latory views
it imparts of the benignity and grace of God, and by the direct and
cogent motives it suggests for holiness and righteousness of life.
But the first article of the Calvinistic creed throws a veil of
awful and suspicious mystery over the divine goodness, and
represents it "as the sun shorn of his beams." Having determined
that God is not the universal Father, nor "the Saviour of all men,"
but the projector of a scheme which predetermines the ruin of the
great mass of his creatures, Calvinism models to its own purpose all
those doctrines of Christianity which are in beautiful accordance
with the truth that "God is love." It denies that the atonement of
Christ was intended to make satisfaction for "the sins of the
_whole_ world." It announces that the non-elect are laid under an
irresistible necessity of sinning to destruction, and that no
spiritual grace is imparted to rescue them from the dominion of
native, incurable, uncontrolled depravity.

The gracious invitations and promises of the Gospel are reduced to
unmeaning terms, so far as the many are concerned. And while
Calvinism is denominated by its admirers "the doctrines of grace,"
it obliterates from the Scriptures every trace of sincere mercy, and
robs the diadem of heaven of its purest and brightest gem.
_Calvinism_ and _grace_ are heterogeneous terms, representing
discordant ideas.

The motives to a holy life, governed by piety and adorned with
virtue, must be impaired by the views here given of the Deity. No
human mind can be habituated to the contemplation of the divine
conduct, as it is seen distorted by the predestinarian theology, and
retain its just sentiments of what is right, what is just, what is
honourable, what is lovely in goodness. The man who imitates the God
of the Calvinist, that phantasm of a morbid or dreaming imagination,
cannot fail to have his moral sentiments corrupted, and to become
deceptive, shuffling, treacherous, and eventually insensible to the
misery of others.

The Calvinistic doctrines of _regeneration_ and _perseverance_ are
not calculated to rectify these evils. These are made to harmonize
with the fatalism which bears all men along with irresistible
energy, the reprobate to perdition, the redeemed to blessedness. The
new birth is described as a sudden transformation of our spiritual
nature, effected by sovereign grace, unconnected with the preceding
states of the mind, whether good or evil, and attended with the