LECTURE IV. (continued 2)
Reading edition
These quotations, did space permit, or the patience of my readers, might be multiplied to a much greater extent; and might do something, perhaps, to illustrate the character of the persecutor of Servetus. His actions, as a man, were not inconsistent with his ideas of God as a theologian.
“Who can fully describe,” asks Boston, “the wrath of an angry God? None can do it.” “Wrath,” he says, “is a fire in the affections of man, tormenting the man himself; but there is no perturbation in God. His wrath does not in the least mar that infinite repose which he hath in himself.” Then, speaking of man generally, he says, “There is a wrath in the heart of God against him; there is a wrath in the word of God against him; there is a wrath in the hand of God against him.” We have here his statement of wrath in God as an agent; and, through pages of gloomiest description, he makes man its unsheltered object. “There is a wrath on his body. It is a piece of accursed clay, which wrath is sinking into, by virtue of the first covenant. There is a wrath on the natural man’s enjoyments. Wrath is on all he has: on the bread he eats, the liquor he drinks, and the clothes he wears.”—Boston’s Fourfold State.
Character and Condition of Man.
“With such bondage of sin then as will is detained, it cannot move itself to goodness, much less apply itself.”—Calvin Inst., b. ii, ch. 3, § 5, London Edition, 634.
“Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith, nor are done in a right manner, according to the word, nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God: and yet their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.”—Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. xvi. § 7.
“Man in his depraved state is under an utter inability to do anything truly good.”—Boston.
The same doctrine is taught more leniently in the 13th article of the Church of England, so that amongst the theologians, “the natural man,” as they call him, is in a sad condition, for act as he will he cannot but sin: if he does good works, he commits sin, and if he neglects them he is guilty of still greater sins. Quotations in the spirit of those already adduced might be swelled into volumes from the vast treasures of Calvinistic divinity. But I shall close these by an extract from the author I have before mentioned and quoted from, an author, as I have said, highly popular and largely circulated; and here is a passage of his on Christ and the last judgment.—“The judge will pronounce the sentence of damnation on the ungodly multitude. Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:’ ... The Lamb of God shall roar as a lion against them; he shall excommunicate and cast them out of his presence for ever, by a sentence from the throne, saying, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed.’ He shall adjudge them to everlasting fire, and to the society of devils for evermore. And this sentence also we suppose, will be pronounced with an audible voice by the man Christ. And all the saints shall cry, ‘Hallelujah! true and righteous are his judgments!’ None were so compassionate as the saints when on earth, during the time of God’s patience: but now that time is at an end; their compassion for the ungodly is swallowed up in joy in the Mediator’s glory, and his executing of just judgment, by which his enemies are made his footstool. Though when on earth the righteous man wept in secret places for their pride, and because they would not hear, yet he shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked (Ps. lviii. 10). No pity shall then be shown them from their nearest relations. The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge in the condemnation of her ungodly husband: the godly husband shall say Amen to the condemnation of her who lay in his bosom; the godly parent shall say Hallelujah at the passing of the sentence against their ungodly child; and the godly child shall, from the bottom of his heart, approve the condemnation of his wicked parents,—the father who begat him, and the mother who bore him. The sentence is just, they are judged according to their work.”—Rev. xx. 12.
It were surely preferable to labour under the blindest mistakes concerning the essence of God, or the person of Christ, than be guilty of believing such atrocious representations as these of their moral character. The zealous may scout us if they choose, as infidels; but if Calvinism and Christianity were identical, infidelity would be virtue, it would be but the righteous rebellion of human nature against creeds, in vindication of the truth of its own affections, and the rectitude of its God.