Calvinism - pagina 89

— CALVINISM AND RELIGION. though

as

85

were only by a fortunate inconsistency

it

that the Puritan could infuse the

warmth of

moral

his

earnestness, into the all-congealing chill emanating from

dogma

the

of predestination.

Romanists,

and Libertines have ever charged against

Arminians Calvinism

that

culminating

absolute

its

doctrine of predestination,

the perseverance of saints, must necessarily

in

result in a too easy conscience

of morals.

and a dangerous laxity

But Calvinism answers

this

fictitious

^'What

moral

rival

we point

tans ?" is

by

of world-wide reputation over against this false

fact

deduction of

if

charge, not

but by putting

opposing reasoning against reasoning, a

Lutherans,

consequences.

moral earnestness of the Puri-

we continue

"Shall

simply asks:

have other religions to oppose

fruits

to the high

It

in sin that grace

may abound"

the old diabolical whisper which the evil spirit hurled

against the

the

Holy Apostle himself

century

the

And

Church.

Christian

in the

when,

in

childhood of the

sixteenth

Heidelburg Catechism had to defend Cal-

— "Does

not this

doctrine lead to careless and ungodly lives?".

Ursinus

vinism

and

the

against

shameful charge:

Olevianus had to deal with nothing

echoing and

monotonous

slander. Certainly the

to foster, indwelling

repetition

ungodly

sin,

less

than the

of the same

lust to persist in,

and even

yea even Antinomianism

again and again abused the Calvinistic confession, it

like

old

itself,

seizing-

a shield, to hide the carnal appetites of the un-

converted heart.

But

as little as the mechanical repetition

of a written confession had ever anything in with genuine religion, just so

Confession be

made

little

may

common

the Calvinistic

responsible for those reverberating

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