ellion, may keep their
allegiance to him. Is this to deny the power of God to govern his
creatures?

But is it not wonderful that a Calvinist should undertake to test a
doctrine by the consequences which a "proud oppressor," or "a carnal man,"
might draw from it? If we should tell such a man, that God possesses the
absolute power to control his volitions, and that nothing ever happens on
earth but in perfect accordance with his good will and pleasure, might we
not expect him to conclude, that he would then leave the matter with God,
and give himself no trouble about it?

If we may judge from the practical effect of doctrines, then the authors
of the objection in question do not take the best method to inculcate the
lesson of humility. They take the precise course pursued by Melanchthon,
and often with the same success. This great reformer, it is well known,
undertook to frame his doctrine so as to teach humility and submission:
with this view he went so far as to insist, that man was so insignificant
a thing, that he could not act at all, except in so far as he was acted
upon by the Divine Being. Having reached this position, he not only saw,
but expressly adopted the conclusion, that God is the author of all the
volitions of men; that he was the author of David's adultery as well as of
Saul's conversion.

Now, it is true, if the human mind could abase itself so low as to embrace
such a doctrine, it would give a most complete, if not a most pleasing
example of its submissiveness. But it cannot very well do so. For even
amid the ruins of our fallen nature, there are some fragments left, which
raise the intellect and moral nature of man above so blind and so abject a
submission to the dominion of error. Hence it was, that Melanchthon
himself could not long submit to his own doctrine; and he who had
undertaken to teach others humility, became one of the most illustrious of
rebels. This suggests the profound aphorism of Pascal: "It is dangerous to
make us see too much how near man is to the brutes, without showing him
his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness without
his baseness. It is still more dangerous to leave him ignorant of both.
But it is very advantageous to represent to him both the one and the
other."(155)

The fact is, that nothing can teach the human intellect a genuine
submission but the light of evidence: this, and this alone, can rivet upon
our speculative faculty the chains of i