ostensible object, the bait flung out to catch the
populace at large and engage them in the rebel
lion, yet it is now past all doubt that an abolition
of the Church of England was one of the prin
cipal springs of the dissenting leaders conduct, and
hence the unanimity of dissenters in this business.
Their universal defection from government, eman
cipating themselves from the jurisdiction of Great
Britain and becoming independent, was a necessary
step to this grand object."* The Revolution, then,
was, according to this testimony, more pre-eminent
ly religious than political.
The dissenters had been driven to despair, and
could endure the exactions of the Establishment no
longer. The Episcopalians were unable to see how
the Presbyterians could profess loyalty to the king
while at the same time fomenting a spirit of inde
pendence. It seemed indeed a base hypocrisy; and
* The Presbyterian, Dec., 1870.
68 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
it would have been so had it not been for the fact
that it was religious as much as civil liberty for which
they were contending. Hence the occasion of some
of the first open outbreaks against the royal au
thority was the positive refusal of dissenters to pay
the church-taxes levied upon them. This extract
from one of the weekly papers of the time will
serve to reveal the religious feelings engaged, along
with the political, about six years before the Decla
ration of Independence: "This country will shortly
become a great and flourishing empire, independent
of Great Britain, enjoying its civil and religious
liberty uncontaminated, and deserted of all control
from bishops, the curse of curses, and from the
subjection of all earthly kings. The corner-stones
of this great structure are already laid, the mate
rials are preparing, and before six years roll about
the great, the noble, the stupendous fabric will be
erected." * Whatever be the character of the spirit
herein exhibited, certainly the prediction was most
remarkably verified.
The king and the bishop stood side by side in
the popular conception of the times; hence when
war broke forth the dissenting churches were on
the side of independence, and the Episcopal
* Jones, Hist. N. Y., vol. i. p. 24.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 69
churches were as unanimously on the side of the
Crown. This is not, however, so much to the
discredit of the Episcopal clergy as it might now
appear under the present order of things ; for we
are not to forget that they all, at that time, be
longed to the Church of England, whose supreme
authority on earth was vested in the reigning sov
ereign, to whom every clergyman of that Church
had sworn allegiance.
The Reformation in England, it will be remem
bered, unlike that in other lands, proceeded from
the sovereign, and not from the people. When
Henry VIII., in a fit of passion, threw off the alle
giance to the pope, he made himself chief pontiff
of the Church. This relation was afterward main
tained by the English sovereigns. Queen Elizabeth,
in her moral sense base though in politics splendid,
assured her prelates that had it not been for this
great ecclesiastical authority in her possession, by
which she could regulate and change the religion
at her will, she never would have tolerated Protest
antism.* Allow me here to quote from the Act of
Uniformity, by which such ecclesiastical power was
conferred upon the English monarch. She "may,
by advice of her ecclesiastical commissioners, ordain
* Strype s Hid. Bishop Parker, \. 217.
70 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
and publish such ceremonies or rites as may be
most for the advancement of God s glory and the
edifying of the Church." Then, by another clause,
Queen Elizabeth was allowed " to delegate her au
thority to any persons, being natural-born subjects,
lay or clerical, who, as commissioners of and for
the Crown, were empowered to visit, reform, redress,
order, correct and amend all such errors, heresies,
schisms, abuses, contempts and enormities whatso
ever which, by any manner of spiritual or ecclesi
astical power, authority or jurisdiction, can or may
lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected,
restrained or amended."*
This, it will be observed, gives the Crown abso
lute control of the Church. As a High -Church
historian has said, " Nothing can be more compre
hensive than the terms of this clause." f " Who
ever," says Lingard, the eminent Roman Catholic
historian, "will compare the powers given to this
tribunal with those of the Inquisition which Philip
II. endeavored to establish in the Low Countries,
will find that the chief difference between the two
courts consisted in their names" $
Thus the liberties of the Church were suspended
* Presbyterian Tracts, vol. iv. p. 19.
f Collier s Ecc. Hist., vi. 224. J Hist. Eng., v. 316.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 71
on the will of the reigning monarch, and her clergy
were but the vicars of the Crown, which might, and
sometimes did, suspend them from the exercise of
their functions. Henry VIII. by one stroke of
his pen at one time suspended every prelate in
England, and restored them only on their indi
vidual petition. And Elizabeth more than once
threatened, with her usual vulgarity and profan
ity, to "unfrock" the clergy who manifested any
opposition to her will.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the dissenting
spirit of independence rebelled against such an Act
of Uniformity, or that, their Church and living be
ing at the mercy of the Crown, the clergy of the
Establishment were unwilling to take up arms
against the king. This was the very thing, how
ever, to which the Calvin istic non-conformists
would not submit. They believed, and maintained
with their blood, that the sphere of the Church is
distinct from that of the State, and that no king
or Parliament has the right to bind the human
conscience.
Hence, in the war for American indc|>cndence the
dissenting churches arrayed themselves on the side
of the colonies, and the Anglican Church arrayed
itself on the side of the Crown. The independent.
72 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
and democratic spirit of Calvinism, cherished in the
hearts of its adherents and nourished by their mixed
assemblies and free discussions, rose up in rebellion
against all despotic measures, whether of Church or
State, and girded itself again for the great conflict
on this Western continent. Montesquieu truly ob
serves that " a religion which has no visible head
is more agreeable to the independence of the climate
than that which has one." * The Calvinists, recog
nizing no visibly supreme head in the Church, were
sensitive to all interference by princes and men high
in authority, and in their restless spirit were quick
to defend what they regarded as the inalienable
rights of man. They felt, what Bancroft so justly
declares, that " ecclesiastical tyranny is of all kinds
the worst ; its fruits are cowardice, idleness, igno
rance and poverty." f And that they never would
tolerate.
When the war broke out the Roman Catholic
population of the colonies was not large. In 1759
it was about two thousand in Pennsylvania in a
population of two hundred thousand, while the
Germans, who were either Presbyterian or Lutheran
in doctrine and church government, and who were
brave defenders of civil liberty, numbered in
* Spirit of Laws ii. 129. f Hist. U. S., i. 289.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 73
the same colony about three-fifths of the entire
population.
The Baptists, who are Calvinists, were not strong
in the colonies. Their first church in this country
was founded by Roger "Williams, an eccentric, pious
man. It was in 1639 that he came to the conclu
sion that immersion is the proper mode of baptism,
and that he must be baptized again according to
that method. But he could find no one who had
been himself immersed to immerse him ; hence he
employed a layman, Ezekiel Holliman, to immerse
him, after which he immersed Holliman and about
ten others. Thus was founded the first Baptist
church in America. He himself, however, soon
withdrew from the society, because he had come
to the conclusion that his action in thus forming
the Church had not been right or orderly. He
was a most intense lover of civil and religious lib
erty, and contended most earnestly for all human
freedom. Sixteen years before the Declaration of
Independence the Baptists had fifty-six churches in
the colonies. They have always been in the first
ranks of the champions of civil liberty.
The Independents, or Congregational ists, were
particularly strong in the Eastern colonies. At
first they were Presbyterian in their church gov-
74 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
ernment, having elders and synods. They were,
of course, Calvinists and rigid republicans, and
their children, such as the Adamses and Franklin,
were amongst the fathers of civil independency.
The Methodists had hardly a foothold in the
colonies when the war began. In 1773 they
claimed about one hundred and sixty members.
Their ministers were almost all, if not all, from
England, and were staunch supporters of the
Crown against American independence. Hence,
when the war broke out they were compelled to
fly from the country. Their political views were
naturally in accord with those of their great lead
er, John Wesley, who wielded all the power of his
eloquence and influence against the independence
of the colonies.* He did not foresee that independ
ent America was to be the field on which his noble
Church was to reap her largest harvests, and that
in that Declaration which he so earnestly opposed
lay the security of the liberties of his followers.
The Church of England for there was then no
American Episcopal Church was specially strong
in wealth and influence, particularly in Virginia and
New York. As she was the Established Church,
she held most of the civic and military offices.
* Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vii. 261.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 75
Amongst the Calvinistic churches the Congrega
tional ists and Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians
were the leaders, and none of them took a more
decided and active part in favor of independence
than the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. They threw
into the movement all the fearlessness of the
Scotch and all the fire and wit of the Irish char
acter. Hence their speeches and sermons and
papers and bulletins were at once irritating and
amusing to their opponents. Bancroft accredits
to them the glory of making the first bold move
toward independence, and of lifting the first pub
lic voice in its favor.* To the Synod of the
Presbyterian Church, convened in Philadelphia
in 1775, belongs the responsibility and may we
not say the ylory?of being the first religious
body to declare openly and publicly for a separa
tion from England, and to counsel and encourage
the people, who were then about taking up arms.
It enjoined upon its people to leave nothing un
done that could promote the end in view, and
called upon them to pray for the Congress then
assembled, f
Of course, a very large number of those who
* Hint. U. S., vol. x. 77.
f Scotch and Irish &edx in American Soil, p. 326.
76 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
belonged to the Established Church engaged most
heartily in the conflict in favor of independence,
and freely gave their wealth and influence to secure
it. One of her clergy, Jacob Duche, a native of
Philadelphia and rector of Christ s Church, was
for a time chaplain of the Continental Congress.
He was an eloquent, liberal and charitable man,
and for a while was truly and earnestly patriotic.
Samuel Adams, the " Father of the Revolutionary
War," a son of a deacon in the Old South Church,
Boston, nominated Duche" for the chaplaincy, say
ing that he (Adams) " was no bigot, and could hear
a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue who
was at the same time a friend to his country." But
as the conflict deepened, and the days grew darker,
and many men s hearts were failing them, Duche*
lost confidence in the American cause, and wrote a
letter to General Washington in which he pictured
the hopelessness of resistance and urged upon him
to cease his desperate and ruinous efforts. The
general sent the letter to Congress, and Duche 1 fled
to England. Congress confiscated his property,
and John Adams pronounced him to be "an apos
tate and traitor." In about ten years after Duche*
returned to Philadelphia, but never regained posi
tion or influence. The American people had ac-
IN THE UNITED STATES. 77
cepted the estimate which Adams had put upon
him.
It is to the glory of that Church also and truly
a glory it is that the great general who led the
Continental armies to victory, the " Father of our
country," was a member of her household. It was
through the strong and steady influence, against
much opposition, of the two cousins,* Samuel and
John Adams, sons of pious deacons, and whose
wives were daughters of dissenting clergymen,
that Washington was appointed to the chief gen
eralship.
And here let us note the happy influence of
such women of the Revolution as the wives of the
Adamses. This alone serves to reveal the spirit of
Mrs. John Adams, that the two things which first
she taught her son, John Qtiincy, in those stirring
and troublous times were the Lord s Prayer and
Collins s Ode to the patriotic warriors of 1745:
" How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Keturns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy s feet have ever trod.
* Thev were ne&md cousins.
78 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
" By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung,
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To watch the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there."
You can hear the freedom-loving spirit of that
mother speaking through these lines as she im
pressed them upon the mind of her little son.
Until the day of his death he could repeat them
as easily as the Lord s Prayer. It was such
women, behind the scenes, who were encouraging
the hearts of the patriotic men and training the
sons to take care of the cause of liberty.
It was these two great, independent sons of In
dependent deacons, John and Samuel Adams, who
placed the command in the hands of him who was
most worthy of it, and who, under the King of
nations, led the colonies to such a splendid triumph.
Perhaps it was glory enough for one Church that
she could claim as her son George Washington, for
the rector of Trinity Church, Charles Inglis, has
left it on record that all her clergy in the New
England colonies were on the side of the Crown.
He says : " I have the pleasure to assure you that
all the Society s missionaries, without excepting one,
L\ THE UNITED STATES. 79
in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and, so
far as I can learn, in the other New England col
onies, have proved themselves faithful, loyal sub
jects in these trying times, and have, to the utmost
of their power, opposed the spirit of disaffection
and rebellion which has involved this continent in
the greatest calamities. 1 must add that all the
above clergy of our Church in the above colonies,
though not in the Society s service, have observed
the same line of conduct ; and although their joint
endeavors could not wholly prevent the rebellion,
yet they checked it considerably for some time,
and prevented many thousands from plunging into
it who otherwise would certainly have done so."*
And in the same letter, to show the contrast, he
says : " I do not know one of them (the Presbyte
rian clergy), nor have I been able, after strict in
quiry, to hear of any, who did not, by preaching
and every effort in their power, promote all the
measures of Congress, however extravagant."
That, we say, they did ; and on that their glory
in the formation of this nation may well repose.
It has been made clear first, that the fear of
* Hit. Notices of the ,Vi&&lt;tt on of the Church of England in the
North American Colonies, London, p. 328. Quoted by The Pres
byterian, Dec., 1879.
80 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
Episcopacy was one of the principal causes of the
war for independence; and, second, that the Calvin-
ists were, almost to a man, on the side of the col
onies. It now remains for me to illustrate this
second point, and show how the Calvinists, both
from principle and moral necessity, struggled to
procure the liberties under whose benign influence
it is our privilege to live.
Montesquieu observes that there are two classes
which talk of religion the pious and the atheists.
The one class speak of what they love, and the
other of what they fear.* Both have a right to
be heard, for they are both in earnest. There is a
great middle class of indifferents, who neither love
nor fear religion enough to talk about it honestly
and earnestly. These neither claim a hearing nor
have a right to it. To them it is of slight import
ance whether they be Calvinists or Arminians.
They are not interested enough in religion to in
quire seriously as to where they stand. Neither
cold nor hot, they are content to call the earnestness
of the pious man " religious cant," and the honesty
of the atheist a species of blasphemy.
As it is better to be either cold or hot than luke
warm, we are interested enough in religion, I hope,
* Spirit of Laws, vol. ii. p. 129.
7.V THE V SITE I) STATES. 81
to know whereon we stand and the grounds on
which we rest our hopes of eternal life. If we
truly prize the blessings of civil and religious lib
erty, we cannot be uninterested in the agencies by
which they were secured and the means by which
they are maintained. Above all things, let us not
belong to the army of religious indifferents.
The Calvinists, from their religious principles
and by the free constitution of their churches, were
naturally arrayed against monarchy when monarchy
meant despotism. "The Scotch Kirk," says Lecky,
"was by its constitution essentially republican. .
It was in this respect the very antipodes to the
Anglican Church and to the Gallican branch of
the Catholic Church, both of which did all that
lay in their power to consecrate despotism and
strengthen [its] authority."* This holds good
equally in regard to the American colonies and
in regard to Great Britain and the nations of the
European continent. The reason of it lies in the
moral necessities of the case. Any one acquainted
with the Roman Catholic Church will agree with
De Tocqueville when he says: "Catholicism is like
an absolute monarchy." f It cannot, indeed, logic-
* Hist, of Englawl, vol. ii. p. 46.
f Democracy, vol. i. p. 385.
82 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
ally, be anything else. Hence it results that Roman
Catholicism can never be looked upon merely as a
religion. " It is," as a famous English writer ob
serves,* "a great and highly organized kingdom,
recognizing no geographical frontiers, governed by
a foreign sovereign, pervading temporal politics
with its manifold influence, and attracting to it
self much of the enthusiasm which would other
wise flow in national channels. Its priests, in their
intimate correspondence in many lands, the disci
plined unity of their political action, the almost
absolute authority they exercise over large classes,
and their usually almost complete detachment from
purely national and patriotic interests, have often
in critical times proved a most serious political
danger ; and they have sometimes pursued a tem
poral policy eminently aggressive, sanguinary, un -
scrupulous and ambitious." This has been seen,
more than once, in our own land, as it was in
the denial of absolution by the Roman Catholic
clergy of Canada to all who should befriend the
cause of the colonies; while, on the other hand,
the republican spirit of the Presbyterians in ec
clesiastical affairs has always given shape to their
political views, and inclined them to a stubborn
* Lecky, Hist. Eng., i. 290, 291.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 83
resistance to all despotic powers. To this old
Presbyterian, Calvinistic spirit was due the revolt
of the American colonies. As Bancroft remarks,
" Calvinism saw in goodness infinite joy, in evil
infinite woe, and, recognizing no other abiding
distinctions, opposed secretly, but surely, heredi
tary monarchy, aristocracy and bondage."*
Of private persons none, perhaps, had so much
influence in arousing the American people to resist
ance as three young lawyers, Presbyterians, of New
York City William Smith, Jr., William Living
ston and John Morin Scott. They were young men
of family, education and fortune. The father of
Smith (William, Sr.) was regarded as the leader
and main support of the Presbyterian Church in
the city. These three young men had been edu
cated at Yale College, which was at that time a
rigid Puritan institution, and "remarkable," as an
Episcopal author observes, "for its republican
principles . . . and its utter aversion to bishops
and all earthly kings." f Being Presbyterians,
and consequently flaming republicans, or Whigs,
they banded themselves together for the ex
pressed purpose of gaining the independence of
the colonies. In prosecution of this end they
* Hist. U. S., ii. 462. f Judge Jones, Hist. N. Y., i. 5.
84 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
formed, in concert with other kindred spirits, in
1752, the "Whig Club." In this club were such
men of learning and wealth as Peter Van Brugh
Livingston, David Van Home, William Alexander,
Kobert R. Livingston, William Peartree Smith and
Dr. John Jones. They met once a week, when re
publican speeches were made and republican songs
were sung, and toasts were drunk to the heroes of
Puritanism and republicanism, such as Oliver Crom
well, John Hampden and General Ludlow. By and
by the club issued a political paper, called the In
dependent Reflector, and later another, entitled the
Watch-Tower. By these and other means they
aroused and nourished the spirit of independence,
and encouraged and strengthened every effort made
in pursuit of the desired object.
The members of the club were so generally Pres
byterians that it was dubbed the " Presbyterian
Junta" a title given it in derision and scorn by
the Episcopal loyalists. It was this body w r hich
did the reforming work in the metropolis. From
it went forth the first effective call for a general
Congress, though such a call had been spoken of
before by Samuel Adams, a son of Deacon Adams
of the Old South Church, Boston. Of this Sam
uel, who was married to the daughter of Rev. Samuel
IN THE UNITED STATES. 85
Checklcy, pastor of the New South Church, Boston,
it was said, "The foe of tyrants in every form, the
friend of Virtue and her friends, the father of the
American Revolution."
The members of this club, called also the " Sons
of Liberty," sent forth a petition to Boston and
Philadelphia, and through Philadelphia to every
colony south, asking for a Congress composed of
representatives from each of the colonies. This,
says Bancroft, was the inception of the Continen
tal Congress.* And in this attitude of ceaseless
agitation and bold defiance and restless struggling
for independence did the members of this club
stand through all the conflict, giving all that they
held dear for the liberties of their land.
Another important factor in the independent
movement was what is known as the "Mecklen
burg Declaration," proclaimed by the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians of North Carolina, May 20, 1775,
more than a year before the Declaration of Con
gress. It was the fresh, hearty greeting of the
Scotch-Irish to their struggling brethren in the
North, and their bold challenge to the power of
England. They had been keenly watching the
progress of the contest between the colonies and
* Hist. U. S., vol. viii. p. 40.
86 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
the Crown, and when they heard of the address
presented by the Congress to the king, declaring
the colonies in actual rebellion, they deemed it time
for patriots to speak. Accordingly, they called a
representative body together in Charlotte, N. C.,
which by unanimous resolution declared the people
free and independent, and that all laws and com
missions from the king were henceforth null and
void. In their Declaration were such resolutions
as these : " We do hereby dissolve the political bands
which have connected us with the mother-country,
and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance
to the British Crown." . . . "We hereby declare
ourselves a free and independent people ; are, and
of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-govern
ing association, under control of no power other
than that of our God and the general government
of Congress ; to the maintenance of which we sol
emnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation
and our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred
honor."
This was certainly a bold movement, and none
would have dared it but those who were ready to
die. It was not done rashly. These men knew
well what they were doing and what responsibilities
they were assuming. None knew better. But,
IN THE UNITED STATES. 87
remembering their covenanting fathers, who had
signed the old Covenant in Scotland with their
blood, and believing that a just God does verily
govern the affairs of the world, they laid their
fortunes, lives and sacred honor on the altar of
their country s freedom. That assembly was com
posed of twenty -seven staunch Calvinists, just
one -third of whom were ruling elders in the
Presbyterian Church, including the president and
secretary ; and one was a Presbyterian clergyman.
The man who drew up that famous and important
document was the secretary, Ephraim Brevard, a
ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church and a
graduate of Princeton College. Bancroft says
of it that it was, " in effect, a declaration of in
dependence as well as a complete system of gov
ernment." * It was sent by a special messenger to
the Congress in Philadelphia, and was published
in the Cape Fear Mercury, and widely distributed
throughout the land. Of course it was speedily
transmitted to England, where it became the cause
of intense excitement.
The identity of sentiment and the similarity of
expression in this Declaration and the great Dec
laration written by Jefferson could not escape the
* Hint. U. S., viii. 40.
88 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
eye of the historian ; hence Tucker, in his Life of
Jefferson, says : " Every one must be persuaded
that one of these papers must have been borrowed
from the other." But it is certain that Brevard
could not have " borrowed " from Jefferson, for he
wrote more than a year before Jefferson; hence
Jefferson, according to his biographer, must have
" borrowed " from Brevard. But it was a happy
plagiarism, for which the world will freely forgive
him. In correcting his first draft of the Declara
tion it can be seen, in at least a few places, that
Jefferson has erased the original words and insert
ed those which are first found in the Mecklenburg
Declaration. No one can doubt that Jefferson had
Brevard s resolutions before him when he was writ
ing his immortal Declaration.
The spirit of the Mecklenburg resolutions was
that of the Presbyterians throughout the entire
conflict. They never wavered in their allegiance
to the independent cause. They were always true
to what Froude calls " the creed of republics in its
first hard form" the memorable reply of John
Kuox to Mary Stuart when she asked him, " If sub
jects, having the power, may resist their princes ?"
Knox replied, "If princes exceed their bounds,
madam, they may be resisted even by power."
IN THE UNITED STATES. 89
They were, as Bancroft testifies, "the supporters
of religious freedom in America. They were true
to the spirit of the great English dissenter who
hated all laws that were framed
To stretch the conscience, and to bind
The native freedom of the mind. "
"It was," he continues, "from Witherspoon of New
Jersey that Madison imbibed the lesson of perfect
freedom in matters of conscience. When the con
stitution of New Jersey was formed by a convention
composed chiefly of Presbyterians, they established
perfect liberty of conscience without the blemish of
a teat." *
Out of that Presbyterian constitution has come
the famous "Jersey justice," the extension of which
over all the land would be an unspeakable bless
ing. The Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, a native
of Scotland and a lineal descendant of John
Knox, was, in the Revolutionary time, president
of Princeton College, and was the only clerical
member of the Revolutionary Congress. He, as
might be expected, earnestly and eloquently sup
ported every measure adopted by Congress for se
curing independence. When the important moment
* Hist. U. S., ix. 278, 279.
90 CAL VINISM IN HISTOE Y
came for signing the Declaration, and some of the
members were hesitating to affix their names to it,
he delivered an eloquent appeal, in which he said :
" That noble instrument upon your table, which
ensures immortality to its author, should be sub
scribed this very morning by every pen in the
house. He that will not respond to its accents,
and strain every nerve to carry into effect its pro
visions, is unworthy the name of a freeman. For
my own part, of property I have some, of reputa
tion more. That reputation is staked, that prop
erty is pledged, on the issue of this contest. And
although these gray hairs* must soon descend into
the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather they should
descend thither by the hands of the public execu
tioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of.
my country ."f All honor to him and to the Church
and the principles which he so eloquently repre
sented ! That Church may well be proud of hav
ing her clergy so honorably represented among the
signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Witherspoon remained in the Congress, excepting
for a short period, till 1782, and contributed perhaps
as largely as any one member to the patriotic cause.
* He was then in the fifty-fourth year of his age.
f Scotch and Irish Seed in American Soil, p. 334.
IN THE UNITED STATES. 91
He was chairman of the committee to receive and
consult with Baron Steubcn, who had come to
America to offer his services to the patriots, and
he was the only one who could converse with the
baron.* They conversed in French. The Con
gress was then sitting at York, Pennsylvania.
None of the colonies was more enthusiastic and
self-sacrificing on behalf of independence than New
Jersey, or Nova Ccesarea, the one represented by
"NVitherspoon and the one so full of "Blue-stock
ing " Presbyterians. It was to it that the patriots
fled for refuge from New York on the entrance of
Howe s army into that city. It was amongst its
True Blues that the scattered and discouraged forces
of Washington found, again and again, recruits and
provisions and shelter and encouragement. A Tory
historian says that "not a stick of wood, a spear of
grass or a kernel of corn could the British troops
get in New Jersey without fighting for it."f Her
people had caught the spirit of her eminent repre
sentatives in Congress and of her republican college
at Princeton, where so many of the chief actors in
the Revolution had been educated, and hence they
stood united and firm and enthusiastic through all
the conflict.
* Sparks s Lives : Steuben." f Jones, Hist. N. Y., i. 171.
92 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
Another important man in the cause of inde
pendence was the Eev. John Rodgers, the leading
Presbyterian clergyman in New York City, and
the first moderator of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in America. He and John
Mason, pastor of the Seceder Church, and Liv
ingston of the Dutch Church, and Laidley of the
English-Dutch Church, were among the patriotic
leaders in that city. Rodgers was born in Boston,
of parents who had emigrated from Londonderry,
Ireland, and his church in New York was large
and wealthy and influential. He had to fly from
the city on the entrance of the British troops, who
seized his church and turned it into a hospital.
Congress acknowledged his patriotism and ability
by employing him on an important mission to the
South. He was chaplain in the army, and after
ward chaplain of the State convention of New
York. He threw all his eloquence, influence and
possessions upon the side of the good cause, and
did more perhaps, in the beginning, to arouse the
people than any other clergyman.
The following incident serves to reveal the polit
ical sentiment and movement of the clergy of New
York City. It is given by an eye-witness and a
prominent member of the Anglican Church. When
IN THE UNITED STATES. 93
Generals Washington, diaries Lee and Schuyler
were on their way to assume command of their
respective armies, in 1775 Washington and Lee
going to Boston, and Schuyler to Albany they
arrived in New York on a Sabbath morning in
the month of June. And by whom were they
met and welcomed to the city ? By the volunteer
companies, the members of the Provincial Con
gress of New York, the members of the City
Committee and the pastors of the dissenting
churches. Washington and Lee were members
of the Episcopal Church, but there was not a
clergyman of their Church to bid them welcome.
These others, the Calvinists, met them, and con
ducted Washington to the house of a Calvin ist,
Mr. Lispenard, where he and his staff were boun
tifully entertained. But on that same day and in
that same city another high officer arrived Gen
eral Tryon, the king s governor of the colony.
And by whom was he met and welcomed? By
all the king s officers and scores of his loyal sub
jects, prominent amongst whom were the clergy
of the Episcopal Church. Nothing could more
clearly mark the difference in political sentiment
of these different clergymen and their churches.
From that time Washington was about as much
94 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
of a Presbyterian as an Episcopalian. When after
ward he was commander in New York he made
his head-quarters with William Smith, a prominent
Presbyterian. He himself attended, and ordered
all his men to attend, the services of his chaplains,
who were dissenting clergymen ; and he elsewhere
attended the dissenters service and communed
with them. He gave forty thousand dollars in
bonds to establish a Presbyterian college in his
native State, which took his name in honor of his
munificent gift, becoming Washington College.
Thus I might trace through all that severe conflict
the spirit of the Calvinists, and find it always the
same true to the cause of independence ; indeed,
the only unswerving champion of it. This is no
more than prominent men, historians and clergy
men on the other side have said. I could not em
ploy language more definite and pointed than that
of the Rev. Dr. Chandler, a clergyman of the
Episcopal Church and a man of ability and note,
when, in his plea for an American episcopate as
distinct and different from the English, he said:
" Republican principles cannot flourish in an Epis
copal Church." Everywhere during all that con
flict it was the Calvinists chiefly who were fighting
for religious and civil liberty. Hence, when the
IN THE UNITED STATES. 95
bill of attainder was made out in New York
against those who had been conspicuous in their
eft orta to defeat the colonies, there was not a dis
senter s name found in it.*
But the influence of the free spirit of Calvinism
in favor of the liberties of the colonies was not
confined to the American continent ; it was work
ing heroically on the other side of the Atlantic.
Two great Scotchmen, David Hume and Adam
Smith, were everywhere proclaiming it in their
own effective way, and compelling men to hear it.
In the House of Commons also it was boldly and
eloquently upheld by Erin s gifted son, Edmund
Burke, as well as by Charles James Fox, of whom
Dr. Johnson said, " Here is a man who has divided
a kingdom with Caesar, so that it was a doubt which
the nation should be ruled by, the sceptre of George
III. or the tongue of Mr. Fox." The memory of
such champions of American liberty at the English
court should be held for ever dear by the Ameri
can people, for had it not been for such men, it
is doubtful if the colonies could have succeeded.
These great men felt that America s cause was the
cause of liberty, and that, as Burke said, the estab
lishment of the king s and the Church s power in
* Jones, Hi*t. N. Y. t in loco.
96 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
America would become an apt, powerful and cer
tain engine for the destruction of freedom in Eng
land.*
The Calvinistic philosophy had also taken a firm
hold of the popular mind in Germany, where Kant,
imbued with its liberty-loving spirit, was loosening
the foundations of despotism and suffering persecu
tion for his valiant defence of the American cause.
France, too, was all aglow with the free, bounding,
restless spirit of Calvinism where Rousseau, in
spite of the immorality of his life and the crudity
of his theories, was conducting, through his polit
ical science, the same political warfare as that in
America. His influence in advocating the rights
of man contributed very largely to the forming
of the alliance between France and the colonies,
and to the unfurling of the royal standard along
side of the blue flag of the Covenanters, hoisted
again in a new form over the American continent.
It was Calvinistic France and Calviuistic America
that were going forth in loving unity to fight on
Western soil for the cause of human freedom. As
our great historian observes, "Anti-prelatical Puri
tanism \vas embraced by anti-prelatical skepticism.
The exile Calvin was welcomed home as he return-
* Buckle, i. 345.
iy THE UNITED STATES. 97
ed by the way of New England and the States
where the Huguenots and Presbyterians prevailed.
. . . One great current of vigorous living opinion,
which there was no power in France capable of
resisting, swept through society, driving all the
clouds in the sky in one direction. Ministers and
the king and the nation were hurried along to
gether." *
Thus Calvinism in Europe and Calvinism in
America were leagued together for the promotion
of the one great purpose. Their several currents,
civil and spiritual, philosophical and religious, had
run together, and were sweeping on in one great
stream, bearing the colonies on to liberty. Out
of Calvinistic Protestantism had arisen the great
leaders who had issued their rousing calls to the
nations for deliverance from mental and political
bondage, and had combined their forces for secur
ing the one great object. Rousseau had inflamed
the youthful spirit of France with an intense de
sire for republican simplicity, and Edwards had
summed up the political history of America when
he gave Calvinism its political enthusia by declar
ing virtue to consist in universal love.
Thus, it was the Calvinists and their sons, at
* Bancroft, Hint. l r . S., ix. 50l-. r >03.
98 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
home and abroad, the Huguenots and Puritans
and Independents and Presbyterians, who were
banded and marshaled together in the eighteenth
century for the laudable purpose of rescuing the
liberties of men from the deadly grasp of a me
diaeval political Arminianism.
Understanding, then, the history of the times
referred to, we are not surprised to hear men say,
as Ranke, that "John Calvin was virtually the
founder of America," or as Rufus Choate : " In
the reign of Mary [of England] a thousand learn
ed artisans fled from the stake at home to the hap
pier states of continental Protestantism. Of these,
great numbers I know not how many came to
Geneva, ... I ascribe to that five years in Geneva
an influence which has changed the history of the
world. I seem to myself to trace to it, as an influ
ence on the English character, a new theology, new
politics, another tone of character, the opening of
another era of time and liberty. I seem to myself
to trace to it the great civil war in England, the
republican constitution framed in the cabin of the
Mayflower, the divinity [theology] of Jonathan
Edwards, the battle of Bunker Hill, the independ
ence of America."
Similar also is the testimony of Castelar, the elo-
IN THE UNITED STATES. 99
quent Spanish statesman. He says: "The children
of the Puritans founded the United States, a liberal
and popular government, where human rights were
placed above all ideas. . . . They harmonized an
tagonisms which seemed eternal stability with
progress, order with liberty, pure democracy with
obedience to the law, the widest freedom of diller-
ent social tendencies with a powerful nationality
and ardent patriotism, the humanitarian with the
cosmopolite spirit, indomitable independence of the
individual with religious respect to authority. . . .
The Anglo-Saxon democracy is the product of a
severe theology learned by the few Christian fugi
tives in the gloomy cities of Holland and of Switz
erland, where the morose shade of Calvin still
wanders. . . . And it remains serenely in its
grandeur, forming the most dignified, most moral,
most enlightened and richest portion of the human
race." *
So also Bancroft : " He that will not honor the
memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows
but little of the origin of American independence."
..." The light of his genius shattered the mask
of darkness which Superstition had held for cen-
tu,ries before the brow of Religion."
* Harper s Afayftzine, July, 1872.
100 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
So also the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher : " It has
ever been a mystery to the so-called liberals that
the Calvinists, with what they have considered
their harshly despotic and rigid views and doc
trines, 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 individ
uality of man, and shows in a clear and overpow
ering light his responsibility to God and his re
lations to eternity. It points out man as entering
life under the weight of a tremendous responsibil
ity, having, on his march toward the grave, this
one sole solace of securing heaven and of escap
ing 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
IN THE UNITED STATES. 101
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 And his way
to God. Meddle not with him or with his rights.
Let him work out his 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." *
I have thus traced for you, as briefly and accu
rately as the circumstances would permit, the work
ings of this great Calvinistic system of religion for
the liberties of men ; and it now only remains for
me to remind you, and urge you to engrave it
upon your heart, that on your religion ever depends
your freedom or your bondage. It is a matter of
supreme importance what doctrines you believe,
what principles you adopt. On these you must
erect the whole superstructure of your life for this
world and for the world which is to come. By
these arise or fall, live or die, the governments of
kingdoms and the privileges of citizens. If this
grand republic shall ever become a despotism by
any combination of centralized power, certain it is
that it will not be by the spirit of Calvinism, or
* Plymouth Pulpit, art. " Calvinism."
102 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
with the permission of the spiritual sons of those
who gave it birth and cradled it in suffering and
nourished it into maturity with their blood. With
the history of the fathers before you, with a hell
to be shunned and a heaven to be secured, you
cannot be in doubt as to what principles you ought
to adopt and what Lord and Master you ought to
serve. Take these thoughtful lines of Wordsworth
and weave them into the very framework of your
being :
" Ungrateful country, if thou e er forget
The sons who for thy civil rights have bled !
How, like a Roman, Sidney bowed his head,
And Russel s milder blood the scaffold wet!
But these had fallen for profitless regret
Had not thy holy Church her champions bred,
And claims from other worlds inspirited
The star of Liberty to rise. Nor yet
(Grave this within thy heart), if spiritual things
Be lost through apathy, or scorn, or fear,
Shalt thou thy humbler franchises support,
However hardly won or justly dear:
What came from heaven to heaven by nature clings,
And if dissevered thence, its course is short."
III.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE,
I COME now to consider the very important
question of the moral influence of Calvinism.
Bearing in mind the law set forth in the Saviour s
saying, "By their fruits ye shall know them," we
are to inquire as to the merits of Calvinism re
specting the morals of its adherents.
In doing this we might rest the claims of Cal
vinism to a high standard of morality on a com
parison between the morals of Roman Catholics
among whom Arminianism is carried out to it*
logical results* and the morals of any denomi
nation of Calvinists, the Huguenots, for example,
or the Puritans, or Independents, or Presbyterians.
Take any of these classes of Calvinistie, believers,
and it will be found that they are as eminent in
* Of course we do not mean to say that the Arminianism of
the Humanist Church is responsible for the immoralities of
that Church: we mean simply to contrast the morals of the
most thorough Arminians with the morals of the moht thor
ough Calviniftts.
103
104 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
virtue as the Romanists are conspicuous in vice.
The Roman clergy are forward to attribute the
prevailing crimes of modern society to the Protest
ant religion, but it needs only a glance at the facts
to dispel the illusion which they would have men
believe. And while they are thus pleased to charge
upon the Protestants the sins to which they and
their followers are most habitually addicted, they
would, I believe, shrink from a strict comparison
of the morals of any portion of their people with
the morals of any portion of the Calvinists.
But Calvinism has had to meet not only the
accusations of Roman Arminianism, but the alle
gations of many who claim for themselves the title
of Protestant. There are to be found amongst Prot
estants those who look upon Calvinism as unfavor
able to a sound morality, and who allege against it
that it is a system of intellectual servitude, paralyz
ing to the moral and spiritual nature.
The eminent Dr. Channing employed all his
ingenuity in "the moral argument" against Cal
vinism, and labored, not without some success, to
make Calvinism odious and abhorrent. He says,
in the height of his misinformed zeal, that it "out
rages conscience and reason," and that it " owes its
perpetuity to the influence of fear in palsying the
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 105
moral nature." It might, perhaps, be difficult to
account for such statements from one who was hi in-
self " the pupil of New-England Christianity, the
consummate flower of the old Puritanism, in his
youth ;" who was decided to a religious life through
the influence of Jonathan Edwards and his Calvin-
istic uncle, the Rev. Henry Channing, and the
great Calvinistic revival which swept over New
England when he was as yet a young man ; and
who, as the Rev. Joseph Cook observes, " showed
throughout life some touches from the fingers of
the prophet of Geneva," and " whose glorious as
piration for moral greatness, which made him a
reformer in things both secular and religious, was
but the flowering out of some of the stern doctrines
of Puritanism."* It abates materially, however,
the force of Channing s statements to know that
in the later and riper years of his life his religious
views changed considerably, and that the religious
system with which he endeavored to replace the
Puritanism of his fathers has almost passed away as
a living power, having been found "as inadequate
to span the river of sin as a fishing-rod is to bridge
the Mississippi." f If there is one characteristic of
* futures : Miracles, Prophecy and Inspiration, Prelude, March
8, 1880. f Cook, Independent, March 18, 18HO.
106 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
Calvin istic morality more prominent than another,
it is its conscience. John Quincy Adams, a dis
ciple of Channing, has called the Puritan colony
of New England u a colony of conscience;" and
Taine remarks that with the Calvinists " conscience
only spoke." *
The two great springs by which men are moved
are sentiment and idea, feeling and conviction ; as
these control, so the moral character will be
shaped. The man of sentiment, of feeling, is the
man of instability ; the man of idea, of conviction,
is the man of stability : he cannot be changed until
his conscience first be changed. Now, the appeal
of Arminianism is chiefly to the sentiments. Re
garding man as having the absolutely 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 expe
dient. Accordingly, the senses, above all things,
must be addressed and affected. Hence, the Ar-
minian is, religiously, a man of feeling, of senti
ment, and consequently disposed to all those things
which interest the eye and please the ear. His
morality, therefore, as depending chiefly upon the
* Taine s Eng. Literature, i. 388.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 107
emotions, is, in the nature of the case, liable to
frequent fluctuation, rising or falling with the
wave of sensation upon which it rides. Calvin
ism, on the other hand, is a system which appeals
to idea rather than sentiment, to conscience rather
than emotion. In its view 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. Regarding the
sinner as unable of himself even to exercise faith
unto salvation, it throws him not upon his feelings,
but upon his convictions, and turns him away
from man and all human efforts to the God who
made him. " Its grand principle is the contem
plation of the universe in God revealed in Christ.
In all place, in all time, from eternity to eternity,
Calvinism sees God."* Its thought is not senti
ment, but conviction not the arousing of the sen
suous, but the quickening of the spiritual, nature.
Calvin considered it next to a crime to appeal to
men s feelings simply in order to have them act.
He desired rather to bring the rule of conscience
into the practical life to make the voice of God,
speaking in the soul, the guide in all the conduct.
He sought rather to convince men than to fill them
* Bayne s Chief Artnr* in Ike Puritan Revolution, p. 16.
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
with a transient sensation. Thus a deep sense of duty
is the great thing in the moral life of the Calvinist.
His first and last question is, 7s it right ? Of that
he must first be convinced. Hence with him con
science has the first place in all practical questions.
You will observe how this idea of duty runs
through all the Calvinistic philosophy, as in
Reid s of Great Britain, Kant s of Germany, Jona
than Edwards s of America. 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 sor
rowfully, 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 stubborn
ness and harshness. " He is troubled," says Taine,
" not only about what he must believe, but about
what he ought to do; he craves an answer to his
doubts, but especially a rule for his conduct ; he is
tormented by the notion of his ignorance, but also
by the horror of his vices ; he seeks God, but duty
also. In his eyes the two are but one."* "We
* Eng. Literature, ii. 462.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 109
have," he continues, " considered these Puritans as
gloomy madmen, shallow brains and full of scru
ples. Let us quit our French and modern ideas,
and enter into these souls : we shall find there some
thing else than hypochondria namely, a grand
sentiment, Am I a just man ? And if God, who
is perfect justice, were to judge me at this moment,
what sentence would he pass upon me ? Such is
the original idea of the Puritans. . . . The feeling
of the difference there is between good and evil had
filled for them all time and space, and had become
incarnate. . . . They were struck by the idea of
duty. They examined themselves by this light,
without pity or shrinking ; they conceived the sub
lime nuxlcl of infallible and complete virtue; they
were imbued therewith ; they drowned in this ab
sorbing thought all worldly prejudices and all in
clinations of the senses. . . . They entered into life
with a fixed resolve to suffer and to do all, rather
than deviate one step."
Such was the morality of the men whom liberals
(so called) and free-thinkers and free-lovers have
endeavored to ridicule, and such the moral system
which men claiming to be enlightened and truthful
have said to be an "outrage upon conscience" and
* Eng. Literature, ii. 471.
110 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
unfavorable to good morals. It is indeed the lustre
of its morality which has made it so conspicuous a
mark for the shafts of the foe. The strictness of
its purity arouses against it the passions of those
who are conscious of being far below its just re
quirements. What is wanted to-day, and in all
days in this world, is not less, but more, of the
Calvinistic conscience, purity and rectitude.
Another prominent characteristic of Calvinistic
morality is its courageousness. This follows from
the former. Conscience and courage go together.
Conscience makes "cowards" or heroes "of us all."
To change the conscience you must first change the
idea. But this is not easily done. Sentiment, or
feeling, may pass through a thousand changes in a
moment, and carry its possessor in so many direc
tions; but conviction holds steadfastly on in the
same unvarying way until by some brighter light
it discovers its error and turns aside. Hence the
men of conscience are, other things being equal,
the brave men, the bold men, the courageous men.
Calvinism, by appealing to conscience and em
phasizing duty, begets a moral heroism which has
been the theme of song and praise for three cen
turies. Chann ing s view was peculiarly distorted
when he said that Calvinism "owes its perpetuity
- CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE.
to the influence of fear in palsying the moral
hire." Had he not read the history of the Ref- ^
ormation in Europe or of the Revolution in Eng-
land? Had he so soon forgotten the moral he-*^^
roism of the Puritans of his own New England c; t
Fear, indeed, is one of the least potent elements
the Calvinistic svstem. Calvinism does teach a fear
/
of God, a fear of sin and a fear of hell ; and, if^
the Gospel be true, it becomes all men to have fear
in that direction. That, surely, from which the
Son of God died to redeem men ought to be feared
as nothing else is. It is the loving forewarning of^
the Redeemer not to fear men, but to "fear Him
who, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into
hell. Yea, I say unto you, Fear him." Such a
fear Calvinism does conscientiously and faithfully
inculcate. Yet such is its tendency to deliver from
a slavish bondage to fear that not a small class of
men have looked upon it as a species of lofty fatal
ism, somewhat more divine than Islamism.
Certain it is that it gives no such place to fear
as does the system of a rigid Arminianism. Con
sider the terrors brought to bear upon the mind
by the Church of Rome and you get an idea of
the fear-element of a strict Armiiiiniiism. Even
of Arminianism as embodied in Methodism so
112
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
much more evangelical and moderate than that
of Romanism Lecky, who speaks with the cold,
philosophic spirit of the rationalist, says : "A more
appalling system of religious terrorism, one more
fitted to unhinge a tottering intellect and to darken
and embitter a sensitive nature, has seldom exist
ed." ^ While I quote him not to justify him al
together in this judgment, I yet can well conceive
of the terror to a sensitive soul of that dark un
certainty as to salvation, and of that ever-abidino-
&
consciousness of the awful possibility of falling
away from grace after a long and painful Chris
tian life, which is taught by Arminianism. To
me such a doctrine has terrors which would cause
me to shrink away from it for ever, and which
would fill me with constant and unspeakable per
plexities. To feel that I were crossing the troubled
and dangerous sea of life dependent for my final
security upon the actings of my own treacherous
nature were enough to fill me with a perpetual
alarm. If it is possible, I want to know that the
vessel to which I commit my life is seaworthy, and
that, having once embarked, I shall arrive in safety
at my destination.
This is what the doctrines of Calvinism assure
* Hist, of Enyl., Eighteenth Century, ii. f>33.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 113
me. With its free grace, its effectual calling, its
final perseverance and divine sovereignty, it affords
me a consciousness of security in the midst of all
my doubts, temptations and perplexities. It thus
inspires its possessor with confidence, so that he can
triumphantly say, " I am persuaded that he shall
keep that which I have committed to him against
that day." It thus dethrones fear, exalts confidence,
and works in the mind the conviction that the in
terests committed to Christ are kept against all the
possibility of Joss, and that the man himself is im
mortal until his work is done. Where such a con
viction prevails, courage must follow. Hence the
remark of the historian Bancroft : "A coward and
a Puritan never went together."
For the courageous morality of the Calvinists
one has only to look at the doings of the Inquisi
tion in the Low Countries and at the martyrdoms
of Cambray and the fires of Smithfield. Who
were the martyrs but Calvinists? There is no
other system of religion in the world which has
such a glorious array of martyrs to the faith. Al
most 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
114 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
minister of God who made Geneva the light of Eu
rope. Is, then, the system one of paralyzing influ
ence on the moral nature ?
" I am going to ask you," says Froude, who is
sometimes spoken of as an assailant of Calvinism,
" to consider how it came to pass that if Calvinism
is indeed the hard and unreasonable creed which
/
modern enlightment declares it to be, it has possess
ed 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 wher
ever it established itself w 7 as to obliterate the dis
tinction between sins and crimes, and to make the
moral law the rule of life for states as well as per
sons. I shall ask you again, why, if it be a creed
j 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 to worship with the vulgar ; when emotion
and sentiment and tender imaginative piety have
become the handmaids of superstition, and have
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 115
dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is
any difference between lies and truth, the slavish
form of the belief called Calvinism, in one or
other of its many forms, has borne ever an inflex
ible front to illusion and mendacity, and has pre
ferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than
to bend before violence or melt under enervating
temptation." In illustration of this he mentions
William the Silent, Luther, Knox, Andrew Mel
ville, the regent Murray, Coligny, Cromwell, Mil
ton, Bunyan, and says of them : " These were men
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 any one,
and able in some way to sound the keynote to
which every brave and faithful heart in Europe
instinctively vibrated."*
With this testimony every enlightened and im
partial reader of history will agree. The men of
commanding moral courage have been, and now
* Culvinixm, pp. 7, 8.
116 CALVINISM JJV HISTORY.
are, those who have been most thoroughly and in
telligently imbued with the Calvinistic doctrines.
As another has said, "Calvin s fiery insistence of
men and nations to God s moral law was, in the es
sence of it, noble, supremely noble, vibrating in
true sympathy with the purest heroisms the world
has ever seen."*
Another prominent characteristic of the Calvin
istic morality is its practicalness. As we have seen,
it is a morality not of sentiment, but of idea; a
morality which does not dissipate itself in the glow
of a transient emotion, but which, seizing upon the
conscience, works out in the practices and expe
riences of life; a morality not of a speculative
nature, but of an earnest, active life struggling to
make the conduct square with the requirements of
the law of God. " What," says one, " is this Prot
estantism which is being founded in England?
What is this ideal model which it presents ? and
what original conception is to furnish to this peo
ple its permanent and dominant poem? The
harshest and most practical of all that of the
Puritans, which, neglecting speculation, falls back
upon action, binds human life in a rigid discipline,
imposes on the soul continuous effort, prescribes to
* Bayne, Chief Actors in the Puritan Revolution, p. 22.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 117
society a cloisteral austerity, forbids pleasure, com
mands action, exacts sacrifice, and forms the moral
ist, the laborer, the citizen. Thus is it implanted,
the great English idea I mean that man is before
all a free and moral personage, and that, having
conceived alone in his conscience and before God
the rule of his conduct, he must employ himself
completely in applying it within himself, beyond
himself, obstinately, inflexibly, by a perpetual re
sistance opposed to others and a perpetual restraint
imposed upon himself."*
This brilliant writer calls it the " harshest " of
all religious conceptions. To this we would by no
means assent, unless harshness means obedience to
God s laws and resistance to sin. That may indeed
be considered harsh. The child may deem it hard
treatment to be compelled to be truthful ; the crim
inal may consider it a cruelty to be punished for his
crimes ; and he who wishes to live in the violation
of moral principles may regard it as an outrage
upon his liberty to be reminded of his guiltiness
and warned of its penalty. In this sense the Cal-
vinistic morality is " harsh," exceeding harsh
harsh, indeed, as Nature s laws but it lays upon
man not one exaction which it does not find
* Taine, En<j. Literature, ii. pp. 316, 317.
118 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
already laid upon him by the God who made
him.
It is this practicalness of the Calvinistic morality
which has ever made it so beneficent. It is this
which has formed its adherents into the most moral
of all classes of human society which gave to the
Puritans the very title which is significant of their
eminent moral qualities, and transformed the idle
and slothful into the industrious and respected
citizen. "Grave as we may count the faults
of Calvinism," says one who is not at all given
to lavish compliments upon it, "alien as its
temper may in many ways be from the temper of
the modern world, it is in Calvinism that the mod
ern world strikes its roots; for it was Calvinism
that first revealed the worth and dignity of man.
Called of God and heir of heaven, the trader at
his counter and the digger in his field suddenly
rose into equality with the noble and the king." *
The same author also accredits to Calvinism the
formation of that sacred institution, the English
Home, saying, " Home, as we conceive it, was the
creation of the Puritan." "When there was no
such institution in the world as Home; when the
family existed without the sacred ministries of
* Green, Hist. Eng. People, ii. p. 280.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 119
domestic life ; when the woman was but the slave
or the klol or the amusement of the man, as his
temper or power or will might dictate; when the
worst of vices were practiced within the domestic
circle, the Calvinists, by their constant aim at
self-control, and their perpetual endeavor for the
purity of morals, and their high regard for the
marriage-covenant as symbolical of their relations
to Christ, and their belief in the sublime possi
bilities of the woman as the man, formed, out of
a loose and corrupt society, the hallowed shrine
where the holiest affections are brought into play,
and around which the fondest recollections of man
cluster. That they did this one thing formed the
Christian Home entitles them to the imperishable
gratitude of mankind.
Let this also be remembered as a diadem upon
the brow of Calvinistic morality: that in all the
history of the Puritans there is not an example, of
a divorce. That is enough to offset the modern
liberal istic cry against Puritanic strictness. Is it
not Puritanism which modern society needs to
purify and sweeten its corrupt and bitter waters
and to give a healthful tone to all its moral life?
"The Calvinists were the men," says Froude, "who
abhorred, as no body of men ever more abhorred,
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
all conscious mendacity, all impurity, all moral
wrong of every kind so far as they could recog
nize it. Whatever exists at this moment in Eng
land and Scotland of conscientious fear of doing
evil is the remnant of the convictions which were
branded by the Calvinists into the people s hearts." *
They were they "who attracted to their ranks al
most every man in Western Europe that hated a
lie."
" 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 ar
tillery." f "Men may talk as much as they please
against the Calvinists and Puritans and Presbyte
rians, but you will find that when they want to
make an investment they have no objection to
Calvinism or Puritanism or Presbyterianism. They
know that where these systems prevail, where the
doctrine of men s obligation to God and man is
taught and practiced, there their capital may be
* Calvinism, p. 44.
t Leading Thoughts of Living Thinkers.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 121
Rifely invested."* "They tell us," he continues,
"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
for ever."
You may examine all the history of Christian
people and of religious systems, and you will not
find any more eminent for piety and morality than
the Calvinists. In charity, in lil>erality, in indus
try, in temperance, in purity of life, they stand
without a superior perhaps without an equal.
Compare the Huguenots and Janseuists, who were
Calvinists, with their countrymen, the Romanists
and Jesuits, who were Arminians. Were not the
former as illustrious in virtue as the latter were
notorious for immorality? "The destruction of
the former by the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes was," says Lecky, " the destruction of the
most solid, the most modest, the most virtuous,
the most generally enlightened element in the
French nation, and it prepared the way for the
inevitable degradation of the national character,
and the last serious bulwark was removed that
might have broken the force of that torrent of
* Even. Sermon, Feb. 10, 1860.
122 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
skepticism and vice which, a century later, laid
prostrate, in merited ruin, both the altar and the
throne." *
The morality of the Huguenots, whether suffer
ing persecution at home or enduring the trials of
exile abroad, was the wonder of both friend and
foe. Looking back, says one, at the sufferings of
those of them who remained in France after the
Revocation of the Edict, and at the purity, self-
denial, honesty and industry of their lives, and at
the devotion with which they adhered to religious
duty and the worship of God, we cannot fail to re
gard them as amongst the truest, greatest and wor
thiest heroes of their age. " When society in France
was falling to pieces; when its men and women
were ceasing to believe in themselves and in each
other; when the religion of the state had become
a mass of abuse, consistent only in its cruelty ;
when the debauchery of its kings had descended
through the aristocracy to the people, until the
whole mass was becoming thoroughly corrupt,"
the Huguenots were the only pure and true
men the only men who were moved by great
ideas or controlled by honest convictions the
only men who were willing to die rather than
* Eng. Hist., Eighteenth Century, i. 264, 265.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 123
forsake the worship of God according to the
Scriptures and conscience.*
Outside of the circle of the Huguenots there
was indeed but little that deserved the name of
morality in France. Their honesty was so remark
able that even among their bitterest enemies it was
proverbial. To be " honest as a Huguenot " was
deemed the highest degree of integrity. And while
they were stigmati/ed by the Roman Catholics as
" heretics," " atheists," " blasphemers," " monsters
vomited forth of hell," and the like, not one accu
sation was brought against the morality and integ
rity of their character. "The silence of their
enemies on this head is," says Smiles, "perhaps
the most eloquent testimony in their favor." They
were, says the same author, " what the Puritan was
in England and the Covenanter in Scotland ; and
that the system of Calvin should have developed
precisely the same kind of men in these three sev
eral countries affords a remarkable illustration of
the power of religious training in the formation of
character." f
Now, what could have made the difference in
moral character between these French Calvinists
* Smiles, Huguenots in France, p. 275.
t Ibid., p. 134.
124 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
and Arminians but their different religions ? They
were of one nation and one tongue, and frequently
of one household, having the same natural qualities
and affections ; but they had a different creed, and
that tells the tale.
Look, too, at Scotland before and after Knox and
his colaborers effected the Scottish Reformation.
Arminianism, as exemplified in the Church of
Rome, had had the training of that people for
centuries ; and what had it made of them ? Some
thing less than human. Gross darkness covered
the land and brooded like an eternal nightmare
upon all the faculties of the people. Poverty,
squalor, ignorance, vice and wretchedness were the
prevailing characteristics of society. But see the
quick and marvelous change effected when once the
free doctrines learned by Knox at Geneva flashed
in upon their minds. It was as the sun rising in
his fullness at midnight. And in their later history,
so long as they remained untainted with other be
liefs, their morality was the wonder of the world.
The celebrated Dr. Chalmers says: "It may be
suspected that although a theology is the minister of
peace, it cannot be the minister of holiness. Now,
to those who have this suspicion, and who would
represent the doctrine of justification by faith that
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 125
article, as Luther calls it, of a standing or falling
Church as adverse to the interests of virtue, I
would put one question and ask them to resolve
it. How comes it that Scotland, which, of all the
countries of Europe, is the most signalized by the
rigid Calvinism of her pulpits, should also be the
most signalized by the moral glory that sits on the
aspect of her general population? How, in the
name of mystery, should it happen that such a
theology as ours is conjoined with perhaps the yet
most unvitiated peasantry among the nations of
Christendom? The allegation against our churches
is, that in the argumentation of our abstract and
speculative controversies the people are so little
schooled to the performance of good works. And
how, then, is it that in our courts of justice, when
compared with the calendars of our sister-kingdom,
there should be so vastly less to do with their evil
works ? It is certainly a most important experience,
that in that country where there is the most of Cal
vinism there should be the least of crime ; that what
may be called the most doctrinal nation of Europe
should, at the same time, be the least depraved ; and
that the land wherein people are most deeply im
bued with the principles of salvation by grace
should be the least distempered either by their
126 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
week-day profligacies or their Sabbath profana
tions."*
That is certainly a remarkable coincidence, that
where there is the most of Calvinism there is the
least of crime, if Calvinism be unfavorable to
morality. Similar also are the results wherever
the doctrines of Calvinism are honestly and intel
ligently embraced. There the people practice such
a rigid code of morality as subjects them to the
sneering remarks of those who adopt a lower stand
ard and entertain but few conscientious scruples
regarding their conduct. The bigotry, narrowness
and intolerance of which the Calvinists have been
so often accused will generally prove to be the
virtues which adorn human society and make civ
ilization a possibility. Their "bigotry" is chiefly
devotion to righteousness ; their " narrowness,"
their fear of swerving from the " narrow way "
which leadeth unto life; their " intolerance," the
impatience of their zeal for the establishment of
their Redeemer s kingdom upon earth. Such men
will indeed appear, at times, intolerant, through
the intensity of their enthusiasm and their impa
tience with the sophistries by which many endeavor
to conceal or excuse their follies and vices; but it is
* Sermon : The Respect due to Antiquity.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 127
the intolerance of the good housewife, who brushes
away the moths and the cobwebs and makes the
dwelling habitable; it is the intolerance of the
fresh breeze, which sweeps away the poisonous
vapors and gives to the atmosphere the elements
of life.
"The Calvinists," says Froude, "have been call
ed intolerant; but intolerance of an enemy who is
trying to kill you seems to me a pardonable state
of mind. It is no easy matter to tolerate lies,
clearly convicted of being lies, under any circum
stances ; specially, it is not easy to tolerate lies
which strut about in the name of religion."* Of
such things the gospel of Christ is eternally in
tolerant.
I cannot close this chapter without adverting, for
a moment, to the moral character and worth of the
Calvinists of New England men whose strict and
rigid morality has become a proverb. They have
been spoken of and pointed at scornfully, as if they
were only fanatics. And yet, amongst all the peo
ple in the American colonies, they 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
* Calvinism, p. 43.
128 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
spectacular observances in religion they had no sym
pathy. Life to them was an experience too noble
and earnest and solemn to be frittered away in pious
ejaculations and emotional rhapsodies. They be
lieved 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 responsi
bilities 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 influence. Cruelty to animals
was a civil offence. 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 burglar-proof to secure their
honestly-gotten possessions. The simple wooden
bolt was enough to protect them and their wealth
where honesty was a 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
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 1*^9
with God and their fellow-men, rejoicing in the
hope of a blessed resurrection.
It is said that they believed in "witches." Well,
what if they did? That was the belief of their
age. Men who have been a glory to the world
believed in witches. But the Puritans abandoned
the belief with penitence long before it was given
up by others whose names are honored household
words. Long after them so late as the latter
half of the last century John Wesley, whose
life has been an ornament to the world, advocated
belief in witchcraft with all his accustomed ability
and zeal. He declared with the utmost emphasis
his belief in it, and attributed its downfall to skep
ticism. He believed that in giving it up a man
was in effect giving up the Bible. He said : " I
cannot give up to all the deists in Great Britain
my belief in the existence of witchcraft till I give
up the credit of all history, sacred and profane."*
We do not believe that now. But so the great
and good Wesley believed. Let not, therefore, such
a belief be attributed solely to the Puritans of
New England, for they abandoned it long before
it ceased to exist in Old England. They, indeed,
were, as Bancroft observes, "of all contemporary
* Lecky, Hi*t. Kng., Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 645.
130 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
sects the most free from credulity," . . . and "their
transient persecutions in America were in self-de
fence, and were no more than a train of mists
hovering of an autumn morning over the channel
of a fine river that diffused freshness and fertility
wherever it wound."*
Thus we might continue to trace the moral influ
ence of this great system of religious belief, and
should find that no other system in the world has
produced such an array of moral heroes. Its illus
trious names everywhere crowd the pages of history,
and by its fruits it is known the world over.
And has its glory departed with the fathers, and
left but the name with the children ? It cannot be,
if God be true and the world and life be not a de
lusion. Its truths are eternal as the laws of God,
and its motives are as mighty to-day as of old.
There is the same omniscient God to judge us, and
the same hell to be shunned and the same heaven
to be secured. Human nature is still the same de
praved thing ; and the same blood of the Lamb and
fire of the Spirit are requisite unto life. Our time
here is but the same short day ; the fashion of the
world still passeth away ; and into the solemn real
ities of eternity we too must speedily enter. Ah, yes ;
* Hist. U. S., vol. i. 403, 4G4.
CALVINISM AS A MORAL FORCE. 131
but have we gotten hold of the truths of God and
the responsibilities of life as the fathers had ? Has
the Spirit of God burned the real meaning of life
into our souls as into theirs? In the grand privi
leges which we possess, sitting under our peaceful
vines and fig trees, fearing no storm and knowing
no alarm, may we not let life slip away, to be arous
ed at last to the awful realization of its eternal loss?
Oh, that we might know the time that this is the
day of salvation I
IV.
CALVINISM AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE,
|~N this chapter our inquiry will be as to the
evangelizing force of Calvinism. Has Calvin
ism, as compared with other systems of religious
doctrine, shown itself to have been a power in the
evangelization of the world? This is the most
important question connected with any system of
belief. All other questions are, in every Christian s
opinion, subordinate to this. To save sinners and
convert the world to a practical godliness must be
the chief, the first and last, aim of every system
of religion. If it does not respond to this, it must
be set aside, however popular it may be.
The question, then, before us now is, not whether
the system of doctrines called Calvinism is the most
acceptable and popular with the world, but whether
it is eminently adapted to the conversion of sinners
and the edification of believers.
In determining this I shall proceed, as in the pre-
132
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 133
ceding chapters, according to the law, " The tree is
known by its fruit."
We may, however, premise, on the ground of the
doctrines included in this system, that it is certainly
most favorable to the spread of Christianity. Its
doctrines are all taken directly from the Scriptures.
The word of God is its only infallible rule of faith
and practice. Even its doctrine of predestination,
or election, which most men dislike, but which all
Christians practically believe and teach, is granted
by some of its bitterest opponents to be a transcript
of the teachings of the Xew Testament.
The historian Froude says: "If Arminianism )
most commends itself to our feelings, Calvinism is \
nearer to the facts, however harsh and forbidding
those facts may seem." * And Archbishop Whately
says the objections against it "are objections against
the facts of the case." So Spinoza and John Stuart
Mill and Buckle, and all the materialistic and meta
physical philosophers, "can find," says an eminent
authority, "no better account of the situation of
man than in the illustration of St. Paul : Hath not
the potter power over the clay, to make one vessel
to honor and another to dishonor?" There never
has been, and it is doubtful if there ever can be,
* Calvinism, p. 6.
134 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
an Arminian philosophy. The facts of life are
against it ; and no man would attempt to found a
philosophy on feeling against fact.
Arminian theologians thought they had discov
ered the starting-point for a systematic philosophy
and theology in the doctrine of " free-will ;" but
even that was swept away from them by the logic
of Jonathan Edwards, and it has continued to be
swept farther and farther away by Buckle and Mill
and all the great philosophers. Hence it comes that,
to this day, there is not a logical and systematic
body of Arminian divinity. It has, as in the
Methodist Church, a brief and informal creed in
some twenty-five articles, but it has neither a
Confession of Faith nor a complete and logical
system of doctrine.* To make such a system it
must overthrow the philosophy of the world and
the facts of human experience; and it is not likely
to do that very soon.
Now, the thought is, Must not a theology which
agrees with the facts of the case, which recognizes
the actual condition of man and his relations to
God, be more favorable to man s salvation than
one which ignores the facts?
This is confirmed by the nature of the particular
* Humphrey s Our Theoloyy, p. 68, etc.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 135
doctrines involved. We freely agree with Froude
and Macaulay that Arminianism, in one aspect of
it, is "more agreeable to the feelings" and "more
popular" with the natural heart, as that which ex
alts man in his own sight is always more agreeable
to him than that which abases him. Arminianism,
in denying the imputation of Christ s righteousness
to the believer, in setting him on his own works of
righteousness, and in promising him such perfection
in this life as that there is no more sin left in him
or, in the words of John VV T esley, a "fret?, full
and present salvation from all the guilt, all the
power and all the in-beiny of sin " * lays the
foundation for the notions of works of superero
gation, and that the believer, while in a state of
grace, cannot commit sin. It thus powerfully
ministers to human pride and self-glorification.
Calvinism, on the other hand, by imputing Christ s
righteousness to the believer, and making the sin
ner utterly and absolutely dependent on Christ for
his salvation, cuts away all occasion for boasting
and lays him low at the foot of the cross. Hence
it cannot be so agreeable to the feelings of our
carnal heart. But may it not be more salutary,
nevertheless? It is not always the most agreeable
* Gladstone s Lift of Whitffidd, p. 199.
136 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
medicine which is the most healing. The experi
ence of the apostle John is one of frequent occur
rence, that the little book which is sweet as honey
in the mouth is bitter in the belly. Christ crucified
was a stumbling-block to one class of people and
foolishness to another, and yet he was, and is, the
power of God and the wisdom of God unto salva
tion to all who believe.
The centre doctrine of Calvinism, as an evangel
istic power, is that which Luther called " the article
of a standing or a falling Church" "justification
by faith alone, in the righteousness of Christ alone."
And is not that the doctrine of the gospel ? Where
does the Holy Spirit ascribe the merit of any part
of salvation to the sinner?
But aside from that question, which it is not my
purpose here to argue, would not reason dictate
that that doctrine is most conducive to salvation
which makes most of sin and most of grace?
Rowland Hill once said that "the devil makes
little of sin, that he may retain the sinner." It is
evident at once that the man who considers him
self in greatest danger will make the greatest efforts
to escape. If I feel that I am only slightly indis
posed, I shall not experience much anxiety, but if
I am conscious that my disease is dangerous, I will
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 137
lose no time in having it attended to. So if I feel,
according to Arminianism, that my salvation is a
matter which I can settle myself at any moment,
even in the last gasp of dissolution, I shall be prone
to take my time and ease in deciding it; but if,
according to Calvinism, I feel that I am dependent
upon God for it, whose pleasure, and not my own,
I am to consult, I will naturally give more earnest,
heed to it.
Thus Reason brings forward her vindication of
Calvinism against the allegation that it is not favor
able to the pursuit of salvation.
But perhaps some one may reply, " Has not the
Methodist Church been more successful in her
efforts to evangelize the world than any Calvinis-
tic Church?" In answer I would say that I will
give way to no one in my high estimate of that
Church s piety and zeal and progress. I thank
God, with all my heart, for what she has done,
and I pray that she may never flag in her energy
and success in winning souls to Jesus Christ. I
admire her profoundly, and her noble army of men
and women enlisted in the Master s service. May
she ever go on, conquering and to conquer, until
we all meet as one on the great day of the triumph
of the Lamb !
138 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
But bear in mind that that aggressive Church
has no well-defined system of doctrine, and that
her Armimanism is of a very mild type, coming
nowhere near that of High-Church ism or Roman
Catholicism. Wherein lie the elements of her
power and progress ? I do not believe, and I am
confident it cannot be shown, that they lie in her
Armimanism or in the doctrines which are pecu
liarly her own, but rather in the earnest and bold
declaration of those doctrines common to all the
Christian churches, such as sin, justification, re
generation and holiness, and in her admirable
system of itinerancy, by which she keeps all her
stations manned and sends forward fresh men
to every new field. Let her preach Arminianisni
strictly and logically, and she will soon lose her
aggressiveness, or become another institution than
an evangelical Church of Christ.
Furthermore, Arminianisni in the Methodist
Church is but a century old. It has never passed
through the years or the convulsions through which
Calvinism has passed. Will it continue in the ages
to come to be the diffusive power which it has been
for these years past? Of this I am persuaded,
looking at the history and workings of religious
opinions in the past : that that Church will be con-
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 139
strained in time to put forth a systematic and log
ical Confession of Faith,* out of which she will
either drop all peculiarly Arminian doctrines, and
so secure her permanency, or in which she will
proclaim them, and by that means will inject the
poison of death, as an evangelizing body, into her
system. A thorough Arminianism and a practical
evangelism have never yet remained long in lov
ing harmony. Look at the history of doctrines
as illustrated in the history of the Church of Rome,
and you will see this clearly attested. Arminiau-
ism, in its principles, had been in operation in that
Church for centuries when the Reformation broke
forth, and what evangelistic work had it done? It
had indeed converted almost the entire world, but
to what had it converted it? It had formed and
established the largest and most powerful Church
which the world has ever seen, but what had it
done for the salvation of human bodies and
souls? It had made Romanists, but it had not
made Christians equally as numerous. Was it
not the very principles of the Calvinistic theol
ogy which flashed light upon the thick darkness,
and threw fire into the corrupt mass, and lift-
* I do not forget, and do not disparage, Richard Wateon s
Thcoloyiral Institute*.
140 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
ed up the banner of the cross, so long trodden
under a debased hierarchy, and revived the ancient
faith of the Church, and established the great Prot
estant and evangelical denominations of Christians?
Who but Calvinists or, as formerly called, Augus-
tinians were the forerunners of the Reformers?
Such was Wycliffe, " the morning star of the Refor
mation ;" such was John of Goch and John of "VVesa-
lia and John of Wessel, "the light of the world;"
and Savonarola of Florence, who thundered with
such terrible vehemence against the sins of the
clergy and people, who refused a cardinal s hat for
his silence, saying, " he wished no red hat. but one
reddened with his own blood, the hat given to the
saints" who even demanded the removal of the
pope, and, scorning all presents and promises and
honors on condition of " holding his tongue," gave
his life for the holy cause another victim of priest
ly profligacy and bloodthirstiness. Every great lu
minary which in the Church immediately preceded
the greater lights of the Reformation was in princi
ple a Calvinist. Such also were the great national
Reformers, as Luther of Germany, Zwingle of Switz
erland, Calvin of France, Cranmer of England,
Knox of Scotland. " Although each movement
was self-originated, and different from the others
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 141
in many permanent characteristics," * it was thor
oughly Calvinistic. These men were driven to
this theological belief, not by their peculiar intel
lectual endowments, but from their study of the
word of God and the moral necessities of the
Church and the world. They felt that half meas
ures were useless that it was worse than folly to
seek to unite a system of saving works with a sys
tem of saving faith. So " Calvinism in its sharp
and logical structure, in its moral earnestness, in its
demand for the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses,
found a response in the consciences of good men."f
It was it which swept, like a prairie-fire, over the
Continent, devouring the fabric of works of right
eousness. He who is most familiar with the his
tory of those times will most readily agree with the
startling statement of Dr. Cunningham (successor to
Dr. Chalmers), that, "next to Paul, John Calvin
lias done most for the world."
So thoroughly was the Reformed world Calvin
istic three hundred years ago that it was almost
entirely Presbyterian. J The French Protestant
Church was as rigidly Presbyterian as the Scotch
Church. "There are many acts of her synod,"
* Dr. Hodge. t Dr. Fisher, Hist. Ref.
% Dr. Breed s PrexbyterianiHin Three Hundred Yearn Ago.
142 CALVINISM IN HISTORY
says the late Dr. Charles Hodge, " which would
make modern ears tingle, and which prove that
American Presbyterianism, in its strictest forms, is
a sucking dove compared to that of the immediate
descendants of the Reformers." *
There was, of course, as there always has been,
greater diversity in the matters of church govern
ment than in the doctrines of faith ; yet even in these
there was an almost unanimous agreement that the
presbyterial was the form of government most in
accord with the teachings of Scripture. Dr. John
Reynolds, who was in his day regarded as perhaps
the most learned man in the Church of England,
said, in answer to Bancroft, chaplain to the arch
bishop, who had broached what was then called
" the novelty " that the bishops are a distinct order
superior to the ordinary clergymen, " All who have
for five hundred years last past endeavored the
reformation of the Church have taught that all
pastors, whether they be called bishops or priests,
are invested with equal authority and power; as,
first, the Waldenses, next Marsilius Patavianus,
then WyclifFe and his scholars, afterward Huss and
the Hussites, and, last of all, Luther, Calvin, Bren-
tius, Bullinger and Musculus. Among ourselves
* Const. Hist.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 143
we have bishops, the queen s professors of divinity
in our universities and other learned men consent
ing therein, as Bradford, I^amtart, Jewel, Pilking-
ton, etc. But why do I speak of particular persons ?
It is the common judgment of the Reformed churches
of Helvetia, Savoy, France, Scotland, Germany,
Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries and our
own." *
If we now turn to the fruits of Calvinism in the
form of devoted Christians and in the number of
churches established, we shall see that it has been
the most powerful evangelistic system of religious
belief in the world. Consider with what amazing
rapidity it spread over Europe, converting thou
sands upon thousands to a living Christianity. In
about twenty-five years from the time when Cal
vin began his work there were two thousand places
of Calvinistic worship, with almost half a million
of worsJiipers, in France alone. When Ambrose
Willie, a man who had studied theology at the
feet of Calvin in Geneva, preached at Ernonville
Bridge, near Tournay, in 1556, twenty thousand
people assembled to hear him. Peter Gabriel had
also for an audience in the same year, near Haar
lem, "tens of thousands;" anil we can judge of the
* Breed s Prenbyterinni*m Three Hundred Years A yo, p. 24, 2 ">.
144
CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
theological character of his sermon from his text,
which was, "For by grace are ye saved through
faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of
God : not of works, lest any man should boast ; for
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them."*
These are but two of the many examples of the
intense awakening produced by the earnest preach
ing of the Calvinistic doctrines. So great were the
effects that in three years after this time a General
Synod was held in Paris, at which a Confession of
Faith was adopted. Two years after the meeting
of the Synod that is, in 1561 the Calvinists
numbered one-fourth of the entire French popu
lation, f And in less than half a centurv this
so-called harsh system of belief had penetrated
every part of the land, and had gained to its
standards almost one-half of the population and
almost every great mind in the nation. So numer
ous and powerful had its adherents become that
for a time it appeared as if the entire nation
would be swept over to their views. Smiles, in his
Iluguenote in France,% says: "It is curious to
speculate on the influence which the religion of
* Eph. 2 : 8-10. f Fisher, Jfi*t. Ref. J P. 100.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. Hd
Calvin, himself a Frenchman, might have exer
cised on the history of France, as well as on the
individual character of the Frenchman, had the
balance of forces carried the nation bodily over to
Protestantism, as was very nearly the case, toward
the end of the sixteenth century." Certain it is
that the nation would have had a different history
from that which she has had. But it is interesting
to mark how rapidly Calvin s opinions had spread
in his native land, and to note the evangelistic effect
of that system of doctrine which bears his name.
Its marvelous evangelizing power lies no doubt in
its scriptural thought and phraseology, and its in
tense spirituality and lofty enthusiasm and logical
strength. Luther, though Calvinistic in his doc
trinal beliefs, weakened his system by his conces
sions to princes and ceremonies. He " hesitated,"
says the historian Bancroft,* "to deny the real
presence, and was indifferent to the observance of
external ceremonies. Calvin, with sterner dialec
tics, sanctioned by the influence of the purest life
and by his power as the ablest writer of his age,
attacked the Roman doctrine respecting commu
nion, and esteemed as a commemoration a rite
which the Catholics revered as a sacrifice. Luther
* Hist. U. S., i. pp. 277, 278.
10
146 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
acknowledged princes as his protectors, and in the
ceremonies of worship favored magnificence as an
aid to devotion ; Calvin was the guide of Swiss
republics, and avoided, in their churches, all ap
peals to the senses as a crime against religion. . . .
Luther permitted the cross and taper, pictures and
images, as things of indifference. Calvin demand
ed a spiritual worship in its utmost purity. 7 Hence
it was that Calvinism, by bringing the truth directly
to bear upon the mind and heart, made its greater
and more permanent conquests, and subjected it
self to the fiercer opposition and persecution of
Romanism.
" The Lutheran Reformation," says Dyer in his
History of Modern Europe* " traveled but little out
of Germany and the neighboring Scandinavian
kingdoms; while Calvinism obtained a European
character, and was adopted in all the countries that
adopted a reformation from without, as France, as
the Netherlands, Scotland, even England; for the
early English Reformation under Edward VI. was
Calvinistic, and Calvin was incontestably the father
of our Puritans and dissenters. Thus, under his
rule, Geneva may be said to have become the cap-
itol of European Reform."
* Vol. ii. p. 7.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 147
A similar testimony is that of Francis de Sales,
who in one of his letters to the duke of Savoy
urged the suppression of Geneva as the capitol of
what the Romish Church calls heresy. "All the
heretics," said he, "respect Geneva as the asylum
of their religion. . . . There is not a city in Eu
rope which offers more facilities for the encourage
ment of heresy, for it is the gate of France, of
Italy and Germany, so that one finds there people
of all nations Italians, French, Germans, Poles,
Spaniards, English, and of countries still more re
mote. Besides, every one knows the great number
of ministers bred there. Last year it furnished
twenty to France. Even England obtains minis
ters from Geneva. What shall I say of its mag
nificent printing-establishments, by means of which
the city floods the world with its wicked books,
and even goes the length of distributing them at
the public expense? . . . All the enterprises under
taken against the Holy See and the Catholic princes
have their beginnings at Geneva. No city in Eu
rope receives more apostates of all grades, secular
and regular. From thence I conclude that Geneva
being destroyed would naturally lead to the dissi
pation of heresy/ :
* Vif tie Ste. Fi-ftnrnix de Riles, jtnr son net-en, p. 120.
148 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
God had ordered it that Geneva, so accessible to
all the nations of Western Europe, should be the
home of Calvin, from which he could most effici
ently carry on his work of enlightenment and civil
ization. And so important to the cause of Protest
antism had that city become that upon it, in the opin
ion of Francis de Sales, the whole cause depended.
Almost marvelous indeed was the rapid spread
of the doctrines of Calvinism. Dyer says:*
" Calvinism, still more inimical to Eome than the
doctrines of Luther, had, from Geneva, its centre
and stronghold, spread itself in all directions in
Western Europe. In the neighboring provinces
of Germany it had in a great degree supplanted
Lutheranism, and had even penetrated into Hun
gary and Poland ; it was predominant in Scotland,
and had leavened the doctrines of the English
Church. . . . The pope could reckon only upon
Spain and Italy as sound and secure, with a few
islands and the Venetian provinces in Dalmatia
and Greece. ... Its converts belonged chiefly (in
France) to the higher ranks, including many of
the clergy, monks, nuns, and even bishops ; and
the Catholic churches seemed almost deserted, ex
cept by the lower classes."
* Hist. Mod. Europe, vol. ii. pp. 136, 392.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 149
From this brief survey we are enabled to per
ceive something of the wonderful evangelizing
force of this system of belief. It was the only
system able to cope with the great powers of the
Romish Church, and overthrow them ; and for
two centuries it was accepted in all Protestant
countries as the final account of the relations be
tween man and his Maker.* In fact, there is no
other system which has displayed so powerful an
evangelizing force as Calvinism.
This becomes still more manifest in the history
of the great revivals with which the Christian
Church has been blessed.
Many are accustomed to think that revivals be
long peculiarly to the Methodist Church, whereas,
in fact, that Church has never yet inaugurated a
great national or far-spreading revival. Her revi
vals are marked with localisms ; they are connected
with particular churches, and do not make a deep,
abiding and general impression on society. The
first great Christian revival occurred under the
preaching of Peter in Jerusalem, who employed
such language in his discourse or discourses as
this: "Him, being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
* Fronde, Calvinism, p. 4.
150 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
That is Calvinism rigid enough. Passing over
the greatest revival of modern times, the Reforma
tion, which, as all know, was under the preaching
of Calvinism, we come to our own land. The era
of revivals in this country is usually reckoned from
the year 1792. But in 1740 there was a marked
revival under the preaching of the Rev. Jonathan
Dickinson, a Presbyterian clergyman. It was
about this time also that George Whitefield, called
in his day " the great Methodist," a clergyman of
the Church of England and an uncompromising
Calvinist, was startling the ungodly in Philadel
phia. It is recorded that he threw "a horrid
gloom" over this fashionable and worldly old
town, " and put a stop to the dancing-schools, as
semblies and every pleasant thing." Strange, in
deed, that dissipation and vanity are " pleasant
things," while holiness and salvation from hell are
disagreeable things ! But this great man, in com
pany with Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian clergy
man, of whom Whitefield said, "He is a son of
thunder," and " hypocrites must either soon be con
verted or enraged at his preaching," was arousing
multitudes by his fiery, impassioned, consecrated
eloquence.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 151
We si>eak 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 White-
field. 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 in
voked 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 Kings wood,
and had found thousands flocking to his side, ready
to be organized into churches, when lie 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 move
ment, he shrank back. Finally, he yielded to
Whitefield s persuasions, but, he allowed himself
* Li-cky, Hint. England, Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 612.
152 CALVINISM /iV HISTORY.
to be governed in the decision by what many
would regard 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
AVhitefield 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.f Field-preaching, which
gave the whole movement its aggressive character,
* Bampton Lectures, for 1812.
f Wedgewood s Life of John Wesley, p. 157.
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 153
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." 3 The sainted Toplady said of
the time, "Arminianism is the great religious evil of
this age and country. It has more or less infected
every Protestant denomination amongst us, and bids
fair for leaving us, in a short time, not so much as
the very profession of godliness. . . . We have gen
erally forsaken the principles of the Reformation,
and Ichabod/ the glory is departed, has been written
on most of our pulpits and church-doors ever since."
It was Calvinism, and not Arminianism, which
originated (so far as any system of doctrines orig
inated) 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
* Bampton Lecture*, for 1812.
154 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
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.
In all that awakening in this country it was such
Calvinists as Whitefield, Tennent, Edwards, Brain-
erd, and, at a later day, Nettleton and Griffin, who
were the chief actors. "The Great Revival of
1800," as it is called, began toward the close of
the last century and continued for a generation
into this. During that time it was one series of
awakenings. It spread far and wide, refreshing
and multiplying the churches. It was the begin
ning of all those great religious movements for
which our century is so noted. The doctrines
which were employed to bring it about were
those, as a recent writer remarks, "which are
commonly distinguished as Calvinistic." * " The
work," says another, "was begun and carried on
in this country under the preaching and influence
of the doctrines contained in the Confession of
Faith of the Presbyterian Church." f "It is
wonderful how the holy influence of Jonathan
* Speeds Great Revival of 1800, p. 52.
f Dr. Smil. Kalston s Letters,
AS A.\ KVA \GKUZf NO FORCE. 155
Edward?, David Brainord and others of that day
is to be traced at the root of the revival and
missionary efforts of all sects and lands." *
The revival which began in New England, and
which was the greatest that had, until that time,
been witnessed in the American colonies, resulted,
under the blessing of God, from a series of doc
trinal sermons preached by Jonathan Edwards.
But I cannot continue to specify instances. Let
it be borne in mind that the men who have
awakened the consciences and swayed the masses,
and brought the multitudes to the feet of Jesus,
not in a temporary excitement, but in a perpetual
covenant, have been such Calvinists as Ambrose
Willie, and John Knox, and Thomas Chalmers,
and George "VVhitefield, and Jonathan Edwards,
and Griffin, Nettleton, Moody, and, last but not
least, Spurgeon.
Calvinism may be unpopular in some quarters.
But what of that? It cannot be more unpopular
than the doctrines of sin and grace as revealed in
the New Testament. But much of its unpopular
ity is due to the fact of its not being understood.
Let it be examined without passion, let it be stud
ied in its relations and logical consistency, and it
* Speer s Great Revhvtl, p. 112.
156 CALVINISM IN HISTORY.
will be seen to be at least a correct transcript of
the teachings of the Scriptures, of the laws of
Nature and of the facts of human life. If the
faith and piety of the Church be weak to-day, it
is, I am convinced, in a great measure because of
the lack of a full, clear, definite knowledge and
promulgation of these doctrines. The Church has
been having a reign of candy ism ; she has been
feeding on pap sweetened with treacle, until she
has become disordered and weakly. Give her a
more clearly-defined and a more firmly-grasped
faith, and she will lift herself up in her glorious
might before the world.
All history and experience prove the correctness
of Carlyle s saying, that "At all turns a man who
will do faithfully needs to believe firmly " It is this,
I believe, that the Church needs to-day more than
any other thing not "rain-doctors," not religious
"diviners," wandering to and fro, rejoicing in
having no dogmatic opinions and no theological
preferences; no, it is not these religious ear-tick
lers that are needed although they may be wanted
somewhere but, as history teaches us, clear and
accurate views of the great fundamental doctrines
of sin and grace. First make the tree good, and
the fruit will be good. A good tree cannot bring
AS AN EVANGELIZING FORCE. 157
forth evil fruit. It is not for us to trifle with these
matters. Our time here is but for a moment, and
our eternity depends on the course we take. Should
we not, then, seek to know the truth, and strive, at
any cost, to buy it, and sell it not?
By all the terrors of an endless death, as by all
the glories of an endless life, we are called and
pressed and urged to know the truth and follow it
unto the end. And this joy we have, in and over
all as the presence of a divine radiance, " that He
which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ." So grant, thou
Holy Spirit of God, to begin the work in every
one of us ; and to thee, with the Father and the
Son, shall be all the praise and the glory for ever!
Amen.
THE END.
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