BX 9A22 .L66 
 
 Long, Harry Alfred. 
 
 Calvinism popularized 
 
■v/ 
 
CALVINISM POPULAEISED 
 
CALVINISM POPULlRlSlD 
 
 THE FIVE POINTS CARBONISED IN A 
 
 SERIES OF DISCUSSIONS WITH 
 
 ENQUIRERS OR OPPONENTS 
 
 *) 
 
 BY THE PROTESTANT CHAMPION. OF SCOTLAND 
 
 H. A. LONG 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE NAMES WE BEAR, 
 "COSMOGONY," ETC. 
 
 I GIVE UNTO MY SHEEP ETERNAL LIFE." 
 
 Hontron 
 JAMES NISBET & CO. 
 
 21 BERNERS STREET 
 1895 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 DEDICATORY LETTER ..... 
 
 THE DOGMA OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY 
 
 WHAT IS A FREE GOSPEL ? .... 
 
 EXTENT OF THE ATOXEMEXT AND KIXDRED TOPICS 
 THE BABES ....... 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS ..... 
 
 THE ORIGIX OF EVIL ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 I 
 
 26 
 
 52 
 84 
 
 107 
 
 136 
 
DEDICATOKY LETTER 
 
 TO THE WORKING MEN'S EVANGELISTIC ASSOCIATION 
 OF GLASGOW 
 
 Fellow-Dwellers in Christ and Workers for Him, — Having 
 of a long time shared your hopes of reaching the golden shore 
 and spending with Jesus Heaven's endless noon, I think my 
 privilege is to write something for your upbuilding in the Beloved, 
 which must prove more enduring than passing sermons delivered 
 among you for a generation. I cannot enlarge the boundaries of 
 Christian knowledge — that is given to few — but I may, by Divine 
 aid, make plainer certain blessed truths concerning His kingdom, 
 which, if duly apprehended, the Sabbath of God is perfected in the 
 soul of man. That I may make clear these intentions, and 
 accomplish this great end, it is necessary to say somewhat of the 
 Lord's dealings with myself, His raising me from the Adamic pit, 
 and causing my erring feet to walk the narrow path towards 
 Sion's sacred top. About fifty years since (March 1846) it pleased 
 Him to reveal Himself as my Redeemer. From the time the 
 convictions of God were upon me until I found relief was but a 
 few days, during which I did little else than weep and groan. 
 Divine joy was shed through my heart while agonising at 11 p.m. 
 on the Lord's Day. No text was impressed upon me ; I realised 
 nothing other than this — black anguish was away, and my soul 
 flooded with strange joy. This I understood to intimate pardon. 
 That joy continued with intervals for a fortnight, being at times 
 such as to oblige my walking to and fro praising God, for I could 
 not sit. About a month after I was thrown into distress through 
 a companion, who apparently started for the kingdom with me, 
 falling away. My fear was that I would too. When wrestling 
 with the Angel He sweetly said, " Through much tribulation 
 thou shalt enter the kingdom." That was my first telegram 
 from Heaven, and I understood Him to mean I shall reach the 
 
viii DEDICATORY LETTER 
 
 skies, though suffering grievously by the way. Amidst the mani- 
 fold changes of life, I have experienced the latter part of the 
 promise, and hope still the truth of the former. Strange to tell, 
 for seven years I went into a stage of experience seeming to belie 
 that. Such was the duration of my servitude under Moses. 
 Though never questioning ultimate safety then or since, I was 
 tried with a sense of endless defects, and groaned under miserable 
 shortcomings, so that sometimes I dared not partake of the 
 Lord's Supper for a year. I could not find my title-deeds, through 
 seeking them down amongst the rubbish of my life instead of in 
 His holy life and atoning death. I looked hard down instead of 
 belie vingly up. A deliverer came to my rescue. When visiting 
 . Luton Beds, I met with a man of God, a bonnet-block maker, 
 who showed me that justification was in Christ, the Lord my 
 righteousness, wherefore I needed no other to obtain Heaven's 
 favour ; that He was the Sun of Righteousness ; as the sun 
 imparts light to the dark planet, so He righteousness to un- 
 righteous souls. Hence Paul says (2 Cor. v. 21), "For God 
 made Him (to be) sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might 
 be made (not make ourselves) the righteousness of God (not 
 righteous, but, the strongest expression thinkable) in Him," not 
 in ourselves. That righteousness being in Him we are not 
 conscious of it, but know it by revelation, which guides God's 
 people into all necessary truth. That night a soul was free. 
 From then I have not doubted acceptance in Christ one hour. 
 Soon after I suffered a dangerous illness. When recovering, an 
 aged countryman of the old school said, " So you are raised up. 
 They say you were near Jordan's brink. How did you feel in 
 view of baptism in its cold dark flood 1" I answered, "Feel? 
 What do you mean?" He replied, "Why, all God's people are 
 exercised severely in changing worlds, fear to launch away." I 
 rejoined, "It is not pleasant to differ from them, but I had no 
 such experience, being assured that I am His, living or dying, 
 for this world or that." I found myself a speckled bird, it being 
 thought orthodox to have hopes and fears, of which latter I had 
 had enow. I could not plead them truthfully, nor be wholly 
 silent as to gracious dealings, lest His grace should be veiled to 
 a brother whom I might, if faithful, be instrumental in leading 
 into freedom. Hereby I was taught that in one form we are 
 slaves of Satan, then servants of Moses, and then conscious sons 
 of the Lord God, ex-residenters of the City of Destruction, 
 burgesses of the new Jerusalem. Seven years after meeting my 
 emancipator at Luton I passed through a new phase of experience. 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER ix 
 
 was instructed more perfectly in the way of salvation. The 
 occasion was this : I was led, to ponder deeply on : "I give (not 
 ofifer) unto My sheep (not all flesh) eternal life (which is irre- 
 vocable) ; and (consequently) they shall never perish." Cogitat- 
 ing on this, I saw by Spirit-light that for fourteen years I had 
 taken wrong views of redemption's plan, looking at it in the light 
 of relationship to God, not His to me, tracing all to repentance, 
 faith, and attempted obedience. I now saw these were due to 
 His relationship to me ; my penitential sighs, tears, and cries were 
 but an outpouring of His Spirit inly urging, all unwittingly to 
 me. His love was seen to be father of mine. I slowly realised 
 love immense, unsought compassion beyond degree. Previously 
 I looked upon the Blessed as generally interested in me, I being 
 of Adam's race, until my rebelling ceased and His favour was 
 sought, when His interest deepened into approbation. It was 
 now revealed that Jehovah rejoiced over me before the first angel 
 broke the solemn quietude of eternity by harp and voice uttering 
 joy to God. I was found of Him whom I sought not. It seemed 
 before that God made a general offer of pardon, and I had the 
 sense to accept it, but now saw that He no more offered life 
 spiritual than life natural. The Father, before time was, gave 
 me a place in His heart, the Son gave Himself for me in time, 
 the Holy Ghost gave Himself to me for ever. The Triune 
 determined before the mountains raised their awful peaks into 
 the solitudes of an unpeopled earth to add poor sinful, stupid me 
 to His diaspora, the dispersed amongst the generations of men 
 and nations unto ingathering, when He reappears to collect into 
 upper Canaan. In calculating the duration of His love I erred 
 by a past eternity. How thrice blessed to hear a voice say : ''I 
 have loved thee with an everlasting love." Dates, calculations, 
 chronology all flee, like shadows at sunrise, when the voice Divine 
 so speaks. I saw dateless love ungraduated, that He loved in 
 Christ, and not more now I knew Him than when I ignored Him, 
 or only thought evil of my Lord. This new view streamed 
 through my spirit with bliss passing the understanding of those 
 who knew it not by blessed impartation. It seemed the quint- 
 essence of grace, the ultimate refinement of affection. To hear 
 my Lord in prayer say, " Thou lovedst Me before the foundation 
 of the world," and prostrate behind Him whisper — And Me — is 
 indeed being co-heir with Christ, rejoicing in God's almighty 
 favour with a gladness Heaven may equal, but not excel. Thence 
 I realise oweness with my Lord, the power of His atonement in a 
 manner before unthought of. Henceforth life assumed a solemn 
 
X DEDICATORY LETTER 
 
 grandeur, befitting' the pilgrimage of one coming from God to the 
 intent that the circle of life should restore Him to God. The Son 
 consciously comes from the Father, and consciously returns to 
 the Father by the route passing through Bethlehem, Egypt, 
 Galilee, Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha, to aboriginal glory. 
 Some of the human sons of God unconsciously come from God, 
 but consciously return through devious ways, thorny paths, 
 mountains of offence, and dire straits, but each arrives. The 
 loved, the died for, are kept in the true way, and upborne under 
 its burdens, else unbearable ; for they who sup with Christ on 
 God's eternal love, eat thereof with bitter herbs the world knows 
 not of. There is a secret of bitterness to the redeemed, a drink- 
 ing of Marah that acts upon the ransomed as Paul's thorn did, 
 Isgt ther^ ha inn.er^£xaltati©n^eeeBspa*i^^ exultation . 
 
 The loved and liberated sail in a water-logged ship warranted to 
 reach the Eldorado of the New Jerusalem, because the storm- 
 queller runs out His good ship Salvation ; and seeing the barque 
 Election labouring in the trough of a sea of evils, tows it into the 
 Harbour of Grace, and convoys the ship's company on to Glory. 
 Redemption is a humbling affair — hence man, proud man, prefers 
 works to grace. Many years have since circled by which 
 diminishes the freshness of that feeling, but adds to its precious- 
 ness. Can my reader be surprised I became Calvinistic ? I 
 wondered with anger I deprived myself of so great joy of so long a 
 time, but discovered that Elohim is always revealed to the soul 
 before Jehovah, that God is known in dreadful power before the 
 Lord in His gracious actings. I looked back to that epoch as to 
 a second regeneration, for I found it presenting the Almighty in 
 a more amiable aspect than my previously shallow and narrow 
 theory of acceptance and works, yielding to a general amnesty 
 offer, and then rendering partial obedience, not knowing when 
 legal requirements were satisfied. I sold my inheritance for 
 nothing on this wise. When first united to God's people, I 
 preferred the Arminian view, because of its supposed wider 
 sweep of benevolence. Did it not give every one a chance 1 
 and ought not every one to have a chance of salvation ? I 
 did not see there can be no chance, and that the word is a 
 veil for ignorance. That all deserve a chance of salvation^ja. 
 as true of a WjorkV^f jiebels as that all convicts ought to have_ii 
 chance of escape. For criminals there is no hope in England save 
 from our Queen through the Home Secretary, and so for sinners 
 there is no >hope but God's mercy through Christ. Criminals 
 have no rights towards her Majesty, sinners none \r\ ygspect to 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER xj 
 
 CT^fT, But this professed liberality deluded me, as though more 
 are saved on the broad gauge of Arminius than on the Calvinistic 
 narrow gauge. I find the number identical upon both systems, 
 but, in verity, not a soul is saved on Arminian principles — salvation 
 by works. That view is not fatal to salvation, the Christian 
 Arminian being saved as all God's ransomed are, without con- 
 sultation from Heaven or effort on his part but misreading the 
 phenomena and feelings that accompany salvation, he fancies he 
 did something. Jesus makes it plain. " Philip iindeth Nathanael, 
 and saith unto him, We have found Jesus. . . . Jesus said unto 
 Nathanael, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under 
 the fig-tree, I saw thee." This " I saw thee " is no less than Ezek. 
 xvi. 6, "I passed by thee, and saw thee." He who is the life 
 passed by ISTathanael and said " Live," and then Nathanael showed 
 he was alive by saying, " Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God," but 
 it is possible he might think he initiated arrangements. So our 
 Lord says (John xvi. i6), "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have 
 chosen you." For our choice of Him is not" choosing compared 
 with His choice of us. Before this I fell into ill health, presenting 
 signs of consumption. That illness lasted seven years, during 
 which I reached what was thought the verge of the tomb. One 
 day while walking in Fitzroy Street, Cambridge, I became depressed 
 in fear of non-recovery. Death had no personal terror, but I was 
 distressed in view of kindred. When musing and praying the 
 Spirit said, " With length of days will I satisfy thee, and thine 
 eyes shall see My salvation." Thus I understood I would recover 
 and live to behold our Lord's return, for salvation, life, truth are, 
 in the Kingdom of Christ, a Person. My health was restored, 
 though the scar of affliction remains — hair bleached not by the 
 light of coming eternity, but by pain and travail. Sometimes I 
 embrace that promise of being amongst those who are alive and 
 do remain unto His coming so closely that it becomes a set ex- 
 pectation, then again it sinks into a mere tremulous hope, 
 seeming shockingly absurd, and at times I fear my interpretation 
 was fond, and am compelled to take refuge in, Coine, black Death 
 or bright Lord, thy icill be done. Much of my interest in the 
 Eastern Question arose from knowing, by the programme of 
 prophecy. He cannot reappear until the two anti-Christs, the 
 Papal at Rome on the Tiber, and the Mahometan at Roum on the 
 Bosphorus, lose their political status, preparing the way for the 
 Kings of the East. The Jews must be ingathered to the Land 
 of Promise. They are as prophetic as ever. The Sons of Abraham 
 dispersed among the nations symbolise His spiritual seed distri- 
 
xii DEDICATORY LETTER 
 
 buted according to the dualism of God's mysterious economy. 
 They are scattered in unbelief and still shadow believers, they 
 will be gathered in unbelief and so become the last sign the 
 Bridegroom gives before the marriage supper. Jerusalem de- 
 stroyed prefigured that of the world, their ingathering ours. I 
 have no ambition to impart these views to my brethren compared 
 with anxiety to emancipate them from Arminianism by showing 
 the fulness of the substitutionary work of Jesus. I write to be 
 instrumental in guiding some brother into that higher Christian 
 life. Any day during my first seven years of religious life had I 
 been asked, Whether would you die while laughing, sleeping, 
 or praying ? I should have said, I dare not die laughing, should 
 not like to die sleeping, but would fain die when engaged in 
 devotional exercises. This came of believing in frames, feelings, 
 and nonsense about preparing ourselves for death, not seeing that 
 man is prepared by a Divine unrepeatable act ; he is saved once 
 for all, for ever and ever. Either his sins are forgiven past, 
 present, and to come, should he live ; or he is unsaved, having the 
 guilt of life upon his soul. Any man is either as sinless before 
 God as Michael, or all his sins are upon him. We must be in 
 Christ or in our sins, in the ark or in the flood, clothed with the 
 seamless robe of Christ's absolute righteousness or naked, the 
 prophecy of everlasting shame on our part and contempt on the 
 part of the ransomed. I write as a patriot as well as a believer. 
 Will our great empire decay, as did that of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 Darius, Alexander, Csesar ? Britain has fifty colonies, some of 
 them superior in resources as to men and money, skill and 
 acreage, to herself of 500 years ago. Will Britannia yet sit in the 
 dust as shieldless as the captive daughter of Judah ? as shipless 
 as Tyre ? as uncolonial as Austria ? Never ! Former civilisa- 
 tions decayed, for they w^ere only material like the Assyrian, 
 or material and mental like the Greek, whereas our empire 
 adds to the grandeur of matter and the splendour of mind the more 
 excelling glory of morality. To us pertains the supreme honour of 
 being civilisers, emancipators, educators. We take with us the 
 steam-engine, and collegiate institutions follow. On our human- 
 ising line of march slaves are transformed into freemen, and 
 cannibals into citizens. Our very language is identified with 
 freedom, elevation, purity. Years since I was thrilled by hearing 
 my Lord say to the Church in Ephesus, " I will remove thy candle- 
 stick." Then years after I gazed with awe upon the Ephesian 
 sculptures. He did not put out the candle, that is not His wont, 
 but removed it to Britain. Nay, I sincerely believe, and boldly 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER xiii 
 
 affirm, when Jesus threatened the Jews, saying, "The kingdom 
 of Heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing 
 forth the fruits of it," He meant ours. He did not say Gentiles, 
 i.e., all nations but one. As the latter prophets refused to 
 recognise any political division of Abraham's sons into ten tribes 
 and two, but always spoke of the twelve tribes of Israel, so we 
 recognise no Atlantic, refuse to see our American brethren as 
 anything else than one with us. To Britannia and Fredonia one 
 dispensation is committed — to supersede the savage by civilisa- 
 tion, to irradiate the else dark by education, to display the Book, 
 and spread widely the bloodstained banner of the Lamb. So 
 doing, the star of our race shall not fade until the Day Star 
 reappear to Bethlehemise the earth with millennial glory. While 
 our people bless Ethiopia with Livingstonias and Lovedales, feed 
 the starving sons of Sinim, and say to the Japanese, " Behold 
 your God ! " One will watch over British interests Who will not 
 suffer our flag to be trailed. Holding that Calvinism energises 
 the profession of Christianity, I write to strengthen the hand of 
 my countrymen. Christ said, " My strength is made perfect in 
 weakness." I write that fellow- believers may see they are as 
 weak as the dead, that they be strengthened by Him Who is the 
 Life. Then, and then only, will they do great things and suffer 
 much for Him and His, Who forfeited for a time the adoration of 
 angels that He might companionise with men for ever. I write 
 as a Liberationist, that my brother-believer may not be in 
 bondage to Moses longer than spiritual training demands, but 
 most, that he subject not himself to an error fatal when trusted 
 by the unconverted, and painful when believed by the child of 
 God — justification wholly or partially by works. Salvation, like 
 resurrection, is entirely a Divine act wrought upon an absolutely 
 passive subject. When Abel is called by Christ from his prim- 
 eval tomb, he may as well demand a share in the forthputting of 
 resurrection power as the regenerated man claim spiritual action. 
 Though man is a conscious, moral, and intellectual agent, before 
 receiving the new birth he receives life eternal without consulta- 
 tion. This we engage to show. I pray that the Lord God whom I 
 daily serve and dimly see may have yours and you in His holy 
 keeping, that your families may arrive when the voyage of life is 
 at an end, and our mortal affliction is past, at that continent of 
 the blessed which men call Heaven. 
 
 P.S. — And now grief and strange pains possess my soul at the 
 completion of this last act for the people who love me so well. 
 
xiv DEDICATORY LETTER 
 
 Little wonder Long is Calvinistic, a believer in unbroken streams 
 of grace upon grace, as unsought as undeserved. Glasgow 
 bestowed upon me 471,700 votes, a plurality that exceeding the 
 number devoted to any other man under the British Crown, and 
 yet my destiny is to leave the city of my adoption, nay, the city 
 which adopted me, my true metropolis — mother-city — leave her 
 in the knowledge that no other community will do as kindly, bear 
 my blundering and stumbling with such tender consideration, 
 that no other community can impart honours so high and so 
 unique. Then why leave ? In 1886 I was sent for to Queensland 
 to attack the infidel party, as we had no man in that colony 
 willing and able to face the black ranks of professed atheism. 
 Having completed my engagement, and being about to leave, the 
 Brisbane people said, " Stay with us ; years ago politicians deprived 
 our Public Schools of the use of the Bible, so secularising the 
 instruction given to our children. Experience proves this acts 
 badly. We want a man to organise our voting and lead our 
 agitation that may ultimate in the Queensland Parliament rein- 
 stating the Scriptures. We shall never rest until the Bible 
 reoccupies its place of honour in the schools of our adopted 
 country, and we think you are the man to bring this about." 
 I replied, " Impossible. My call now is to work in and for 
 Glasgow. I cannot do what I like, but must obey my Lord's 
 providential guidance. The time may come when I shall be free, 
 and if so, D.V., I will come." That call thrilled my spirit, and 
 burned into my memory. Weighing the matter over, I resolved 
 that if God preserved me until I passed the boundary of Moses, 
 " three score years and ten," the remnant of the balance between 
 that and Christ reappearing, or my departure, should be sacrificed 
 to this ennobling work. I landed on the shores of Scotland at 
 Leith, June 4, 1847, so that by the period of my leaving, March 
 1896, having rounded my time circle, the privilege of knowing 
 and serving Glasgow will be fully mine. Thereafter should my 
 Lord prosper this last of many campaigns, allow me the high 
 honour of placing the Won Book at His dear feet and lowly 
 whisper, " Master, the children have it," I shall drink joy in 
 equal that of the banqueters at the marriage supper on the 
 plains of Heaven. I knew not God until twenty years of age, so 
 that I could not dedicate youth to His sweet service, did not serve 
 under the morning star of earth, but may have the deeper joy of 
 serving under the evening star of Heaven while on my way to 
 the starless shore. So then this one thing I do, in that ambition 
 forsake friends dearer than eye?, whose faces are to me glints 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER xv 
 
 and glimpses of " over there," leave my native island home, 
 that other Palestine, greatest of all He raised from the ocean, 
 now shielding the dust of my sacred dead, who wait the midnight 
 cry, ''Go ye out to meet Him." The curtain of night falls so 
 gently on this fair isle, that we are prepared for stellar glory 
 above or sweet repose below ; but yonder there is little gloaming, 
 the chariot of the sun plunging into the Indian Ocean, and forth- 
 with darkness veils the land : howbeit, a new pleasure is reserved. 
 I shall know that his faded fire is speeding to shine into the 
 homes where my old companions dwell. I urge my way to the 
 Australian isle, where there is little gloaming, heading on to 
 Canaan, where there is none — trysting place that in the finalities 
 of our being, where all who have done or suffered a little for Jesus, 
 there recommence the friendships begun here. There I shall 
 meet old comrades of the sacramental army with whom I kept 
 step half a century, stand hand in hand with them on the shore 
 of the jasper sea ! In that blissful anticipation we go " toiling on, 
 toiling on," praying and struggling forward, now giving my last 
 salutation, entreating 
 
 " God be loith you till we meet again.^^ 
 
 I remain, Brother workers in the Lord, yours ever, 
 
 H. A. LONG. 
 
 52 Jane Street, Glasgow, 
 Sept. 1894. 
 
OALVmiSl POPULARISED 
 
 Time. — MONDAY, Seven o'clock p.m. 
 Place.— GAOL SQUAEE. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 He. 
 
 An Ultramontane op the most Unbending Type. 
 
 I. 
 
 A Pronounced Calvinist. 
 
 Disputation. 
 
 The Dogma of Total Depravity. 
 
 He. It strikes me you were giving out your average trash when 
 pretending to preach yesterday on the doctrine of man's total 
 depravity. I soon heard enough, and walked away, blessing my 
 stars for freedom. Can anything be more absurd than to say an 
 innocent of a year old is as depraved as an aged vixen ? 
 
 /. You are objecting to the child's character being depraved, 
 but I was speaking of its nature. Nature is the root of nha.rart.ftr . 
 My contention is, that if no counteracting force be brought to 
 bear upon that child's nature, years hence its character will be 
 bad. I do not 'mean socially, but spiritually ; so that as it grows 
 towards manhood there will be no preference of Divine worship 
 over ordinary pleasures ; in fact, the child, without conversion, 
 will be carnal, and therefore live sinfully — be a God hater. 
 
 He. Oh, I see; you mean the child must be educated, to which 
 no one objects. 
 
 A 
 
2 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. I mean more. So great is the natural bias towards for- 
 bidden things, that take two bands of children of a year old, 
 place them one hundred baby strong under teachers and nurses 
 of this kind — one tries to corrupt their morals, while the other 
 endeavours to make them religious ; the former succeeds to a 
 child, but the latter only in a percentage. Thus, children in low 
 neighbourhoods quickly pick up bad language and greedily be- 
 come base, whereas the offspring of careful parents have to be 
 guarded from bad example continually, and even then many do 
 not turn out as they ought. Man is the most imitative of all 
 animals, yet is slow to imitate the great and the good, but quick 
 to copy their opposites. Put the life of Dick Turpin and the 
 biography of Howard into the hands of a hundred boys aged 
 twelve, and whether of the twain will they go in for ? 
 
 He. We know all that, but it's for want of judgment. 
 
 /. By no means. Their abili ty to- ]' ad rrn i^ snffim'pTif,, hnf, if, ia 
 wRrp^d bv love of ev il. Man's heart guides his head for better 
 or worse. If those boys were righteous by nature, they would 
 instantly condemn the robber and applaud the philanthropist. 
 That a Romanist should object to this doctrine is odd. You are 
 taught that unless the child is baptized it is not worthy of your 
 Church, being in a state of nature. If that is not teaching a child 
 is sinful before it does anything, what can be 1 
 
 He. But totally depraved is another matter. Am I to think 
 that a crack in a pane is all one with its being smashed 1 that a 
 slight stain on your shirt front is as bad as its being black 1 
 
 I. If a pane be cracked or a front stained, we cannot rest in it 
 as when whole and clean. If, then, we demand perfection in glass 
 and linen, shall not God demand it in men and angels ? Our 
 English word holy explains all. It is like to icliolly. What- 
 soever was given to God was wholly given ; in dedication, no part 
 was for the benefit of the dedicator. Hence God commands, Exod. 
 XX. 25 — " If thou wilt make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not 
 build it of hewn stone : for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou 
 hast polluted it." The altar could not be holy to God if part were 
 hewed off, as then He would not wholly get it. Our Creator 
 cannot go shares with guilty creatures, as that equalises Him. 
 Samson might not cut his hair, for the Nazarite must be holy to 
 the Lord, wholly His, all his body. Ananias perished through 
 keeping back part of the dedicated thing, and Achan was stoned 
 for a similar reason. Had Samson not been a very child of God, 
 he would have suffered death, not blindness; punishment, not 
 chastisement. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 3 
 
 He. Well, so much the worse for us. What chance would a 
 man have of going to heaven after living wickedly ? Such non- 
 sensical teaching destroys the virtue of repentance. 
 
 /. Don't talk of men going to heaven, a thing that never 
 happens. All who enter are taken, save our Lord. Going to 
 heaven is fictional, Arminian ; being taken, caught away, is Cal- 
 vinistic, and true penitents are made anew, so that He who 
 bought them wholly has them holy. "If any man is in Christ 
 Jesus, he is a new creation." Similarly the Lord Jesus cannot 
 take possession of our earth where sin, Satan, and suffering have 
 long been, because He would so share it with that wicked one. 
 Seeing, then, God must have the whole creature, and the baby 
 over whom we are fighting has a nature that cannot please God, 
 He must totally reject him. David says, " I was shapen in 
 iniquity," and Paul, " They that are in the flesh cannot please 
 God." How can God regard favourably this imperfect thing ? 
 The Scriptures say, " The carnal mind is enmity against God," 
 and your Church says the unbaptized bairn is not good enough 
 for her, and you think it good enough for the Head of the 
 Church ! ! 
 
 He. You cannot talk rationally, of which that rigmarole is 
 proof. Does not Christ say, " Suffer little children to come 
 unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven ? " and again, " Except ye be converted and become as a 
 little child, ye shall in no wise enter therein ? " If we become 
 little children to be saved, how can infants be sinners ? 
 
 7. As for Jesus saying, "Suffer little," &c., amongst Jews 
 children were not, and are not, allowed to take part in worship, 
 until twelve. As children were not allowed in synagogue or 
 Temple until twelve past, lest they should disturb worship, 
 through not appreciating its solemnity, a notion arose that 
 children should not worship. Hence, when Jesus entered the 
 Temple at twelve there was no getting Him out. He had not 
 been since Simeon took Him in his arms and blessed God for the 
 sight. That perverted tradition was opposed to Spirit teaching 
 by David : " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast 
 perfected praise." The highest form of service, the most accept- 
 able worship, is rendered to God by regenerate children. Mark 
 ix. 42, " Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that 
 believe in Me," &c. Hence, when our Saviour rode into Jerusalem 
 the Spirit was poured upon such, and they chanted Hosannahs, 
 which proves that when juveniles were invited by Him, and 
 He said " Forbid them not," He not only referred to disciples 
 
4 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 ordering mothers to remove children, but more, alluded to that 
 evil custom of prohibiting early service in spite of His promise, 
 " They that seek Me early shall find Me," and then presented 
 Himself as the object of adoration. Every man acquainted with 
 Eastern customs and the promptings of nature, would expect 
 the narrative to add, aJid kissed them, but Christ never kissed 
 man, woman, or child. Laban embraced Jacob and kissed him 
 (Gen. xxix. 13), Paul embraced the Ephesian disciples (Acts xx. i), 
 but Jesus embraced none. That invitation is a claim to Divine 
 worship. When Jehovah revealed Christ He said, " Let all the 
 angels of God worship Him." All means every angel then or 
 now existing ; " Suffer little children to come unto Me " is 
 equivalent to saying. Let any child through the ages and nations 
 serve Me, Samuel like, as early as it will. Hence the evolution 
 of Sabbath-schools. 
 
 He. Well, and what about it ? You fail to look at the ques- 
 tion of command, to become as a little child. 
 
 I. But I was doing so just as you stopped me. This view 
 does not favour children being good from birth. Noah is called 
 righteous, though Paul says, "There is none righteous, no, not 
 one," and yet there is no contradiction, for Noah was such com-^ 
 pared with the Antediluvians ; but God requires absolute perfec- 
 tion, not relative. We prefer a cracked pane to a broken one. 
 Noah was a cracked pane where the rest were smashed. An 
 ordinary child believes what its father says without reasoning as 
 to probability — is obedient — devoid of ambition — has no social 
 pride. An aristocratic child aged four plays with any child, but 
 at fourteen will not, and at twenty- four knows only the elite. 
 Therefore, we do well to become as little children in respect to 
 these points ; but He did not extend His statement to their 
 nature, expressly saying, " Ye must be born again." Demand 
 more, and you affirm that every child born of heretics or savages 
 is taken to heaven without baptism. Why, you people heaven 
 not with Catholics so much as heathen children. Have a care as 
 to this amazing liberality. When more liberal than his Holiness, 
 you may be a trifle fast. Besides, how you can imagine that 
 Christ and Pope agree about children is amazing. 
 
 He. Why ? They seem identical in their teaching thereupon. 
 
 I. Monstrous ! Your Church teaches that every child is pos- 
 sessed of a devil, so that one portion of your Baptismal Service 
 is Exorcism, the priest casting out the devil. In doing so he 
 puts salt in its mouth. If every child has a devil in him until 
 salted, how could Jesus say, " Suffer little children to come unto 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED $ 
 
 Me " ? At that time baptism was not instituted, and so the 
 children were unbaptized. When Rome makes infants de- 
 moniacs, why object to Calvin affirming their depraved nature ? 
 He does not go half the distance of the Pope. 
 
 He. Well, well ! I often hear you meddling and muddling 
 with things above your capacity, and you are at your old 
 practice. 
 
 /. Be it so, only let me add the perfection of praise comes 
 from children, as with them there is more spontaneity, less arti- 
 ficiality. They do not pray by rite, rule, canonical hours, but 
 worship as they laugh, cry, or sleep. 
 
 He. How does that square with your doctrine of depravity 1 
 
 I. Their service is supernatural, of grace, of the Spirit working 
 in the young heart, for of regenerate children I speak. To me, 
 one of the most charming portions of God's evangel is contained 
 in these words of Elizabeth the aged : " The babe leaped in my 
 womb for joy." The accord of the unborn with the coming in- 
 carnation proves that John was born again before born of his 
 mother. He received the Holy Ghost without his co-action, so 
 the Spirit may be given to a babe in the bosom of its mother or 
 in the cradle of its nurse. This is my hope for five loved ones 
 of ours who died in infancy. " Except a man be born again he 
 cannot see the kingdom of heaven," applies equally to them as 
 to us. They cannot be regenerated except by passively receiving 
 the Spirit. Indeed this is my chief hope in relation to the 
 heathen. A dying pagan may, for aught we know, receive the 
 Spirit whereby comes salvation, and that in the very article of 
 death. Deny that, and you destroy all hope of heathens being 
 saved. 
 
 He. Not at all. If they live up to their light they will be 
 saved, being judged by their law, not ours, of Avhich they are 
 ignorant. 
 
 /. Little comfort in that doctrine for pagans, as Paul says, 
 <' By the deeds of law (any law) shall no flesh living be justified," 
 which bangs the door of the ark of salvation in the face of every 
 heathen who seeks entry through obedience. Tell me, honestly, 
 are you satisfied when at day's decline you think over what you 
 have said or done, and what you failed to do and say that would 
 have improved on the actual 1 
 
 He. Well, I don't say I am quite, but another may be. 
 
 7. But I, a Protestant, have the same experience as you, a 
 Papist. The only case where this does not hold good is with 
 {I self-righteous Pharisee, who, of all men, is most abhorred in 
 
6 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 heaven. I therefore put my hope for infants on the same 
 footing that I do the salvability of pagans — their receiving the 
 Spirit apart from works and not by reason of ceremonies per- 
 formed, even as John was uncircumcised and unbaptized when 
 he rejoiced. 
 
 He. But heathens have done wickedly and are impenitent, 
 whereas the infant cannot personally transgress. 
 
 /. What of that ? Men are not forgiven because they repent, 
 but repent because they are forgiven. 
 
 He. I must be candid. You have said nothing yet to show 
 me that horrid doctrine of depravity. 
 
 /. Well, take this argument. In Mark's account of our Lord's 
 transfiguration, he tells of a man who brought his boy to the 
 nine apostles at the mountain foot to be healed, he being a 
 demoniac. Naturally they could not heal him, for "Without 
 Me ye can do nothing," and He was on the hill. When the 
 Lord arrived, " He asked his father. How long is it ago since 
 this came unto him ? And he said, Of a child." Now, on the 
 principle of like to like, an unclean spirit could not enter a holy 
 being. The fact of this child being a demoniac shows that 
 children are by nature depraved. 
 
 He. That will never do. The child was simply insane. 
 
 /. The evangelists are against you. Moreover, who ever heard 
 of insane children. They may be imbecile, idiotic, or of unsound 
 mind, but not insane ! I don't think you will find one insane 
 person under twelve in Gartnavel. But if Mark does not 
 convince you, let Moses try. In Lev. xii. you find that a woman 
 bringing forth a male child might touch no hallowed thing for a 
 long time, and was to offer an atonement in respect to maternity. 
 Until th ft t'i^pi ^f b^^T' pnrifinf^^ti nn was accomplished she was 
 not allowed to enter oratory, synagogue, nor Temple. If that 
 did not show children need the new birth, what could ? Nay 
 more, it showed that the mother added another sinner to our 
 race, which is at war with God, as the fallen angels are. 
 
 He. Well, but that was Jewush, and is no longer obligatory. 
 
 /. It is God's dealing with the then best people in the world. 
 If it held good with them, how much more with Gentiles. Let 
 me ask you this, did Jesus die for children ? 
 
 He. Not as children, yet dying for all, He died for them. 
 
 /. He did not die for holy angels, nor holy anything. They 
 being atoned for argues guilt. 
 
 He. But I don't see the guilt. Not in their bodies, because that 
 would make sin material, and I see no mind for the sin to be in. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 7 
 
 /. Why, it lies in their nature and relationship. A tiger 
 is an evil beast. I have a cub on my knee. It is ten days old. 
 How pretty ! Where is its bloodthirsty propensity ? When 
 Nana Sahib was on his mother's breast, what folly to say He 
 can never play the tiger. 
 
 He. He was led away of example, and after all was only doing 
 what his ancestors did in like circumstances. 
 
 /. But we go by taste. Had he not liked those examples, he 
 would not prove so apt a scholar. 
 
 He. Yes, but you must not set down every innocent as Nana. 
 
 /. Nor do I intend. I only show that man's nature is corrupt, ^ 
 quick to learn evil, but in studying good, slow at the uptake. 
 God schooled Israel forty years in the wilderness, and they 
 mutinied, rioted, rebelled. Jesus taught the twelve for three 
 years, and they continually blundered. 
 
 He. That may all be so, and yet it does not show that an 
 infant is a sinner. 
 
 /. Perhaps not, but it does show the /acf, if not the liow ; you 
 have the trutlii if not the mode. 
 
 He. I am not so sure of that. Sin can't be material, and 
 God is the Father of spirits ; seeing, then, the spirit of the child 
 comes from God, it comes pure. Where, then, can be stain 
 of sin ? 
 
 I. Man is tri-partite, consisting of body, soul, and spirit, 
 coming from God directly or indirectly. Body and soul come 
 from parents, but the spirit from Him. Suppose I have a 
 sponge, the pores of which are partially filled with strychnia ; 
 pure milk is poured on to the sponge until saturated, would 
 you care to take a squeeze of that milk which before was pure 1 
 Had posterity been given to Adam when upright, it would 
 partake of his moral rectitude as well as his bodily immortality, 
 but when he fell, his offspring were generated sinful as to soul, 
 and mortal as to body. The spirit coming pure from God into 
 that sin-tainted body, becomes sinful by union therewith, con- 
 substantial. That agrees with what Moses says of nature before 
 Eve was built : " Every beast after its kind." Arminians go 
 in with Darwin, that an animal may beget its unlike, whereas 
 Huxley and Tyndal say like comes from like. 
 
 He. Still that does not show man is utterly depraved. He 
 being so, we should never do right. 
 
 /. Tfjg__n of. Tnonnf 4:1ml, i r i iiH4-ia inp^f^p^blf? of ^'^i^g ^"y kiT^ d 
 
 act to'^s fello w- ma n apart from special g ^-^^ft, bnt thn.t hft nan't 
 love God untiTiTafurelsehanged. 
 
8 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He, Well, then, you make him irresponsible, for if he can't do 
 it he is not answerable for failure. 
 
 /. Suppose a man lent me ;^ioo when I was able to repay, 
 but I squandered my means, lost health and character, would he 
 consider I was not his debtor because I could not pay ? 
 
 He. But, according to you, we did not squander the ability to 
 love God, for we never had it. 
 
 /. True ; but Adam had, and suicidally parted with it. God 
 deals with the race, a unity, so that we had it in his person. 
 
 He. Why should I suffer for what another did when I had no 
 control over him, and knew nothing of the matter. 
 
 /. Yet you expect salvation for what Another suffered, and 
 one transaction is as fair as the other. Do you not see children 
 suffering in mind, body, and circumstance, through parental acts 
 that they were unconsulted about ? 
 
 He. Yes, but they ought not. 
 
 /. If you mean parents ought not to do wrong we agree, but 
 if you mean that children ought not to be affected by the deeds 
 of their parents ; then, though parents wrought good for them 
 they could not get it, because they are to be unaffected by 
 parents. 
 
 He. I didn't say that, but this : children should not suffer for 
 parental acts they have no voice in. 
 
 /. Which is impossible. In that case, when a father neglected 
 his offspring they would be as well off as when he did his duty, 
 so that should he come home drunk and kick one of them the 
 child would not feel it. Surely you can't mean that ? 
 
 He. Of course not. I am showing that if a man can't do a 
 thing he is not to blame for not doing it. What would you 
 think of a man who binds another hand and foot, places him in 
 a house, locks the door, sets the house on fire, and then sends 
 men you call evangelists to bid him escape. This is parallel to 
 your system. According to you man can't help himself, the 
 world he's in is to be destroyed, and preachers surround him 
 with exhortations to do what is impossible, " Flee from the 
 wrath to come." 
 
 I. This does not represent our theology, but caricatures it. 
 Inability is of three kinds : physical, as the lame cannot run ; 
 mental, as when a scholar has not good parts ; and moral, as a 
 thief cannot be honest, or an obstinate boy obedient. A farmer 
 has realised a fortune in Australia, and is coming to end his 
 days on this less island. His ship is breaking up on the Goodwin 
 Sands. He is entreated to enter a lifeboat, but refuses, saying, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 9 
 
 Better droicn here than be a iiauper over there in old age. His 
 pride will not let him board the boat. Our carnal heart fills us 
 with enmity against God, so that we cannot obey even when His 
 servants entreat us. 
 
 He. But I deny j^our premise that we cannot keep the com- 
 mandments. Christ says, " If ye love Me, keep My command- 
 ments." If they were not observable, of what use were they 1 
 You might as well speak of a hammer that could not be used for 
 striking. 
 
 /. Well, that is strange for a R. C. who says daily "• Forgive 
 us our trespasses," repeatedly goes to confession, useless without 
 something to confess, takes the mass that is called an offering 
 for the sins of the living and the dead, and expects Purgatory. 
 For you to argue ability to keep the commandments is wonder- 
 ful. If you can obey God as to the ten, you are worse than 
 heretics, who say we like to keep them but can't. 
 
 He. That does not prove your horrible doctrine of depravity. 
 
 /. When 3^ou believe the mass of humanity are outside of the 
 Church, giving no heed to the commands of Christ's vicar, while 
 the Italian nation, though in the Church, cast him from temporal 
 power into prison, and other Catholic countries do not lift a 
 finger to restore him, how can you do less than believe in man's 
 total depravity ? See the teaching children take to make them 
 go right, the law, police, and punishments needed to keep us 
 right, and then the utter failure of the whole organisation in 
 thousands of cases. When you see the infinite forms of cruelty 
 at home and abroad, the ignorance and selfishness, how can you 
 think man is good ? 
 
 He. I don't say he is, but only that he is not totally depraved. 
 Surely there is some good in some men, and if any good in any 
 man, then mankind is not wholly depraved. 
 
 /. We do not say there is no decency, honour, virtue, but no 
 piety. There may be good will towards fellow-men, but none 
 towards God. Truly there is some good in some men, but that 
 makes against you, for they received it when regenerated. Paul 
 says, "In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." 
 Meaning that nature without grace is bad. When Jesus taught 
 His disciples (Luke xi. 13), this was said: "If ye then, being 
 evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Ghost to them 
 who ask Him?" These were praying men, God's children by 
 grace, and yet evil by nature. If, then, the ransomed by blood are 
 evil, prayerless men can be no less, and the two cover our race. 
 
10 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. But I can't tolerate that word total. If totally depraved 
 at birth we couldn't grow worse, yet unhappily some do. 
 
 /. It is not true that if totally depraved we cannot grow 
 worse. Hell is a bottomless pit. The wicked ever wax worse 
 and worse. Satan tempted man six thousand years since, and is 
 doing so. Has he grown no worse than when, imbruted in the 
 snake, he conversed with Eve. A labourer anxious to improve 
 the status of his family, keeps his son to study. His boy 
 becomes a P. T., then a dominie, studies law, and wins a wig. 
 He lives at one end of the town in a villa, and his aged father 
 occupies a cottage at the other. When thoy pace the con docs 
 m ill imi^ii i i w ] ii||i He does not disobey, speak against, nor 
 strike his father, simply treating him as though he had no being. 
 Is it not so with us % After all God has done for us, see the 
 trouble children give before they worship God. We have to 
 train them in schools, Day and Sabbath, by catechism, Bible, 
 written and living examples, and then if prevailed on to fear 
 the Lord we breathe freely. Ducklings swim and puppies bark 
 with less training. Let us learn a lesson from the lunatic 
 asylum. Most lunatics are destructive, fractious, obstinate, 
 and full of diabolical perversity. If we are good naturally, 
 when men become insane they would morally improve, though 
 intellectually deteriorate. What can the wickedness of the 
 insane be due to but that the restraints of common sense and 
 ordinary propriety are withdrawn. When humanity has to 
 be bound with so many fetters, it must be bad. I carefully 
 noted the effects of blindness upon men, to see whether that 
 terrible affliction gave them an upward bend. The inference I 
 draw is that, as a rule, the blind are a little worse than other 
 people. I have not met with two blind men in whose piety I 
 could place confidence. 
 
 He. So it may be, but not totally so. If an apple had a 
 rotten speck in it, would you say it was just as bad as anothei- 
 rotten to the core ? 
 
 /. If you presented an apple on a silver salver to a lady, 
 would you take one with a speck ? But go to the old theocratic 
 nation Israel. An Israelite goes to the priest to be examined, 
 who sees one spot of leprosy on the examinee. Does he not 
 proclaim him unclean ? call him a leper ? or, does he wait until 
 the man is dying of the disease before he condemns ? If a man 
 has no love to God in his soul, then he must be totally depraved. 
 You don't see the force of depraved. That word means crooked, 
 perverted. We came from God upright by creation, and should 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED il 
 
 from birth grow straight up to Him in holiness till we return 
 at the Pearly Gate, but we get a downward twist by the fall, 
 whereby we become froward, fromward, in the wrong direction, 
 with our back to God, and on down we go, stooping into the 
 mire of the broad bad road, refusing to turn. Unless He con- 
 |vert us we die so, hence David says, " Turn thou me and I shall 
 be turned." Thus Paul appositely says, " Ye who were afar off 
 He hath hrought nigh." Not ye came. We are by nature a 
 crab-stick, as crooked as a cork-screw, and all warped to the 
 left. If not so we should see boys and girls gather in groups to 
 worship God, so sweet it would be. 
 
 He. That don't convince me that men are totally depraved. 
 
 /. Let us then take the case of your saints, who are the 
 aristocracy of Catholicism. What means their austerities, fast- 
 ing, discipline, keeping the body in subjection, if we are not 
 naturally given to preferring sin to holiness ? You call Pro- 
 testants heretics, as you do Jews, Mahometans, and Pagans, 
 but estimate Romanists as the best in the world. Now it is 
 notorious that a common penance ordered by priests is saying 
 prayers. If the best people on the earth look upon praying as 
 a punishment, what can be said of outsiders? Your books term 
 Rome the holy city. Seeing its citizens voted for the rule of 
 the robber, that Barabbas, Victor Emmanuel, in preference to the 
 mild rule of his Holiness, what can be expected of other cities ? 
 
 He, The Pope has nothing to do with the question which you 
 evade, failing to show that we are born with an evil nature. 
 
 /. Remember, Jesus divides men thus : " They that have done 
 good shall come forth to the resurrection of glory, and they that 
 have done evil to the resurrection unto damnation." Where is 
 the man that on your principles could be said to be evil ^ had 
 never done one good action 1 If then among the damned will be 
 many who did noble and virtuous actions, and yet seeing that 
 those actions originated not from holy motives, their doers are 
 reckoned evil, the nature of the child must be judged to be 
 either good or evil. How claim it as good, when your Church 
 gives it no place in her bosom until it is changed from a 
 demoniac ? 
 
 He. I am not saying it is good, but only that it is not wholly 
 bad. 
 
 /. Seeing it is good or bad, and your Church votes it bad, but 
 you say it is not totally so, oblige by showing some good thing 
 towards God in unrenewed nature. 
 
 He. The reciprocal love of parents and children, a patriot's 
 
12 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 love of country, all honour, virtue, humanity, politeness, whether 
 manifested by ourselves, or among pagan Greeks and Romans, or 
 modern heathens. 
 
 /. But there is no spark of love to God in that. A man might 
 profess atheism and top that standard. I know of no greater 
 insult to God than to ignore Him and His claims for awe, grati- 
 tude, and adoration. Suppose Victoria entered a room where 
 you were sitting with your hat on having a smoke, and you 
 neither rose, ceased smoking, nor took off your hat, would you 
 not be acting more like a Fenian than a loyalist ? 
 
 He. Of course I should, but God does not come into the 
 presence of those mentioned in a parallel manner. 
 
 /. Undoubtedly He does. They are under greater obligations 
 to Him than we to her. All who are good seek Him as their 
 supreme desire, nor rest they until found unto adoration. David 
 said, "I set the Lord ever before me," and Jesus assures us, "The 
 pure in heart shall see God." Our forgetting God comes of not 
 liking to retain Him in our memory because there is no place for 
 Him in our heart. Hence"" Jeremiah says of it, "The heart is 
 deceitful above all things, and incurably wicked," so that it must 
 be renewed, made over again. 
 
 He. The heart is a mere force-pump of flesh, so that it cannot 
 be evil, though it may be ill. 
 
 /. When we say heart we mean affections, so that evil heart 
 means misapplied affections. " Out of the heart proceedeth," &c. 
 
 He. I don't care for all you say. He who affirms that a newly- 
 born child is depraved justifies the wicked, for it did not give 
 itself that nature. When I order a coat and it turns out a misfit, 
 the fault is mine if I wear it ; but if I make my boy wear an ill- 
 fitting jacket, can I complain of his comic appearance ? 
 
 7. But your analogy fails, for we condemn those who have 
 personally done no evil, holding that they did it representatively. 
 You are a juryman where two sons claim an estate. They are 
 equal save this — one is illegitimate. For which will you give the 
 verdict ? 
 
 He. Well, as it is his misfortune and not his fault, I should 
 propose an equal sharing of the property. 
 
 /. It is well for your Church that you did not sit in Rome on 
 the Antonelli case. The Countess Laura Lambertini, the natural 
 daughter of the late Cardinal, would fare well at your hands. 
 Adam acted on federal principles, precisely as parents act now. 
 If parents do weli their offspring receive the reward of that 
 wisdom, if ill, their children necessarily suffer. Our father. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 13 
 
 becoming a sinner, begat sinners, just as a consumptive father 
 begets a daughter who dies of decline at one score. What else 
 is this but what God on Sinai meant : — "Visiting the iniquities 
 of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth 
 generation 1 " 
 
 He, Supposing that's true, but it's a long way from it, it 
 would be as wise to give the decalogue from Horeb as to say to 
 dying soldiers, Quick march ! 
 
 /. The commandments are given to reveal His nature and 
 manifest ours. The decalogue was no novelty except as to the 
 mode of delivery. The duty of every creature, good men, bad 
 men, angels, or devils, is to love their Creator. That love can 
 only be shown by obedience. " If ye love Me, keep My com- 
 mandments." Neither men nor devils are able to love Him 
 unless by special grace changing fallen nature, which grace is not 
 extended to angels. Thus duty and inability are put together, 
 so that should the mighty debt be paid by Another, we may 
 appreciate the great transaction, and love Him because He thus 
 loved us. When the Almighty says, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God," and I feel I can't, I know He must begin the gracious 
 work by loving me who am, by nature, enmity to Him. Thus, 
 ray blackness comes out foil-like against His brightness. I must 
 be wicked, or He would not command me to love so blessed a 
 being, for I should love Him spontaneously, naturally, as parents 
 do children. The commandment is given that I may see sins 
 abounding whereby I am prepared to receive a salvation never 
 self -achieved. It is showing me a painless fatal disease, that I 
 may scream for the doctor. 
 
 He. What an absurdity ! According to you, we shall be saved 
 without keeping the commandments. 
 
 /. It is insanity to think of being saved by keeping them. 
 Here am I, a heretic of many winters. You convert me, and 
 Father Glancy baptizes me. I live a saintly life, and die a 
 century old. How could it be said that I kept the command- 
 ments, when for half my life they had been unheeded ? If a 
 person began to keep them at ten he could not keep them, as 
 they would be already broken. An apostle says, "He that 
 offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Where is the Irish 
 R. C. boy aged ten, standing in his baptismal innocence ? A 
 man at a pit mouth has charge of a chain, and allows the first 
 ten links to become rotten with rust. Can he then plead a 
 sound chain 1 We must love God from birth to death, and there 
 must not be a particle of selfishness in us in relation to others. 
 
14 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. In that case you make men saved without observing 
 God's law, which we know can't be true. 
 
 /. There are two ways of keeping commandments, viz., 
 absolutely and relatively. In the former they are obeyed per- 
 fectly, without comparison as to the way others observe them. 
 In the latter case they are comparatively kept. A pious man 
 living in a wild neighbourhood keeps them relatively, which is 
 what Jesus meant when saying, "If ye love Me, keep My com- 
 mandments." An average Israelite kept them compared with 
 an Egyptian idolater. Hence, it says, " Showing mercy unto 
 thousands (of generations), in them that love Me and keep My 
 commandments." Had they kept them in the former sense no 
 mercy would be needed ; had they not kept them in the latter, 
 how could the Church be distinguished ? It is kept for a man 
 by the Man. As Adam's breach of law is visited on an infant 
 that has not sinned after his similitude, so Christ's righteousness 
 clothes each ransomed one. Paul meant that when he said this : 
 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so 
 by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." 
 
 He. Then if a man be saved by what another does, and not by 
 what he does, a door is opened for the committal of all sorts of 
 pleasant sins without fear or remorse. Lutheran doctrine is 
 alluring, I must allow. 
 
 /. But the saved lose all taste for sin. Should Tetzel say, 
 Here is an indulgence ivlierehy you may do ivhat you loill for forty 
 days, my answer would be, Tliank you, hut I do that noiv. Break- 
 ing commandments either wholesale or retail does not constitute 
 amusement. A hog is embogged but happy, while a sheep in 
 a ditch is miserable. Hear Samson tell his experience, / sinned, 
 and therethrough lost my tico eyes hy fire. Then hear David, / 
 sinned, and God made me feel as though all my hones were hrohen ; 
 moreover, the sword never left my house. 
 
 He. On your showing, we are all in the position of bad babies, 
 sinful as Satan and helpless as clay. That being so, no difference 
 can be in our ultimate destiny, and we must all perish. 
 
 /. So far you are correct, but One interposes by eternal 
 election, choosing certain of the fallen and weak to life. This 
 He did towards us as infants, for thus Moses tells of one elect 
 in the womb (Gen. xxv. 23), and Luke of another (i. 44). When 
 I say this, He did to us as infants, I mean when we had personally 
 done nothing, but had upon us Adam's relative guilt. 
 
 He. Hah ! that's your infant election theory, is it ? as though 
 some were not elect. I suppose English children are all elect. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 15 
 
 while the children of poor Pat are reprobate down to the last 
 Irish baby. 
 
 /. The idea of infant election sounds strange to you, who look 
 upon salvation as an affair of works, and a child can do none. 
 Again, you fancy it would be harsh, and right down cruel, to 
 punish such in Hell as wrought no evil on earth. I showed 
 that salvation is of grace, relationship to Christ, but damnation 
 is not only for personal evil wrought, but is of relationship to 
 Adam, is an outcome of relative guilt. As to punishment in 
 eternity applied to those who never got beyond infancy in time, I 
 leave that with Him to whom it is neither pleasure nor advantage 
 to do wrong. Hell is not the same for two, and I am of those 
 who believe that celestial and infernal differences are little short 
 of infinite. For aught you know the children of the Ante- 
 diluvians shared their condemnation, though that lot in eternity 
 may greatly differ. Nor, on this principle, does it follow that 
 there should be an equalisation between the pain of the spirit 
 of an unredeemed child and the pleasure accruing to the soul 
 of a ransomed infant, for Heaven is higher than Hell is deep 
 by the measure of the merit of the second Adam above the 
 demerit of the first. Salvation and damnation partake of the 
 family element. Thus Paul says, "The unbelieving husband 
 is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified 
 by the husband ; else were your children unclean ; but now are 
 they holy," teaching that when either parents, or both, fear 
 God, their children were entitled to Church rites and rights, 
 though of course they might afterwards forfeit these by personal 
 transgression. I hold that children dying in infancy, the offspring 
 of one or more pious parents, are loved for their sakes. Nay, 
 I go this length, if one or both parents are elect, though neither 
 of them are converted, their offspring is also chosen, for the 
 merit of Christ did not come on His elect at regeneration, but 
 when their names were recorded in the Lamb's book of life — 
 earlier, when God chose them in Christ and gave them to His 
 Messiah to redeem. The children of such dying in infancy I 
 have no doubts about, but see no particle of Scripture teaching 
 that the offspring of reprobates are saved because they died in 
 infancy. You look at it thus : What a repulsive helief, a child 
 eternally lost that never did evil. I view it this way — there is 
 a blasting power in sin, showing its exceeding sinfulness. When 
 Adam transgressed, the earth was blighted; when Cain killed 
 Abel, the ground was hardened. If sin affects the earth of 
 which we are made, and God visits the sin of the fathers upon 
 
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 the children, may not the son of the guilty be abhorred of 
 Heaven ? Take your view, and it follows that at the flood as fast 
 as God the Son slew rebels by waves, God the Holy Ghost 
 quickened the spirits of their offspring, so fitting them for 
 heaven. Remember, so far as adults are concerned, if God 
 pardons He forgives two things — nature and character — but in 
 an infant nature only, howbeit that is the more important, being 
 the root of character. 
 
 He. A pretty story truly ! Give a nature, and its receiver 
 needs forgiveness for being its recipient, when he had no choice 
 as to its reception. 
 
 /. Had God directly given it as He did nature to angels and 
 Eve, your reasoning would be excellent. The doctrine of elect 
 infants is essentially the doctrine of election. Man depraved 
 makes a depraved choice in spiritual matters. By reason of his 
 condition, he does no good works to qualify himself for salvation. 
 Thus an infant, a heathen, and a nominal Christian are in an 
 identical position. This comes out more clearly when it is seen 
 that salvation is of relationship to Christ the obedient, or to 
 Adam the rebellious, depends upon what we are rather than 
 upon what we do. Angels fell by doing, Adam fell by doing, 
 the elect rise by receiving. 
 
 He. Then I don't seek salvation at all ? 
 
 /. No, the Saviour seeks you. Does the sheep seek its shep- 
 herd ? Does the fish seek the fisherman ? Luke teaches thus : 
 " Men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy, 
 and they sought to bring him in and to lay (the paralytic) before 
 Jesus. And when they could not find by what means they 
 might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon 
 the house-top and let him down through the awning with the 
 couch into the midst (of the crowd) before Jesus. And when 
 He saw their faith. He said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven 
 thee." There is no evidence he had faith in Christ's ability even 
 to heal him, all the faith being in his bearers, but it would be 
 rank insanity to say the paralysed sought pardon. Observe, our 
 Lord did not address him by name as Peter, Thomas, Lazarus, 
 he not being His disciple, but as Man ! for it was in relationship 
 to the Son of Man, having absolute power over humanity. 
 Hence, he is claimable as a symbol of mankind, perfectly helpless 
 till He forgives and heals. Those four bearers are the analogues 
 of faithful ministers. As He forgave that man, who no more 
 sought salvation than infants do, so He forgives any of Adam's 
 race ; that is, passively on their part, and by sovereignty on His. 
 
 I 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 17 
 
 The Son of Man having atoned for whom He would, which must 
 be true whether He died for John and not for Judas, or for 
 both, has the right to pardon absolutely. Hence He says : " I 
 give unto My sheep eternal life." Ergo a man and an infant 
 are saved with equal passivity, for he is spiritually as inactive as 
 the infant. 
 
 He. Tell me I can do nothing to save myself, and I shall 
 certainly not try. What use ? 
 
 L In the order of duty I visited two dying brothers. Each 
 brought on his end by drink, and neither cared for religion. 
 When exhorting the elder to look to the Crucified, he said, " Mr. 
 Lour/, God is merciful, and I can have mercy ii-Jienever I like to 
 seek it.^^ He died without seeking. When we are sure we can 
 do a thing, or when we think we can have a thing not to our 
 taste, it is deferred, undone and unchosen. 
 
 He. How foolish urging him to look to Christ. Your doc- 
 trine is that men in their natural state cannot do even that. 
 
 /. But the Holy Spirit might enter his spirit while I uttered 
 the words of exhortation. As the old divines say, " calling grace 
 makes manifest." Had his name been of the enrolled ones in 
 the Lamb's book, he might be drawn to his uplifted Lord, for, 
 saith He, " My sheep hear My voice.'' I could not tell whether 
 his name was emblazoned over there until results showed it was 
 wanting. 
 
 He. Still it is nonsense to say that when men think they can 
 do something for salvation they do nothing. See what we 
 Catholics do and suffer to be saved ! 
 
 /. Whereby you become double dead, more pharisaic, and ten 
 times further removed from righteousness, as having established 
 a human righteousness by paying dues, hearing mass, doing 
 penance, saying prayers, receiving absolution, suffering Purga- 
 tory, you become theoretically opposed to divinely given righte- 
 ousness, whereas had you done nothing but see your lost estate 
 it is written : "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that 
 which was lost." He came to enrich paupers, but found you 
 working for your living, nay, increased in goods, so that you are 
 quite worthy to take your place with the rich young man who 
 kept the commandments, did all these things long long ago, 
 "And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and 
 poor, and blind, and naked." He sees we are insolvent, and if 
 we see it He lifts us from the dust of poverty, and sets us 
 among princes in glory. Have you not heard what the son of 
 Amoz said: "All our righteousnesses are but as filthy rags." 
 
 B 
 
1 8 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 Imagine I am to be presented at court, and prepare by pinning, 
 tying, and stitching old clouts on me, so that I may make a 
 telling impression on the Queen. 
 
 He. Oh, that's absurd ! No sensible man does that ! 
 
 /. Yes, you do. Instead of receiving Christ's righteousness 
 as your soul's sole hope, you profess to prepare a guilty man for 
 entering into the presence of the holy God, enveloped in stinks, 
 stitches, and patches, instead of receiving the seamless wedding 
 robe, as stitchless as the light. We are saved by One, whence 
 our salvation is Divine ; by one act, when He says " Live " (Ezek. 
 xvi. 6) ; not by our many acts, which would humanise and make 
 temporary salvation ; this is no process analogous to weaving, 
 stitching, or digging, no, nor even seeing, for if we see, it is 
 because we are saved. How instructive is the fact, that women 
 saw the resurrection angels, not the apostles, that Christ appeared 
 to Mary first, not John. The moral being, the less we do in the 
 kingdom of heaven the more we see. " My strength is made 
 perfect in weakness." Women do less than men, and children 
 least of all. Doers look downwards, seers upwards. Is not that 
 taught by God thus: sleeping Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 12), Nebu- 
 chadnezzar (Dan. ii. 3), and the Jewish premier of the Chaldees 
 (vii. 7), all received revelations, not through study as scholars, not 
 through experiment and observation as scientists, bvit as sleepers. 
 God taught them while they slept, that they might be humble 
 when they woke. Thus taught the Spirit (Psa. cxxvii. 2) : " He 
 giveth His beloved m sleep," for so it should be rendered. The 
 Lord gives freely, so that boasting is excluded. 
 
 He. You make no headway. Affirming man's inability to do 
 anything is so flat a contradiction to experience and the Bible as 
 to be quite incredible. 
 
 /. It is not said that man is unable to do anything, but only 
 he can do no good. He can intensify, deepen his damnation, 
 but not save himself. We can commit suicide, but cannot re- 
 suscitate ourselves. Jesus teaches : " Either make the tree good 
 and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit 
 corrupt." Evidently man is a bad stock. The Russo-Turkish 
 war proved so much. Why will there be no millennial cam- 
 paigns ? Because men will then be good. Fruit is visible, 
 though root is subterranean, but as pulsation of the wrist shows 
 throbbing at the heart, so the wickedness of men proves the 
 sinfulness of nature. When the world fell, in and by our father, 
 there was no cry to heaven for our Father to come and right the 
 wrong. He came unsought. The world made no spiritual pro- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 19 
 
 gress in 4000 years, hence, when He came and stayed of a long 
 time the Jerusalem mob roared, "Not this man, but Barabbas," 
 disliking that He should dwell among us thirty-three years. 
 
 He. If by such reasoning you fancy I shall be brought to 
 believe in infant damnation you make a huge mistake. I blush 
 to whisper what one of your ministers shouted : There are infants 
 in Hell a span Jong, 
 
 I. That I heard long since, but from boyhood have no testi- 
 mony as to who that one was. I doubt whether any man so 
 said, and am certain no scholar could. 
 
 He. What ! Are you ashamed of your doctrine in the naked 1 
 Why, you are defending that very position. 
 
 7. So much the worse for me. How can a man talk of a spirit 
 nine inches long ? If you say he did not mean the body, as that 
 was entombed, but its spirit which left the body when it was at 
 that immature length, I told you the differences in the eternal 
 world are as varied as the inexhaustible wisdom of God. If there 
 be any in that evil world that wrought no iniquity because con- 
 tinuance was here denied, I am sure they do not think themselves 
 unjustly dealt with. It was Christ who adjudged the rebel 
 angels to Hell, and 3'et when a band of demons met Him offering 
 a compliment the apostles were long in learning to imitate. They 
 said, one speaking for all : '• I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy 
 One of God." Holy is the root of just. Thereby they allowed 
 their condemnation was just. That scene supplies a double moral, 
 the second part of which, our Lord's rejection of this honour, 
 shows that it lies in the offerer more than in the offering. God 
 will accept of no worship from the wicked, hence, " The prayer 
 of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," whence it follows 
 we must be holy before we can worship the Holy. How can the 
 sinful make himself holy ? 
 
 He. Yery good. But fallen angels suffer for their own re- 
 belUon, whereas children, according to your dogma, suffer for 
 Adam's. 
 
 I. Angels stood or fell each for himself, whereas we fell by 
 our federal head breaking the covenant of works. Then all fell, 
 the entire mass of humanity becoming spiritually alien to God, 
 so that if any of these were chosen of Mercy, such choice could 
 not be founded upon works, whereby, adopted or rejected, we 
 are on that infant footing which was occupied by the twins of 
 Rebekah. Your difficulty lies in not seeing that salvation is 
 of relationship to Adam the second, and damnation is of relation- 
 ship to Adam the first, and that we can only burnish our given 
 
20 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 coronet of gold inwrought with amaranth, increase by good 
 works our glory in the upper Canaan; can only intensify our 
 damnation, deepen our distance from the absent God in the hope- 
 less land. 
 
 He. Yes, and I hope to be blind to that. Why, Christ says 
 at doomsday : " I was naked and ye clothed Me," to the right- 
 eous; while to the wicked He says, "I was naked and ye clothed 
 Me not." That looks like works. 
 
 I. To me it has the aspect of grace. Does He not say, " Come, 
 ye blessed (children) of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world " ? INIade ready for 
 that precise number. They do not get Heaven for doing, but 
 because they are God's children by elective adoption and gracious 
 regeneration. They did good because His Spirit abode within 
 them, so that in a manner they were His good works wrought 
 by them. When Noah sketched his Ark he planned eight sleeping 
 berths, 120 years before God launched her. "In My Father's 
 house are many mansions " over against the eight, though Christ's 
 many is as definite as the 144,000 sealed of the tribes (Rev. vii. 
 4) ; or the 153 caught in the Gospel net (John xxi. 11). These be 
 symbols of the names recorded in the new Jerusalem directory, 
 entered before the world was. Make it salvation by works, this 
 must also be appended, and that salvation is not Jnioum until 
 the judgment. Yet it will be judgment only in the sense of 
 manifestation, not discovery. No one will be saved there; 
 all are saved here and now. Demand salvation by works per- 
 sonal, and what becomes of infants, heathen, and eleventh-hour 
 penitents ? 
 
 He. That does not help your abhorrent doctrine of infant 
 damnation. I cannot believe that a child suffers in eternity for 
 the doings of parents. Indeed, not many minutes since you 
 affirmed that election was entirely upon the infant basis, that 
 God selected unto salvation from those who were relatively con- 
 demned and personally unable to help themselves. How does 
 that square with your making out that children are affected by 
 their parents being good or bad ! 
 
 /. I do not limit Divine Sovereignty nor assail the infinite 
 freeness of eternal love by saying that elect children are invari- 
 ably born of elect parents, for the cases of Noah and Ham, 
 Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Esau, Eli and Hophni, David 
 and Absalom, show that no such view is tenable. What I hold 
 is that elect infants are probably born of elect parents, that is, 
 assuming that there are chosen children who die in infancy, I 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 21 
 
 expect them to be the offspring of elect parent or parents, not 
 that such opinion involves holding this — all elect parents are 
 favoured by having elect offspring. This is in harmony with 
 Rom. xi. 28, ^' They are beloved for their fathers' sakes," and 
 older yet, Exo. xx. 6. 
 
 He. But I hold that all children dying before the age of 
 responsibility are equally elect. 
 
 /. Well, let us reason it out thus : 
 
 1. Either all dying in infancy are elect. 
 
 2. Or none so dying are. 
 
 3. Or some are. 
 
 As to I, it cannot be held, because that will not harmonise with 
 the Divine economy in the known portions of the scheme of 
 redemption. Therein He is ever making to differ. It looks as 
 though imaginary human innocence availed to win God's favour. 
 It tends towards limitation of God's freedom, for if an iofant 
 must be saved because an infant, that would confine Divine 
 liberty equally with affirming elect parents must have elect 
 offspring. It overlooks the fact that our race is guilty from the 
 newly-]:)orn to the patriarchal. It cannot be justified by assert- 
 ing that Christ died for infants as such, seeing there is neither 
 implicit Scripture therefor, nor yet analogy. We cannot discover 
 how any become elect, and possibly it is unrevealable to man by 
 reason of incapacity to comprehend involved relationships of law, 
 sin, time, circumstance, eternity, creature, and Creator, but it is 
 safe to aflSrm that election could not be in classes as male 
 and female, learned and ignorant, young or old. When the 
 covenant to save was made, the Second Person in the Tri-une 
 Godhead became Christ, sanctified Himself into the redemption 
 of His espoused ; cycles thereafter He became Jesus for the love 
 of them. These were elected not in relation to age or innocence, 
 for they must be chosen as guilty apart from biographic detail, 
 and consequently Ave cannot say that all human beings dying in 
 infancy are elect ; should we not rather think that as Heaven's 
 elect are found among all classes, that is, with infants as with 
 others, some are elect and others not *? Moreover, if infancy 
 qualifies so that all children not having attained to the age of 
 responsibility are for that reason chosen, then no infant can be 
 elect, inasmuch as that procedure would be selection, which is 
 easily understood, and not election, which is a mystery awful 1 
 Besides, all children being elect, mankind must be so, and once 
 elect they must remain that, apart from the detail of age, which 
 continually varies. As for 2, I cannot think that children born 
 
22 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 of the godly, and dedicated by them in faith, so dyin^' are un- 
 saved. Salvation is usually presented in the family form from 
 Noah's call into God's Ark to Luke writing (Acts xvi. 15), " Lydia 
 was baptized and her household." Therefore, 3 appears to me 
 deserving of credence. Thus we have (Gen. xxxix. 5) Potiphar 
 blessed for Joseph's sake ; so one may be blessed for another's 
 sake as to affairs of time. I do not think that the children of 
 pious parents are saved for the sake of their progenitors, as 
 salvation can come only for the sake of One, but that God 
 probably intimates grace in respect to a child by relating it to 
 those who are in the covenant eternal. Jews are loved unto 
 temporal preservation for their fathers' sake. There was an 
 elect Messianic line from Adam to Christ which no wars, feuds, 
 nor political changes could break ; so election runs in lines which 
 is a part of its virtue. But that a E,. C. should affirm the deeds 
 of parents do not affect the eternal destiny of their offspring 
 fills one with blank amazement. Take a case constantly occur- 
 ring. A mother gives birth to a son this night. She lives miles 
 from a priest. As his Reverence will not be there until Sunday, 
 and she does not like lay baptism, she waits. 'On Saturday night 
 she overlays her child. According to you its spirit will never 
 enter Heaven, but find a place in a less pleasant world, the 
 Limbo of Infants, where those who are unbaptized are taken, for 
 the demon has never been cast out, while you say the lot of 
 children is unaffected by parents. That fancy of your Church, 
 Limbo, was imagined while forgetting that every child is de- 
 monised according to it, wherefore, w^hen children reach Limbo 
 they wax worse and worse, and the place infallibly becomes Hell. 
 When your theologians manufactured that place, they forgot 
 that such would not be infants always there any more than here. 
 
 He. You have nothing to do with what my Church teaches. 
 Attend to the subject of infant election. Your view is that the 
 souls are lost through misfortune, not through fault. How can 
 we help being born of Adam ? The evils I incur come of sin, 
 crime, or blunders, but those I have no control over I term mis- 
 fortune, for which, however sorry I may be, I feel no remorse, 
 nor do I repent of them. 
 
 /. Let me put a case. The son of an aristocrat falls in love 
 with a gipsy, and is set upon marrying her. When consulting 
 his father, he receives a strongly expressed negative. Amongst 
 other things the father said : She is loiv hred. His son replied : 
 That is not her fault. Senior said : The girl is rudely uneducated. 
 Junior replied : Slie never had an opportunity to get education. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 23 
 
 The old gentleman said : Her brothers are poachers, her father a 
 hen-roost robber, her mother drinlis heavily. The young gentleman 
 says : Surely none of these things are to be laid to her charge. Do 
 you think his reasoning would satisfy the paternal intellect 1 
 Salvation comes more by wedding than by sermons. The 
 patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, had numerous 
 sons, but only one daughter — Dinah. When any of these men 
 married an alien woman she was absorbed into the covenant 
 family. Had these had daughters instead of sons, the Abrahamic 
 seed would have died out or, which would have been the same so 
 far as the covenant was concerned, been absorbed into idolatrous 
 nations. It was, from your standpoint, no fault at all, but only 
 a misfortune of Dinah's, that she was not a Dan ; but what she 
 was regulated position, and her Creator made her female, from 
 which there was no appeal. No covenant was ever made by God 
 with a woman, and no woman ever offered a sacrifice. But of 
 what use would it be for a Hebrew daughter to complain she was 
 not a son 1 God's work is perfect, and from it there is no appeal 
 to a higher court. 
 
 He. But what bearing has that upon infant election 1 
 
 I. The regulation of our lot is absolutely at the disposal of the 
 Almighty, and though we phenomenally seem to have our spiritual 
 status for time and eternity in our hands, we no more have it 
 than infants. The entire of Adam's race after the fall were all 
 before God in the relationship of base-born children, polluted as to 
 origin, sinful as to nature, and helpless as to power. There, and 
 not short of there, do we find the wisdom of the figure represent- 
 ing God as an omnipotent potter, making us to differ as He will, 
 not we will; He is the irresistible Differentiator. 
 
 He. I believe the good Shepherd gathers every lamb in His 
 Hock, whereas you teach He makes a selection. 
 
 I. He saves all His lambs, but you are assuming that mankind 
 is His flock, whereas neither your Church nor our Bible teach 
 that. When Rome burnt Huss, surely it did not think him a 
 sheep, but a wolf. Nor could he have been a lamb, for no lamb 
 would make himself a wolf. The most he could have been was 
 a wolf in sheep's clothing. 
 
 He. I care nothing for what the Council of Constance did, as it 
 has no bearing on this case. I refuse to believe in your view of 
 election of infants, in fact any view but this — all infants are 
 elect. 
 
 /. We are saved as infants by the child Jesus. It was said in 
 Eden by One : " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's 
 
24 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 head." That seed was the Infant of Days who saves babes and 
 them only, that is, those in whom there is no qualification. The 
 infant earns nothing, desires nothing, but gets all through re- 
 lationship. Does the babe earn its milk i As soon as we are 
 babes we receive milk. The work of the Spirit is to strip us, and 
 make us as free from personal merit as a new-born child. That 
 being done, the child is seen to. Is not that what God means 
 by the beautiful allegory (Ezek. xvi.) of the foundling ? "Thy 
 birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan ; thy father was 
 an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite." This in the Glasgow 
 language means : You are a native of the Bridgegate ; your 
 father was a scavenger, and your mother a midden-raker. Then 
 the Gracious One passes by the wailing babe as it lies on the 
 Green, and says, "Live." An Arminian god would say, "Do." 
 But yet that does not prove all children are elect, because if so the 
 relationship could never cease, save by a change in Deity, and as 
 He is the I AM, such cannot be. According to your view Nero 
 was elect and became reprobate, which is absurd. " The gifts of 
 God are without repentance." 
 
 He. Make every baby a subject of electing love and we agree. 
 
 /. " He makes His rain to fall on the evil and on the good," but 
 Grace distinguishes though Nature fails to do so. Eain may fall 
 on salt seas or Arctic ice where it seems not needed, but grace is 
 never wasted. Nature is like small shot fired from a blunderbuss, 
 Grace like a bullet from a rifle, and the Marksman alwaj^s scores. 
 You differ less from me upon the question of salvation if you 
 would look closely into your creed. Suppose a case. An ordinary 
 couj)le have a son of extraordinary stubbornness. His disobedi- 
 ence gives now his mother and then his father no little trouble. 
 Being at his usual tricks, his father threatens him with severe 
 chastisement. The lad hangs himself with a jack-towel at the 
 back of the kitchen door, he dying aged fifteen. A fact. Now 
 Greeks, Bomanists, and Evangelical Protestants look upon that 
 boy as lost. Had he lived till forty, he might have been angry with 
 himself for perverseness, totally apart from the action of the 
 Spirit. We agree in believing that he is lost, and lived only fif- 
 teen years. I fail to see a striking diff'erence between his case and 
 that of a child of fifteen months. Consider what is meant by that 
 awful word eternity, and the proportion of months or years thereto 
 is untellably less than the ratio between one grain of sand to 
 all matter. You try to show the difference between the loss of a 
 boy and a child is vast, whereas to me the difference is virtually 
 nil. Each is a sinner by nature and will be by j^ractice, and. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 25 
 
 hard though my doctrine sounds, is guilty in relation to Adam as 
 truly as the Christian is innocent in relation to Christ. Believers 
 are prepared to see deadly reptiles, from the scorpion to the ana- 
 conda ; fishes with whom contact is fatal, from the torpedo to the 
 shark ; insects, from the mosquito to the deadly tsetse ; evil beasts, 
 from the howling wolf to that lord of the jungle, a tiger; inun- 
 dations, shipwrecks, famines, earthquakes, diseases racking the 
 frame, from neuralgia to plague; the mind afflicted by mental 
 ailments ranging from melancholy to mania, and beyond those 
 death, and beyond that millions from Cain to the last impenitents 
 lost. Having gazed upon that mass of woe, he says, I believe God 
 is almighty and infinite in goodness. It is useless to object that 
 sin introduced vipers and lions, for we know that evil is older, so 
 far as our earth is concerned, than sin. We are surrounded' by 
 awful mysteries, from which escape is impossible. Howbeit we 
 take refuge in this belief — if God would condescend to explain 
 these mysteries we should say how beautiful ! He does every- 
 thing in either black wisdom or bright. We do not comprehend 
 the former, but I ease my heart by believing that as He brought 
 the glory of the seventh day out of the gloom of the first, so the 
 clouds of blackness will be transmuted into nebulae of a brilliancy 
 equal to the garments the glorified wear. At my second birth 
 the thought of any man being lost was to me little short of 
 intolerable, whereas that of a lost baby does not move me. I 
 believe in the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and see that relational 
 guilt deserves penalty as certainly as personal acts. Howbeit, I 
 do not believe in equality of punishment in the hopeless land. I 
 believe that millions in that evil world suffer less, time for time, 
 than millions do in this world of miugled good and evil. The 
 Creator finds neither advantage nor pleasure in creature pain. 
 Should any suffer unduly, and therefore unjustly, God would no 
 longer be, forasmuch as He must be perfect in justice or not be. 
 As to the duration of the penalty of the lost, it must either be 
 eternal or purgational and atoning, whereby Hell would effect a 
 work equal to the Spirit and the Son, whence salvation would 
 come by damnation. I have sought diligently for one argument 
 against the doctrine of eternal punishment that can give an 
 orthodox thinker five minutes' trouble, but find none. 
 
Time.— TUESDAY, from 8 to io p.m. 
 Place — THE GKEEN, NEAR GEEENDYKE STREET. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 He. 
 
 A MORISONIAN OP THE MOST StERN KiND. 
 /. 
 
 A Pronounced Calvinist. 
 
 Disputation. 
 
 What is a Free Gospel? 
 
 He. I often wonder that you, a Christian of many years' stand- 
 ing, fail to see the glory of the Gospel — its freedom. I go in for 
 a free Christ to whomsoever will. My favourite simile is a 
 baker's shop in a starving neighbourhood, the stock of which is 
 bought by a millionaire, with instructions to let any perishing 
 have a loaf for asking. Cases of starvation then occurring, the 
 fault lies with. the starved. They are suicides by negligence. 
 
 I. But your parallel between that and Christ, the bread of life, 
 is fallacious, as men naturally hunger for bread, while none 
 spiritually hunger for Him before receiving the Holy Ghost. 
 That shop would be besieged, but Morisonian churches are not 
 always crowded with eager listeners, though there you offer the 
 free loaf. How does that happen 'I 
 
 He. At all events you must allow perishing is their fault while 
 "There is bread enough in my Father's house." Eating they 
 live. 
 
 /. How can appetite and taste for spiritual luxuries be got out 
 of carnal bodies *? Can the carnal win the beatitude : "Blessed 
 are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness," without 
 
 inspiration ? Unless sinners hunger they starve, but starvation 
 
 26 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 27 
 
 is a kind of fever. , Call it so. I am dying of fever and you 
 bring me a draught, which, if taken, recovery is certain, but 
 having no confidence in your remedy, I reject it. Is death due 
 to refusal or to disease ? Negatives can't operate. You must 
 allow that sinners perish apart from the great Physician, he dying 
 as the Egyptian (Exod. ii. 12) by the word of Moses. Christ 
 has nothing to do with condemning men until this economy 
 is over, and then condemns for sins actual or relational. 
 
 He. But that is directly opposed to : "If ye were blind ye 
 should have no sin.'' And again: "If I had not come and 
 spoken unto them, they had 7iot had sin.''' Here teaching that 
 their sins had relation to Him, not Moses. 
 
 /. So you think through not observing this rule. Biblical 
 language delights in the absohde, even ivhen the comparatii-e onhj is 
 meant. Now Jesus was most natural. By way of illustration 
 take the words of Isaiah : " As a sheep before her shearers is 
 dumb, so He opened not His mouth." Yet on trial our Lord 
 answered Caiaphas and Pilate. Isaiah means only He would 
 make no elaborate defence, as Stephen did. So it is said, Matt. 
 xi. 18, "John came neither eating nor drinking," while iii. 4 
 says, " His meat was locusts and wild honey." When Jesus 
 says, Luke xvi. 16, "The kingdom of heaven is preached, and 
 every man presseth into it," what can He mean but : Many enter 
 through a preached gospel, but whosoever enters it is by agonis- 
 ing ? Similarly Paul says, when contrasting the Mosaic and 
 Christian dispensation (the former), " Had no glory in this 
 respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth " it, viz., Christi- 
 anity. Applying our rule, we get this common-sense meaning, 
 John was abstemious, no glutton, ate sparingl3\ So when Jesus 
 told the Pharisees that if they were blind they would have no 
 sin. He meant, better be ignorant than disobedient. Denying that 
 you assert their sinlessness. In like manner, those to whom He 
 said there would be no sin, if they had not heard Him, teaches 
 that their exalted privilege of listening was a savour of death 
 unto death, deepening condemnation. A lost Scotchman suffers 
 a more awful weight of reprobation than an Ethiopian from 
 under the line. 
 
 He. I take no exception to rule, but to doctrine. How charm- 
 ing such a text as this sounds : "I have no pleasure in the death 
 of him that dieth, saith the Lord God : wherefore turn and live." 
 Could Deity express desire more emphatically ? What, then, 
 becomes of narrowing redemption to a few, and exchiding man's 
 will ? 
 
28 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. Received in your view we must alter: "I will have mercy 
 on whom I will have mercy " to / tcill have mercy on icliom I can 
 have mercy, so exalting the criminal at the expense of the judge. 
 Your text paraphrased by rule reads : I have less pleasure in the 
 death of him that dieth than I have in the life of him that Uveth. 
 I claim the absolute 7io must mean the comparative less, else 
 Omnipotence is weak. When Noah vacated the Ark, He had 
 more pleasure in the eight saved than in the destruction of those 
 who rebelled. The Just One never gets justice from the lost — 
 their mighty debt is unpaid in Hell, or their punishment would 
 be temporary — but receives unto the last farthing in the case of 
 each saved. So being, He is non-content with damnation, while 
 satisfied in salvation. As to exhortation to turn, grace comes by 
 hearing of grace. Some listening to Ezekiel would receive the 
 gift of repentance. David says: "Turn thou me and I shall be 
 turned." Conversion is an outcome of regeneration. 
 
 He. It won't do. If any book means what it says, the Bible 
 does. When it says no, how dare you say less 1 
 
 I. It would be a foolish book if meaning what it said. Does 
 it not say, "This is My body"? "The moon shall be turned 
 into blood " ? You must interpret God's book as Daniel did the 
 king's dream. That Hebrew seer did not say : TJie gold means 
 gold, and the iron means iron, nor Mene means Mene. Words are 
 signs, the value of which we discover by comparison. Insist upon 
 God having absolutely no pleasure in the death of the wicked, I 
 then ask is their death, as in the case of Ananias, a just act ? 
 
 He. Just ! Of course. Who thinks He could do unjustly ? 
 
 /. Then is He pleased to do justice ? You ought to say yes, 
 though you are unwilling. Whether, then, has God, speaking 
 after our manner, more pleasure in justice or in mercy ? So it 
 is manifest that the text is elliptical, which read at length is 
 as put. 
 
 He. You have the advantage of constantly discussing, and a 
 better knack of presenting cases, but you can't make me embrace 
 that narrow, cold Calvinism. man ! there is something re- 
 freshingly comprehensive in the true Gospel that partialists 
 never knew. Christianity is compressed into : " God so loved 
 the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 There is a charm about that echoing through the soul like the 
 bells of Heaven. No limitation — whosoever. 
 
 /. That is its limitation. If you were right it would run thus : 
 God so loved the loorld, that He gave His only begotten Son to die 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 29 
 
 for it to the end that every son of man should he saved. Christ 
 died for the lohosoever, some out of all nations, His sheep, those 
 who sing in upper Canaan : " Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
 us out of every kindred.'' The seed of Jacob rebelled on the 
 Edomite marches and saraphim were sent, w^hose bite parched 
 those bitten by the fever of poison. Moses was ordered to hoist 
 a copper snake very high, and whoso of the bitten looked lived, 
 being completely healed of blood poison. But if a bitten Edomite 
 gazed at the glittering metal until his. eyes ached, he would die 
 all the same. As the yearly atonement by the High Priest was 
 for Israel, but not for the sons of Esau, so this salvation was for 
 the loyal seed of Abraham. Howbeit, our Lord was lifted up 
 that whosoever, of any nationality, might gaze and live. Those 
 of us whoso look are the : " Other sheep have I which are not of 
 this fold " — we Gentiles. To this agree the words of that false 
 man but true prophet, Caiaphas : '' It is expedient that one man 
 should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." 
 John teaches that the Spirit meant : " Jesus should die for that 
 nation ; and not for that nation only, but that He should gather 
 together into one (family) the children of God that were scattered 
 abroad." This makes plain what the man of Patmos meant by : 
 " He is the propitiation for our sins j and not for ours (the Jews) 
 only, but also for the whole world." His death finds parallel in 
 the rainbow seen by the world's second father at the foot of 
 Ararat, as we learn from what John saw through an open door : 
 " Behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. 
 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine 
 stone ; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight 
 like unto an emerald." The rainbow John saw after Calvary 
 answers to that seen by Noah after the deluge. 
 
 He. I do not deny death for His elect, but that He died for 
 them exclusively. 
 
 /. Let us apply your rule to the case of Judas. Say God lo^'ed 
 him, then He loved him from everlasting, because He does 
 nothing in time that He did not determine to do before time, 
 and as we can set no bounds to the period referred to, we are 
 compelled to say it was of old, from everlasting. So loving 
 Judas, when did that love determine ? Remember, Judas died 
 before Jesus (Matt, xxvii. 5). You must allow one of these posi- 
 tions. He loves him, or ceased. Now the former involves loving 
 the damned, the latter abolishes the being of God, I AM-hood, 
 His unchangeability. If He loved, but does not. He changed as 
 surely as were He to forget act, fact, or event. 
 
30 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. I see no proof in either your logic or analogy. It is 
 axiomatic with me that God the Father loves all, God the Son 
 suffered for all, God the Holy Ghost strives with all. 
 
 /. Let your axioms be judged by the Book. Speaking through 
 Moses He said : "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor 
 choose you, because ye were more in number than any people ; 
 for ye were the fewest of all people ; but because the Lord loved 
 you." Why not choose the numerous Chinese, or the bold Hittites, 
 or the politic Greeks ? How can it be said He loved all nations, 
 when to the sons of Jacob He gave ordinances, appointed kings, 
 sent prophets, but left others stumbling on in gross darkness, 
 which He winked at ? As the rays of the rising sun gild the hill 
 tops, while the valleys abide in gloom, so the Israelites were 
 enlightened, while we Europeans were in neolithic barbarism. 
 
 He. Yes, but that light has come to all nations, and every man 
 is called to repent. If I show what God did, I show what He 
 will do. 
 
 /. Can that be true, while the professed disciples are a mino- 
 rity ? Truly, it is done as fast as the Church overtakes the 
 mighty work, but while one missionary brings a glean of Hindoos 
 into the garner, acres perish adoring Krishna. We read : "Jesus 
 loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus," which would be a 
 truism on your principles, but a glorious utterance on ours. And 
 will He not say to the wicked : '' Depart from me, I never knew 
 you " ? There k7iew means loved, because He knows all men and 
 acts. So Paul says : " Whom He did foreknow, He also did pre- 
 destinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." "Whom 
 He did foreknow," cannot be all, being grammatically limited by 
 2vhom, but by omniscience He knows all mentally, therefore fore- 
 know is not used in the mere intelligential sense ; His knowledge 
 is infinite, wherefore foreknow must be used of love. If it does 
 not teach the particularisation of affections, the Book must be 
 written on different principles to other books, but saving its 
 being God-breathed, it is as human as ancient. That He said to 
 the Church of God in Rome, but this to the saints in Ephesus : 
 " In love having predestinated us into the adoption of children," 
 for so it reads when rightly pointed. Similarly we have, i Cor. 
 viii., "If any man love God, the same is known of Him." To 
 which agrees the words of Paul's Lord : " I know My sheep," 
 equivalent to. He loved the Church. If it can be made plainer, 
 this does it: "As many as I love I chasten." To these add 
 Amos : " You only have I known of all the families of the earth." 
 But no part of the word produces a deeper effect on me than 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 31 
 
 this : " Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
 His own blood." Us cannot be shared by a man of the lost. 
 
 He. I apprehend they forfeited love by neglect. 
 
 /. That is, they occasioned change in God ; were blood-washed, 
 but polluted themselves and perished. I see a mother washing 
 her child, after which she takes a walk, passes many dirty children, 
 none of whom she washes, because she does not love them as the 
 one she washed. Whosoever Christ loves He washes. It runs 
 thus : love, blood, purity, glory. As to your assertion that the 
 Spirit strives with all. He strives inly with none. 
 
 He. But so saying you contradict the word of God spoken to 
 Noah : " My Spirit shall not always strive with man." 
 
 /. A man of God is missioned to preach to roughs at Coat- 
 bridge. They hiss, hoot, pelt. These do not resist the Spirit in 
 themselves, but in the man filled with the Spirit and sent, and so 
 indirectly resist Him. Thus Nehemiah says: "Many years 
 didst Thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by Thy 
 Spirit in the prophets ; yet would they not give ear." So when 
 Stephen delivered his deathless apology the mob gnashed on him 
 with their teeth, whereby they resisted the Holy Ghost speaking 
 by that prophet. The Spirit is Almighty. He does not strive in 
 men, but sanctifies the saved, creates anew whom He will. He is 
 the great moral Architect, the spiritual temple-builder, as the 
 Son created the material universe. Your view reduces Him to 
 an adviser, one trying to persuade. The eternal Son did not try 
 to create, nor does the co-eternal Spirit to regenerate. The Son 
 wrought in Genesis, the Spirit works in regeneration. And each 
 rests when He says, " It is finished." 
 
 He. But it is written : " Quench not the Spirit." 
 
 /. A believer stood in the Corinthian Church to speak, but the 
 angel of the church, seeing him ill-clad, and observing he spoke 
 as the unlearned, orders him to resume his seat. That angel 
 quenched the Spirit in the would-be speaker, not in himself. 
 Truly he could not extinguish the Spirit either in himself or 
 another. We may grievously fail to co-operate with Him, be 
 shamefully far from correspondence, but no son of the kingdom 
 can be a Deicide or even a suicide. Jews engrave on their 
 tombstone " Shallom : " i.e., died in ^:^eac'e. One of the election 
 may have '" kept " cut upon his headstone, for each is kept by 
 eternal power manifested in him through faith unto godly 
 living. Are we to degrade the Almighty into a benevolent 
 spectator, like a sailor's wife helplessly looking at her husband's 
 ship drifting towards rocks i 
 
32 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. There is no charm in those views. I was educated to 
 beUeve in free grace, harmonising with free will, and having felt 
 the powers of the world to come, the teaching of youth is ap- 
 proved of in riper years. Your chances of converting me into a 
 narrow-gauge man are small. 
 
 /. What do you mean by free grace ? 
 
 He. Simply : " Ask and ye shall have ; knock and it shall be 
 opened to you." That is, Mercy's door is smitten by the hand 
 of Faith and opens. Calvin does not stand like a second Peter 
 shutting out those who are not starched stiff, straight, and true 
 according to him. 
 
 /. Solomon says : " Wisdom hath killed her beasts ; she hath 
 mingled her wine ; she hath also furnished her table." There is 
 the Jerusalem free dinner, good fare without a bill big or little. 
 But those who call to the passer-by to enter, say to Him that 
 spread the feast : " Who hath believed our report *? " A man 
 must be made wise before wisdom is his luxury. Moreover, you 
 err by not observing that Christ speaking in the plural number 
 means a class, disciples. On Sinai He says " Thou," one, each 
 one of our race. His " Ye" is equivalent to brethren. This is 
 free grace — God giving me life eternal without my doing any- 
 thing for it, before or after receiving it. A gentleman has an 
 extensive estate he intends bestowing on me, but I bid fourpence 
 for it. He takes it as a joke, and the property is transferred 
 when I tell him I shall send him a load of hay now and again as 
 rent. Our prayers and faith no more procure inheritance than 
 my wretched fourpence bought the estate, nor does defective 
 obedience merit the continuance of Heaven's favour any more 
 than the hay pays the purchase of 10,000 acres. Freeness lies 
 in receiving for nothing. Moses made that plain when he wrote : 
 " It came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that behold every 
 man's bundle of money was in his sack." They were Arminians 
 on the road, but Calvinists when they reached their father's 
 home. How could their brother Joseph sell to his family ? As 
 absurd that as a mother keeping count of milk supplied to her in- 
 fant until the babe became a man, and then demanding payment. 
 The weaver of Tarsus took the same view as the son of the Nile : 
 " By grace are ye saved through faith, not of works, lest any man 
 boast." So too the Carpenter of Galilee : " I give unto My 
 sheep eternal life." That's the new Jerusalem notion of free, and 
 the sooner you rise thereto the better. We get life and limbs 
 freely, Heaven's light freely, this world freely, that world freely. 
 In Glasgow we pay for light, water, purity, and protection. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 33 
 
 howbeit in new Jerusalem its citizens receive all from their Lord 
 gratis, graciously. "All that I have is thine." 
 
 He. I consider every man has a choice, or should have, just 
 as Adam had with the trees. He could eat of one and live, 
 of the other and die. All was left to his unfettered will. There 
 is set before us a blessing and a curse, and our option is untram- 
 melled. Your system says that a fallen son of Adam is not free 
 to choose life, but must choose death. 
 
 /. We too advocate free will, but thus : brutes, men, demons, 
 angels act voluntarily, carry out their natures without being 
 compelled to do what they dislike. The ex-convict, Henry 
 Holloway, liked swearing when he swore, and likes praying now 
 he prays. God compels millions to suffer against their will, 
 but none to act against it. But if you assert that holiness and 
 wickedness are presented to a carnal man for choice, and he can 
 choose one as easily as the other, you forget that nature will 
 regulate choice. Present to an angel and a fiend the oppor- 
 tunity of choosing between holy things, acts, principles, or their 
 opposites, and what inevitably happens 1 The same reasoning 
 applies to us, though less easily seen. As to choosing death, why, 
 we are already dead in trespasses and sins. 
 
 He. Do you say, then, that when Christ is jiresented to the 
 sinner, he has no power to accept ? 
 
 /. We choose Him after He chooses us, our choice being 
 regulated by new taste. When the Lord was coming He sent 
 the Baptist to prepare His way. The farmer does not commit 
 seed to soil until it is ploughed. John ploughed, Jesus sowed, 
 angels will reap, As then, so now ; if. Christ is coming to any, 
 He sends His Spirit into the man's heart to fill him with peni- 
 tential grief, after which he hungers for righteousness and eats 
 Christ (John vi. 56). The Spirit does internally what John did 
 externally — prepare the way of the Lord. But he receives Christ 
 before accepting Him. 
 
 He. I don't understand you, seeing no difference between 
 accepting and receiving. 
 
 J. We receive passively , but ag£a pt active ly. In the former 
 case our will is unconsulted. I receive a letter containing an 
 offer which I decline. A soldier receives a wound. John says : 
 "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become 
 the sons of God." Paul says : " Have ye received the Holy 
 Ghost V "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law?" 
 God gives. He does not offer. Receive answers to give, and 
 accept to offer. John says : " A man can have nothing except it 
 
 c 
 
34 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 be given him from above." Had the Queen offered a commutation 
 of sentence to Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, but they preferred 
 dying for what they thought was cause and country, would they 
 not have got glory on her 1 Koyalty does not consult criminals, 
 nor does the King Eternal consult sinners. It is not beneath the 
 Queen to approach co-ordinate governments, whereas to rebels she 
 can only occupy two relationships — be the dispensatrix of justice 
 or of grace. Guilt proven, no other course is possible than to 
 treat them passively. God no more offers life eternal than He 
 does life natural. His ministers do. They beseech and entreat 
 in His name, but not He. 
 
 He. This is what I say ; you deprive man of free will, whereby 
 responsibility is wrenched from him. If God does not set death 
 and life before me, how is my manly freedom respected ? 
 
 I. Think rather of respecting His wisdom than your liberty. 
 Should they be set before you for ever, you must for ever act out 
 your nature in choosing. Paul means so much when saying of 
 the Gospel, " It is a savour of death unto death, or of life unto 
 life." Let the unquickened choose, and he elects death, and so 
 becomes more dead, while, conversely, the living prefer life, and 
 become increasingly alive unto righteousness. In spiritual physi- 
 ology as in natural, we feed upon what we are ; anything else is, 
 or should be, distasteful, for it is hurtful to our body. Can a 
 man with a soul of honour prefer meanness to liberality ? Some- 
 times preachers of the silly and sensational type relieve themselves 
 thus : " my dear hearers, if instead of addressing you who are 
 apathetic, my commission were to tell the story of redeeming love 
 in caverns of the damned, how would myriads of lost spirits listen 
 with trembling joy, and troop to the standard of Immanuel." 
 All of which is illusion. Set the foot of Jacob's ladder in Hell, 
 and its top round in Jerusalem, with no angel armed with flaming 
 sword to guard it, and not one unblessed foot would climb. Noah 
 preached 120 years to those who made this world into a terrestrial 
 hell, but none heeded, because faith was not mixed with hearing, 
 and faith is an outgrowth of the Indweller. Then the Judge 
 quenched that earthly hell by water, or rather, transferred the 
 terrestrial hell to the infernal, for hell once in existence is un- 
 quenchable. What avail, then, giving choice as a concession to 
 manliness ? Nevertheless, there is no violation of will, as a free 
 choice is made. If a man in his sins were to pray w^ithout ceas- 
 ing, seek diligently, attempt to take the kingdom by violence, but 
 failed, or when grace was imparted a man wished to be rid of it, 
 persistently preferring evil to good, but died, as Papists say, in 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 35 
 
 the odour of sanctity, then I could see your view of liberty. How 
 can will be violated in conferring grace any more than in bestow- 
 ing natural gifts ? God does not consult a child as to whether it 
 will be born, nor as to the conditions that shall surround the new 
 arrival, nor whether a man shall be born again. Your reasoning 
 sounds as absurd as the demand that the dead shall be consulted 
 as to whether he shall lie in his grave or take part in the second 
 resurrection, else where is liberty? 
 
 He. That is nonsense, for the resurrection is of justice con- 
 nected with judgment. 
 
 /. So is regeneration of justice connected with Calvary. If 
 Christ died for a man He purchased for him the Spirit, and it 
 is just he should receive Him. How can you demand a man be 
 at liberty to choose life or death when he is naturally so foolish 
 as to prefer, " as the Jerusalem mob preferred," Barabbas to 
 Jesus 1 
 
 He. That may be your creed, but not mine. We hold children 
 are sin-free at birth, but become sinners through bad example. 
 
 /. If good, they would abhor evil example. When Abraham 
 interceded for the sinful Pentapolis, God said if two just ones 
 per city were found He would not destroy for their sake. The 
 five sinful cities were burned by the Lord (Son) from the Lord 
 (Father). The Son, to whom all judgment is committed, would 
 not slay holy men. But infants are men according to Jesus and 
 Job. John xvi. 21, "Joy that a man is born into the world;" 
 Job V. 7, "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." 
 Every human being is a man, the word being connected with 
 mens, the mind, for man thinks, which mere animals do not. 
 Hence we trace bad conduct not to example but to its root — 
 nature. Paul says : " Death comes by sin, for that all men 
 have sinned" by relationship. If children were holy they could 
 not die. 
 
 He. How so ? Christ was, and yet died. 
 
 I. Yes, as sin-bearer. Belationally, He was the guiltiest man 
 born. But you say children are neither sinners nor sin-bearers 
 and still die. Being holy, Christ did not die for them, so that 
 when they reach the skies they cannot chime in the chorus : 
 " Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." 
 They will be on the angelic footing, and not being in alliance 
 with Christ, may fall as angels fell. I heard you discuss with 
 a Pi. C. who went in for the dogaia of Mary's immaculate con- 
 ception. 
 
 He. Quite right. That was last Monday. 
 
36 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. Do you not see the absurd platform you occupy when assert- 
 ing all children are immaculate at birth but Mary 1 Here is an 
 argument that all children are sinners, built on the assumption 
 that like goes to like. When the legion of demons made their 
 exeunt from the unclean Gadarene they entered 2000 unclean 
 animals. They would not, could not possess a flock of sheep or 
 pigeons. As Jesus descended the mount of transfiguration, a 
 father met Him leading his demonised son. To draw forth his 
 attention and hopes. He said, "How long is it ago since this 
 came unto him ? And he said, Of a child." If men were born 
 sinless, but became sinners by example, those demons would have 
 waited until the child had become wicked before possessing him. 
 
 He. Such reasoning is replete with error, as possession might 
 come upon him like lunacy. 
 
 I. By no means, as lunacy is an affair of the brain, and as the 
 brain can only be lightly exercised by infants, we hear nothing 
 of lunatic children, whereas, possession has to do with sin. The 
 child being biassed to evil by birth, it avails nothing to offer 
 salvation. 
 
 He. Well, that's positively awful. What, then, is the use of 
 Sabbath schools ? What of sermons ? 
 
 /. Much in many ways. By these agencies the Spirit quickens 
 whom He will. He does not offer salvation, but gives. By our 
 offering to all He gives to some. When Gideon blew the alarm 
 trumpet in Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, he was playing the 
 part of preachers. He called all he could reach, and 32,000 
 came. "Hany are called, but few are chosen." Our preachers 
 fill the churches with virgins, wise and foolish. The 32,000 
 volunteers of Gideon shrunk to 300 lappers. " Whosoever will 
 let him come and take the water of life freely." All are called, 
 but the lappers represent the elect. Christ died for the lappers, 
 the whosoevers. On Calvary He said, " I thirst," having His 
 eye on the thirsters, whereby He is made one with His brethren. 
 He thirsted for them, they thirst, or will, for Him. The Kirk 
 door is wide open, but what of that to the carnal man 1 Your 
 free gospel is a sham when delivered in an Arminian sense, and 
 a nuisance to the ungodly when acted out. Hence, letters appear 
 in our dailies against street preaching ; the Papists stopped the 
 proclamation of grace from the stone pulpit in the Bridgegate, 
 and so far as they can in all public institutions. 
 
 He. I still hold there is a melting, moving, saving power in 
 telling poor sinners of the love of God. Tell a man he is loved 
 of God, and if that does not soften his heart what will ? 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 37 
 
 /. As well say there is a warming power in describing fire. 
 No description of God's love, nay, not even the love of God ilself 
 softens, or can. Surely it is not a mother's love that looks after 
 her child, but a mother acting lovingly ; so it is not the love of 
 God that saves, but God Himself. Every effect has an adequate 
 cause, but that describing anything can save I fail to see. 
 Neither your description, nor my believing; nor my love nor 
 God's love, can save. In Britain our laws have no power in 
 them ; the power is in the Queen ordering their execution, and 
 she, by her servants, putting them into force. Nature has no 
 power in her laws ; the power is in God's working in an observed 
 order termed natural. Theology knows no power short of 
 Theos, God. 
 
 He. I see no beauty in a word you utter. I prefer thinking 
 of a gracious day when my Lord says to every man, " Hearken, 
 and your soul shall live." Why, on your principles, multitudes 
 never have a day of grace, forasmuch as they were predestined 
 to death eternal before birth natural. That is awful nonsense, 
 at which our superior part revolts. Man's nobler nature demands 
 a divine creed, whereas that is devilish. 
 
 /. Do you, then, argue that every man should have a chance 
 of saving himself ? 
 
 He. I emphatically so hold. 
 
 I. Chance plays no part in the kingdom of heaven in view of 
 God's omniscience. In olden times, when heirs were born to 
 aristocrats they consulted magicians who, by astrology, struck 
 their horoscope and told their fate. What the astrologer pre- 
 tended to discover. Heaven knows. How, then, assert chance of 
 children when One sees what must befall them. At His glance, 
 maybe's, perhaps's, peradventure's, and if's, flee as shades at 
 dawn. God cannot but know whether the new-born will live 
 with Him ever or never. Take the alternative, and God is de- 
 graded into a discoverer. Where does chance come in 1 
 
 He. Not Divine chance, but human contingency, I ask for. 
 
 /. Give all you seek, and you have only a veil for ignorance. 
 As to self-saving, I was under the impression that no man can 
 do that, be his opportunities what they may. In such case he, 
 not Christ, will be his Saviour, whereby the Saviour will be 
 so much less a saviour by how many are self-saved. Glasgow 
 has many self-made men, but no self-saved men, nor is there one 
 in Jerusalem the golden. If a sinner has the right of chance 
 but no power, of what use is that right? Again, if he has a 
 right to it, salvation is a matter of debt, not of grace ; then a day 
 
38 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 of grace is only Heaven paying debts, the holy Creator obliged 
 to a sinful creature. This is sinner-exalting and Saviour-degrad- 
 ing. Angels falling had no opportunity of returning to allegi- 
 ance, but, according to you, rebels against Heaven's Eternal 
 King can demand to return. Be assured, that if Uriel were 
 missioned to Hades to proclaim a gaol delivery, upon condition 
 that its dwellers would become celestials, not a solitary spirit 
 would follow him on his upward slope. 
 
 He. That is absurd. Would not any being prefer pleasure ? 
 
 /. There is your error, looking upon finalities as places, as 
 though devils could be happy in Heaven and elect angels wretched 
 in its opposite locality. Those worlds are peopled by creatures 
 whose condition is analogous to the shell which grows out of the 
 moUusca, whether it be snail or oyster. They have bred their 
 own surroundings. An Ayrshire gentleman has a drawing-room 
 prayer meeting. Fearing visitors may run thin he says to a 
 friend, " I don't want a few finely dressed people; all are welcome 
 who have clean flesh, though they have neither gloves nor rings. 
 Just run round our neighbours and invite them in." He goes 
 and finds a group of colliers playing cards. A quarrel is rising 
 out of a penny being wanting in the pool. He goes up the row, 
 but meets with insult upon rebuff. "They wanted no fiddle- 
 faced hypocrites," others had a religion of their own, and some 
 informed him he would be sent for when wanted, &c. We talk 
 of the gates of Hell, but it has none. Its dwellers no more want 
 an exodus, though they need it, than bad people want to leave 
 bad houses. I believe that as we have idiocy, insanity, sleep, 
 coma, and various forms of unconsciousness, so that many pass 
 through our world more or less without knowing it, so is it with 
 that sad world to a greater extent than is generally thought. 
 Who so arranges it that when pain is excessive, insensibility 
 supervenes*? One of the great difiiculties the familiars of the 
 Inquisition had to contend with, was the tortured becoming 
 insensible. Chloroform and other ansesthetics may be earthly 
 pain-killers that merely typify greater beyond. Be assured there 
 will be no more useless pain beyond the cold flood than on our 
 side of it. During the first six years of my Christian career this 
 awful punishment question was fraught with horror, through 
 thinking that multitudes whom we had known would suffer in 
 flames. Being a man, nothing affecting my fellow-men could 
 give me more anguish than so grievous a prospect. 
 
 He. Can you think less than you did in view of the thrilling 
 doom of the Separater : "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into ever- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 39 
 
 lasting fire " ? Have you forgotten the worm that dieth not, or 
 the fire unquenchable 1 
 
 I. Either thinking is out of my line, or I have thought long 
 and sorrowfully over them, but just as when priests bore their 
 hand heavily on a lamb's head, cut its throat and burnt its body, 
 and yet the sin it was related to was unaffected, though millions 
 of Jews drunk in the belief that animals bore guilt, whereas, the 
 sacrificial knife and fire meant Gethsemane and Golgotha, His 
 being borne down to the ground, and clothed in bloody sweat, 
 being figured by the head of the lamb, being pressed on to the 
 marble floor of the Temple, so worm and fire are awful figures 
 conveying real truths, but I no more believe in fire and worm 
 literal, than Christians taught of the Spirit by "the Hebrews" 
 believe in sin-bearing beasts. 
 
 He. Do you not think, then, there are external penalties in 
 that evil world analogous to the flood and destruction of the 
 guilty Cities of the Plain 1 
 
 I. Unreservedly I so believe. However, these cataracts of 
 Divine vengeance do not fall upon all in Hell equally. " He 
 that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be 
 beaten (but) with few." Can we imagine that Nero, who slew 
 Paul, and a Negro who died in the dark, aged eighteen, will fare 
 identically? If the penalty be literal flame, the punishment 
 must be nearly identical, and most of it from without, while my 
 contention is that it is less from without and more from within. 
 May there not be Hell joy as well as Heavenly, each suited to 
 its subject ? I have seen women with hands in each other's hair, 
 rolling over each other and struggling like vipers. Had the 
 demoness who won the top place at the round's end no joy ? 
 Heavenly angels and earth angels rejoice in truth with Godlike 
 joy, infernal spirits and earth fiends rejoice in iniquity. Our 
 lives stream downwards for ever unless He convert the current, 
 when we naturally flow upwards by celestial attraction. Immor- 
 tality prolongs the direction death found us flowing in. "He 
 that is filthy, let him be filthy still." To some filth is their 
 element, to others they must be clean, else cry — 
 
 " Wash me, Saviour, or I die." 
 
 He. Are you not treading dangerous ground ? You are abat- 
 ing the awful momentum of such phrases as "The wrath to 
 come," " In flaming vengeance," " The wrath of the Lamb," 
 " The Lake which burnetii,'' &c. 
 
 I. To do so is against intention and judgment. That to come, 
 
40 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 is but dimly shadowed in those awe-inspiring words, because 
 language cannot adequately tell the horror of damnation, and 
 consequently cannot exaggerate it. But I understand those 
 awful expressions of an event, or events, when the Almighty 
 shall forthput His awful indignation upon rebels, rather than of 
 their continued condition. A criminal has to appear before his 
 judge for vile acts. He suffers more in the dock than in his cell ; 
 so in the annals of Hell's unbroken night, the facing of the great 
 white throne will be the bitter memory. 
 
 He. But your analogy breaks down, inasmuch as the convict 
 may be a garroter sentenced to be flogged, or a murderer doomed 
 to be hung. 
 
 I. Not so. Some violators are what you say, though the 
 masses are in for petty offences, so of the human race the bulk of 
 the law-breakers shade off from idiots to maniacs, not a man per 
 million being morally educated. These, as Peravians, Tartars, 
 Negroes, Chinese, the aborigines of Europe, America, Africa, 
 Australasia, and their like, can hardly be expected to suffer as 
 dark damnation as foolish virgins, and the gospel hardened. 
 Hell shades off from the Egyptian darkness, in which the lost 
 Scotchman will find himself, to the arctic night of Pygmies in 
 iniquity, who violated the laws of nature and voice of reason, but 
 did not crucify the Son of Man afresh. The more I know of God 
 by nature, revelation, intuition, reason, and His Spirit inly work- 
 ing, the less I believe in a literal fire theory. Though I deny it 
 is fire, I hold that Hell is material. See a corpse in July of one 
 that died ten days before. All that woeful sight is due to sin, 
 and it is material. If, then, God visits with His awful displeasure 
 even the carcass of the sinner, how much more awful will be the 
 appearance of that body when the corrupter reinhabits it at the 
 resurrection unto damnation 1 I have seen ugly women creeping 
 out of closes in Glasgow, but each was beauty contrasted with 
 one raised out of Christ at the last day. Is not that a part of 
 material punishment *? Hell is twofold — loss of Heaven, pain. 
 As to the former, all suffer equally ; as for the latter, no two. 
 
 He. But do you not read, " The smoke of their torment 
 ascended for ever and ever " 1 
 
 I. Though I apply that to the destruction of the Papacy and 
 Mahometanism, I doubt not the idea is applicable to the wicked, 
 who will be for ever miserable. Had not Jesus exorcised seven 
 unclean spirits from Mary, she would, till now, have been 
 wretched with pride, hatred, malice, lust, envy, anger, and obsti- 
 nacy. Fill that sad world with literal fire, and the pain is 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 41 
 
 almost wholly external. Let it be chiefly internal and self- 
 inflicted, we may then fairly say, "Serve them right," but the 
 other view compels a sentimental revolt, and the revulsion of 
 feeling is strongest in the most humane. I as firmly believe 
 there are non-elect infants in that world as I believe there are 
 reprobate men there, but that view would be impossible were I 
 to hold the fire theory. 
 
 He. Do you place non-literality on the footing of natural 
 impossibility, as it is impossible to make the past present ? 
 
 /. The three Hebrew children walking unsinged through 
 flames, shows the ability of God to keep the body alive in fire. 
 Hence, concerning the wicked dead, Paul uses this awful 
 language, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
 living God." He can keep the wicked alive where they shall 
 seek death and not find it. There are no suicides on the far 
 side of the black veil. 
 
 He. You being right, why should Jesus and His disciples 
 express themselves in such terrific language '? 
 
 /. His language was that of nature, which is absolute, ultimate, 
 but not scientific as Moses describing the Genesis of earth and 
 sea optically, not scientifically, as a poet describes an eclipse. 
 
 He. Probably you present the sad world in this more tolerable 
 aspect, not so much to mitigate its w^oes as to reconcile me to 
 the idea of lost infants. ISTo such effect is produced. Let that 
 world be what it may, I refuse to see any justice in children 
 being therein, as it must be bad at the best, if best be applicable 
 to such place. 
 
 L My first object is to justify the Divine character, which 
 long seemed to me open to the charge of cruelty, in spite of all 
 acts of faith. My second is to show how my mind has been 
 exercised on this dread subject whereby I find rest. I can't help 
 your refusing belief in non-elect infants. From the standpoint 
 of your system it is impossible you should. Your theology 
 insists that we be saved by personal act, laying hold of Christ, 
 except in the case of infants ; mine that we are saved by Christ 
 embracing us, which is equally true of infants as of adults. No 
 heathen can be saved on your principles, for how shall they lay 
 hold upon Him of whom they have never heard ? Your theology 
 teaches that a man is lost by his own act, mine demands that 
 we are lost by the act of another, our federal head, Adam. That 
 is, if I am saved it is by virtue of relation to the last Adam, 
 to qualify myself for which salvation I do nothing, neither 
 repent, nor believe, nor pray. If lost, it is in relation to the 
 
42 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 first Adam, by whose act I am born lost, and so remain unless 
 one greater Man translate me from the broad way to the narrow. 
 That I am born deserving banishment from God, and yet unable 
 to make the slightest improvement in my nature. 
 
 He. Stop there. The idea of an infant deserving damnation 
 when it can no more help receiving birth than we can help 
 sleeping or sneezing is so abhorrent, that I cannot believe you 
 so hold when your heart is bottomed. 
 
 /. I so believe through studying the merit of the Crucified. 
 Assume we stand over a cradle, and I ask, Do you believe that 
 Jesus died for this child ? Your principles compel you to say 
 yea. Now consider what that involves. Christ is the Eternal, 
 is illimitable in wisdom, infinite in power, His smile makes 
 Heaven jubilant, His frown deepens the gloom of lowest Hell. 
 Night reveals 80,000,000 of flaming suns, which are less to Him 
 than two peas in my hand are to me, moreover, I do not make 
 those peas. Am I to understand that the guilt of that child is 
 so great before God that nothing less than His Son's incarnation 
 and death can atone for it ? What has poor baby been doing ? 
 You must say neither good nor evil, personally. Does this not 
 drive you to allow that relative guilt is an awful reality ? We 
 assumed His death for it; but withdraw such assumption, and 
 logic compels the admission, that without the merit of that death 
 it could not, in case of demise, enter Heaven, which leaves 
 nothing but my assertion as correct. The dying thief was saved 
 of grace, and a child is saved of grace, else they enter of right, 
 having nothing to thank God for any more than I have to thank 
 the doorkeeper at an oratorio, when I hand my ticket. If the 
 dying thief had not been saved, it would have been a case of 
 justice only, and so of an infant. Now justice leaves no room 
 for complaint. You can make no headway until you prove 
 this : Every baby has a right to be glorified. 
 
 He, Well, admitting that, I am still protected by my belief 
 that He died for all, and therefore for it, of which the child 
 must receive the benefit until forfeited by personal misconduct. 
 
 /. Think of what you say. Dying for all, He died for me. 
 Suppose you became deaf, dumb, and blind, for my sake, nay, 
 died for me, which is much more. Alter the supposition and 
 say the Prince of Wales died for me ; would not Britons say, 
 How he loved him ? But let the Prince of Peace be incarnate, 
 and suffer so great a death as Calvary, would not angels say, 
 " Behold how He loved him " ? In that life and its deposition for 
 me infinite merit results, to which all my finite demerit is as 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 43 
 
 nothing. If He died for me, and I lived the life of a savage, the 
 impartation of that merit by the Holy Ghost in death would 
 make me as worthy of Heaven as a seraph. " He is able to 
 save to the uttermost." 
 
 He. You forget He merely died for you among others, and 
 that wilful sin after regeneration is vastly different to sins 
 committed before the new birth. 
 
 /. If I were dying for you I could see you in my mind's eye, 
 as a lover does his betrothed. When He died He saw all whose 
 names were recorded in His book of the living, for they all live 
 unto Him, in fact, on their part, or design on His. If he died 
 for a billion, His merit is the same for each as though that were 
 the only one for whom He suffered. After studying the scenes 
 of Gethsemane and Golgotha, I am amazed that any man can 
 imagine the intended direction of their merit can be turned 
 aside by human act. So being God comes to the level of "A 
 certain man who drew a bow at a venture." As to what one 
 does after regeneration, see what David and Peter did after new 
 birth. 
 
 He. But you don't mean to say that the Bethlehemite was 
 a child of God, while the blood of the Hittite was upon him 1 
 
 I. Certainly I do. If not, he is lost, as we cannot be regene- 
 rated twice, wherefore, losing celestial birth he could not be re- 
 stored. Hence, after ten months' guilty neglect of duty he wrote 
 in anguish, "Restore unto me the joys of Thy salvation," not 
 salvation, but the consciousness of it. We can forfeit the joy of 
 the redeemed, but not the estate of redemption, for the covenant, 
 ordered in all things, and sure, is not made with us, who would 
 break it, but with Christ, for us, who guarantees fulfilment. On 
 your principles Christ had no warranty that it would avail to 
 attempt man's ransom. All His wisdom might be counteracted 
 by our folly. Moreover, it savours of blasphemy to talk of 
 attempting anything. He saves, not attempts to save, saves 
 once for all. 
 
 He. You encourage Christians to sin to their hearts' content. 
 They are perfectly safe in so doing. 
 
 /. Suppose I could answer for it that neither God nor man 
 would punish you for striking your wife and kicking the baby, 
 would you away and play the Bashi-Bazouk ? 
 
 He. Of course not. It would go against my grain. 
 
 I. Precisely so. which is also the case of the elect. John says, 
 " He that is born of God cannot sin," that is, as once he did, and 
 as others yet do. 
 
44 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. Away goes the ground beneath you. Showing David 
 sinning, and saying saints can't sin ! 
 
 /. Tiiat is an illustration of my rule, the absolute put for the 
 comparative. Had the king been like an Indian rajah, Uriah's 
 death would not have caused him one moment's uneasiness, 
 whereas, he shed bitter tears, suffering broken bones until death. 
 
 He. Very precious to me is the thought that Christ redeemed 
 the world, and no Calvinistic sophistry can deprive me of that 
 blessed belief. 
 
 /. Say He did, but as Abraham (Gen. xiv. i6) brought back 
 all the captives, that he might bring back Lot. Or, as when 
 Israel was redeemed from Pharaoh, a mixed multitude (Exo. 
 xii. 30) went up with them. But Jesus presented the position in 
 fine form : " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid 
 in a field ; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for 
 joy thereof, goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that 
 field." Immanuel was that Man who bought the world for the 
 sake of His Church. But do you know the power of the word 
 ransom 1 
 
 He. Certainly. Bender sum, give an amount. Render is 
 shortened to rent, the sum rendered for occupation and render 
 sum to ransom. 
 
 /. How would you relish rendering a sum for a thing and not 
 get it 1 Imagine that sum was your life, and that having 
 yielded your life you failed to obtain the object died for ! 
 
 He. Of course, that would be trying. 
 
 /. Hear the voice infallible ! " What king going to make war 
 against another king sitteth not down first, and consulteth 
 whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh 
 against him with twenty thousand." The Czar came to grief in 
 Armenia and Bulgaria, because he miscalculated the Sultan's 
 power. Had the Triune no sitting at which Satan's power, sin's 
 charms, our foolishness were duly allowed for ? Yea, and the 
 consummation of all was our Shepherd being able to say : " Of 
 those Thou hast given Me I have lost none." Your system pro- 
 jects doubt into the Divine, as He cannot know who will reach 
 Him or perish by the way. 
 
 He. I deny it. Who doubts His knowledge whether of events 
 trivial or awful 1 He must know who of Adam's stock will be 
 saved. It is written : " Not a sparrow falls to the ground without 
 the will of your Father, but the hairs of your head are all 
 numbered." 
 
 /. If so, apply that knowledge to two disciples, Peter and 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 45 
 
 Ananias. Conld God love Ananias, Christ die for him, and the 
 Spirit strive with him, all the while knowing He would slay him, 
 and that he would be for ever the Liar King in the burning lake ^ 
 What availed the power of the Three-One but to bring about 
 failure ? Is it not more consistent with facts to say the Father 
 never loved him, the Son did not incarnate for him, the Holy 
 Ghost never dwelt in him. He might be in him officially as in 
 Balaam, Saul, Judas, and Caiaphas. Whereas, Peter was of the 
 Church, of which Paul says, " Christ loved the Church and gave 
 Himself for it.'^ 
 
 He. To me the thought is abhorrent that one man was born 
 whom God loved not. "His tender mercies are over all His 
 works." 
 
 /. Let us allow that God loved Ananias, but it is evident He 
 does not. Hence, He has changed. 
 
 He. By no means. He loves the man, but hates his sin. 
 
 I. Impossible. As well say. He hates the stream but loves 
 the fountain. He cannot hate sin apart from the sinner, for it 
 only exists as a sinful act of a disobedient creature. Men do not 
 punish drunkenness, theft, and murder, but drunkards, thieves, 
 and murderers. As to mercy, ^'To God that smote Egypt in 
 their first-born; for His mercy endureth for ever. AVho slew 
 Og, king of Bashan." Where was the mercy in slaying Egyptians 
 by water and Og by steel 1 
 
 He. Surely we should call that justice. 
 
 /. Nay, mercy is correct. An officer of the 92nd sends an 
 explosive bullet into the head of a man-eating Bengal tiger. 
 What a mercy to all that place ! Ananias is struck dead, what 
 a mercy to the Church ! Had he lived he would cause splits, 
 heartburnings, and scandals. Whereby we see that God's mercy 
 being over all His works does not guarantee a man is loved. 
 
 He. I still think it does. You have to face this dilemma. If 
 Peter was loved all his life, which he must have been on your 
 showing, then God loved him in his sins, but the sin of Ananias 
 is put forth as the reason why he was unloved, 
 
 /. Prepare for high doctrine. God always saw Peter where 
 He sees him, in Christ, faultless even as now. Simon's name 
 was in the Lamb's book before enrolled in the Pvoman census, 
 ay, before the dog-star Sirius shone. As God loved Jeremiah 
 with everlasting love (xxxi. 3), and therefore drew him. I once 
 thought the merit of Calvary covered a man upon repentance, 
 but it is upon him from of old. God does not love sinners, but 
 saints. The son of Jonas was apart from Christ : " A child of 
 
46 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 wrath, even as others," but as He sent His disciples by twos, so 
 God sends His sons. 
 
 He. Make yourself clear, for I don't see your meaning about 
 twos. 
 
 /. He sends them into the world, Christ accompanying each 
 of them life through, and God never sees one without Him, who 
 in His own good time reveals Himself in them. Hence Paul 
 says (Gal. i. 15) : "When it pleased God to reveal His Son in 
 me." The Lord always sees His elect in couples, Christ and 
 Jacob, Christ and Peter, always Christ. "Having loved His 
 own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." 
 This is that Friend that sticketh closer than a brother. God 
 never loves a man more than once. When a Christian walks in 
 Arminian twilight, and is asked how long God loved him, he 
 answers, i, 10, 20, 30, or more years; but when the way divine 
 is revealed, it scatters all clocks, almanacs, and histories to the 
 invisible, for he sees His love is unbeginning, dateless, eternal. 
 On your principles, God views the coming man with benevolent 
 neutrality until it is manifest whether he will repent and believe, 
 when, providing he does. He then loves him during faithful 
 allegiance. All of which is to me a form of blasphemy upon 
 God's knowledge, Christ's merit, and the Spirit's intentions. As 
 to the latter, suppose that a man is newly created of Him, a.d. 
 1866, can it be imagined that He did that without intending to 
 do it 1 gave eternal life to a spirit unintentionally 1 He must 
 have intended to do so, and therefore we ask, when first ? The 
 only defensible answer is eternally. But if He eternally intended 
 to quicken that soul in 1866, He must have everlastingly loved it, 
 which covers his past, present, and future life, unless He changes. 
 The sin of his life is absorbed in the merit of His Life. 
 
 He. God is holy, and He can only love the holy. How can 
 He love an impenitent man ? After that He repents, weeps, 
 prays, and then believes on His Son, He begins to love him. 
 
 /. That is, our love generated His, so making the Creator's 
 action depend on the creature, whereby the Christian's love is 
 older than Christ's. John says : " He that is born of God loveth " 
 God and man. That disciple so teaches that we cannot love 
 Him till born of Him. " We love Him because He first loved 
 us." We are not more loved after repentance than before it. 
 
 He. Yes, loved the world so as to give every soul a chance. 
 
 7. Did He know how many would avail themselves of it 1 
 
 He. Most assuredly. 
 
 /. Then did He love those whom He saw would rebel through 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 47 
 
 life, reject His service and dwell in Hell ? Say Ananias died 
 aged forty, was he loved of Him from birth until He struck 
 him dead 1 
 
 He. He forfeited that love by free will. 
 
 /. How forfeit Almighty love ? You speak of God as though 
 we control Him, not He us. With you it is up with the clay 
 and the criminal, but down with potter and judge. The question 
 is, had Ananias God's love ever set on him ? 
 
 He. Such must be, because Jesus says: "God so loved the 
 world," and he being one of the world must have been so loved. 
 
 /. We both hold that is true of Peter. How then can one 
 reach the happy realms while other is in unbroken gloom 1 
 
 He. It must be the obedience of Peter. 
 
 /. God says: "Who hath made thee to differ," that you 
 might recognise sovereign grace in salvation, but you turn round 
 saying you made yourself differ, wherefore the glory of salv^ation 
 is gone from the true Differentiator to a self-imagined one. 
 The mad Chaldee king might set up a metal image on the plains 
 of Dura, but there will be no creature, metal or immortal, glorified 
 on the plains of Heaven, where they sing, "Non nobis Domine," 
 "Not unto us, Lord." As Nebuchadnezzar offered odours to 
 Daniel, so God will have to worship, or at least greatly admire 
 you. 
 
 He. We must seek the difference somewhere, and if the case 
 of all is the same as to condemnation, then God or the particular 
 man must sway the balance to the right if to the right it goes. 
 If God does it, you are in this predicament : He might as easily 
 save all as some, and the odium of partiality and limitation is 
 thrown upon Deity instead of humanity. The force of this con- 
 tention is increased by knowing the atonement was sufl&cient to 
 cover all, being made for all. 
 
 /. That error is huge, vast, awful. Why God saves this man 
 rather than that does not appear. It is by no means clear that 
 if He rendered reasons for saving one of the crucified robbers 
 and not the other, we could understand them any more than a 
 juvenile understands profound questions in politics, as the Munro 
 doctrine, or Panslavism. It does not strike me that the icliy 
 would be comprehensible, because founded upon wisdom, deep 
 and Divine ; our trivial vessel would not contain a flood so oceanic. 
 " The just shall live by his faith." By a sovereign act you have 
 two good eyes, are European, whereas another is born blind in 
 Nigritia. He has the right, as well as power, to dispose of 
 creatures as He will, and is unable to w^ill unjustly. As to the 
 
48 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 Lamb taking away tlie sin of the world, a sin-offering means an 
 offering for a sinner. To me the sin of the world means the sins 
 of those whose names were in His book before day and night 
 began their long chase of each other — the Catholic Church, the 
 mystical body of Christ, the otir of Psalm xc. i, ye, of Matt. xxv. 
 34, and our of the Lord's Prayer, the wJwsoever of John iii. 15, 
 those typified by Gideon's lappers. John says : "The Word was 
 the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world," meaning whosoever is spiritually enlightened is so by 
 Christ. A German says: "I suppose your people travel by 
 canal 1 " I replied, " Oh no, that is too slow for this age, every- 
 body goes by rail." Meaning whosoever travels goes, as a rule, 
 by train. John clearly means by whosoever, all men, the world. 
 Gentiles as well as Jews. 
 
 He. Why not say " He died for the elect " ? and it would be 
 plain. 
 
 /. That is wrong, seeing our Lord came not to bring life and 
 immortality, but to bring them to light, cause them to be under- 
 stood by His people, illustrate them by resurrection. John would 
 have been incomprehensible in such case, as the people did not 
 comprehend the high meaning of sacrifices and the temple service. 
 Election and resurrection were known before Christ, but little 
 known. Christ spoke more of election than all the rest of the 
 Scriptures to and in Malachi, as did the Apostles, leaving to the 
 last of them to formulate the doctrine to the Church in Rome, 
 as he previously had the resurrection to Corinth. It is not 
 intended that doctrines be laid down like laws and state papers, 
 as there would be less room for moral trial in believing them. 
 In my discussion with Mr. Roberts of Birmingham, the arch- 
 Christadelphian, I showed that man's natural immortality was 
 explicitly taught in the Apocrypha, Philo Judoeus, and Josephus, 
 but failed to show it is explicitly taught in the Bible, not getting 
 bej^ond its being implicitly taught therein. That is, uninspired 
 authors made the doctrine of natural immortality plainer than 
 inspired writers do. The Bible does not explicitly teach the 
 being of God, nor of angels. It were easy for Him to make 
 all doctrines plain as the Decalogue, but He left many in the 
 inferential stage, that sufficing for the honest. 
 
 He. I receive that as an apology for having no such text as 
 this : Christ died for the elect, and them only. 
 
 /. It nowhere says so, but it asserts what is tantamount : 
 " I lay down My life for My sheep." Jesus called Herod a fox. 
 John calls the hypocritical Jews vipers. The man of Patmos says : 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 49 
 
 "Without are clogs" (within sheep). Did He die for foxes, 
 vipers^ dogs^ outsiders, or for sheep 1 Paul records " He loved 
 the Church, and gave Himself for it." He spent his strength 
 as an imitator, and says : " I suffer all things for the elect's sake," 
 which shows Master and man co-operating and sympathising. 
 Moreover, in a true sense the elect are the world, though the 
 world are not the elect. Suppose you belong to a trades-union, 
 a benefit society, or vote at an election. In such cases, arrange- 
 ments are come to in which minorities go for nothing, are lost 
 sight of. So the Houses of Parliament frequently divided upon 
 the Eastern Question, but the minority were lost sight of in 
 diplomatic arrangements with Russia. The Czar dealt with us 
 as though we were one, though masses opposed the policy 
 pursued. At the last day the just will represent humanity, 
 the redeemed will be viewed as the whole. Rebels will be lost 
 sight of, so many nothings. When the eight left the ark, did 
 not they represent our race ? Similarly, we who live stand for 
 humanity, not the dead. The living will at the last stand for 
 all, and most of all. He who is the life. The wicked are the 
 rotten branches pruned off, but the tree is a tree without them. 
 In the autumn a gardener says of a tree : This is its crop, though 
 buds came to nothing, young fruit fell by frost-bite, and some 
 rotted by vermin or weather. The latter are lost sight of. So 
 with humanity on the other side of Christ's tribunal. 
 
 He. But Isaiah utters these words of beauty: "All we like 
 sheep have gone astray, and Jehovah laid upon Him (Christ) 
 the sins of us all." AH have gone astray, all are lost sheep, 
 all equally sinners, and our sins are equally laid on Him. 
 
 /. Did the son of Amoz apply that to Philistines and Ama- 
 lekites equally with Israelites ? That would make His sheepfold 
 into a menagerie, cast the children's bread unto the dogs. The 
 Jews, with all their faults, were, from the moral point of view, 
 a vast stride ahead of the most civilised nations of antiquity. 
 Compare them with the modern Sioux Indians, Sepoy rebels, 
 Bulgarians, Turks, Cossacks, Circassians, or with communities 
 still bordering upon Palestine. Some men and nations go astray 
 like tigers, as the French in 1798, others as sheep. Christ 
 came to seek until He should find the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel. His eureka cry was, "It is finished," for then He 
 found. 
 
 He. He came to seek sinners, and we are that, therefore He 
 came to seek and save each natural son of Adam. 
 
 /. I would that we were all sinners, then would He be the 
 
50 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 •Saviour of men in its full sense. Unhappily every man is self- 
 righteous until under conviction. Breaking the moral law makes 
 actual sinners, receiving the Holy Ghost makes conscious sinners. 
 Christ came to save the latter. Sinners are not eligible until 
 His forerunner the Spirit enters. The first symptom of entry 
 is grief. When you say : He comes to seek every man, well 
 know^ing that millions perish in sin, you put Him below the 
 woman in the parable, who sought her lost piece of silver until 
 she found it. Think of the annoyance we suffer from a fruitless 
 search. Now what shall we say of him who seeks what he knows 
 cannot be found 1 According to you, Christ sought Sapphira, 
 knowing He would never say to neighbours in glory : " Kejoice 
 with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost." He seeks 
 phenomenally, apparently, but finds as straight as a reed and 
 as quick as a flash. To His elect, the message is the same as 
 to the world for judgment : "Behold, I come suddenly." I can 
 imagine His manifesting Himself in a man gradually, parallel 
 to life being in a man, but not much observed, but cannot think 
 of Christ coming by degrees. In fact. He is not only not so 
 represented, but it opposes our first principles of reasoning. The 
 Quickener comes quickly. 
 
 He. Still I believe Christ died for each man of our race, as for 
 John, so for Judas. I have so long taken that view that it is 
 ingrained not simply into my creed, but my mental constitution. 
 
 /. Well, let me present the matter in a logical form. 
 
 1. Either He died for some of the sins of some men ; 
 
 2. Or for some of the sins of all men ; 
 
 3. Or all the sins of all men ; 
 
 4. Or all the sins of some men. 
 
 Examine these theses, and see whether the truth is not there- 
 among. 
 
 He. Oh yes, it must be there ; the question is, as to in which. 
 
 /. Let us use the exhaustive process eliminating error, so that 
 we win a residuum of truth. The first and second theses are 
 useless, as partial salvation is unthinkable. The third is univer- 
 salism, which we two equally deny. Therefore, the fourth must 
 yield the solution sought. 
 
 He. Nay, but the third is true provisionally ; that is. He atoned 
 for every man if the atoned for fulfil certain conditions. 
 
 7. How that, when He died in the centre of the world's history? 
 If He died when Abel did, your case would fail, for the conditions 
 should be fulfilled before the death. Jude tells us that the citizens 
 of Sodom are suffering the vengeance of eternal fire : seeing they 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 51 
 
 were lost thousands of years before a.d. 33, how could Jesus die 
 for them providing they would do certain things? And as it 
 avails nothing to die for those who were lost, it being as naturally 
 impossible to save them as it is to make two and six the same, 
 so it would be equally useless to die for those who would perish. 
 
 He. Nay, I hold that the fountain of salvation was opened in 
 Eden when the Lord said : " The Seed of the woman shall bruise 
 the Serpent's head," and that it flowed on full and free like a 
 river, and is flowing, and will flow till that fountain is sealed by 
 the judgment of the last day. If dwellers at the sea- side will 
 not bathe, do we blame the ocean ? If those living on the banks 
 of a river will not drink, do you blame the affluent stream ? 
 
 /. But your analogy will not apply. Say the first act of 
 Parliament in this century was an educational one, containing 
 the two following clauses : — A7id be it enacted that all education 
 shall be free, so far as the payment for instruction by parents is 
 concerned, such payments being made from the impericd treaswy 
 of His Majesty, and in no case from private sources : and be it 
 further enacted that no parent, guardian, or person entrusted with 
 the care of any child or children, shall compel their charge to attend 
 any such free school, or receive instruction from any teacher thereof. 
 In that case King George would not pay one penny per annum 
 for all England and Scotland. Instead of that, parents compel 
 their offspring to receive instruction, and where the parents 
 neglect, Parliament steps in with a compulsory clause. Heaven 
 seeing our foolishness, that offering salvation would not save one 
 of Adam's race, the Great King passed a compulsory decree 
 making us willing in the day of His power being manifested. 
 No man would wash when left to his will. We first suffer 
 cleansing, and then enjoy it. Paul suffered it three days, to 
 enjoyment for ever. Say the water of life flows by every door- 
 step, cottage, or palace, what if there be no thirsting ? Jesus died, 
 not that the water of life should be brought nigh to every soul, 
 but that when nigh unto His they should thirst. Whence I claim 
 proposition four to be true. 
 
Time.— WEDNESDAY EVENING, Eight o'clock. 
 Place.— NELSON'S MONUMENT. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 He. 
 
 A Weak-Kneed but True Disciple, who has been listening to 
 
 Arminian Superficialities of the Deluso- Charming Kind. 
 
 /. 
 
 A Pronounced Free- Grace Man. 
 
 Disputation. 
 
 Extent of the Atonement and Kindred Topics. 
 
 He. Excuse my asking a few questions. I w^ould not put 
 them, but your views seem strange, and yet you appear to believe 
 them, judging from your vigour and persistency in so teaching. 
 I do not inquire to pose, but to learn. 
 
 /. As I am frequently attacked by catechisers whose minds 
 are foreclosed to replies, it is a luxury to be inquired of by one 
 open to conviction. 
 
 He. On such assurance, I ask how you teach that Jesus died 
 for some, when Paul explicitly teaches (Heb. ii. 9) : " Jesus by the 
 grace of God should taste death for every man.'' 
 
 I. You will be shown no such text is in the Book after we 
 speak a little on dying for every man. But answer me frankly, 
 not as an enemy who fences, but as a brother believer. Did He 
 die to do a possible thing or an impossible thing ? 
 
 He. Such question contains its own reply. He died to effect 
 a possible end. 
 
 /. When He was on Calvary, millions were in the land of 
 the damned. Christ meant as much when He put these words 
 into Abraham's mouth : " Between us and you there is a great 
 
 52 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 53 
 
 chasm fixed." There us and yo2C mean all in Paradise with 
 Lazarus, or in Tartarus with the rich man. Could Christ's 
 death redeem those Abraham termed you, as the ISToachian rebels, 
 the six hundred charioteers, and Cain, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, 
 and their co-mutineers ? 
 
 He. I certainly think those who die filthy remain so. 
 
 /. Do you not believe that Ananias, Nero, and others perished 
 since ? 
 
 He. There is reason to fear they are perished. 
 
 /. Then if impossible to save those already lost, must it not be 
 equally impossible to save those who would be lost ? 
 
 He. The inference seems inevitable, but so violates my senti- 
 ments, that it may be said to be wrenched out. 
 
 7. As on Calvary, w^hen Jesus was in the midst, having the 
 penitent robber- on His right, and the reprobate on His left, so 
 shall it be when He occupies the great white throne at doomsday. 
 
 He. Stop, stop ! How know you the order in which the Cruci- 
 fied suffered ? 
 
 /. By analogy, thus. At the paschal supper John reclined on 
 the bosom of Jesus, and as the usual thing at such gatherings 
 was to lean on the left elbow, John must have been first man to 
 our Lord's right, so Judas must have been first to His left, or he 
 could not receive the sop, for the arm of Jesus would only reach 
 the next man. The right hand is the place of honour, hence. He 
 sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Seeing then that 
 Providence arranged all things in wisdom, had the impenitent 
 thief been to the right of the Son of man there would be a knot 
 in the thread, but all was smooth. The man on the right had 
 his place not of merit, but sovereignty, that a sheep be found at 
 the side of the Shepherd, whereby His elect might know, that 
 as he was saved of sheer grace, so they. At the judgment 
 coming, Israel's Shepherd will divide them as at that, the pardoned 
 of relational merit receiving the right unto eternal companionship 
 with Him, the unforgiven of desert to the left unto everlasting 
 isolation. That being so, of what avail to die for those sinister 1 
 
 He. I always hold He died equally for both, all depending 
 upon themselves taking advantage of that blessed fact. Do not 
 forget that one said : " Lord, remember mew^hen Thou comest in 
 Thy kingdom." Not into. He is enlightened to foresee the 
 Messiah coming in His kingdom, surrounded by millions of 
 willing subjects, and wishes to be one. 
 
 L Very good ; but observe the eyes of a robber who deserved 
 crucifijxion in Jerusalem, so great a criminal was he, and damna- 
 
54 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 tion in Hell, so great a sinner was he, who had joined his com- 
 rade when scoffing at Christ, being opened to see the Son of man 
 in the dying man, must be a gracious act, not a natural one. 
 He had surely been quickened unto God. One apostle says : "No 
 man can call Jesus Lord, save by the Holy Ghost." Therefore 
 He must have received Him, wherefore, he prayed while his 
 companion in agony settled silently down into the dark waters 
 of Jordan. The prayer of that righteous man no more saved him 
 than my speaking makes me alive. My voice proves I am alive, 
 his prayer showed he was alive unto God. 
 
 He. Righteous man ! A minute since you styled him a robber. 
 
 I. He passed from death in sin to life in Christ in the 
 twinkling of an eye. Surely the Blessed illustrates what the 
 Spirit wrote (Rom. iv. 5), where Paul calls God " Him that 
 justifieth the ungodly." That dying one had been ungodly, but 
 justified of Him. In his case works were out of the question, 
 and no less so in ours, but we fail to see our guilt as clearly as 
 his. Why should identical circumstances produce no repentance 
 in his companion ? 
 
 He. Probably he was better brought up than his comrade, 
 might even have heard some of our Lord's sermons. 
 
 /. That makes him worse, having abused greater opportunities 
 to the extent of insulting Him by whom they were given. These 
 are some of the reasons for his sudden conversion : before the 
 first angelic solo broke creation's silence, His name, to us un- 
 known, was written in the Lamb's book and reserved with His 
 brethren in the archives of the then untenanted God- built 
 Jerusalem — His part to be played on Calvary was arranged of 
 Heaven for the benefit of the Catholic Church that how each 
 man is saved might be known — Christ died for him — the Spirit 
 created him in the Divine similitude. All the saved are saved 
 as he — passively, undeservedly, and suddenly. 
 
 He. Surely you err. The saved do not all live wickedly to the 
 brink of eternity. 
 
 /. It strikes me I can see the notion possessing you. Is it 
 not this : if a man is regenerated in early manhood, spends 
 years, Livingstone like, for the glory of God and the good of 
 men, he must not be compared with our subject ? 
 
 He. Well, and is it not so ? 
 
 /. Certainly not. Say he is converted at twenty, works dili- 
 gently in the gospel field until seventy. At his last birthday he 
 is not a whit more acceptable to God than at his twentieth. He 
 appreciates God's love more, rejoices in the great salvation, grows 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 5§ 
 
 in conscious enjoyment of God's almighty favour, but does not 
 rise one grade in His love, for he is loved in Christ, and only for 
 His sake. If else we can augment the generative cause of the 
 Father's love, but how that, seeing it antedates us and time, yea, 
 and thought 1 
 
 He. I have never seen things in that light, but looked upon 
 disciples as in a position similar to children, who were loved 
 extra, like Joseph, when doing specially well, and loved less 
 when they wrought evil, as Reuben. But does not that encourage 
 believers to slacken diligence, seeing the love is increasable ? 
 
 /. It has the opposite tendency. Considering God loved us in 
 Christ while we were stupid, unmanageable boys, loves us now in 
 our blunderings and wanderings, loves us after the mortal is 
 past, when earth and seas are fled, what motive can be mightier 
 to live onward, upward. Pearl- ward lives ? 
 
 He. I feel bound to say so too. But you lose sight of my 
 towering difficulty. Proving He did not die for those who 
 perish, while the Bible says He gave himself a ransom for all, 
 only enhances my difficulty, in fact, puts me in a maze. 
 
 I. The Bible is not our translation of the Bible, but that 
 sacred book in the Hebrew and Chaldee of the 0. T., and the 
 Greek of the N. T. is. In case of doubt we refer to the original. 
 Doing so with your text, "Jesus by the grace of God should 
 taste death for evenj man" we discover the words rendered eve7y 
 man are uper pantos. Do you know what sup>er means in super- 
 numerary, sM^er-vision, superiov, sitperh ? 
 
 He. Why, yes, to be sure — over. 
 
 /. Well, this uper of the Greek is super with us, in fact, the 
 same word. Here are two well-known words, panto-mime, all 
 mimicry, imitation ; ^awfo-graph, all writing. They would be 
 written pantosmime, pantosgvsi^h, only that sounds harsh, hence 
 s is left out. This is pantos of the text. What do you think it 
 means ? 
 
 He. Evidently it is used with the force of all. 
 
 /. Our case, then, stands thus : the text should read, " That He 
 by the grace of God should taste death (die) over all." Being 
 left with an adjective at its end, the sentence is elliptical, and 
 the difficulty lies in finding what noun all qualifies. When you 
 read the context, which may fairly be said to be the entire 
 chapter, you see the word must be either (His) brethren, or 
 (God's) sons. Viewed as our elder Brother, and He dies over 
 His hrethren ; viewed as God's Son, and He dies over the children 
 of God. I prefer the latter, for it implies our weakness and His 
 
56 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 love undeserved. Brethren might do something to save them- 
 selves, but how about children ? 
 
 He. Well, certainly there is something in that I like. I seem 
 to see it better, and yet am no nearer understanding the case, 
 for I see no sense in the expression dying over children. 
 
 /. The Word will make the matter plain. Turn to Gen. xsxii. 
 II, where Jacob says : " Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand 
 of my brother, from the hand of Esau : for I fear him lest he will 
 come and smite me, the mother ove?^ the children." Israel feared 
 that Edom would rush at the head of four hundred warriors, and 
 with a war-whoop slay him, and then shrieking mothers would wrap 
 themselves round their bairns, but these men of blood would spear 
 the little ones through their mother's bodies, in which case a mother 
 would vainly die over her child. This gives a glimpse into the 
 awful life Esau led that his brother should so testify of him to 
 God. There is no true religion where humanity is wanting, hence 
 the Israelites were not only to be humane to babies, but even to 
 birds (Deut. xxii. 6) : " If a bird's nest chance to be before thee, 
 in the way in any tree, or on the ground, young ones or eggs, 
 and the dam sitting over the young, or over the eggs, thou shalt 
 not take the dam over the young " (birds). This illustrates our 
 meaning, but yet more does (Hosea x. 14) : " Thy fortresses shall 
 be spoiled, as Shalman (eser) spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of 
 battle : the mother was dashed in pieces over children." Who 
 can doubt that when Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem and slew 
 the children, a similar scene was enacted ? The matriarch Rachel 
 was entombed close by, and is represented as so affected by the 
 slaughter that rising from her sepulchre she shrieked in chorus 
 with the mothers dying over their innocents. Your view of Jesus 
 dying over all men in part reduces Him to the level of the women of 
 Beth-arbel and Bethlehem, filled with helpless love. When Jesus 
 wept over Jerusalem He compares Himself to a hen crying in 
 alarm to her brood. If the Jews had, at the call of John and 
 Jesus, fled to the refuge, Jerusalem would have escaped Roman 
 fire. Jesus could hear the Roman eagles scream forty years 
 away, but His alarm left them unsheltered. The call of Jesus 
 and his forerunner was external, but the Spirit call, not to a 
 nation or a congregation, but one soul, never fails. "Blessed 
 are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb," 
 because called individually they infallibly sit thereat. The call 
 to Jerusalem was like rain falling upon the just and the unjust, 
 but that of the Spirit is like ''Come, ye blessed of My Father" 
 from the throned Brother. His wail over the city put Him on 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 57 
 
 the list of preachers, saying : " Who hath believed our report, and 
 to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed 1 " Yet He said : '' My 
 word shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish the 
 ^■'ang whereunto I send it." The outer word, even though the 
 preacher be Jesus, goes for nothing compared with the Spirit's 
 call, to which outer speech is as shell to kernel. There is no 
 small beauty in the Spirit presenting Jacob's wives, the women 
 of Beth-arbel, the mothers in Bethlehem, the bird on its nest, 
 the hen with her brood, all dying or ready to die over loved ones. 
 There is a combination of affection and weakness not met with 
 out of the Bible. A more excellent contrast to Divine love than 
 the affection of women and_^birds can hardly be. There is nothing 
 like that in the regions of angeldom, whose nearest approach is 
 more Hke students than lovers or mothers (i Pet. i. 12) : " Which 
 things angels bow over." Clearly alluding to the cherubim on 
 the ark of the covenant gazing thereinto and studying the com- 
 mandments, searching how the law when broken could be honoured, 
 as nothing in the experience of angels corresponded. Angels sang 
 at the Incarnation, but hurried back to Heaven, whereas the 
 Incarnate dwelt among us till driven to His Father by death. 
 Ministering spirits sing and hurry away. He stays and is crucified; 
 they bow their heads to study the plan of salvation, but their 
 Lord says " Lo, I am with you alway." Jesus wept over Jeru- 
 salem, but died over us, received in Himself the sword of justice 
 unto death for a time, which else must have slain us for eternity. 
 
 He. I certainly do see that uper pantos satisfactorily, and am 
 mastering the puzzle, so long suffered, as to our Lord weeping 
 over Jerusalem. It always had an unpleasant would-if-I-could 
 look, which not even Arminians like at bottom. 
 
 /. It was my pet offence, my great stumbling-block, but I see 
 Christ assumed the form of a servant, preaching became an ex- 
 ternal act, like any of His missioned ones. David wept over 
 Jerusalem (2 Sam. xv. 30), as type of his greater Son, both weep- 
 ing from the same mount: ^' David went up by the ascent of 
 Olivet, and wept as he went up." Jesus wept over his dead 
 friend Lazarus — over dead Jerusalem — over a dead world in 
 Gethsemane, acting similarly towards each. Lazarus was called 
 from the tomb, many being left in it — His sheep were called out 
 O/^ Jerusalem and safely folded on the mountains of Perea — He 
 brings His Bride out of the world to dwell in safety on the hills of 
 immortality. As a man He wept, preached, and taught ; but as 
 God He called, quickened, blest. There lately was lost to Glasgow 
 a godly man who wrote the following hymn, which to some is 
 
58 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 thrillingly beautiful, but to me rank blasphemy, where teaching 
 that *' When the rebel chooses wrath, God wails his hapless lot." 
 Does that agree with the destruction of the Old World by water, 
 the Pentapolis by fire, or the wrath of the Lamb 1 We on the 
 Green find that Morisonians have a weakness towards XJniver- 
 salism. What wonder ? That system knows nothing of a wail- 
 ing God, nor does orthodoxy. 
 
 " 'Tis evening : over Salem's towers a golden lustre gleams, 
 And lovingly and lingeringly the sun prolongs his beams. 
 He looks as on some work undone, for which the hour has past, 
 So tender is his glance and mild, it seems to be his last. 
 But a brighter Sun is looking on — more earnest is His eye, 
 For thunder clouds must veil Him soon, and darken all the sky : 
 O'er Zion still He bends, as loath His presence to remove, 
 And o'er her walls there lingers yet the sunshine of His love. 
 
 'Tis Jesus ! with an anguished heart, a parting glance He throws, 
 For mercy's day she has sinned away for a night of dreadful woes : 
 'Would thou hadst known,' He said, while down his face rolled 
 
 many a tear, 
 ' My words of peace in this thy day — but now thy end is near. 
 Alas for thee, Jerusalem ! How cold thy heart to Me ! 
 How often in these arms of love, would I have gathered thee ! 
 My sheltering wing had been your shield. My love your happy lot, 
 I would it had been thus with thee ; I would, but ye would not ! ' 
 
 He wept alone, and men passed on — the men whose woes He bore, 
 They saw the Man of Sorrows weep, they had seen Him weep before — 
 They asked not who those tears were for, they asked not whence they 
 
 flowed — 
 Those tears were for rebellious man — their source the heart of God ! 
 They fell upon this desert earth like drops from heaven on high. 
 Struck from an ocean-tide of love that fills eternity. 
 With love and tenderness divine those crystal cells o'erflow — 
 'Tis God that weeps, through human eyes, for human guilt and woe ! 
 
 That hour has fled — those tears are told — the agony is past ; 
 
 The Lord has wept, the Lord has bled, but He has not loved — His last ! 
 
 From heaven His eye is downward bent, still ranging to and fro. 
 
 Where'er, in this wild wilderness, there roams a child of woe. 
 
 Nor his alone — The Three-in-One that looked through Jesus' eye, 
 
 Could still the harp of angel bands to hear the suppliant sigh ; 
 
 And when the rebel chooses lorath, God wails his hapless lot, 
 
 Deep breathing from His heart of love — ^ I would, but ye xoould not.' " 
 
 He. I allow the matter never was so presented to my mind. 
 There was always an offensive lack of harmony between His will 
 and power. Still I do not see why He wept over the city, in view 
 of its destruction being decreed. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 59 
 
 /. Why, then, weep over Lazarus, whom God decreed to die, 
 or he could not have died ? Though death is decreed to the man, 
 fire to the city, destruction to the world, yet that is the outcome 
 of sinful obstinacy over which we weep. Could He weep over the 
 city had its destiny been uncertain 1 A ship sails, and ignorant 
 of her fate we do not weep ; but if we knew she would sink, and 
 its gallant crew perish, properly we might weep. Before weeping 
 He foretold the destruction of the city (Matt. sxii. 2) : " The 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain King which made a 
 marriage for His Son. . . . And the remnant took His servants 
 (the prophets), and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. 
 But when the King heard thereof He was wroth ; and He sent 
 forth His armies (Titus and his soldiers) and destroyed those 
 murderers (at the siege of Jerusalem), and burned up their city." 
 It is not the tears of the Preacher over a wicked corporation that 
 avails, but His blood for one. Tears are many, and so the theo- 
 cratic people, but the blood is one for one, Christ for the 
 Christian. Christ is bi-corporal — has two bodies. 
 
 He. That sounds nonsensical. 
 
 I. He has a physical and a mystical body. Now the former 
 died for the latter. Mystical body is an expression for the 
 Catholic Church, His elect. As we have each a definite number 
 of bones in our body, so He in His mystical body, whereby it is 
 plain that the atonement was definite. He died for an express 
 number, those written in Heaven. 
 
 He. I must say that is not clear. If an event is decreed 
 it becomes necessary, is inevitable, and consequently responsibility 
 is gone to those bringing it about, inasmuch as acts leading to the 
 decreed point are foreordained, vv^hereby agents fulfilling the plan 
 cease to be amenable for doing it, being under an irresistible 
 impulse. 
 
 /. Let us weigh that in the balances of the sanctuary. Ben- 
 hadad was ill. His servant Hazael came to consult Elisha as to 
 his chances of recovery : " Elisha said unto him. Go, say unto 
 him, Thou mayest certainly recover : howbeit the Lord hath 
 shewed me he shall surely die." Then Elisha stared Hazael out 
 of countenance, and being unable to stand the tension of his 
 mind, relieved himself by tears. "Hazael said. Why w^eepeth 
 my lord ] And he answered. Because I know the evil that thou 
 wilt do unto the children of Israel ; their strongholds 2cilt thou 
 set on fire, and their young men icilt thou slay with the sword," 
 &c. His answer shows him full of conceit, and, like all who go in 
 for the dignity of fallen humanity, had no notion he was capable 
 
6o CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 of criminality. I ask attention to the one shall of God, and the 
 four wills of Elisha. The Lord had exposed to His servant's gaze 
 a page of the book of fate. The decretive form of Deity is shall, 
 our formula ivill. Was not Hazael decreed to murder his master 
 seeing it was written : " He shall surely die," and how was not 
 dimly hinted ? 
 
 He. It is useless denying it. 
 
 I. Do you then condemn the course he pursued ? 
 
 He. Certainly I do. 
 
 /. Where is your consistency after saying that parties decreed 
 to act are not amenable to acting 1 
 
 He. My logic clears whom nij sentiment condemns. 
 
 /. Do Elisha's tears condemn Hazael logically or sentimentally 1 
 
 He. Sentimentally, being through foresight of his sin. 
 
 L Thus we have Elisha, David, and Jesus, each weeping over 
 things decreed. At the last supper Jesus said to Peter, "Amen, 
 amen, I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow 
 twice, thou shall deny me thrice," not speaking as Elisha, but 
 as God. Could the son of Jonas do else than what Christ 
 determined he should (not would) do 1 
 
 He. I don't see how he could. 
 
 /. Peter went out and wept bitterly. John was at the cross 
 at 2.30 P.M. of that black Friday, but unaccompanied by Cephas. 
 Was it right for him to weep 1 
 
 He. I justify his tears at the expense of my reason. I feel 
 Peter ought to w^eep, but think he ought not. 
 
 /. After Jesus rose from the dead, Peter, full of the Spirit, 
 waxed bold, and libelling crucifiers said: "Ye denied the Holy 
 One and the Just, and desired Barabbas to be granted unto you." 
 The next day Peter said to God, '''Of a truth against Thy holy 
 child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius 
 Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered 
 for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before 
 to be done." He condemns their sin, but says it was decreed. 
 If an inspired apostle condemns them, can't you compel your 
 logic to do so too 1 
 
 He. No ; but I begin to see my reasoning is fallacious at some 
 point. If you put your finger on the offender it will j^lease. 
 
 J. Does God foreordain His acts? Does He act with pre- 
 determination, by a plan, a fixed intention, or as circumstances 
 permit ? 
 
 He. The latter view is indefensible, as it implies defective 
 knowledge. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 6i 
 
 /. Seeing that God is, was, and must ever be absolutely free, 
 He must be absolutely free after ordaining His own acts ; may 
 we not be relatively free after that He foreordains ours ? 
 
 He. I see my reasoning a little agee, but new truth fits ill on 
 my mentality. It will shake into its place as uniforms on 
 recruits. Still, I suffer haze respecting their liberty harmonising 
 with the Divine will. 
 
 /. Let me try to wrap all up in few words : God made men 
 free, and foreseeing what they would will. He willed they should 
 so will, i.e.y was willing they should so will, willed it in the 
 second degree, by permissive endorsement. He wills in the first 
 degree when He inspires, works in, implants thoughts, desire, or 
 intention, by infusion. As to Peter condemning the Jerusa- 
 lemites, the glorious Lord deserved all that is meant in those 
 dread words — Gethsemane, where He sweat blood in His great 
 solitary agony — Gabbatha, on which He was flogged by the lictor 
 nigh unto death — Golgotha, where He hung stark naked for six 
 mortal hours ? 
 
 He. Deserved that ! The thought is shocking. Do not repeat 
 so painful a statement. It seems treachery to Jesus to stand by 
 and hear it. 
 
 /. Hear Israel's great prophet say : "It pleased Jehovah to 
 bruise Him." Who dare say the Lord delighted in wrong "? The 
 sublime transaction of Calvary was just. Christ was personally 
 immaculate, immeasurably separated from sinners. A child dies 
 personally innocent. I ask what has the bairn done to deserve 
 death ? We consider a criminal awfully bad who deserves that. 
 No reply is competent but — it is akin to that arch-rebel Adam. 
 As the infant deservedly died because of Adam, the Second Adam 
 died deservedly because of us. " The chastisement of our peace 
 was upon Him, by His stripes we are healed." If horrified at 
 this, why not at its equivalent in the Pauline Epistles : " For 
 God hath made Christ sin for us. Who knew no sin, that we 
 might be made the righteousness of God in Him " ? There is 
 the dogma. 
 
 He. But some hold sin there means a sin-offering, like animals 
 presented to God under the Levitical dispensation, by parties 
 who felt guilt and sought expiation. 
 
 /. Paul means more than that, because God meant more. As 
 the child is relatively guilty, though personally innocent, so the 
 Son of man deserved death from birth, deserved it when angels 
 sang over the fields of Bethlehem. The marriage of the Princess 
 Louise with the Marquis of Lome was termed a morganatic 
 
62 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 alliance, marrying below her status. Suppose she had married 
 a ticket -of -leave man instead of one of whom any wife might be 
 proud, would not all say she deserved censure 1 But what shall 
 be said of Christ entering Adam's family ? His alliance brought 
 Him down as it raised us. Wherefore the ex-inquisitor says : 
 " By one man's (Adam First) disobedience many were made 
 sinners, so by the obedience of One (Adam Last) shall (not ivill, 
 decree, not prophecy) many be made righteous." Adam's sin and 
 ours made Him a sinner, while His obedience makes us righteous. 
 So then He became guilty for a season that we should become 
 the righteousness of God (not merely righteous, but the righteous- 
 ness of Him) for ever. Two parties acted in the drama of cruci- 
 fixion — crucifiers, from Pilate down to the legionaries who dug 
 the hole for the cross, behaving wickedly unto murder — the 
 Father who sacrificed the Son of His bosom, as Abraham offered 
 the son of his loins. Whatsoever is done, God is, in some sense, 
 its doer, and yet the actors may be the guiltiest wretches Bulgaria 
 or Circassia ever produced, for God, at Calvary, acted through 
 murderers. All depends upon motive. Christ died by His own 
 will, not less so by that of the Father, Caiaphas, Judas, Satan, 
 Pharisees, soldiers. All willed the same, each for a diverse 
 reason. A man wills the same event as God does, and yet 
 sinfully. A drunken father wishes his son to die, as the boy is 
 a draught on his purse. Another wills in opposition to the will 
 of God, though submissively, and He smiles. An overburdened 
 family man maintains his aged father. The old man is ailing unto 
 death, but his son hopes he may live. We have no business 
 with will absolute, but with will preceptive, which guides us 
 unto life. 
 
 He. I really thank you for your views on our Lord deserving 
 death. The very sound of it was repulsive, but now glorious. 
 Howbeit, I except your double will in the Deity. A system 
 such as that seems contradictory. 
 
 J. By no means. Moses commands Pharaoh to let Israel go, 
 but knew it was His absolute will he should not then let them 
 go. Before that, Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac on 
 Moriah. Yet He did not mean him to do so. This is no more 
 contradictory than in nature one animal keeps down another, 
 which else might be ill endured. An adjutant kills snakes, the 
 ichneumon destroys crocodiles' eggs, swallows clear away midges. 
 This balancing of animals, harmonising nature, cannot be termed 
 contradictory, because each animal serves fa difi'erent purpose. 
 What keeps the planetary orbs in their unbroken order but the 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 63 
 
 co-action and co-operation of centripetal and centrifugal forces 1 
 Those forces, working in different directions, result in order, and, 
 though opposite, are not contradictory. Consider the relationship 
 of birth, death, and resurrection. We do not call these contra- 
 dictory, as they severally fulfil one purpose. 
 
 He. Very well, that's pretty clear, but you said portions of the 
 Scriptures were mistranslated. So saying, with talk about re- 
 visions, mistranslations, and interpolations, shakes the confidence 
 of an operative in his Bible. One place being defective or 
 redundant, others may be too, and who's to draw the Hne ? How 
 can I know I possess the mind Divine ? It is said that a little 
 girl hearing an awfully learned Broad descanting upon different 
 readings, the inspired not being infallible, when she returned 
 home asked her mother : " Mamma, where does the Bible begin 
 to be true ? " If you do not deem me impertinent, I ask the 
 same. 
 
 /. In passing through wheat fields in autumn, we see poppies 
 here and there amongst the corn. They tell of the East, whence 
 wheat came. Had wheat been like grass, indigenous, we should 
 have no such gay nuisances. When wheat was introduced, the 
 seed of weeds common to the East were brought therewith. 
 Should a farmer sow no wheat because of weeds ? 
 
 He. No, simply clean his seed-wheat before sowing. 
 
 7. Just so ; we are getting out of the Book all extraneous por- 
 tions by revision, as he by screening. Would a housewife act 
 wisely by refusing to make bread from flour because it grew 
 where was here and there a poppy 1 
 
 He. Of course not. Experience shows that good bread is made 
 therefrom, and she will make and bake as aforetime. Your 
 analogy is, that though the Bible is heavenly we receive it through 
 an earthly medium, which does not essentially, though it may 
 appreciably, mar its value. But how can I know its chapters are 
 veritably of God, the original of which I am ignorant. 
 
 /. Christ and His apostles used a third-rate translation, the 
 Septuagint, far less accurate than our Authorised Version, 
 whereby we see that translation when inaccurate, if not inten- 
 tionally and grossly so, conveys the Divine mind sufficiently for 
 guidance if used honestly. Better a Frenchman use the " Bor- 
 deaux Testament," the worst translation known, prayerfully and 
 with simplicity, than peruse in a careless, carping spirit the best 
 rendered. Any translation, however bad, read on the knees, with 
 strong cries to the Inspirer, leads to God, while the best will not 
 without the Guide. 
 
64 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. But you fail to show how I, who ah^eady believe, may 
 know that I am not following cunningly devised fables. 
 
 /. By the historical evidence, as seen in Babylonian, Assyrian, 
 Idumean, Greek, and Eoman antiquities, the results of the ex- 
 ploration of Palestine, the Apocrypha, and the works of Philo 
 Judseus and Josephus. Failing ability to get at these, you have 
 it in the Jews, their current writings and present ritual. Failing 
 which you have it in its internal evidence, its being an har- 
 monious whole, doctrinally, and the most compact book extant. 
 Nations not enlightened thereby either know not God, or serve 
 many gods. Note its effects upon those living according to its 
 precepts. It is the only book in the world claiming Divine 
 inspiration. The Koran claims only dictation by Gabriel. 
 Observe, no other book stands one thousandth of its attacks. 
 No other professed revelation compares with it, infidels them- 
 selves being judges. The sceptic says it is wholly of man, then 
 men can do what they once did in book-writing. We will not 
 trouble them to write so large a volume, but allow ability to do 
 it, providing they write anything the length of the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son affecting the great heart of humanity as deeply. 
 Who can read the Apocalypse without feeling in the presence- 
 chamber of its writer ? Offer me a daily paper a month old, and 
 I toss it aside ; but I have been reading the last of the canonical 
 books half a century, and peruse it with augmented apprecia- 
 tion. The Bible grows fuller of wonders as I of years, whereas 
 the opposite is the case with ordinary books. Even the part I 
 excepted for critical reasons : "Jesus by the grace of God should 
 taste death for every man," I let pass if every man be received 
 with the usual Bible force, viz., Jew or Gentile, i.e.^ Jesus made 
 salvation from national, for any Jew, to human for any man, as 
 became the Son of man. 
 
 He, I do not object to your statement, but strengthen your 
 case thus : When I was a boy there were many cannibal islands, 
 now there are few, most of them being won from that awful 
 degradation by the Bible, none by any other book. I am not 
 sure that the Apostles ever met with such tough material as we 
 found in the Feejees. 
 
 /. Yery good. Your illustration is a branch of the argument ; 
 we know it is a good book by its doing good work. 
 
 He. Some of my shopmates are inclined to scepticism. Can 
 you suggest a puzzle I can offer about the Bible in return for 
 some they give me 1 
 
 I. Try the Jews thus : Here is a people dispersed through 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 65 
 
 nations whom history, apart from the Scriptures, proves to have 
 been a nation for 3500 years. They have no country, but look 
 to Palestine in hope. Ask your mates to account for this apart 
 from involving the acceptance of the Book. 
 
 He. Ob, they'll say it is another case like the Gypsies. 
 
 /. By no means. Gypsies are not found in the New World, 
 cannot be traced to one ancestor, are known to have been 
 expelled from India, have no sacred books, no fixed religious 
 rites or notions, play no part in history, and every year diminish 
 by being absorbed through marriage into common society. 
 
 He. The sky looks watery, so that I will not press more than 
 another query, but am anxious to hear your views upon it. 
 Christ said to the Laodiceans : " Behold I stand at the door, and 
 knock : if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come 
 in to him." This looks so like consultation and co-operation, 
 that it won't square with your passivity views. Does not this 
 clearly teach that Christ enters the heart of men through their 
 will 1 You perpetually say man being unholy cannot will to he 
 holy any more than a truly honest man can vdll to he a thief, 
 because holiness and unholiness are infinitely oipposed, but this text 
 has an adverse aspect. 
 
 /. For years I held these deeply cherished views in spite of 
 this text standing in high relief, for it looks as you say. Con- 
 ceive, then, the comfort Tischendorf's version gave me in 1869. 
 He found our text in the oldest manuscript, the Codex Sinaiticus, 
 reading : " Behold I stand at the door, and knock : if any man 
 hear My voice, I will both open the door and come in and sup 
 with him, and he (shall sup) with Me." I breathed more freely, 
 as this is a spiritualised case of the raising of Lazarus. The 
 friend of Jesus heard His voice through the vivifying power of 
 the Life-giver when He opened the door by saying, " Take ye 
 away the stone," after which " Lazarus was one of them that sat 
 at the table with Him." The voice of Christ is twofold — speak- 
 ing to the individual inly by the Holy Ghost — speaking during 
 His ministry or by the mouths of missioned ones. Whosoever 
 hears His voice in the former sense leaves the tomb of carnality. 
 When the Lord speaks to many, that may save some or none ; but 
 should He speak to one, he is saved by the Word, not the word, 
 for the latter is not alive. "The sword of the SjDirit" is the 
 sword used by the Spirit. The sword cannot cut. The glory is 
 to One using it. So He seems to mean when saying, " Amen, 
 amen, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the 
 dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and tliey that hear 
 
 E 
 
66 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 shall live." Had his statement referred to the resurrection, He 
 would probably say, cmd shall live instead of and they that hear 
 shall live. The former is all, the latter some. In the chapter 
 containing your troublesome text He claims this title : " I am He 
 that openeth." He only opens the sepulchre. He only the heart. 
 He. And do you hold that a sinner can no more believe than a 
 corpse can open a vault door 1 That seems excessive. 
 
 I. No mere sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can. 
 Have you not read : " This is the ivork of God, that ye believe 
 on Him whom He hath sent " ? The Hebrews formed super- 
 latives thus : Mountain of mountains, river of rivers, tree of trees, 
 or they would say. Mountain or river or tree of God, to indicate 
 loftiest, longest, tallest. So, " This is the work of God," means 
 the greatest man does. All moral work shrinks in comparison 
 with a sinner by native power believing on Christ. 
 
 He. You must be wrong. Sketch His life and men naturally 
 admire it, and so are led to love Him. It is the easiest thing 
 to do. 
 
 /. Millions admire sentimentally, intellectually, and religiously, 
 so much that they would die for Him, and yet know Him not. 
 Let me help my meaning by an illustration. We pass through 
 the Saltmarket and notice a woman aged twenty-five standing at a 
 close-mouth. Though young, her face is scarred, seamed, and scored, 
 so that she looks a hag. Her garments are as filthy as her 
 person and habits, while her language is worse than either. Can 
 you force your affections towards her in view of a life union ? 
 He. That is preposterously impossible ! 
 
 /. Now sinfulness and holiness are dimly figured in her case 
 and yours. Should you reply "Though I can't love her, she 
 might me " ? I answer, the second case is as unnatural as the 
 first. She prefers the company of her like, or would improve. Re- 
 member, "Believe on the Lord Jesus" is essentially what God 
 said on Sinai : " Thou shalt love the Lord." Believing is a form 
 of loving, as are looking, coming, eating, drinking, applied to 
 Christ. We naturally look upon those whom we love, and hide 
 from those we dislike. Our inability to love a nature contrary 
 to our own illustrates omnipotence. God can love us who are 
 little sinful enemies, but I apprehend that an archangel similarly 
 related could not, we being at enmity with him. 
 He. Oh, yes ! by way of pity. 
 
 /. Pity does not explain love. You see a thousand objects and 
 pity each, but God does not love every one. His love is marriage 
 love. In the case of the hag who looked fifty, though only twenty- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 67 
 
 five, you might pity the poor creature, but that differs from rejoic- 
 ing over her. No thinking illustrates His love any more than we 
 can explain creation. We do not expect to know the manner of 
 creation, so we need not try to understand how God loves. God 
 only knows the love of God as to mode or extent. How then do 
 you imagine that a creational act, for His love is that to the 
 sinful one to whom He says, " Live," should be suspended on 
 the will of the thing to be created 1 While a soul is in sin, not 
 being the object of His love, it is unspeakably more odious to 
 the Holy One than that hag to you. Answer me, " Do you think 
 she could say anything winsome to you ? *' 
 
 He. I should abhor any form of approach from her ! 
 
 J. Similarly, '' The prayers of the wicked are an abomination 
 to the Lord." We hear of " The prayer of the saints," for no 
 one else prays, only saying prayers. Before that new creational 
 era, though their words be ever so sincere and ever so true, they 
 avail no more than whiffs of wind, nay, are a nuisance, like 
 smoke to a delicate female. When no man recognised Jesus as 
 the Lamb of God, an unclean spirit said: "I know Thee who 
 Thou art, the Holy One of God." Could Gabriel say more ? But 
 Jesus could not more adopt honour from a devil than Victoria 
 accept a pearl necklace sent from Bombay by Nana Sahib. 
 
 He. But you do not mean that a thorough lady, say, who is 
 careless about religion, can no more gain audience from God 
 than a fiend ? 
 
 /. Yes, I do. We can make no more advance towards God 
 spiritually than the paving stones can towards the stars. 
 
 He. If that awful teaching is true, Adam did the worst act 
 ever done, as the last Adam did the best. 
 
 /. He believed Satan imbruted in the snake rather than his 
 Creator, Benefactor, and Sustainer. Preferred crawling down 
 the serpent's trail of rebellion to ascending the shining slope of 
 obedience growing daily brighter and more blessed. Gave up 
 Eden, Eve, sonship for slavery, and shadows the substance of 
 which was damnation. We are the sons of that huge rebel, and 
 born in a helpless condemned state. When he fell, Christ sought 
 him with mournful cry, "Where art thou?" He could no more 
 seek God than the snake. Overtures of reconciliation must be 
 commenced, conducted, and completed by God. Without blood- 
 shedding there could be no remission of his giant sin. Hence 
 He taught the necessity of sacrifice and mode of presenting the 
 victim, clothing the first sinners in the sheepskin of the offered 
 lamb presented by their and our Great High Priest. Then and 
 
68 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 there the Divine Architect laid the foundations of His loved 
 temple, the Catholic Church. Damnation was accomplished by 
 .man, salvation by the Son of man, the Seed of the woman, a 
 babe from Bethlehem. Every man if saved is saved as Adam 
 was, by His seeking, finding, reconciling. Isaiah and Paul 
 meant as much when saying : " I am found of those who sought 
 Me not." God did not say to Eve, Where art thou ? because she 
 was federally in Him, as we are. If we are chosen unto eternal 
 life we are found the second time. The Adamic dispensation was 
 told in these words : Obe}^ and live. Mercy changed it to Live ! 
 Christ engaging to fulfil the obey part. 
 
 He. I rather think it stands at believe, and obey. We believe 
 and obey unto salvation. 
 
 7. How foolish ! Obedience fled from Eden nor returned 
 thereto for 4000 years, when it was disclosed in Gethsemane. 
 Obedience, like "The way, the truth, the life," is a Person, not 
 an act or acts. 
 
 He. But Jesus said : "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." 
 
 I. Carry your mind back to B.C. 1000. How would you 
 tell the theocratic people % 
 
 He. By language, laws, and manners. The men circumcised 
 attending the great feasts, offering sacrifices, libations and 
 oblations. 
 
 /. But these are external things which any could do, yet by such 
 externalities Israelites were known as God's covenant people. 
 If you saw groups robbing caravans or waylaying travellers, 
 you would say. Surely these are Ishmaelites, Idumeans, or Arabs. 
 There is an outward observance of the commandments by which 
 even the carnal and careless recognise disciples. Here is a 
 professor who is as hard as nails, another occasionally drinks, a 
 third uses impure language. The world sets them down as no 
 disciples. The world recognises by watching their outer life, by 
 fruit, not root. If you demand more, what becomes of believers, 
 seeing that each daily falls short of verticality, perfect rectitude, 
 to the glory of the Only Straight Line ? Saved by a combina- 
 tion of our obedience and His is rank nonsense. Grace mingled 
 with works is adding candles to noontide splendour, after the 
 Pusey or Papist style. The mixture is an insult to the Saviour, for, 
 in such case. He and we accomplish one work. Salvation is as to 
 inception (alpha) and completion (omega). His unaided undivided 
 work. Do not grudge Him its glory seeing He suflPered its pain. 
 
 He. Nor will I, being anxious to know the true way from 
 among false. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 69 
 
 /. You cannot keep the law a moment, which is evident when 
 we consider how defective any service is. You may neither 
 steal, covet, or lie for a given time, but say you pray. Can you 
 answer for it that your feelings and language are what they 
 would be, if Jesus were in your place 1 
 
 He. But I do not profess to be as good as Jesus. 
 
 /. He was no better than He ought to be, and you must be as 
 good as He, or cannot be good. How say a man can keep the 
 commandments one minute, when we cannot keep them in 
 prayer ? Reasoning with a friend on this proposition : When 
 God pardons our sins He forgives them, past, ptesent, and to come — 
 he thought to come too strong. What avails it if He forgave up 
 to conversion, when we need re-forgiveness the next minute 
 through defective service ? He thought God pardoned up to 
 regeneration, but after as we repented. Howbeit, our tears need 
 washing in blood ; our repentance is inaccurate and defective, 
 and we fall short, omit, and are filled with secret faults all un- 
 consciously, and so need a constant flow of pardoning love as of 
 vital energy. We get this, and think we stand in virtue of 
 personal obedience, whereas we stand by reason of Christ's 
 obedience. It is no more of works after conversion than before. 
 
 He. Howbeit, I must say I know nothing from direct Biblical 
 statements of two ways of keeping the law absolutely and 
 relatively, considered in themselves and in respect to other 
 people. 
 
 /. Not in so many words; but it is there by inference. 
 Supposing you say, Women ought not to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper. Give me an example of its leing done in the days of the 
 Apostles, or a commandment to do it. I cannot, except inferen- 
 tially. Then if you obstinately say. Unless you give precept or 
 example from the Bible, I hold it is imscriptural for women to 
 receive the sacraments, nothing remains but the exclusion of the 
 sisterhood from the communion. 
 
 He. But I do not go to such absurd lengths. 
 
 I. If you do not, you must hold the proposed view from these 
 considerations. God said (Exod. xx. 6): "Shewing mercy unto 
 thousands of generations in them that love Me, and keep ]My 
 commandments." That cannot mean keep them absolutely, for 
 then mercy is not needed. It is a case of contrasting the pious 
 Israelite with the rebellious Amalekite. Hence Peter says : " If 
 the righteous scarcely be saved (the human side of salvation 
 through laxity of obedience), where shall the ungodly and the 
 sinner appear ? " So Jesus says (John xiv. 15) ; "If ye love Me, 
 
70 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 keep My commandments." B}'' loving God the Jew observed the 
 first table — by loving Christ Jesus the Christian observes both 
 tables, seeing that He is our God and neighbour : but who does 
 that perfectly from cradle to coffin 1 Not, observe, when we' gaze 
 in rapture — but life through 1 Christians keep the ordinances of 
 Jesus in comparison with worldlings, and that is what is meant. 
 
 He. But surely I can keep the law perfectly for one minute ; 
 and if a minute, why not a month, and so on ? 
 
 /. When our Lord sat at the well about mid-day there came 
 by guidance an anonymous woman of the Samaritans. To her 
 Jesus said, "Give Me to drink," but she did not. Why? 
 
 He. I suppose want of politeness, hospitality, or through 
 bigotry, or a perverted view of patriotism, or all of them. 
 
 /. None of them. Our Lord never exchanges something for 
 something. "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and He, 
 the Blessed, cannot take the less blessed position. Had she given 
 well-water and He given living-water, the way of salvation would 
 be marred. 
 
 " Nothing in my hands I bring." 
 
 Allow me now to present a synopsis of the ways of salvation, 
 many untrue, and one true. 
 
 He. Should the rain hold off nothing could please me so much. 
 /. A. A man saving himself by native jDower apart from an 
 atonement, all guilt being pardoned through repentance. 
 Any creed saves if held in sincerity. Salvation comes 
 rather by the schoolmaster than the parson, the press 
 than the pulpit. If there is a Hell it is temporary and 
 corrective. The Bible is one good book among many. 
 
 B. Man believing on Christ by natural power, his sins being 
 
 atoned for by an absolute universal atonement. After 
 becoming a disciple he can fully keep the law. 
 
 C. Man believing in Christ, by reason of accepting Spirit help 
 
 offered to him in common with others. Man born 
 good, but becomes bad by evil example. 
 
 D. Man born averse to divine things and unable to believe, 
 
 yet through penitent prayer receives the Spirit, whereby 
 he trusts his eternal interest in Christ's atonement 
 offered for all equally. Being regenerate, he is able to 
 keep the moral law. 
 
 E. Man born in sin, but born again by baptism. Being so all 
 
 grace comes through sacraments, which are only adminis- 
 tered by priests, save that of baptism. Salvation depends 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED yi 
 
 upon obedience to the Church. Ordinarily, let him live 
 as he likes, he must expiate certain sins after death. 
 
 F. Man saved by repentance towards God and faith in Christ, 
 
 which faith is wrought in him of the Spirit through dili- 
 gent search and supplication for that grace. Christ died 
 for all, but the Spirit applies the benefits of His death in 
 proportion to faith. A man may fall from grace, but will 
 be restored. Observe, B., C, D., and E, agree in teaching 
 that men may be once saved and finally perish. This class 
 also holds that converted men can keep the command- 
 ments after conversion if Divinely helped, which He is 
 more willing to give than we to receive. Note A., B., C, 
 D., E., and F. teach salvation is human, comes of man 
 doing something. 
 
 G. That a man is loved once, saved from everlasting in God's 
 
 intention, and saved to everlasting by His Spirit and Pro- 
 vidence. His Son Christ died for him, because of which 
 the Spirit gave him power to repent. He is not saved 
 by repenting, praying, obeying, save consciously. His 
 sins are forgiven, past, present, and future, or more 
 correctly, God forgives him the sin of his life. After 
 conversion he no more deserves Divine favour than be- 
 fore. He is secure of Heaven through almighty love to 
 the glory of God's grace. The Spirit dwells in him for 
 ever. He has not kept the law, nor can. I give only 
 a disjointed and brief outline of what is believed among 
 professed Christians, but more would be tedious. 
 He. I am obliged, but wonder at your taking exception to a 
 
 person believing he can keep the commandments if Heaven helps 
 
 him. It looks like reflecting on God's power. 
 
 I. Let us see. I am seventy. Would it be wise to say I may 
 
 yet be forty should I receive celestial help 1 
 
 He. Certainly not, because naturally impossible, and if done, 
 
 would be untrue, though it is unthinkable that the wise should 
 
 so do. 
 
 I. How can a man keep the commandments when they are 
 
 broken 1 If I could keep them from to-day, how could you say I 
 
 kept the Decalogue, when I have not kept it absolutely. A man 
 
 must be tried for life, and not for some portion he fancies will 
 
 better stand judgment. 
 
 He. I think your variations of belief form an extensive bill of 
 
 fare, though I begin to see that through Adam's apostacy comes 
 
 our inability to do anything to commend] ourselves to Heaven's 
 
72 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 mercy, so that my relish for any dish but G. is diminishing. 
 Howbeit, two thoughts disturb me yet, viz., Has not man the 
 power to lay down his rebellious arms, rendering himself vacant, 
 neutral in some way ? Can we not meritoriously co-operate with 
 Christ in working out salvation after conversion ? 
 
 J. Our nature being sinful is averse to God's. Until we are 
 changed, we can no more cease hating God than hens can take to 
 water, or ducks to perching. If love or hatred depended upon 
 will, it might be, providing that will did not grow out of nature. 
 While nature regulates will, and nature is enmity, it is foolish to 
 speak of " grounding the arms of our rebellion at the feet of 
 Jesus." Thus it is written, " It is not of him that willeth," for 
 how will holily while sinful ? As to co-operation in salvation, 
 that is equally impossible, seeing we are saved wholly and always 
 by one act by One Person. We can, indeed, ''work out our 
 salvation," because He worketh in us to will, and to do of His 
 good pleasure. By following the holy motions of His indwelling 
 Spirit we make our salvation sure to others, He making it sure 
 to us. Now these seven waj^s of salvation are resolvable into 
 three practically. These I present in the parabolical form : A 
 vessel, wherein were three sailors, Stokes, Campion, and Wilkins, 
 was going down in Lamlash Bay. Stokes, a strong swimmer, 
 strikes out manfully for the shore, and makes it. Campion swims 
 a little, but being exhausted, one Donald Fraser threw out to 
 him a life-buoy, which he clutched, and Donald drew him ashore. 
 Wilkins had no more swim in him than a dromedary, but is 
 clutching a piece of the boat when it is washed from his grasp, 
 and he, being tumbled over by waves, sinks like a stone. Donald 
 rows to the spot where he sunk, doffs his big boots, and dives. 
 To the joy of the people on the coast he brings Wilkins up, but 
 the fear is Donald has won a corpse instead of a man ; howbeit, 
 the semi-drowned one revives. When Stokes, Campion, and 
 Wilkins are sitting together in the Douglas Hotel with Fraser, 
 how diversely they view him. Stokes owes him nothing. Cam- 
 pion is obliged to him because he did a neighbourly act, yet if he 
 had not done it he would have been a brute, Wilkins owes life 
 to Fraser. Transfer the scene to Heaven, and suppose the Uni- 
 tarian there saved wholly by works. When seeing Jesus, can he 
 view Him with much beyond indifference ? When the Arminian 
 beholds Him he sees One who helped him to save himself, and 
 without whom he would have perished. But the Calvinist beholds 
 in Him all his salvation. As Jesus took the blind man by the 
 hand out of Bethsaida into the fields, anointed his eyes wjth 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 73 
 
 saliva, and gradually lifted the black curtain that had been down 
 for years, all to generate faith, confidence, love to Him, so Jesus 
 not only risks life, but forfeits it that it may lead the ransomed 
 to love Him ; but if they fancy He only threw the life-buoy, an 
 alloy of pride displaces gratitude. 
 
 He. Well, I do see something in that way of presenting the 
 plan of salvation. 
 
 /. Suffer me to present it in the logical form, thus : 
 
 1. Either I save myself by works; 
 
 2. Or, I save myself by belief ; 
 
 3. Or, God saves me by belief ; 
 
 4. Or, He saves me without belief. 
 
 As to I, we may dismiss that as out of the question. 
 
 As for 2, whosoever saves is a saviour, let the means be what 
 they may. I would almost as willingly be unsaved as save myself, 
 because Heaven would lose its charm by being there unrelated to 
 the Saviour when all else were. Can I equalise myself with 
 Him 1 Then I do not save myself by belief ; all it does is give 
 me the joys of salvation (Ps. li. 12), not salvation, but the con- 
 sciousness of it ; not the favour of God, but the assurance of it 
 by feeling. 
 
 Respecting 3, God does not save by belief, because belief is a 
 witting outflow of affections and intelligence towards God, which 
 does not occur until after regeneration, say three days, as in 
 Paul's case. Now when he w^as found of his Shepherd he greeted 
 Him with " Lord ! " which no man can say of or to Jesus save 
 by the Holy Ghost (i Cor. xii. 3). If you object by interjecting : 
 "He that believeth not is condemned," I reply the power of 
 belief, the germs of faith are working in him, and are certain to 
 result in reliance upon the Lord, so that the interval between 
 regeneration and conversion being short and transitional, and 
 having no element of rebellion therein, is overlooked. It follows 
 that by the process of exhaustion we arrive at 4, which is true. 
 Surely Paul meant that when speaking (Rom. iv. 5) of God 
 justifying the ungodly, which is grace indeed ? 
 
 He. Those verses you recite concerning the tears of Jesus over 
 Salem ring in my ear, and affect me more than all you say. 
 
 I. No wonder, for poetry is very attractive, but when it ap- 
 parently presents mercy charmingly it becomes positively seduc- 
 tive. But we are not to be carried away by sentiment, sound, 
 or appearance. Let us obey at least one command (John vii. 24). 
 What avails poets singing of a weak God, when angels sing of 
 Almighty God ? Of course volumes of texts might be given 
 
74 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 corroborating this view of God helplessly willing a man's salva- 
 tion, but two suffice. A heathen said by Divine constraint 
 (Dan. iv. 35) : " He doeth according to His will in the army of 
 Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can 
 stay His hand." That was said by one king, this by Another 
 (Luke Xv 21): "I thank thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and 
 earth, that Thou hast hid these things (whereby salvation comes) 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes : 
 even so. Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight." Mrs. 
 Hemans apostrophises the ocean thus : 
 
 " To thee the love of woman hath gone down." 
 
 Those loved of feeble mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, lovers, 
 lie in the caverns of the mighty deep awaiting the midnight 
 cry. But here a divine looks hard at Hell and says : 
 
 " To thee the loved of Jesus hath gone down." 
 
 Did Jesus try to do the doable or the impossible 1 Was it possible 
 to save Judas in say a.d. 30 ? He knew he would go to his own 
 place in three years ? Then would He seek to do what could not 
 be done 1 There was in Derby a nailer's son, who, being sent to 
 school, was recognised as a superior lad. Under the master's 
 training he became a first-class business man, entered a firm as 
 junior clerk, in thirty years became its head, and, his fellow-towns- 
 men recognising his ability, he was elected to mayoralty. Look- 
 ing at the boy of ten and the man of sixty, are they not the same 
 as to personality, but immensely different as to mentality and 
 morality ? Now God is the I am, the invariable, without shadow 
 of change. Imagine He knows some fact He did not anterior 
 to creation. He would grow in knowledge and therefore change, 
 wherefore there would be no Jehovah. If He loved and ceased 
 loving He is subject to change. Ananias chose wrath. Did 
 God wail over him ? He struck him dead. Did He wail over 
 the Cities of the Plain ? Gen. xix. 24, " The Lord (the Father) 
 rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from 
 (the Son, to whom all judgment is committed) out of heaven." 
 This silly sentimentalism comes of not measuring our idea of 
 love by God as revealed, but measuring God by love, or our 
 notion of love. In society this leads to humanitarianism, pamper- 
 ing criminals, forbidding the righteous execution of murderers, 
 a reign of mercy without justice. If God bewails the lost. He 
 loves them when saying "Depart, ye cursed," To treat those 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 75 
 
 we love with blasting malediction, execration, is a novel form of 
 manifesting affection. Morisonians on the Green boldly teach 
 that God loves the damned, and yet tell us we ought to be 
 comforted by the thought that God loves us. If He loves lost 
 angels and men who perished, why did John say : " Now Jesus 
 loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ? " 
 
 He. I think I see something good in those ideas, but they 
 seem to conflict with two fixed truths : The rewardability of 
 works and responsibility of man. Make man's work necessary, 
 and forthwith you banish amenability and remove reward as far 
 from men as from machines. We admire a machine or disapprove 
 of it, but we reward or condemn the mechanic. 
 
 /. We no more get Heaven for work than we do earth. 
 "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest 
 from their labours and their works do follow them." They 
 entered the Portal of Pearl by grace, and works follow, being 
 then manifested to an assembled world when the President 
 diadems each brow with stars of magnitude varying with toils 
 and sufferings for Him and the brotherhood. The works of 
 supernal angels, of Jesus, of Jehovah, are necessarily holy, and 
 yet rewardable in heavenly messengers and the Son of man, 
 while they are adorable in the Lord. So also the works of 
 infernal angels are necessarily wicked. " Can a devil open the 
 eyes of the blind 1 " and yet devils are punishable. God cannot 
 do wrong, then He necessarily does right, and yet we praise Him 
 for His mighty acts and glorious. Do we praise machines 1 
 
 He. But your view is fatal to man's free agency. 
 
 /. Freedom is violated only when we are compelled to act 
 contrary to volitions. It is no violation of my will when I 
 cannot do what I want, for if so, my liberty is sacrificed when- 
 ever I wish unsuccessfully. In Heaven, Earth, and Hell, no 
 creature does what he dislikes. He may be forced to be where 
 he would not, or suffer what he abhors, but his will being 
 opposed to the arrangements of justice, there is no reason for 
 complaint. If creatures do what they do willingly, it is useless 
 to speak of liberty trenched upon. Creator and creature are in 
 that highly important sense alike free. When we enter a room 
 in which are two empty chairs, to the use of which we have right, 
 we are practically free to occupy either. If you demand man's 
 freedom similarly when two courses, one right, the other wrong, 
 are presented for choice, he cannot be so free, because nature 
 must bias selection. In that sense neither God, angels, whether 
 supernal or infernal, nor men, whether good or bad, are free. 
 
76 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. I fancy you collide with Paul's : "The good that I would, 
 I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I 
 do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
 dwelleth in me." 
 
 /. Paul presents an outline of a sanctified sinner, which every 
 Christian is, a saved sinner, a man condemned in respect to 
 himself, but justified in relation to Christ. We show that "not 
 doing that He would," is no violation of practical liberty, which 
 must be limited by creaturehood. Our Creator has that absolute 
 freedom, and He only. The difficulty lies not there, but here : 
 "The evil which I would not, that I do," but we are helped by 
 the remark : " It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
 me," where he evidently speaks figuratively, but in his former 
 sentence literally. Suppose a man of position is ruining himself 
 and his by drink. After being a bottle -slave over night he 
 suffers terribly next morning. Boon companions call on him at 
 6 P.M. He suspects that going with them means being led home 
 abont 2 A.M., and knows that one of the best Glasgow women 
 won't wink an eye till his return. He yields. Can he say at 
 9 A.M. next day : " My dear, all was done against my will and 
 judgment. It was not I, but the fascination of men and the 
 enchanted cup " ? He who wills though beguiled, is guilty. Carry 
 the apostolic illustration in your way, and every man is two 
 persons. 
 
 He. Precisely so. He means that when uttering his notable, 
 " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this 
 dead body 1 " Roman gaolers handcuffed two prisoners together, 
 when one died the survivor dragged his corpse. So the new man 
 — holiness, dragged the old man — sinfulness, the Last Adam 
 dragging the first. 
 
 /. But who calls a corpse a person ? or a principle as holiness, 
 except figuratively ? The ex-inquisitor is showing the holy war 
 in Mansoul. Human goodness differs from angelic in that we 
 have to combat evil within and around, wherein lies the heroism 
 of Christianhood. " All things work together for good to them 
 that love God." Evil in us becomes an occasion of good, because 
 we fight against it and so abhor it more. Just as blackness has 
 no existence, but is only a conception. There may be black cats 
 and black clouds, but blackness in the abstract, apart from 
 substance, cannot be. As colour must inhere in an object, so will 
 must be in some nature which must regulate it. From this 
 outlook neither Creator nor creature is or ever can be free. The 
 will of neither Creator nor creature can act without motive, as 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 77 
 
 that involves mental vacuity, idiocy, purposeless action. There 
 must be nature within and a motive without to cause volition, 
 wherefore from that standpoint no will is free. Howbeit, for all 
 practical purposes every will, so far as our knowledge extends, is 
 consciously free. 
 
 He. I do not see the applicability of your rule to Adam's 
 apostacy. There were two good persons doing evil, entering a 
 sinful course, so far as they knew, of endless sin. How so if 
 nature guides will and they were made in the Divine similitude ? 
 
 /. What I advanced was philosophically true, but philosophy 
 must be modified by common-sense. If my rule be made equally 
 as absolute as this — God always does justly — then who could 
 see how Adam could fall ? But it occurred thus : Eve being 
 deceived, and falling into an error of judgment, acts with sincerity, 
 yet lacks honesty. Most unbelievers are perfectly sincere in 
 unbelief, though given over to believe a lie with fatal results. 
 Eve seduced her husband. She was cheated into poisoning her- 
 self, but Adam determined to fare as she did, and so committed 
 suicide. Neither knew they would thereby begin travelling 
 down a bottomless brae towards whose lofty top there could 
 be no return. They fell not as drunkards and gamblers do, by 
 a course, but by one act. It is very noteworthy that neither 
 of our ancestors are called holy, that word not being used in 
 our translation until the scene of the Bush is described. 
 
 He. You render them pitiable, as their sin looks small. 
 
 /. Small sin ! As well speak of a pinched-up universe ! No 
 sin is small. Suppose a hitherto respectable man stole a penny, 
 we condemn him morally, more than if he took ;^i 000. That 
 might tempt, but to become a thief for a penny ! If, then, 
 our parents gave up a garden for a mouthful of fruit, nay, 
 preferred the word of a brute to that of the Eternal, who gave 
 them in Eden each other's companionship. His fatherhood and 
 instruction all being promises and prophecies of more excellent 
 things to come, their ingratitude was immense. Why then say 
 small sin 1 
 
 He. Such subjects cannot be divested of mystery, but a clearer 
 and more comprehensive outline of the affair begins to shape 
 itself in my mind. I see more clearly the difference between 
 phenomena and substance, appearance and actuality. Yet as 
 when clambering over mountains, one ridge surmounted, another 
 bulges in your foreground, which too must be overtopped, so 
 it seems that we approach the loftiest crag in the range of 
 speculation. 
 
78 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. Pray name it. 
 
 He. The fall of acgels. It is hard to dogmatically map out 
 events happening at a place not known to us by name, at a 
 period we have no hint about, and above all, among creatures of 
 a nature differing greatly from ours ; but as you profess to have 
 studied the subject by the light of analogy, I shall be obliged 
 if you give your views. 
 
 /. I will attempt the great act. One thing is certain, Satan 
 never was in heaven. The argument thereupon I work out in 
 my " Eve," to which you are referred. I postulate only that 
 the beatific vision, the blissful sight of God, is granted solely 
 to those who faithfully pass probation. " The pure in heart 
 shall see God," and they only. We enter glory through the 
 portal of tribulation. Christ crowned with thorns, King of 
 the afflicted, as our Elder Brother, means much. The locality 
 where God placed angels is not disclosed. He made Adam and 
 then Eve, and afterwards us indirectly. This occupies thousands 
 of years, during which we appear in relays, or generations. Adam 
 was our federal head. While he stood we stood, germinally and 
 representatively in him. When he fell we fell, for humanity 
 apostatised, and we are human. Apparently angels were made 
 by one act, so had no federal head. Hence they knew nothing 
 of relationships, so precious to us — father, mother, sister, brother, 
 cousin, &c. Hence the acts of one would not affect another, 
 as acts of fathers affect sons, so that each stood or fell for 
 himself. They were like corn stalks, w^e like branches of a tree. 
 A third part of the field is mowed without affecting the rest, 
 whereas the third part of a tree cut down affects the whole. 
 They are like sand, of the same nature, but unconnected ; we 
 like an organised structure. They must have been made in 
 the image Divine. As a good tradesman cannot do bad work, 
 God cannot directly make a morally evil being. As our parents 
 were under expressed law, so must angels have been, because 
 God's law is but a presentation of duty of creature to Creator, 
 and conversely of the goodness of God to them demanding grate- 
 ful obedience. God being good cannot leave His offspring 
 ignorant any more than true parents leave children in lack of 
 education. That law was simplified to Adam by two trees. To 
 Israel and us it was given in the compound form of ten com- 
 mandments. God would present His law to angels, they being 
 higher, purer intelligences, in a yet more complicated form. Just 
 as the second commandment respecting the visitation of the sins 
 of fathers upon their children has a harsh look about it, though 
 
• CALVINISM POPULARISED 79 
 
 absolutely just, so some branch of the law^ delivered unto angels 
 would have an unfair appearance. Analogy teaches that in the fall 
 of angels and man the mental nature misleads the moral, whereas 
 after the fall the moral misleads the mental. Before apostacy 
 the head goes wrong, those who apostatise lean to their own 
 understanding, but after such fall the heart, affections, being 
 deceived, warps the judgment unto false conclusions, resulting 
 in sinful actions. After our fall God says : " Son, give Me thine 
 heart," but before it obedience would virtually be giving heed, 
 head, that is, unlimited confidence in His justice where the 
 intellect failed to recognise it. Certainly it was not through 
 Jehovah revealing His co-eternal Son to angels as a claimant upon 
 allegiance that occasioned the fall of angels. When Jehovah 
 revealed Christ to the celestial hierarchs and said : " Let all 
 the angels of God worship Him," that applied to the elect angels, 
 to whom such privilege and supreme felicity was accorded after 
 their trial, as it will be ours to be ever with the Lord. Jesus 
 says : " I will confess his name before My Father, and before 
 His angels," the opposite of "The devil and his angels." Christ 
 truly came to an evil world in disguise, and was not received ; but 
 that He should be revealed to flaming ranks of high intelligences, 
 being clearly introduced by the Almighty, and yet rejected, is 
 irrational. I conceive their fall was compassed somewhat thus : 
 When in their first estate some portion of the revealed law they 
 were under would constitute an imaginary grievance. Through 
 want of unlimited confidence in God, by an imperfect use of 
 intelligence, some of them would do what was equivalent to 
 saying, Not Thy will be done but ours, or in other words, violate 
 law. Other some sustained of grace, which differentiates angels 
 as certainly as men, still held the law was holy, just, and good, 
 though they could neither show it nor see it. A bold spirit 
 arises, the angellocrat of eternity, and opposes the Eternal 
 Theocrat. He misleads millions. Then there was in the angel 
 world what we have in our human world, two parties parallel 
 to Church and World. We cannot understand the conflict of 
 spirits, but it seems the faithful who believed in the justice of 
 the Divine appointment and those who became apostates by 
 impugning His ordinances, and rejecting God's sovereignty, con- 
 tended. That contention was ended by judgment when those 
 who walked by faith, which is infallible, were divided from those 
 who walked by intellect, which misguides by defect. Intellect 
 must fail somewhere this side of omniscience, for science is only 
 applicable to the knowledge of some things, wherefore it cannot 
 
8o CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 be omniscience, whereas faith reposes in the Perfect One, and 
 partakes of the advantages of perfection. The judgment to 
 come will be the third in the economy of God, and seemingly 
 the last : the opponents of righteous law became devils, and 
 so remain, while those who said, Shall not our Creator do justly ? 
 entered heaven, the reward world. 
 
 He. Thank you. I listen with deep interest, but does not 
 your view suggest this difficulty, Why cannot they cease rebel- 
 ling, as they are but kicking against the pricks — the goads of 
 God? 
 
 7. Though intelligence acting upon experience teaches their 
 rebellion is suicidal, they cannot cease, because no spirit can be 
 in a neutral position respecting God ; it must either love or hate, 
 and love will depend upon its nature, like going to like, for none 
 but the holy can love the Holy One. A moral creature may fall, 
 but possesses no self-restorative power. I can wound, but cannot 
 heal myself; nature may. The creature who commits his first 
 sin, forthwith becomes spiritually dead, and is as dependent for 
 restoration upon Him who said : " I am the Resurrection and the 
 Life," as a corpse. The diabolical nature is bad growing worse, 
 and unable to stay in its downward course ; for no creature 
 changes its nature upwards, but only, in certain conditions, 
 downwards, as did Adam and Satan. A creature may improve 
 character, but nature never. Hell is bottomless in view of 
 perpetual deterioration, the fallen always growing worse. Noth- 
 ing short of almighty power can restore one such, for each 
 restored one is a new creation which none effect but their 
 Creator. I am increasingly of an opinion that the restoration 
 of a fallen angel and a lost man, as Ananias, is absolutely 
 impossible. 
 
 He. I regret your so saying, because it must be held of faith 
 that God is omnipotent, all-powerful, and consequently nothing 
 is impossible with God. 
 
 /. The wisdom of God limits His power. When the clock 
 strikes ten He cannot make it nine, because it would not be wise. 
 Now as it is morally impossible that God should introduce chaos, 
 disorder, confusion by making ten to be nine, so it would be im- 
 possible for the Lawgiver to receive the Law-breaker. We have, 
 indeed, broken His holy ordinances, but One magnified the law 
 and made it honourable for us, whereby our salvation became 
 possible. God made Adam from earth, and, in a sense. He 
 makes his elect offspring out of Christ, they coming from Him, 
 who is the Seed by a spiritual mystery. Perhaps it would verge 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 8i 
 
 upon infinite unwisdom to make angels out of fiends, or holy 
 spirits out of lost souls. Certainly salvation could come only 
 by a species of creational act, their having a new start, former 
 life being annihilated as ours is in Christ, hence, at the last day 
 Christ will treat the man who lived a life of rebellion up to 
 regeneration on his deathbed as though he had done nothing 
 but good (Matt. xxv.). In such case the life of Christ takes the 
 place of our nullified life, whereby we stand on the ultimate 
 pinnacle of holiness, even as He is holy. 
 
 He. Were those angels that fell loved of God before they fell 
 equally with the faithful spirits 1 
 
 I. As God loves His elect, no ; as you love your neighbour in a 
 philanthropic manner, yes. He must have known to an angel, 
 when He flashed them into being like streams of light, which 
 would be with Him while I speak, and ever while they sing. If 
 otherwise He could not be good, and that He is good all agree. 
 Goodness presupposes wisdom, or else you have a good idiot ; but 
 a being defective in knowledge could not know how to act, except 
 by mental efforts to make up the defect in his information, and 
 then might blunder ; in fact, would not know how to be good. 
 Good is perfect. God only is good. If He grew in knowledge, 
 He was once imperfect, and consequently could not be God then ; 
 but the difference between God and not, is infinite and eternal, 
 it is therefore inconceivable that an imperfect thing should im- 
 prove himself into Deity. No angel nor any man is or can be 
 good, except relatively, one creature related to another. Then 
 His goodness demands, and ever demanded, that He knew how 
 many angels would apostatise, and who remain loyal. Nor did 
 He know their fate and future by calculation, but as He knew 
 millions of cycles ago this world would leap into existence, 
 because He determined so long thereafter to utter His fiat. 
 Why this world-law, " One shall be taken and the other left," 
 should apply to the angelic economy is more than we can know ; 
 but it must have been a reason fair and honourable, for what 
 an abhorrent thought its alternative is : Their Creator took 
 advantage of creatures. 
 
 He. You said angels had had their judgment, and that ours 
 will be third in creation's story. How know you but those stars 
 looking down on this Green be not worlds inhabited of intelli- 
 gent moral beings destined to rise like the elect angels, or fall as 
 man fell ? 
 
 /. It will be bad for them, as we monopolise the only possibility 
 conceivable of fallen creatures being brought back. Bethlehem 
 
 F 
 
82 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 and Calvary are human property. Christ cannot reincarnate- 
 He dieth no more. Any fall of a probationed creature means 
 inevitable Hell. Of all thinkable plans of salvation, the one God 
 adopted was the only good one. Nay, we err when speaking of 
 His adopting one out of many, thinker like, no other is conceiv- 
 able any more than another God is. As to those orbs, they are 
 mere bubbles of hydrogen on the limitless sea of creation. 
 Science and analogy points to His bringing humanity into being, 
 if I may so say, early in eternity. If you think not because 
 stars are known to have existed hundreds of millions of years 
 before the human era, remember that, so far as we know, com- 
 plicated organisation cannot be except where there are many 
 simple bodies, as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, soda, phosphorus, the 
 metals, &c. There are more than sixty elementary substances 
 in the earth, but gauging the stellar creation by the polariscope, 
 one world is found with four out of our sixty, while some even 
 reach fifteen, but none compare with us in this matter. Hence, 
 it is unlikely that they are the abodes of embodied intelligences 
 like man. Their use is unknown. Who knows the use of 
 comets, aerolites, or stars in the Milky Way ? Our earth was 
 untenanted for millions of years, the moon is devoid of organic 
 life, may they not be too 1 The mysteries of the universe do not 
 vanish by study, but they diminish and brighten to the glory of 
 its Maker, Who delights to hide from the proud as well as unfold 
 to the humble. In a few millions of years we may have explored 
 the realms of space, for the redeemed of the Lamb enjoy a sublime 
 application of His words : '' Shall I hide from My servant 
 Abraham (or his seed) that thing which I do ? " 
 
 He. How about one of those worlds being the locale of what 
 is known as the war in Heaven, or, as you put it, their first 
 estate *? 
 
 /. Where that angelic campaign came off is unknowable, and 
 no theory helps. We cannot conceive of the surroundings of the 
 contestants. Those angels being pure spirits, might fight in full 
 numerical strength inside my hat, or a nut-shell, for the matter 
 of space. 
 
 He. That's a heavy draught upon credulity, your hat covering 
 an angelic Waterloo ! 
 
 /.- Pure spirits, mind ! A spirit is in space, but does not 
 occupy space. Ignorant sceptics say of the 2000 demons in the 
 man of Gadara — Impossible ! Suppose the poor fellow would 
 burst ! As rational a supposition as that 2000 ideas, thoughts, 
 notions, motives, principles, or feelings would split the head of 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 83 
 
 a scientist. Analogy seems to teach that the angels who stood 
 or fell were alike clothed in some vehicle. See 2 Cor. v. 2, 3. 
 It appears that as we lose our body by death, our demise being 
 through sin, and that so far as the righteous are concerned, it 
 is restored by resurrection, which is a gracious act, while the 
 resurrection of the wicked is in respect to the righteous, probably 
 the wicked would have no resurrection were it not for the just. 
 Those who fell lost their vehicle, hence they imbrute in snake or 
 pig, or possess men by way of relief, wear any clothing, fit them 
 or not, rather than remain naked. I imagine every spirit but 
 One is envehicled, clothed upon, or wretched. Conceive your 
 threefold skin to be off, you being deprived of it without violence, 
 you would be so sensitive that the least waft of wind could hardly 
 be endured, nor would you be able to touch any solid without 
 pain. As our nerves have to be muffled with skin, it appears 
 that spirit is too delicate to come into contact with creation 
 unless enveloped. Hence it is credible that angels in Heaven 
 occupy space, but that devils or demons occupy none, but are 
 compelled by creaturely dislike of pain to occupy any rather than 
 none. For, observe, though all creature spirits are and must be 
 in space, they no more occupy space than vitality, or principle, or 
 love, except when enveloped, and then it is not they, spirits, that 
 fill any space, but their envelope, their vehicle, which is to them 
 what our tabernacle of clay is to us. Theirs may be fashioned 
 of light or electricity, or fire, like the empyrean, and may be as 
 ethereal as the most delicate matter known to science. Death is 
 a kind of separation. When the angels died to God, they were 
 in judgment deprived of a part of themselves. Wholly is nearly 
 akin to holy, while the thought of sin, mutilation, loss, draw 
 together. Those who give themselves wholly to God shall be 
 holy, and so become whole, perfect. 
 
 He. I presume you hold that when a man dies in Christ his 
 spirit is envehicled in something adapted to dull the too acute 
 sensibility of spirit, but that if a Christless man expired his 
 immortal part remains in a species of painful nakedness until his 
 resurrection unto damnation ? 
 
 /. So I think, not that such opinion is to take the dignified 
 position of forming part of one's formulated creed ; it is not defide. 
 At least it seems probable. 
 
 Policeman. Now, men, it is ten past, and your wives will be 
 waiting you for supper. — Exeunt, 
 
Time.— THURSDAY, from 8 till io p.m. 
 Place. -THE SHEEP'S GREEN, AT THE CLYDE SIDE. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 /. 
 
 An Out and Out Calvinist. 
 
 He. 
 A Rank Arminian. 
 
 Contention. 
 
 The Babes. 
 
 He. I wonder you see any charm in that dread belief — repro- 
 bation. That any man be reprobate, even when in years, is bad 
 enou<yh to believe and teach, but that children may be is bad 
 beyond common. Does God indeed 
 
 " Consign an unborn soul to Hell, 
 
 And damn it from its mother's womb " ? 
 
 Those so holding must lack common humanity to an uncommon 
 degree, as well as be wanting in common sense. 
 
 /. Belief is not regulated by pleasure, but by nature and the 
 kind of evidence presented. My believing in non -reprobation is 
 impossible. Pretending to do so would not reach the dignity of 
 anything higher than hypocrisy, and refusing to inspect the 
 evidence for the view, I hold, would be playing the ostrich when 
 she hides her head in the sand so as not to see what she does 
 not want to see. I prefer looking hard at my faith, to senti- 
 mentally veiling my face through shallow delicacy which finds 
 its bottom in want of confidence in God. 
 
 He. But your ugly dogma is an outflow of a diseased theo- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 85 
 
 logical faculty. I challenge you to show a reprobate so born in 
 the Book. 
 
 /. It would gratify were failure certain, if only sentiment 
 were consulted, for over each reprobate the heart says, " Even so. 
 Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because it seemeth good in 
 Thy sight." Angels don't say that over one sinner that repenteth, 
 but ring the bells of Heaven. I bow to Deity ordaining repro- 
 bates in wisdom unfathomable. Esau was a born reprobate. See 
 what the lively oracles teach about him (Rom. ix. 11-13) : "For 
 Jacob and Esau being not yet born, neither having done any 
 good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might 
 stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ; it was said unto 
 Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, 
 Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Here Paul 
 presents two unborn babes of identical parentage, one infant of 
 whom is loved, the other hated. 
 
 He. There is no reprobation in the case. Turn to Gen. xxv. 
 21, where your views dissolve. It there says: "Isaac intreated 
 Jehovah for Rebekah, because she was barren : and Jehovah was 
 intreated of Isaac, and Rebekah conceived. And the children 
 struggled together within her ; and she said, If it be so, why am 
 I thus ? and she went to inquire of Jehovah. And Jehovah said 
 unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people 
 shall be separated from thy bowels ; and the one people shall be 
 stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the 
 younger." Away goes reprobation. It does not even say, " Esau 
 have I hated," that being said by Malachi nearly 2000 years 
 after. His statement refers to nations, Israelites and Idumeans. 
 God foresaw the Israelites would be better than the Edomites, 
 and therefore prefers them. 
 
 /. But Paul and you conflict. He is all on passive babes, no 
 works, election ; you are upon men active and good, yielding a 
 case of judicial preference, an affair of justice, not one where 
 gracious election is possible. No man would bring the case you 
 delineate as needing faith in God's justice, because its justice is 
 manifest, whereas Paul's case needs faith in God's electing upon 
 holy principles. A boy sees that if Israelites would be better 
 than Edomites they must be preferred. Though Jehovah did 
 not say to Rebekah, " Esau have I hated," He meant it in " The 
 elder shall serve the younger." Noah did not curse his son Ham 
 (Gen. ix. 25), but Canaan; howbeit, the Spirit meant it for Ham, 
 yet out of regard for a father's feelings moved him to speak of 
 his grandson, so the Lord respecting maternal feelings said, not 
 
.86 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 "Esau have I hated," reserving that for thousands of years, still 
 He meant it. 
 
 He. I deny God hated Esau when an infant. 
 
 /. You do not deny He said " Esau have I hated." Then if 
 He loved in Rebekah's day, but not in Malachi's time, God 
 changed. 
 
 He. Not at all. Esau changed from an ordinary infant, 
 becoming a bad man, so that God, Who loves virtue and justice, 
 must then hate him, or else love goodness and afterwards badness, 
 which would indeed argue change. 
 
 /. He does not love justice, but just persons ; not virtue, but 
 the virtuous man ; God only loves once, always, or not at all. 
 
 He. How can that be ? Suppose one be converted at thirty, 
 lives a holy life till sixty, is he not hated when in his sins until 
 he is thirty, after which he is loved as long as he is good ? 
 
 /. Certainly not, but was loved before his life, during the 
 whole of his life, unto eternal life, as He loved Jacob the unborn. 
 The Lord saw the man in Christ, and therefore loved him without 
 graduation or cessation, for His love is like Himself, one, simple, 
 unalterable. God loves each elect son as He loved His elect Son. 
 John xvii., " Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." That 
 must be without degree, or beginning, so far as mortals can see. 
 Nor can " loved them " mean mankind e7i masse, for God's love 
 is particular. It does not say. Now Jesus loved the family in 
 Bethany, but, "Now Jesus loved Martha^ and her sister, and 
 Lazarus.^^ 
 
 He. We are not upon love, but hatred; reprobation implies 
 so much, hence I reaffirm, Esau was not hated. Moses says : 
 " When Jehovah saw that Jacob hated Leah," but he simply loved 
 her less than Rachel. So in the New Testament Jesus says, " H 
 any man come to Me and hate not his father," &c. That we should 
 be commanded to do so in Galilee when He said on Sinai, "Honour 
 thy father," is impossible. It must mean we are to love Jesus 
 more than our father. So in like manner Esau was loved less 
 than Jacob, 
 
 I. You are then arguing for the comparative love of the 
 Absolute, that God loved Esau much, but Jacob more. Men can 
 love from a degree above the freezing-point of indifferentism up 
 to the boiling-point of mad fascination ; howbeit, the question is 
 not our love, but His. Human affection coming from a variable 
 being is variable, but love proceeding from the great I am can 
 neither fluctuate nor fail, for its Author can neither die nor lie. 
 You argue God loved Esau to some extent. Seeing that provi- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 87 
 
 dence is the back of the book of fate, that God's secret will may 
 be known by the events He brings to pass, let us follow the 
 fortunes of the two brothers. 
 
 He. Agreed, and you will see Esau was the better man. • 
 
 /. Let me premise by saying that as Malachi uses the name 
 Esau so that it must apply to his posterity, the prophet supplies 
 a rule enabling us to follow Esau's biography, not only to death, 
 but in his posterity. You applied it as to the rejection by 
 Malachi : God said He knew^ Abraham would command his 
 children and his household after him ; let us then see how Esau 
 does. Be it remembered that this history of the twin boys is 
 allegorical, similar to the two half brothers Ishmael and Isaac 
 (GaL iv. 24). Esau represents the antagonism of the carnal to the 
 spiritual. In the Church are ten virgins — five wise, five foolish. 
 The Christian has in himself a company of two armies, holy prin- 
 ciples warring in Mansoul against sinful propensities. So Esau 
 and Jacob struggle in the womb of Kebekah. The Perfectionist 
 demands five virgins, one army, and one baby, no conflict, no 
 upward strife, no holy war. 
 
 I/e. To me that is all fancy built on facts. 
 
 /. To you, but to me it is true, both the dream and its inter- 
 pretation. This is not fancy : Esau sold his birthright for a 
 mess of pease brose. Adam's sin was vast, giving up so much 
 for so little. Edom trod in Adam's track. He forfeited priest- 
 hood in the Messianic family, from which the Seed of the woman 
 would come, for a bagatelle. 
 
 He. Was not Jacob blameworthy for taking advantage of his 
 brother's necessity ? 
 
 /. Jacob was combined of saint and sinner, as Christians are. 
 The saint desired priesthood, the sinner went to work the wrong 
 way to get it. But your better man was a murderer. 
 
 He. Impossible ! When was that ? Whom did he murder 1 
 
 I. God blessed Jacob through Isaac, after which we read (Gen. 
 xxvii. 41), " Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith 
 his father blessed him ; and Esau said in his heart. The days of 
 mourning for my father are at hand, then will I slay my brother 
 Jacob." Barely does the Spirit read out the black intention of a 
 base heart, such matters being usually veiled until the day of the 
 revelation of all things. We read (i John iii. 15), '' Whoso hateth 
 his brother is a murderer." Twenty years after the blessing, 
 Edom intended to do by Jacob what Judas did with a band of 
 men to our Lord, treacherously hand him over to strangers by 
 whom he would be murdered. 
 
88 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. I recollect nothing of the kind. 
 
 /. Let me refresh your memory. On one side of the Jabbok 
 was Esau with 400 rude desert dwellers, singing songs around 
 watch-fires. Jacob divides his sons into groups, placing in the 
 nearer Dan, Naphtali, and Joseph ; in the more distant, Reuben, 
 Simeon, Levi, Judah, Gad, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun. As 
 yet, Benjamin was unborn. Does not that suggest Jesus cross- 
 ing the Kedron and dividing His disciples, Peter, James, and 
 John in the nearer group, and a stone's cast farther away 
 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas. Matthew, James, Lebbeus, 
 and Simon ? Saul, the analogue of Benjamin, as one born out of 
 due season, was not yet regenerate. He that had eaten with 
 Jacob lifted up his heel against him, intending his death, but 
 He who has the heart in His power toned down this would-be 
 Cain. Biblical silence as to Esau's death is not a presumption in 
 his favour. The death of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, &c., 
 is fully recorded, but, as in the case of the impenitent thief 
 (Luke xxiii. 43), Esau's is passed in silence. His posterity kept 
 up his enmity to Jacob by hating his seed. The typical enemy 
 of Israel was Amalek, the son of Esau, who assailed the newly 
 emancipated people under the shadow of Sinai. Haman, the 
 last of the clan Amalek, ended his days plotting against Israel. 
 We read (Num. xx. 21), " Edom refused to Israel passage through 
 his border." At 2 Sam. viii., "All they of Edom became David's 
 servants," teaching that David's Son shall conquer our carnal 
 foes, and give us the victory. So 2 Kings vii. 20, "In Joram's 
 days Edom revolted," is not history only, but allegorical biography, 
 meaning the flesh lusteth against the Spirit. This family feud 
 is noted by some anonymous harper (Ps. cxxxvii. 7), " Bemember, 
 O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of (the siege of) 
 Jerusalem; who said, Mase it, rase it," i.e., erase it from the 
 earth. Another form of " Crucify ! crucify ! " Hatred to New 
 Jerusalem is shown by enmity to the old, loathing the Father 
 by crucifying His Son, abhorrence of the Church Triumphant 
 through feelings towards it Militant. Rarely does a prophet fail 
 to cast a stone at Esau, for he, Amalek, Egypt, and Babylon 
 symbolise the gall of bitterness the Cainite feeling towards the 
 good (in proof Jer. xix. 17, Ez. xxv. 12, Amos i. 4), are cases of 
 Divine animus towards the typical enemy of His Church under 
 the names Esau, Edom, Idumea. We might add texts passim, 
 indicating that through all the prophecies such intimations are 
 found as thick as Russians slain at Plevna. One seer, Obadiah, 
 is inspired to no other known end than to comfort God's people, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 89 
 
 forecasting the destruction of His and their enemy, Edom, as 
 Wickliffites and Waldensians looked forward to Babylon fallen as 
 pictured by John. Strange to tell, the conflict raged as fiercely 
 after the prophetical age as before. Hence, we read in the 
 Apocalypse (Esd. iii. 16), "As for Jacob, Thou didst choose him to 
 Thee, and put by Esau." Again i Mace. v. 3, "Then Judas fought 
 against the children of Esau in Idumea at Arabattine, because they 
 besieged Israel." Thus we trace the enmity of the carnal against 
 the spiritual through the ages from Isaac to Malachi, a period of 
 1360 years. We then find the hatred unabated during 400 years, 
 between the closing of the Old Testament canon and Christ's 
 coming. When He was born in Bethlehem it was intensified, 
 for as Edom contended with the infant Jacob, so Herod the 
 Idumean stands, dragon-like, to devour the young child, the 
 Woman's Seed. This unspent hatred reappears in Herod Antipas 
 delivering the Seed of Jacob to be mocked by soldiers. And 
 again in Herod Agrippa, who slew James, and purposed slaying 
 Peter. Herod is to Esau what Haman is to Amalek, the last 
 persecutor of that ilk, each like Claverhouse dying at Killie- 
 crankie without a man to heir his boots. But Paul leaves no 
 doubt about Esau personally when he called him "A profane 
 person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." What 
 does he mean hjprofane ? Fanum signifies a temple : pro means 
 before. Persons too vile to be admitted into the temple, lest 
 they would defile it, were called profane. They were excommuni- 
 catees. Thus we have (Acts xxi. 28), " This is the man that hath 
 brought Greeks also in the Temple, and hath polluted this holy 
 place. For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus, 
 an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into 
 the Temple." But what has the sale of Esau's birthright to do 
 with service there ? The eldest son acted as family priest among 
 the patriarchs. Now the supreme promise is, being made kings 
 and priests unto God. Hence, the contempt of Esau resulted in 
 double loss — here and hereafter. Bead John's catalogue of the 
 profane : " Without are dogs (cynical bodies none could please) 
 and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers (Esau was that), 
 and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." 
 
 He. I fail to see the propriety of applying that excommunica- 
 tion to Esau, who lived when the Church had no temples. 
 
 /. The principle was there. Esau saved, then outside and 
 inside of the holy city is all one, and the New Jerusalem from 
 being a sheepfold becomes a menagerie. 
 
 He. Won't "Whosoever loveth and maketh a lie" exclude Jacob ? 
 
90 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. Do you demand wisdom at birth, or lofty conception of duty 
 in early manhood % Jacob repented, or he would not have de- 
 veloped into Israel. Judge not the man by one act of early 
 life, but by latter day attainments, when standing before Pharaoh, 
 or blessing the tribes. Esau never repented, for if so his anti- 
 pathy to Jacob and his seed would have determined, and therefore 
 would not be brought out by the Spirit, in history, as represented 
 by posterity, for his offspring became a symbol of enmity against 
 God's people, while the sons of Israel are recognised tokens of the 
 true Church. I claim that you have a reprobate presented. But 
 this reprobation was not a consequence of works, but his works 
 prove reprobation. Had he died at a day old, I fail to see how 
 that would save him. 
 
 He. You are proving it is a sin to be born, an event over 
 which the child has no control. 
 
 /. Nay, a sin to be related to Adam. If that be error, Moses 
 shares it, when in Lev. xii., " If a woman shall have born a man 
 child, then shall she be unclean seven days. Her purification shall 
 continue thirty-three days after the circumcision of the child. For 
 six weeks from the child's birth she shall touch no hallowed thing, 
 nor come into the sanctuary." That law with us would exclude 
 mothers from reading their Bible, or entering'a place of worship for 
 weeks after birth of a boy. Suppose an Israelite reasoned thus : 
 Is it just that God should profess to bless with "Increase and 
 multiply," and when we do, punish for it ? That is the position 
 you defend. If my view be w^rong, Paul shares it : " By one 
 man's disobedience many were made sinners." If you object, you 
 do not to its counterpart, covered by the same principle : " By the 
 obedience of One shall many be made righteous." As our con- 
 demnation is traced to parentage, our justification is traced to 
 Brotherhood. If nothing comes between father Adam and me, I 
 perish ; if my Brother Jesus intervenes, I flourish. Christian 
 life does not justify before God, but before men. Had Jacob 
 died aged one month, he would have been as just then as aged 
 one hundred and forty-seven, because not accepted in biography, 
 but in the Beloved. To me there is no reason for doubting that 
 some of the elect die in infancy, nor that certain of the non-elect 
 also die in infancy. 
 
 He. That involves, amongst other dreadful things, this : David 
 is born, becomes a murderer, yet being elect, enters glory, while an 
 Amorite child dies and perishes, having done nothing. 
 
 /. David was saved by sovereignty and equity. You must 
 view him deserving punishment, and receiving it in the person 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 91 
 
 of his Son, our Substitute. No sin goes unpunished in God's 
 children, though it does in rebels. 
 
 He. Flat insanity ! Why, is it not your argument that the 
 wicked are punished in Hell ? 
 
 I. If you mean they receive an adequate penalty for sins, I 
 never so teach. Calvary satisfies for sin, not Hell. If penalty 
 satisfies, it must cease ; but the Scriptures teach it is everlasting 
 to the glory of Golgotha, inasmuch as there was in the awful 
 transaction of His death, merit, virtue, value, whereas there is 
 none in being subjected to unavoidable pain. In the case of the 
 wicked their debt is never paid, whereas He paid once for His 
 brethren for ever. Of all moral creatures, God only punished 
 one — His Son. God is ever punisliMz^ the wicked, but they are 
 never punish^'d When the Father slew His Son He said, *' It is 
 finished." If Satan could say that, he would celestialise Hell. 
 All else may be partially punished, but until a part is equal the 
 whole, no one but the Beloved of His bosom will have been 
 punished. As for the non-elect infant, granting it is not in 
 Christ, it comes under the fatal headship of the arch-rebel Adam. 
 What you revolt at is its loss as to extent, but we know not what 
 that means, because such loss is infinitely graduated. 
 
 He. Then, if that evil world is graduated, w^ere it not wiser to 
 view such graduation as accordant with conduct on earth, in which 
 case you are driven by logical consistency to hold that those who 
 have done nothing suffer nothing ? 
 
 /. Heaven is not won by our works, but given through rela- 
 tionship to Christ, howbeit, works regulate the brightness of the 
 crown each coroneted one wears: "They rest (Heaven) from 
 their labours, and their works do follow them " (their status 
 there). They inherit Heaven, but star- magnitude is regulated by 
 faithful toils and many sufferings for the Lord. So the rebels 
 are condemned in respect to their federal head, but they regulate 
 the intensity of penalty by conduct on earth, or in Hell, for in 
 both they act as free agents. I am able to conceive that those 
 who were non-elect infants may not have a worse portion in that 
 world than some adults have in this, duration for duration, re- 
 membering that those who die infants do not remain so, and that 
 they will be free agents on behaviour in that world as in this. 
 They will owe Hell negative, loss, to Adam, but Hell positive, 
 penalty, to themselves. 
 
 He. I reject such doctrines unless overwhelmed by evidence. 
 
 /. Then you are logically bound to the other alternative — con- 
 demnation is not relational but personal, not through something 
 
92 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 done by another, but something done by one's self. And, co- 
 relatively, salvation is by works personally performed. Moreover, 
 it is incumbent to show when infants become responsible, which 
 may be found difficult. Deny the principle contended for, and 
 what becomes of visiting the iniquities of fathers upon their 
 children? But read (Deut. xxiii. 2), "A bastard shall not enter 
 into the congregation of the Lord ; even to his tenth generation 
 shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord." He is 
 presented as living in the person of his offspring for ten genera- 
 tions. Might we not reason thus : Here is a well-doing man, 
 anxious to enter the sanctuary, but the fence is so high he is ex- 
 cluded through what an ancestor did 200 years since 1 It is fifty 
 generations since men cried " His blood be upon us and upon our 
 children," and the Jews wander with weary feet. Noah's dove 
 had a refuge, they see no ark. Is it right that men living in 
 A.D. 1890 should suffer for what was said a.d. ^^1 What a 
 shame ! But there is One who takes the responsibility, as when 
 He said : " Who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the 
 blind ? Have not I, Jehovah ? " I was formerly puzzled at those 
 long genealogical tables, which occupy so much of the Bible, seem- 
 ingly on a level with an auctioneer's catalogue, we should do well 
 by exchanging for two chapters of history, or one of dogma. I 
 did not see they were as fully inspired as the Sermon on the 
 Mount. When the Spirit gave that by Luke, they ceased, and 
 became as unrestorable as the gift of tongues. Every Biblical 
 genealogy is given on the principle of the sanction to the second 
 commandment, and is identical with the reason of our salvation 
 — relationship. One striking difference between revelation true 
 and pretended is, the latter has no virtuous genealogies ; no gods 
 say anything like (Ex. iii. 6), "I am the God of Amram, the God 
 of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Directly 
 salvation is of works there is no virtue in ancestry, then blood of 
 others or Another goes for nothing, all hinging on acts personal. 
 The world that knows not God, puts salvation on works. Every 
 erroneous system, from Popery in Glasgow to Brahminism in 
 Calcutta, teaches salvation by works. 
 
 He. I yield to none in believing salvation is of grace, prevenient 
 mercy antedating good following conversion, but that is vastly 
 different to damning the newly born, 
 
 /. The newly born newly died. Could its death be less than 
 a condemnation, as it is written : " Death passed upon all men, 
 for that all have sinned " ? It does not say Death passed upon 
 all men, for that Adam sinned, but boldly and plainly teaches 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED . 93 
 
 that all men died because all sinned. Now if a child dies it does 
 so as a human being, and, Paul being right, in consequence of 
 being a sinner. When an apostle teaches babies are sinners, 
 why should not I ? Outer death is the manifestation of inner 
 Cry out against infant condemnation as to eternity if you will, 
 but you must allow it for time. Would you, without experience, 
 expect its application to beings who, by your premiss, are 
 sinless ? 
 
 He. I think not, but time death and eternal death differ. 
 
 L Of course, but one principle underlies both — the exceeding 
 sinfulness of relational sin. When looking upon the decomposition 
 of a corpse, I see God's anger upon the unconscious vessel, once 
 consubstantial with the sinner. Suppose a man shot a child of 
 yours, the sight of that gun would be an abomination, nor could 
 one get your wife to touch it. Heaven and earth recognise 
 relational guilt. Earth and air were blighted when Adam 
 sinned. We reward the kindred of benefactors, whereas the 
 kin of criminals are avoided, sometimes with suspicion, and at 
 others with aversion, but always avoided. Is the same position 
 allowed to the son of the harlot as to the offspring of the honour- 
 able matron ? 
 
 He. It is manifest that in such case the innocent suffer for 
 the guilty, which is, of itself, an injustice. 
 
 /. No such case has occurred since the first creational act, nor 
 ever will, as the innocent suffering for the guilty. It is good 
 divinity, though at first blush monstrous, to say that the holy 
 Jesus deserved every distressing pang borne on the accursed tree, 
 else Jehovah did unjustly in bruising Him. If so, how much 
 more do we deserve what we endure ? If you see His relational 
 guilt, cannot you see an infant's ? He did no wrong, it personally 
 did none, yet each deserved death by relationship. Remember, 
 He was an innocent not only in Bethlehem, but at Calvary. 
 But say a child is born sinless, and observe the position you 
 occupy. Papists contend that only two children were immacu- 
 lately conceived, nor was the man after God's own heart one of 
 them, for David said, "In sin did my mother conceive me." 
 They affirm the two were jNIary and Jesus. Protestants affirm 
 that one only of Adam's race was so born. He of Bethlehem- 
 Judah. Before me stands a Morisonian contending that Papists 
 and Protestants are both wrong, inasmuch as every one had a 
 sinless birth. It is the work of one demented to degrade our 
 Lord Jesus to our level, as thereby hope ceases. 
 
 He. I will take this new and hard case avizandum, to look 
 
94 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 into at leisure. But by implication you contrast equity and 
 sovereignty. Will you oblige by defining each ? 
 
 I. Most happy. Equity consists in giving each his due. 
 Sovereignty endows under no restraint other than the Divine 
 will, guided by infinite wisdom. All His works come under the 
 head of Equity or Sovereignty. God makes worlds, lengthens 
 life, increases families, elects souls by the latter, which knows no 
 obligation. Equity does. Deity did as He would in calling you 
 from native nothing, but having done so, when you do good or 
 evil, there is no choice left but a judicial recognition of your act. 
 Souls are saved of Equity, not Sovereignty. He is bound to 
 save. Of Sovereignty Paul was elected, but after his name was 
 enregistered in the Lamb's book His merit was upon him. Sover- 
 eignty begins and ends with election, then Equity comes in and 
 continues for ever. The just live for ever, and their righteous- 
 ness is of Him, hence He is termed " The Sun of righteousness," 
 i.e., as the' natural sun imparts light. He infuses righteousness. 
 May you and I dwell in the Christian Tropics, instead of the 
 arctic regions of Arminian self -righteousness ! 
 
 He. Are you not foolishly fast ? Can merit be upon non-entities ? 
 The elect, assuming there to be such, before time, are mere 
 intentionalities, not persons. 
 
 /. But Divine intentions become facts. Each name pointed 
 to a coming man who was, in Heaven's purpose, under the 
 redemptive power of the Son of God, which would be accom- 
 plished when He became the Son of man. To that gracious 
 book, the New Jerusalem directory, Jesus alludes when saying, 
 " All that the Father giveth Me shall (not will) come to Me." 
 When God launched this earth upon oceanic space, the stars 
 sang together, and all the sons of the morning shouted for joy, 
 but the awful voice of the Son of God uttered louder joy, and all 
 were silenced by His chanting : "I was by Him, as One brought 
 up with Him ; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always 
 before Him ; and My delights were with the sons of men." That 
 is, God loved Him and us (John xvii. 23), "Thou hast loved them, 
 as Thou hast loved Me." Had Jesus put it thus, Thoti lovest them 
 as Thou hast loved Me, it would be grand, but it is sublime to be 
 an object of the Eternal Father's regard ere time is. That is 
 our Magna Charta, being the objects of Divine affection of old. 
 
 He. Observe, He says not gave, past, as you have said, but 
 giveth, present. 
 
 L True for you, and beautiful for both. The present is fact, 
 the past intention, and the twain are one in the Immutable. In 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 95 
 
 that book there are only names ; if deeds, ^ve should proudly claim 
 salvation upon foresight of works. Thirty-three years of One 
 life with His death sanctifies every name into a celestial aristocrat 
 from a terrestrial worm. 
 
 He. Well, that may be termed pleasant for the correspondents 
 to those ancient names, but how about the unfortunates, unre- 
 corded 1 Though they live never so justly, praying ever so 
 ardently, they are no forwarder. 
 
 I. JSTo man knows, probably no angel, on what principle His 
 book is composed. How a spirit becomes elect of the Spirit doth 
 not yet appear, and may never. Howbeit, this is abundantly 
 evident, it is not composed on arbitrary principles, but in wisdom 
 and honour, so that if explained to a non-elect person of suflScient 
 capacity to comprehend the transaction, he would say as the 
 demon did (Luke iv. 34), " I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy 
 One of God." That speaker was a non-elect angel, allowing he 
 had been fairly passed by. As to persons doing all sorts of things 
 worthy of life while dead, is doubly absurd. As the carnal mind, 
 the unrenewed heart, is enmity against God, how do aught to 
 please Him whom it loathes ? That devil said a greater thing 
 than any disciple yet had, nay, he stood on the highest point of 
 formal worship, in form no holy angel could offer more acceptable 
 adoration, yet the fiend's offering was rejected, as it is written, 
 " Unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect." So to say. 
 His first consideration is the offerer, then the offering. How, 
 then, say do what they will ? salvation by works is impossible 
 when they can do no good. That devil, whether dumb or eloquent, 
 was a devil still. Have you read : " In thy book all my members 
 were written, when as yet there was none of them " ? David 
 said that less of his natural frame than his Son meant it of His 
 mystical body. David was bodily perfect when crowned in Jeru- 
 salem the old, and his Son will be so in Jerusalem the golden, 
 when on the day of His espousals is gathered around Him all 
 for whom He died, and drinks new wine with them in the king- 
 dom. As you could not add a bone to David's frame, neither can 
 any add one to the mystical body of David's Son. 
 
 He. What, then, is the use of preaching ? 
 
 /. Thereby those written are quickened, led to repent, and to 
 consciously commune with the Fountain of every blessing. Jesus 
 said to some : '' Ye believe not because ye are not of My sheep." 
 Calling grace manifests who were given to Immanuel in eternity 
 to redeem in time. Of them He says : "All Mine* are Thine, and 
 Thine are Mine," showing the coincidence of the book with those 
 
96 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 who stand before the Lamb. The covenant rainbow has one foot 
 on the book and the other on the throne where He sits and says 
 Amen, amen, they are Mine for ever and ever. Neither preach- 
 ing nor believing alters relationship of a soul in respect to elec- 
 tion. All they effect is showing who of earth are elect. 
 
 He. My mind is ill rested as to the impossibility of addition. 
 
 I. Suffer a question. How many have you in family ? 
 
 He. Eight, viz., myself, wife, four sons, and two daughters. 
 
 /. You know how many children you have, and doubt God 
 knowing how many He has. 
 
 He. That's the point. I may have more. I can't say. 
 
 /. But He can. All His adopted ones are inscribed upon the 
 Lamb's shining page. Hence human history ultimates in Christ 
 saying, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom 
 prepared for you from the foundation of the world." So that 
 redemption is exhausted in bringing these many sons to glory. 
 That you is identical with our of the Lord's Prayer, ivliosoever of 
 John iii. i6, the jeivels of Mai. iii. 17, the sheep of John x. ti, 
 and constitute the Catholic Church. Can you mean an indeter- 
 minate number ? 
 
 He. Certainly, for souls are ever trooping to the cross. 
 
 /. Of course it is indeterminate to us now, but it will 
 not be then, and God knows as much this day as we shall that 
 day. 
 
 He. I might get to like your doctrine were it not for the 
 thought of the lost who perish because not found there. 
 
 /. The book of salvation, like the Saviour, has nothing to do 
 with the wicked. All would perish had He not reserved a seed. 
 There is a famine in India. The Zemindar tries to save corn- 
 seed for happier days. All depends upon the preserved seed, 
 the hope of the future. The Lord preserves His elect, so that 
 their lot is told in this word, "Kept." As to complaining that 
 no more are chosen, the farmer, guided by common-sense, pre- 
 serves all he should, and Heaven does the same. I speak 
 advisedly, reverently, tremblingly, when saying God could not 
 save another soul than those saved in His gracious intention, 
 whose salvation is purposed, as seen in the book of life. God is 
 not scientific, nor science, but Omniscience — not mathematical, 
 but Mathema, doing all by weight, number, and measure. "He 
 telleth the number of the stars ; He calleth them all by names." 
 Between constellations are spaces called chasmata, as between 
 star and neighbour star is a chasm, a depth no man knoweth. 
 What would you think of astronomers saying, Those voids should 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 97 
 
 be filled ? That would destroy all stars, as then they must be 
 amalgamated into one, not a star, but a creational monstrosity, 
 a universal blunder. Chasms between stars, and gulfs between 
 the elect, have their origin in wisdom unfathomable. 
 
 He. I should like to hear more about this book of life, but 
 my pastor never alludes to it. Being a strong free-wilier, he 
 may have no heart therefor. Yet it seems there must be a 
 partialism about the filling in of that book, seeing all alike need 
 salvation, though none deserve it. 
 
 /. Allowing we neither deserve it nor can, how else is election 
 possible ? Paul says (Eph. i. 4), " He hath chosen us in Christ 
 before the foundation of the world, that ice should be holy and 
 without blame before Him ; in love having predestinated us unto 
 the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to 
 the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His 
 grace." It was done that we should be holy, that is, before the 
 world was, God seeing us ruined by the fall, and unable to rise 
 as a workman who has fallen from a steeple, determined to save 
 some. Those so chosen of the Father were the joy set before 
 the Son to be obtained for Him by the Spirit, as the best son of 
 Jacob said in Egypt, '' I am Joseph your brother," so He came 
 down to the Egj^pt of our world to reveal Himself to certain 
 brethren, those so named. Salvation is represented in various 
 aspects, but involving passivity on man's part, and many omni- 
 potence on His. It is a new birth. John iii. 5, Can I re- 
 generate myself? It is becoming a bone of Him (Eph. v. 30), 
 a member of His mystical body, i Cor. vi. 19; Ps. cxxxix. 16, 
 Can I engraft myself on Christ ? It is being a lively stone 
 (i Peter ii. 5 ; Eph. ii. 22), and built into the Temple of God 
 (i Cor. vi. 19). Can I make the stone alive? (Luke iii. 8), 
 and build it in ? It is quickening a corpse (Col. ii. 13). Can I 
 enliven the dead? It is a new creation (2 Cor. v. 17). Can I 
 create, make a saint out of the materials a sinner is composed 
 of ? It is being written in Heaven (Ptev. xiii. 8). Could I 
 record my name in the Lamb's book before God said, " Light 
 be"? It is being remembered of God (Isa. xlix. 16), "Behold, 
 I have engraven thee upon the palms of My hands ; thy walls 
 are continually before Me." A lover parts with his betrothed 
 at the old cottage door. Before he starts on his long and 
 perilous journey he tattoos her name on one hand and engraves 
 the house they courted in on the other. The High Priest might 
 put o£f the breastplate whereon were engraved the names of the 
 twelve tribes, that not one of these should be forgotten before 
 
 G 
 
98 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 God; but, says the Lord, "Thy walls are ever (not annually) 
 before Me." The five wounds of • Jesus place us^among the un- 
 forgotten. Can I tattoo my name on the Divine hand 1 It is 
 being an heir of God, a co-heir with Christ (Rom. viii. 17). Can 
 I make myself a son of God ? It is rising from the dead (Eph. v. 
 14). Can the dead in sin rise by native power to a life in Christ ? 
 
 He. You can do none of these, but can do something which 
 will save equally with anything or all you said — love God. 
 
 /. Indeed! how so, when Paul assures us that "the carnal 
 mind is enmity against God " ? (Rom. viii. 7). Had he said the 
 natural man was at enmity with God, we might think of bringing 
 him to, trying reason or persuasion ; but while the unregenerate 
 heart is enmity itself, I see no hope of prevailing upon enmity 
 to love. Man, take advice, become weak, for when we are with- 
 out strength Christ dies for us, but you are too strong to need 
 His emptying Himself of strength by death to infuse life into 
 you, when you have such reserves of spiritual force. 
 
 He. I perceive a charm about that sort of thing, yet am 
 offended that we should, to the dishonour of manliness, be dealt 
 with like stones to be built in an edifice. 
 
 /. AVas not Adam clay-fashioned as God would in Eden, and 
 you as He would in the womb ? If you received natural form, 
 and this first world, passively, be sure your spiritual form, 
 regeneration, and that last world are also received as clay to the 
 mould or wax to the seal. There can be no power apart from 
 His regulation. All power may be said to be God flowing 
 through straight (holy) or crooked (sinful) channels, empowering 
 free agents, after which they act wickedly in certain cases. All 
 jDhenomena is resolvable into that formula, and none but the 
 superficialist is deceived by the supposition that any creature has 
 independent power. 
 
 He. If it be as }'ou say, it is a serious matter to know whether 
 one's name is there. Can one attain that knowledge ? I meet 
 with few who profess so much. 
 
 L A man is not a Christian unless Christ dwells in him, and 
 he in Him. Every such Christian is nam.ed there, but few so 
 believe, because most Christians are legalist, look more or less 
 to personal obedience for their title to mansions in the skies. 
 Imagine that a palace being given me, I distress myself about 
 adding some thousands of home-made bricks, instead of leaving 
 perfection alone. Some Christians fear to take their Lord's 
 Supper through a sense of shortcoming. They try to add a wing 
 to the palace, but after their labour are dissatisfied. They do not 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 99 
 
 see Jehovah is their righteousness. Their ambition is to be saved 
 saints. They are not content to say daily, " Our Father, forgive 
 us our trespasses." The moral law is a guide as to conduct, not 
 a source of justification through obedience. Every Christian sins 
 as to Moses, which does not prejudice his justification, seeing it 
 stands on relationship to Christ. His Judge looks at his Sub- 
 stitute, but he looks at himself, the result being God is well 
 pleased with him, while he is ill pleased with himself. The 
 consciousness of indwelling sin, the memory of defective service, 
 extrudes assurance, which, after all, is but believing unquiver- 
 ingly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," for time 
 nor eternity. 
 
 He. I don't see how a man can be a Christian and violate the 
 Decalogue in any one of its ten members. 
 
 /. You allow that there are Christians. Half the command- 
 ments are told in one sentence : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself." Not as well as thyself, for we could fulfil that by 
 loving him little and ourself much, but as much as thyself. How 
 many do you know who so do ? I will not say from their natural 
 birth, but from the day of their being born again ? 
 
 He. To tell the truth, not one. 
 
 /, Well, you believe they are Christians, though they sin. 
 That teaches us that a man is saved not in view of his life, but 
 of the life and death of his Lord. The supreme temptation of 
 Christ and Christian is one. AVhen Satan tempted Jesus, he led 
 off with, " T/'Thou be the Son of God." The brethren of our Lord 
 cast at Him the same wicked monosyllable, "i/ Thou doest these 
 things." So the Pharisees at the cross, these all being under one 
 mal-inspiration, doubting Sonship, Avhich, if transferred to the 
 Son, or a son, the result would be fatal to all in Christ, while in 
 the latter it is only discomforting. The Devil never denies God, 
 but affirms He has no sons. If we be cut oft" from Fatherhood we 
 are weak as other men, and are Satan's prey. 
 
 He. But is there not danger of such belief as being inalienably 
 a child of God 1 It might lead to reckless living. 
 
 /. The natural belief always does (self-election) ; but when the 
 Spirit photographs Abba ! on the believer's heart by Divine love, 
 it will not injure, but sustain. The resources of God are endless. 
 God keeps humble in ten thousand diverse ways, surrounding a 
 man with circumstances and influences, ballasting any sail power. 
 " He giveth grace for grace." " To him that hath shall be given." 
 Such know election, though food for gratitude is none for pride, 
 being a humbling doctrine. 
 
loo CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. I see nothing humbling about it. 
 
 /. Consider the crucified robbers. Had the elect man anything 
 to boast of ? 
 
 He. However, he was not only a sinner, but a criminal. 
 
 /. We may leave his criminality out of sight, as that has to do 
 with the magistrate, but sin relates to God. Every elect son is 
 chosen as he, and is saved from eternal death by grace. I even 
 say election argues as great shame to us as glory to God, and that 
 is as true of an elect angel as of an elect man. I see a man about 
 to take a header into the cold Clyde ; if I do not grip him he will 
 be a suicide. Will he have anything to be proud of as to being 
 alive to-morrow ? All moral creatures commit self-destruction, or 
 wuU, unless elective grace intervenes. " Without Me ye can do 
 nothing," but ill. The elect are one in Almighty Love, who else 
 would be many in creature hatred. John says (Rev. xix.), " After 
 these things I heard a great voice of much people in Heaven say- 
 ing. Alleluia ! " Much, not many, they being not maiiy ones like 
 the wicked, but one company in One. So Eev. xx. 12, "The 
 books were opened ; and another book was opened, which is of 
 life." Books, many for the wicked, book for the just, answering 
 "Be there few saved?" If selected, we might have reason for 
 pride, but election being from guilt, without works, is humbling. 
 Observe that book is not a chronicon, an account of acts done at 
 times, but an eterniton, the naked names of persons loved from 
 eternity. Nothing about age, action, position, nation, nor title, they 
 being loved apart from any revealed consideration or known cause. 
 
 He. Now we part. Hear your lack of liberality. I go in for 
 a great salvation, Christ having the numerical preponderance. 
 
 /. God's people are many in themselves, though few in com- 
 parison. It is so in any part of Glasgow. That Christ's glory 
 demands He should save more than are finally saved, I deny. 
 It was not so in the days of Noah, nor will it be in the day of the 
 Son of Man. God dispenses mercy in a variable manner as to 
 accidentals, but in an unchanging way as to essence, whether in 
 the Patriarchal, Mosaic, or Christian worlds, or ages, and there 
 is now a world to come, the Millennial, when His elect shall 
 be ingathered from those ages of grace into that of glory, but 
 then there will be more in the aggregate than the sum of the 
 wicked no man can show. We cannot alter His arrangements 
 by liberalising our views. Had you been in the Ark, I suppose 
 you would have said. Come here. Ham, give a hand to heave 
 this pair of elephants overboard, and make room for shrieking 
 women and drowning bairns. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED loi 
 
 He. I hope so, nor do I see any wrong in the course, but 
 the opposite ; I would have made the Ark into a lifeboat. 
 
 I. It would simply be preference of your wish and ignorance 
 to God's will and wisdom. He had said: "Come thou and all 
 thy house into the Ark." We read of Noah opening the window, 
 but God opened the door. Surely he was not to have any with 
 Him not invited. A gentleman asks me to dine, and I take 
 twenty women, each with a child in her arms, off the street, and 
 say, A dinner is just the thing for them as well as for me, so 
 I have brought these hungry ones. Surely he would say, Well, 
 Mr. Long, I admire your liberality, though not your sense, in in- 
 viting visitors to my table. You have a right to call whom you 
 2vill to your oivn house, and I a 'parallel light to ask whom I prefer 
 to mine. Every one says that is fair in man, and I plead it is 
 so in God. " Blessed are they that are called to the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb," by the Lamb. Noah called 120 years and 
 none came. Christ calls whom He will, and each is obedient to 
 vocation. As for the Calvinistic view of election s^eneratino: 
 pride, self-election, or selection, the Arminian doctrine must 
 cause it. You hold we are all sinful and unable to help ourselves, 
 but if we ask God to help us to save ourselves He will answer 
 prayer, and we shall become elect. Whereby we save ourselves, 
 God helping us, and make ourselves to differ from the unchosen, 
 which shows good sense, and differentiates us from the stupid 
 unchosen. Howbeit, He saith (Rom. xi. 7), "The election (of 
 God) hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." The elect do 
 not obtain it, but receive it, whereby the door, pride, is shut with 
 a bang, while the gate, gratitude, is thrown wide open with a 
 swing. 
 
 He. Do you think it is the privilege of all believers to know 
 without doubt this full safety, in fact, be assured. 
 
 /. Certainly not. The Spirit hath a diversity of operation. 
 Christ rather brings salvation than gives assurance. Eight were 
 in the Ark, four men and their wives. Women are more timid 
 than men, and we can imagine the weaker vessels on board would 
 fear Ark-wreck while the men would be at peace, but the women 
 were as safe as they. I think multitudes imprisoned in Doubt- 
 ing Castle would go large if instructed in the plan of salvation, 
 were taught that we are the Lord's, not by act, but by relation- 
 ship, that repentance does not precede salvation, but follows it. 
 
 He. Stop, stop ! You are an awful man. Am I to turn 
 everything in the Bible upside down when you say sorrow for 
 sin and belief does not procure salvation 1 
 
I02 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. It took long for the world to see that the sun revolving 
 about the earth was phenomenal, but that actually the earth 
 revolved about it. As a man is either in the Ark Christ, or out 
 of Him, so he must either love God or not. Now, "He that is 
 born of God loveth," and he alone. The Spirit enters a man's 
 spirit, whereupon it becomes holy, he there and then becoming 
 a saint, the first manifestation of which is grief for sin. The 
 more we love a person, the more we grieve to injure or offend 
 him. Sorrow for sin is a manifestation of love to God. As we 
 have natural life unconsciously first, and consciously afterwards, 
 so we love unconsciously first, and consciously after. The first 
 emotion of evangelical anguish through sense of sin is the date 
 of regeneration. Liberty may not come for years. The chief 
 duty of the minister is to enfranchise his people, as Moses did. 
 
 He. I am puzzled w^ith your views of passivity in salvation, 
 almost driven to wish life had been mine in the days of the 
 prophets as they taught by similitudes. 
 
 I. Well, though no prophet, I will try my hand at so teaching, 
 only observing that what the Scriptures term similitudes we call 
 analogies, so to analogy we go. When our Lord wept over 
 Jerusalem, He used the figure of a hen and chickens ; I will get 
 near thereto by using eggs. Suppose that to please your boy he 
 is allowed a hen, and there are no other fowls in your neighbour- 
 hood. I place one of its eggs on a table. That egg is alive. If 
 dead it would soon rot. But it has only one passing life in it, 
 which may be killed by a change of temperature. I now place 
 another egg at its side procured from a farm. You inspect the 
 two, and see so little difference, that if covered with a cloth and 
 moved beneath, you could not tell your egg from mine. Placed 
 under a hen, and in a given time there comes out a bird. The 
 life of the first egg soon ceases, but the life of the second is cap- 
 able of development, transformation, and transmission, that the 
 first observer mnst have thought amazing, and we should too, did 
 not familiarity blunt the edge of wonder. The second may live 
 a thousand years, by transmission of life. The first not one. 
 The same reasoning applies to flowers in respect to pollen ; in fact, 
 this is the main feature of embryology, and holds good with every 
 fish, flower, fowl, yea, and every animal from midge to man. 
 
 He. Well, I believe that, for it is only a fragment of one page 
 of natural history, but has no connection with the plan of sal- 
 vation. 
 
 /. Analogically it has. I bring before you human beings, say 
 our old friends Esau and Jacob ; the former is the analogue of the 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 103 
 
 one-lifed egg, the latter the parallel of the two-lifed. Had we 
 broken our eggs we should have known which was doubly 
 vitalised. What placing those eggs under a hen does, i-ot one 
 and evolve life from the other, time did for Esau and Jacob. Not 
 only as to babies is this true, but as to angels. Say this is the 
 creation period when the Almighty flashed them into being in 
 happy myriads. Fix your attention on two of the archangels, 
 call one, as he is now called, Satan, and the other Uriel. Each 
 possesses angelic life, but great though that be, it is only 
 analogous to the first egg, but God in grace impregnates sover- 
 eignly Uriel with Himself, for He dwells in angel as in man, 
 He being His own seed of life, indivisible, or such creature will 
 morally rot as the first egg did physically. Eternity would do for 
 those two angels what years did for Isaac's children, and weeks 
 for the eggs. All of which means the creature can bring out 
 nothing but what God puts in naturally, or manifests through 
 him by the In dweller. Every creature works out his nature, and 
 neither brute, man, nor angel can change that nature. From 
 one point of view eternal life is to know (love) God, but that is 
 an effect of the Eternal templeising a soul. Now He is a spirit, 
 and a spirit is indivisible. The difference between impregnation, 
 demoniacal possession, and inhabitation by the Spirit, lies in this : 
 in impregnation one animal vivifies another, by imparting a por- 
 tion of itself, which it does because it is a life-giving material 
 being, and matter is divisible, the passive recipient having thereby 
 its life prolonged, though in a new form ; possession is one evil 
 spirit entering another for a season, whereby there is no differ- 
 ence of duration of life or nature brought about, but only the 
 passive recipient becomes more assimilated to the unclean pos- 
 sessor, and no creature spirit can possess another save for a por- 
 tion of the life of the possessed^ still less can one spirit possess 
 another for ever ; inhabitation of the Spirit is God dwelling once, 
 i.e., ever, and wholly in the subjects of Almighty favour. Is the 
 happy spirit an angel living at an era anterior to the fall of the 
 Devil and his angels ? such indwelling guarantees he cannot ally 
 himself with angelic rebeldom. Is a sinful son of apostate Adam 
 the one in whom he abides ? that entry instantly newly creates 
 him, whereby he becomes as holy as the Son of God, and ever so 
 remains. A demon dwells in one spirit for a period, He in any 
 number of spirits for ever. Analogy teaches that there is this 
 difference between angels and us : that in regenerate men the 
 Spirit entered at regeneration ; whereas, in the angels at creation, 
 i.e., they received a dualism of favour, hfe angelic, of which they 
 
I04 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 were conscious, and the divine life of which they were uncon- 
 scious, but the fact would be manifested by the crisis of the 
 angelic warfare. In keeping with this theory we see that in 
 cases of blood-transfusion, vaccination, inoculation, grafting a 
 human subject, ingrafting of plants, many forms of disease, 
 snake poison, and other modes of transmission of life, death, or 
 disease, there is one agent and one recipient. Vast fields of 
 operation in the economy of nature come under the same law for 
 which I contend — the absolute passivity of the sinner in salva- 
 tion. I call geology as a witness. The last born of the sciences 
 testifies that there was a period in our earth's history when its 
 strata was azoic, devoid of life. Sea and land needed inspiration, 
 and had it as certainly as the clay that became Adam. Reason 
 informs us, and experience coincides therewith, that life comes 
 from life. Seeing, then, that the earth was once lifeless, but now 
 replenished with various forms of organic life, it must have come 
 from Him who is life unbeginning, agreeably to Moses : '' The 
 earth was formless and void ; and darkness upon the face of the 
 deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 
 Brooded, hovered, dove-like, impregnating it with life natural. 
 The same holds good with the influx of light. How can darkness, 
 emptiness, be active ? In all these cases I call attention to the 
 thing done being an act, not a process. Take for example in- 
 oculation. The virus of variola, or pock-matter, is injected into 
 my veins, an act ; forty hours afterwards I fall ill and suffer day 
 by day, a process. Analogously, a spiritually dead man hears a 
 preacher say, " I will arise and go to my Father ; " the word enters 
 ear, heart, spirit, with vivifying force, an act ; resulting in tears, 
 groans, prayers, belief, peace, a life towards God, a process. 
 
 He. I willingly allow that when I saw you mixing up eggs, 
 babies, and angels, not much result was expected, but the matter 
 is plainer, the mystery of salvation lessened. Howbeit, two 
 objections intrude themselves unasked. Let me intrude them on 
 you. They are. You make salvation consist in the indwelling of 
 God as the flame dwelt in the Bush Moses saw, but He dwelt in 
 one Bush, how dwell in every redeemed soul for ever ? This 
 impregnation makes all creatures so absolutely dependent, that 
 one feels the force of the unbeliever opposing Paul : " Why, 
 then, doth He yet find fault ? " Could my child be punished 
 because I had not had him vaccinated ? 
 
 L In Christ Jesus the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, 
 and not as in creatures. Still, in a true sense, God gives a 
 Bethlehem to every ransomed man, as He entered Noah's Ark in 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 105 
 
 another form than He entered Noah. Every Christian is, in an 
 inferior sense, an incarnation of Christ his life, and no less truly 
 dwells not figuratively, but actually, literally, in every angel who 
 wears the Divine image. God is the only Person that can dwell 
 in many for ever. He is whole and entire in every house in 
 Glasgow, London, Shanghai, and in every portion of the unbounded 
 universe. Hell included, equally everywhere, but not equally 
 manifested. He is revealed in saved men, elect angels. His 
 Messiah in different degrees, but all is of present and unwith- 
 drawable indwelling. I once took a house, and found out its 
 unsuitability. He never acts so stupidly. Devils were exorcised 
 by good men : can Deity be exorcised by a wicked world ? As 
 for your last objection, my view making man so passive that it 
 sweeps away his responsibility, either God and the guilty must be 
 both active, both passive, or one active and the other passive. 
 Reason out the four problems, and nothing satisfies but the 
 activity of God and passivity of the guilty. It has been well 
 said, " Christ drove many men out of the Temple, but drove none 
 in." Driving out or in is a process more or less rapid, while 
 salvation, moral creation, vivification, is an act. God changes a 
 guilty being into a holy instantaneously, whereupon he makes 
 straight off for the Temple by sighing, crying, praying, yearning 
 for identification with His people, and at last enters with a cry 
 of joy, finding peace in Christ, and thereafter feeds by faith on 
 Him. You say. Would your child be punished for your not 
 vaccinating it ? If smallpox supervened it would. Let parents 
 neglect their children, and do not they suffer for life 1 It is use- 
 less saying. But our Father will not neglect us, for He is not our 
 Father unless we be born of Him. The supposed opponent of 
 Paul, who in reply to the doctrine of election and the sinner's 
 passivity said, ''Why doth He yet find fault?" reasoned as 
 Arminians, legalists, those holding salvation of human activity 
 always do, but, when doing so does not say. Why doth the Lord 
 God Almighty condemn the guilty ? but puts it in a contemptuous 
 style. Why doth He yet find fault? Beautiful yet! After 
 creature passivity is taught to find fault yet. The objector 
 brings down the great and dreadful God to He who finds fault, 
 Paul does not reason against it, but presents God and sinners 
 still upon the old immovable foundation, Potter and clay, the 
 apostles being like the Sibyl who took the nine books of fate to 
 Tarquin, the second time offering six, and the third time three, 
 but never lowering her price, so the Apostle won't give up the 
 Potter and clay, but falls back upon God's justice, saying, " Nay, 
 
io6 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? " The 
 temptation of the creature to do wrong lies in the supposition he 
 is advantaged, but what gain can come to God by wrong-doing ? 
 Now to do wrong for the sheer love of it is unthinkable in 
 respect to God. Therefore Reason as well as Abraham says, 
 " Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right ? " 
 
 He. I will force only this last question. Show that any crea- 
 tional act, whether natural or gracious, must be instantaneous. 
 
 7. Say it takes one year for a mechanic to make "Rex" the 
 automatic whist-player. Assuming the man retains natural 
 faculties in average vigour, will he not make it more quickly as 
 he gets experience ? But if unwell, he works more slowly. 
 Grant he has all knowledge and all skill, he will make a " Rex " 
 in a moment too quick for you to observe. It is so with the 
 resurrection of the body. The dead in Christ will leap to life 
 with perfect bodies in an atom of time, so that should the 
 Christian dispensation end at 12 p.m., and the resurrection follow, 
 every redeemed man stands upon the earth in resurrection beauty 
 before the second stroke. That is redemption, but salvation is as 
 rapid. 
 
Time. — FRIDAY, Eight o'clock p.m. 
 Place.— SOUTH OF NELSON'S MONUMENT. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 He. 
 A SociNiAN Doubter. 
 
 /. 
 
 An Orthodox Believer. 
 
 Point of Contention. 
 
 The Divinity of Jesus. 
 
 He. I wonder that with the attention you give to the Bible 
 you make so little progress, fail to see the plan of salvation. 
 
 /. Then give a lift, pity dnlness, and show the true way. 
 
 He. That is so obvious it needs no showing, yet here it is 
 do right and you need not talk of atonement, nor mercy ; you 
 will be free from fear, and suffer no temptation to whine after 
 pardon. 
 
 /. Excellent ! when should I begin ? 
 
 He. When ? why, now, surely. 
 
 /. But I am a Protestant, weighing every article of my creed 
 twice, viz., in the balances of the sanctuary, and the scales of 
 reason, else how could mine be a reasonable service ? 
 
 He. Well, what of your weighing ? My propositions are so 
 rational that I fear nothing. My statements, when weighed, 
 will not be found wanting. 
 
 /. So being into the scales they go. Convinced by you, 
 suppose I do good from now, how about till now 1 Will He 
 who commands allegiance, obedience, and love to neighbours be 
 content with their being rendered for the last of my days when 
 for half a century I have not done so ? Moreover, I have no 
 
 I07 
 
io8 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 hope of keeping the Law of God from now, and reason rejects 
 the idea of satisfying our Judge by partial obedience. Revela- 
 tion assures us that, " Without shedding of blood is no re- 
 mission." Having done my best I repent of excesses and defects, 
 conscious the while that such incomplete obedience and con- 
 trition only fit me to appreciate the satisfaction offered by my 
 Elder Brother. Thus my reason, experience, and revelation 
 coincide in dissenting from your propositions. 
 
 He. My dear fellow, you drop as easily from blunder to 
 blunder as monkeys from branch to branch. You speak of 
 trusting to something offered by some one. I suppose you mean 
 Jesus, whom you orthodox term God's Son, instead of depending 
 upon your own resources. If you say that He on whom you 
 depend is more a Son of God than you or myself, I beg, with 
 all courtesy, to tell you that such language is drivel, to which 
 I am ill fitted to listen. 
 
 /. If we take the Book for guide we read (Luke i. 32), ''He 
 (i.e., He only) shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the 
 Highest." As Jesus was born before Joseph and Mary married, 
 this dilemma presents itself — He was base born, or the Divine 
 Son. That Christianity should have as its founder, hero, example, 
 and martyr the natural offspring of Jew peasants, is too dreadful 
 to be more than stated, consequently you must throw aside the 
 Book, or settle down to — His Eternal Sonship. Throwing aside 
 the Book you cannot argue about God, for no nation knew or 
 knows of God unless by revelation, so that you are logically 
 bound to believe in the Incarnation, polytheism or atheism. 
 There is your trilemma. Choose one of three. 
 
 He. Be it as you say, and I elect the last, for mythology is 
 out of the question, and theology is a poor advance upon it, if 
 I am asked by John i. 14 to believe " The Word was made 
 flesh," where clearly he means Christ, and teaches He is spirit. 
 In the name of outraged science how could spirit become flesh, 
 matter ? The stripling in thought knows that matter and spirit 
 essentially differ. The Papists, seizing this folly, say God was 
 made flesh — Mary was mother of that flesh — so she was mother 
 of God. Atheism is an uncomfortable vacuum, but here is stench 
 and choke-damp. I cannot live in either, but seek a more con- 
 genial medium. 
 
 /. Should you point to one portion of the gospels and prove 
 it irrational, I cast aside the four. John says nothing about 
 Bethlehem, the song of the angels, visit of shepherds, adoration 
 of Magi, flight into Egypt, slaughter of innocents, &c., not 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 109 
 
 because Matthew and Luke ^o, but wishing to impress his reader 
 with the doctrine of Christ's Eternal Sonship, omitted such 
 portion of His biography, as might lead to the thought our Lord 
 became Son at Bethlehem, whereas He was that of old, ere time 
 was. Incarnation did not give Sonship, but manifested it. 
 Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, tracing Him from 
 Abraham, while Luke iii. traces the Son of Man from the first 
 man, but John cannot give a genealogy longer than this — 
 "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God." "The Word was made 
 flesh," should be, "The Word became flesh," being elliptical, for 
 "The Word became manifest in the flesh." See i Tim. iii. 
 16. Our Lord is termed "The Word," similarly to our usage. 
 We say, Have you had word from America'? meaning, have 
 you been informed of the will and intention of some one you 
 love who lives afar. As a letter lets you know what he means 
 to do or desires, so Christ lets us know from afar what God wills 
 and intends. 
 
 He. Allowing that to pass, I protest against the liberty taken 
 with the text by altering it from "was made" to "became." 
 
 /. It is defended by this : egeneto, the original, is frequently 
 translated became. When we say the boy became a man, egeneto 
 is the correspondent. Make it " was made," and then our Lord 
 was passive as to Incarnation, howbeit He was active in that 
 as in crucifixion. Respecting the mode of death He said, " I 
 lay down My life of Myself; no man taketh it from Me." He 
 took life and gave up the ghost, neither of which can be strictly 
 affirmed of other men. The ghost is taken from men, they dying, 
 as born, passively. No Protestant believes that God was made 
 flesh, spirit was materialised. As to maternity, a woman is 
 mother only of what is formed of her and in her. Your mother 
 was not the mother of your spirit, it not being formed of her 
 (spirit), nor in her (body). Yet your spirit is manifested through 
 her. But neither the human spirit of Jesus, nor the Divine 
 Spirit of Christ, were formed either of her or in her. Therefore 
 Mary could not be the mother of God, though He was manifested 
 through the flesh formed of her as your inner self is manifested 
 through the flesh formed of your mother. 
 
 He. You little see how glibly you pass from error to error. 
 Trying to render Incarnation credible you utter a dogma more 
 preposterous, the eternal Sonship. Do you not know that ex- 
 perience, all common-sense, suffer violence when Son and Father 
 are made coeval, of an identical age ? 
 
 /. No, certainly not. You rightly call God the Everlasting 
 
no CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 Father, which could not be unless He had an Everlasting Son, 
 for son is correlative with father, as husband and wife, creditor 
 and debtor. Moreover, you allow that '' God is love." We know 
 of nothing more trying than to be affectionate, and want an ap- 
 propriate object on which to bestow affection. Hence, certain 
 persons keep pets, as monkeys, cats, &c., which fail to satisfy 
 because unequal to owners, and therefore unable to receive high 
 forms of regard ; your theory reduces God to the analogue of an 
 aged bachelor feeding pigeons. Hear Him say (Zech. xi. 9), 
 "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man 
 that is My felloiu, saith Jehovah Sabaoth," the Lord of armies, 
 the strong One. That sword awoke when the apostles forsook 
 the Shepherd, awoke to wounding in Gethsemane and Gabbatha, 
 to slaying on Golgotha. Then He hastened (John xx. 17) to the 
 bosom of the Father. 
 
 He. That does not touch the difficulty of man's experience 
 being violated by making father and son of the same age. 
 
 /. Surely you have not lived a generation without knowing 
 that such is always the case. 
 
 He. Now, observe, I have my patience heavily drawn on by 
 listening to absurdities, but if you persist in repeating that I 
 must walk away in utter disgust. 
 
 /. But I will prove that parent and child must be identical as 
 to age, and proof allows of no reply. Let me help myself by an 
 illustration. A man marries at twenty, at thirty a son is born to 
 him, at forty of the man what age is the father ? what the son ] 
 
 He. Your question is its own answer. The father is forty and 
 his son ten. 
 
 /. Impossible, for thereby you make the man a father all his 
 life, whereas it is patent he has been a father only ten years, 
 which is his son's age. It would be equally true of a grandfather 
 and grandson, and the contrast renders it more striking. You 
 are to consider the persons in one relationship, whereas you mix 
 man and father. 
 
 He. That is just quibbling. 
 
 I. If so, come down on the fallacy, for it avails nothing in 
 argument to say a thing is wrong unless you give proof. 
 
 He. You folks make a vast deal out of these eighteen verses. 
 Tell me when Christ began if not at Bethlehem 1 
 
 I. Jehovah, the / am, is the absolute, the unrelated. We think 
 of Him as such before creation, and its consequent time, which 
 marks its duration. Jehovah became God whensoever He put 
 forth His creative power. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED in 
 
 He. Lend me your hand. When you speak of becoming God 
 you are no longer orthodox. 
 
 ■/. Not so fast. God is Jehovah related by Creatorship ; it is 
 the Lord relating Himself, for God is a word indicating forthput 
 of power in making and preserving. As Jehovah is presented as 
 God by reason of creating, the second person of the glorious 
 Trinity became Christ in view of the then coming fall of man, 
 for Christ is a relationship the Son enters into respecting the 
 salvation of His brethren, the adopted of His Father. He could 
 not be Christ at the creation, because the order runs thus : 
 creation, time, man, fall, recovery. In respect to divinity thus : 
 Jehovah — God — Christ — Jesus, in this way Deity arrives at 
 humanity, all saving relationship coming from the Absolute, the 
 I am, Who is independent and unrelated. 
 
 He. That Christ should be the eternal Son is flat opposition to 
 Psalm ii. 7, "Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee." 
 Before the period termed " this day," He was not the Son, to say 
 nothing of being so eternally. 
 
 /. The awful name of God is Jehovah. / am, the Now. No 
 words can express eternal generation but " this day," now, per- 
 petually going on, which was and is, and is to come. It is not 
 / did beget Thee, a matter of the past, but "have I," a process still 
 going on. "Begotten" cannot be used in the human sense, as 
 that involves a co-respondent. Of course we skirt the edge of an 
 abyss, but enough has been presented to disprove your assertion. 
 
 He. I fail to see any proof, but find an accumulation of testi- 
 mony in favour of the inferiority of Christ to God, and if inferior, 
 not Divine. Of many texts take this (i Cor, xv. 24, 28), "Then 
 cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom 
 to God, even the Father; when the Father shall have put down 
 all rule and all authority and power. And when all things shall 
 be subdued unto the Father, then shall the Son also Himself be 
 subject unto Him, that God may be all in all." 
 
 1. You manifestly err when teaching if inferior in opce, not 
 equal in nature. Father and Son, whether human or Divine, 
 must be equal as to nature. The highest angel does not get 
 beyond the angelic natiu-e, nor does the lowest brute get below 
 animal nature. Sire and son must needs be of the same kind, 
 nature. Only grant that Father and Son are applicable to God 
 and Christ, and equality as to nature follows. But that implies 
 co-eternity, their oneness, because a temporary creature could 
 not become co-equal with his Eternal Creator, the gulf between 
 being infinite. This is my view of your text. When the 
 
112 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 economy of grace, over which Christ presides, ends, that kingdom 
 of Heaven shall be delivered up to God the Father who sent God 
 the Son to establish it. But this can only be when the Father 
 has subdued all opposing powers : " Ask of Me, and I shall give 
 the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the 
 earth for Thy possession." When His bright designs become 
 accomplished facts, His mediatorial kingdom having passed away, 
 the redeemed will not approach the Father by the Son, as now, 
 but worship Jehovah direct, as wont was when neither angels nor 
 men had rebelled. Jesus wears five glory wounds, stigmata of 
 His passion, medals won in His campaign against the powers of 
 Death and Hell. Then they close. With them He makes inter- 
 cession, not by words, but as the High Priest entered the holiest 
 (Lev. xvi. 14), with blood telling of an atonement completed, "It 
 is finished," We end petitions with, " For Christ's sake." It 
 will not so be when He delivers up the Kingdom. But suppose 
 this incorrect, you cannot be right, for these verses tell of God 
 the Father doing all things in respect to some One, and that One 
 doing all in relation to Him, and yet with this reciprocity, they 
 are not only unequal, but One is eternal while the other is an 
 ex-carpenter, the illegitimate son of a Galilean peasant. Why 
 should God put all things under the feet of a mere man, such 
 a man 1 Christ must have the wisdom to rule all things 
 (matter, men, angels), or His reign would end with induction 
 and coronation. 
 
 He. That is inferential, while the Scriptures teach explicitly 
 that Jesus Christ was ignorant. Now that gulf between infinite 
 knowledge and ignorance on one point is impassable, being as 
 wide as that between Creator and creature. Language cannot be 
 plainer than (Mark xiii. 30-32) "Amen, I say unto you, that 
 this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. 
 Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but My words shall not pass 
 away. But of that da}^ and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
 angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." 
 You must allow He erred as to all being fulfilled. It won't do to 
 say the prophecy referred to Jerusalem being burnt, for He adds, 
 " Of that day knoweth no man," whereas Daniel foretold its 
 destruction as to time (ix. 26). It can refer only to time's end, 
 and it is clear He knew not when this economy would terminate. 
 
 /. Generation is used in two senses, one applicable to those 
 then living, and found its terminus in the destruction of the city 
 by Titus and the ending of the Jewish economy; the other 
 meaning has the force of breed, seed, stock, race, or nation, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 113 
 
 as when John said, "Ye generation of vipers," which looks to 
 the destruction of the world, and the ending of the Christian 
 economy. He does not say, This generation ivill not pass aioay, 
 speaking not as His servants the prophets, but as Son, to whom 
 all judgment is committed. This is He, able to keep the Jews 
 in being until doomsday. When w^e see their synagogue on 
 Garnethill instead of Zion's hill, have we no proof of that awful 
 "Shall not pass away"? He used language like a maniac or 
 God : " Heaven and earth shall pass away," hardly fits the lips 
 of an ex-tradesman. 
 
 He. I admire not your power of exposition, but artfulness in 
 evasion. You do not condescend to look at the difficulty — " No 
 man, no angel, nor the Son knoweth, but the Father." That levels 
 Jesus with us ; He knows some things, but not others, as do we. 
 
 /. As a Socinian you hold Jesus was a mere man, while v. 32 
 puts Him above all men and every angel. 
 
 He. Let it be so, and the rock of difficulty is unremoved. 
 Clearly the supremacy of the Father's knowledge is affirmed. 
 Let Jesus know less than the Father, and Godhead is out of the 
 question, for Divinity cannot graduate as divinity students do. 
 
 /. Turn to Gen. xxii. 11, "Abraham, Abraham: and he 
 said. Here am I. And He said. Lay not thine hand upon the 
 lad : for now I know that thou fearest God." It is impossible 
 that God could discover ; whence / hnoio can only mean / have 
 made hiown. The 'Lord saw his loyalty, and developed it from 
 heart to hand, that the Catholic Church should, from age to 
 age, have the advantage of such exemplary faith. "No man, 
 when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place." 
 The Lord transformed Moriah into a beacon by placing thereon 
 Abraham. When He was about to judge the world He sent 
 Noah to signify the act and make known the time, 120 years. 
 When the sinful cities of the fruitful plain were to be destroyed, 
 two angels were commissioned to make the time known. So 
 Jonah is missioned to Nineveh, and Assyrians are warned of the 
 fatal forty days. When Jerusalem was to be destroyed, Daniel 
 made known the time, 490 years. AVhen the world which now is, 
 is to be destroyed. He commissioned neither man, angel, nor Son 
 to make known the precise time. Here is no limitation of 
 knowledge, but of commission ; and having the form of a servant, 
 He must not exceed instructions. But He knew (Acts i. 7) : " It 
 is not for you to know the time and the seasons which the Father 
 hath put in His own power," it is for Me, not you. Ye are 
 servants, I the Son. 
 
 H 
 
114 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. That is a well-put evasion. You are like a ram butting 
 another, yet instead of running at him, runs by him. In fact, 
 had you truly removed the difficulty it would avail little, as the 
 gospels bristle with similar. See Matt, xxxviii. i8, "All power 
 is given unto Me in Heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with 
 you alway." Even you see that if all power was given previous 
 to such gift He had it not, and therefore could no more be omni- 
 potent than omniscient, neither knowing day nor hour when a 
 fixed future event would occur. 
 
 7. How foolish you would be to give a twenty-pound note to 
 children playing. The French came to grief in 1870, because in 
 1 848 they gave Napoleon more power than he could use. If 
 our Lord receives all power, celestial and terrestrial. He possesses 
 all wisdom to wield so weighty a sceptre. Thus, then. He stands, 
 God revealed. No man, as a man, could receive so great a gift, 
 but He was able. He was no angel, and as we know of no moral 
 agents but men, angels, God, I claim Him divine. 
 
 He. If so, why, ^' is given " ? as Divinity ever has it. 
 
 /. Because for thirty-three years He wore a servant's habili- 
 ments, but was then free to re-clothe with the glory had with His 
 Father before the world was. When hungering in the corn-field 
 He was as potent as on the slope of Olivet, but there was the 
 hiding of power. Paul means no less (Phil. ii. 5-7), " Christ Jesus 
 being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal 
 with God ; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon 
 Him the form of a servant." Only the Son assumes the servant's 
 form, as each man and every angel is a servant. But turn to 
 your text, for a master's style : Teach what I have commanded. 
 Look, "I am with you." A man might say. Teach the com- 
 mandments of God as I taught them. After that He could 
 promise nothing as to being with them. Had He said, I loill he 
 with some of you, they would have asked which ? when 1 With 
 the I AM there is no when — all is now. 
 
 He. That text is often quoted as a proof of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, but that three should be one, or one three, is so absurd, 
 that I smile at Trinitarians. 
 
 /. So should I, if they taught that three is one, or one three, 
 as you do. They teach that Moses warned the sons of Jacob 
 thus (Dent. vi. 4), "Hear, Israel, Jehovah, our Elohim, one 
 Jehovah." The unity is in Jehovah, plurality in Elohim. The 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 115 
 
 Divinity is one as to nature, three as to persons. If it were said, 
 three natures in one nature, or one person in three persons, your 
 objection would be valid. 
 
 He. You have not much helped your lame doctrine. I read 
 of three persons, say, Alexander, Csesar, and Charlemagne, and 
 they had the same human nature, but I fail to see they consti- 
 tuted a trinity. 
 
 /. Your error lies herein — you do not know the mode, manner, 
 how of Divine unity. How should you, when we do not under- 
 stand how we think, dream, live. I point you out a man 
 weighing twelve stone. That impalpable thing a thought enters 
 his mind, and instantly the temperature of his body rises several 
 degrees, and He is suffused with perspiration. Describe how 
 he thought, and how that thought affected every square inch of 
 his skin. Seeing we do not understand ourselves, our own nature, 
 how understand that of God, whom no man seeth ? 
 
 He. It is no use, then, telling me of the doctrine, for I cannot 
 believe what I do not understand. 
 
 /. Indeed ! you can believe the fact though not understand 
 how. I show you the egg of a lark. When it is hatched its 
 contents warbles in the welkin, no man knoweth how. Now, as 
 I know the lark trills, I as certainly know that this doctrine is 
 revealed, a correct statement concerning the Deity, but Jwtv is 
 not revealed. Your three men cut a poor figure living in different 
 ages and put over against the Co-eternal Three. Make them co- 
 temporary, and you are no forwarder, because of the diversity of 
 character, thought, and feeling. Had you imagined that there 
 were three men who did all the functions of life simultaneously, 
 when one ate the two did so, and the three always slept for the 
 same time, held the same views, &c., I fancy you would see more 
 of a unity. But we have nothing to do with trying to draw a 
 line round Jehovah Elohim, and stating more about Deity than 
 we can about humanity. Analogy lends some little aid, as when 
 • John says, "God is light," light being three in one. Red, blue, 
 and yellow, which combine into white. But we have nothing 
 to do as to whether this doctrine is comprehensible. Our position 
 is : Is it revealed to the honest Bible reader ? 
 
 He. But I claim our right to ask another question : Is this 
 doctrine contrary to reason ? and should reason reply it is, I 
 demand the right of rejection. 
 
 /. Pray use it, but you have not shown it is contrary. You 
 are body, soul, and spirit, but cannot define the bounds of each, 
 though tripartite cannot limit the relationships of the three 
 
6 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 factors in the great sum of humanity, cannot determine with 
 exactitude their action and interaction upon each other. Is it 
 not irrational, being yourself tripartite, but ignorant how, that 
 you deny Tri-unity to Jehovah Elohim, because you say with 
 Nicodemus, "How can these things be'"? On your principles 
 there could be no Son of God. 
 
 He. You make more of this Son of God relationship than 
 it deserves. All men and angels are sons, so that Jesus is one 
 of many. 
 
 /. Converted men are the sons of God by regeneration and 
 adoption. Honourable as that position is, one side of it reflects 
 dishonour — the fact of needing regeneration implies antecedent 
 sinfulness, while adoption implies a previously lower moral 
 status, but anything lower than good is bad. Angels are sons 
 by creation, involving inferiority. The Son knows no anterior 
 inferiority. 
 
 He. So you say, thereby begging the question. A little proof 
 might prove refreshing. 
 
 /. Why persist in standing on the same platform as dis- 
 believing Jews 1 John v. i8, "The Jew^s sought the more to kill 
 Him, because He said God was His Father, making himself equal 
 with God." All possessing human nature are equally men, 
 whether parents or offspring ; so Father, Sod, Spirit having one 
 Divine Nature are God, having a unity the human race cannot 
 parallel. Jesus was sacrificed upon this plea. Listen to these 
 awesome words recorded in Matt. xxvi. 67,, "The high priest 
 answered and said unto Him, I adjure Thee (put Thee on Thine 
 oath) by the living God, that Thou tell us w^hether Thou be the 
 Christ, the Son of God ? Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said," ^.e., 
 yea. For this He died. "When being crucified His old enemies 
 said, " If Thou be the Son of God " ? The commonality were ripe 
 for His being the Christ, or even for John being that, but claiming 
 Sonship, forsook Him as going too far. Many then, before, or since 
 claimed Messiahship ; but none before, then, or since Sonship. 
 
 He. 1 decline holding that Christ is God until you show where 
 He terms Himself so. 
 
 /. Then it cannot be done. Do scholars, beauties, wealthy 
 persons, athletes say I am such ? So saying would be self-insult. 
 They show what they are, leaving others to say it. Jesus did not 
 say "I am Divine," but eulightened the blind, healed the maimed, 
 stilled the storm, and raised the dead. 
 
 He. After long study I am convinced there can be but one 
 person in the Godhead, therefore you waste all you state. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED i 
 
 /. Answer me : Is it lawful to worship besides God ? 
 
 He. Assuredly not. 
 
 /. Who only in ancient and modern times is called the 
 Lamb ? 
 
 He. Jesus, I suppose, for John calls him so. 
 
 I. Let us follow the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth for 
 information. Peter writes : " Ye were redeemed by the precious 
 blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish." When John 
 said : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of 
 the world," the same is referred to. Another John saw through 
 a door open in Heaven more than a hundred millions of angels 
 worshipping the Lamb. That could not be civil worship, could 
 be no less than celestial adoration. In Heaven, mistakes in 
 worship are unknown. Yet you accuse the orthodox of idolatry 
 for singing, "Jesus, lover of my soul," when they but do what 
 the upper choir do ! You affirmed that God only is to be wor- 
 shipped, but as the Lamb is adored, it follows the Lamb of God 
 is God, even as the Son of God is God. "Abraham said, My 
 son, God w^ill provide Himself a lamb;" and he has, "The Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world." I claim every angel 
 on our side, and plead Ps. xcvii. 7, Heb. i. 6, " Let all the 
 angels of God worship Him." But Christendom honours the Son 
 as they honour the Father. The rest of the world are idolaters, 
 as Hindoos, Africans, &c. It follows that Unitarians only in 
 two worlds are free from idolatry. John did not say to them in 
 vain : " Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 
 
 He. Well, I must say our position is, in your eyes, unique, 
 a minority, certainly ; still bear with me until feasible reasons are 
 given for believing the Deity of Him whom you claim it for. 
 
 /. It is proved by (A) what He said, (B) did not say, (C) 
 did, (D) did not do, (E) what was said of Him without rebuke, 
 (F) what w^as done to Him without reproof. But seeing that 
 some of these blend, my recital shall not be guilty of the sacrilege 
 of rending such asunder. As to (A) what He said, I remind 
 you of only a few samples: "I am the Light of the world." 
 How great to say, / am the Itglit of this age ! " I give eternal 
 life unto My sheep." " Here is One greater than Jonah, Solomon, 
 the Temple, (who is) Lord of the Sabbath." " I and My Father 
 are One." " Thy sins be forgiven thee." To the leper, " Be clean." 
 To the waves, "Peace." To the dead, "Arise." Should more be 
 asked, these awful words supply all in (ne sentence, " I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life," meaning, I idll raise every dead man to 
 life and keep Mm alive for ever. Great as these are, more striking 
 
Ii8 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 follow. John iv. 26, " / am who am speaking to thee ; " viii. 24, 
 "If ye believe not that / am, ye shall die in your sins; " v. 58, 
 "Amen, amen, I say unto you, before Abraham was, / am;" 
 Matt. XX viii, 20, "Look, / am with you alway." This is abso- 
 lutely inimitable, even in mockery. No man ever used language 
 after that manner before or since. It is either Divine or unin- 
 telligible. But no part of John's gospel written to teach His 
 divinity affects my mind like chapter xviii. When the soldiers 
 and mob sought Him, "Jesus saith unto them, / am. And 
 Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood with them. As- soon 
 then as He had said unto them, / am, they went backward, and 
 fell to the ground. Then asked He them again. Whom seek ye ? 
 and they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told 
 you that / a??z." He hid His power when ranks of foes fell, or 
 they would have perished to a man, and the edge of Gethsemane 
 would have been a greater Perez Uzzah, for they were about to 
 lay rude hands on the Ark, but He restrained power, for that 
 was not the great day of the wrath of the Lamb, but of bearing 
 wrath. How clearly the threefold assertion with power, / amsliip, 
 was then made ! ! ! In nothing is the fourth gospel more unique 
 than in this — it records our Lord employing the formula peculiar 
 to Himself thirty-six times, which cannot be explained by refer- 
 ring the use of / am to that place or period, for it is not in harmony 
 with Eastern usage. Being the / am He could necessarily add 
 thereto the resurrection and the life, for the latter is an outflow from 
 the former (the unrelated is the root of relationship), and this 
 truth, which is death to Christadelphianism, for if any have a 
 resurrection and after that fail of life, Christ vacates that lofty 
 throne, "I am the life." The guarantee to Hell and Heaven is the 
 same. In each world they live of justice through the power of 
 Christ. Death in either world would be the undeifi cation of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man having power over all flesh to 
 give and continue life. "In Him we live," so that complete 
 death to any reflects failure upon Him. 
 
 He. Before giving (B), let me say you forgot John x. 29, "My 
 Father is greater than all," which renders what you said futile 
 and valueless. If the Father be greater, the Son is unequal. 
 
 I. As to oflSce, yea ; as to nature, nay. Now nature is un- 
 changeable, but office varies. The Father sent, the Son became 
 the Sent, serving for our sakes, and it is too bad when He un- 
 clothed Himself of ancient glory parallel to John xiii. 4, that we 
 might be clothed upon of honour, we should upbraid Him for be- 
 coming a servant, that we might become sons. As that He was less 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 119 
 
 than the Father, but when He spoke the proper language of the 
 Son, He could say ( John x. 30), " I and My Father are One," 
 whereas we can never say that in the absolute sense used by 
 Him. 
 
 He. Well, I won't contend about it now, so go on with (B), as 
 I want to see what you can say thereanent. 
 
 /. When conversing with Nicodemus He did not say We 
 must be born agaiii, or his Messiahship would never be heard 
 of. But the gospels supply so many illustrations of this, that 
 I shall advert to only one (John xx. 17), "I ascend unto My 
 Father, and your Father ; to My God, and your God." Had 
 He said, / ascend to our Father, and our God, that would bring 
 to the level of an adopted son and a redeemed creature. This 
 omission of our suggests that He scarcely used it during His 
 ministry. He inculcates it but for us (Matt. vi. 9), " Our Father." 
 Puts it in the mouths of the foolish five (xxv. 8), " Our lamps are 
 gone out." Quotes it (Mark xii. 11, Ps. cxviii.), "This is the 
 Lord's doing ; it is marvellous in our eyes." Uses it (John xi. 
 11), "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth j" but what is that among so 
 many discourses ? When every one else would say our. He said 
 your. Matt. v. 48, " Be perfect as your Father." Had He said. 
 Let us be perfect as our Father, He would confess imperfection. 
 John vi. 49, " Your fathers did eat manna." Saying Our 
 fathers ate manna. He would have been a patriot instead of 
 the Son of Man. Every mere man uses lue, our, us, continu- 
 ously and almost unconsciously. Paul uses in his speeches and 
 Epistles We 420 times, Our 199, Us 185. To quote them 
 would be to repeat a large proportion of his utterances and writ- 
 ings, bvit not so in the case of our Lord. The following- 
 presentation of loe, our, and us is a contrast to the Pauline, 
 nay, human, style. Matt. iii. 5, " Thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
 righteousness ; " xvii. 27, " Lest ice should offend them." Every 
 man but He would have said, Give unto them for us. If He 
 added us, His Sonship would be denied, for He claimed remission 
 of Temple tribute upon the footing of being the Son, not a son, 
 not Peter's brother, but Peter's Lord; xx. 18, "We go up to 
 Jerusalem; xxvi. 46, "Rise, let us be going;" Mark i. 38, "Let 
 us go into the next towns ;" iv. 35, " Let us pass over unto the 
 other side ; " ix. 40, " He that is not against us is on our part ; " 
 xiv. 15, "There make ready for us; " John iii. 11, "Amen, amen, 
 I say unto thee (ISTicodemus), We speak that we do kuow, and 
 testify that ive have seen (the testimony of the Three One God), 
 and ye (Nicodemus and we, Adam's race, not Christ) receive not 
 
120 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 our (Father, Son, Spirit), witness." In many respects that is the 
 most notable verse in John's Gospel. John iv,, " We know what loe 
 worship;" vi. 5, '' Whence shall ive buy bread ?" xi. 7, 15, "Let 
 us go into JudsBa again;" "Let us go to Lazarus;" xvii. 11, 21, 
 22, " That they may be one, even as we are one." I have said 
 Let us pray, hundreds of times. He never. So that Jesus uses 
 We on nine occasions, Our on two, and Us on nine, a total of 
 twenty, against Paul's 804, the servant using those pronouns 
 forty times to the Master's one. When Jesus uses any of the 
 three, the use falls under one of three heads : God's Person, 
 worship, people. He did not say (Luke xxiii. 43), " This day we 
 shall he in Paradise,^^ but spontaneously differentiated Himself 
 from His found sheep, as He before did Himself from Peter. 
 Besides this peculiarity, shared by no public man, there are 
 masses of words He never used, nor could without forfeiture of 
 high claims. Yet had He used them not a man per thousand 
 would notice it, the best of guarantees we have His very words. 
 Our Lord used I above 500 times, but We only nine. May we 
 not affirm that no public man, in ancient or modern times, used 
 I and We in the ratio of 500 + : 9 ? So far as reason goes, it 
 is undeniable that He was unique in this, and competitors, uncon- 
 scious or intentional, are for the future, as for the past, out of 
 question. We safely defy a man to commence public life as a 
 leader and so arrange his words. But why use I so often, and 
 We so rarely ? Because I tells not of egotism, as with mere men, 
 but of unshared authority. We may say from this, His use of 
 language, what the nameless Samaritan said, " Is not this the 
 Christ 1 " Of the unused the following are some : I confess, 
 admit, allow, dare, dread, mean, promise, intend, hope, expect, 
 advise, doubt, resolve, determine, think, imagine, should or would 
 like, would if I could, want, wish, trust, hate, conclude, recollect, 
 remember, prove, persuade, yea, nay, yes, no, by themselves, 
 drunkard, slave, gods, idols, idolatry. To elongate the catalogue 
 were easy, but every thoughtful reader of the gospel has his list 
 to append. Directly we turn to fancy and fictional writers about 
 Him, they fail. See the gospel of the Infancy (xix. 8), "The 
 Lord Jesus replied to them. Do not charge Me with a crime, of 
 which you are not able to convict Me, but let us go ask the boy 
 himself." Which levels Him with His accusers (ii. Inf. 18), 
 " Joseph arose, and plucked Him by the ear, at which the boy 
 was angry, and said to him, Be easy ; for if they seek for us, they 
 shall not find us.'^ How strange that Jesus never said yes or no, 
 though He taught us that our yea should be yea. He never gave 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 12I 
 
 a direct answer to any question. His nearest approach Mas to 
 Judas (Matt. xxvi. 25)^ " Thou hast said; " to Caiaphas (xxvi. 64), 
 " Thou hast said." As the Lord led Israel by a circuitous route 
 that He might teach them instead of leading them directly to 
 Canaan, so Jesus never gave what we British call a straightfor- 
 ward answer, as a roundabout reply gave greater scope for in- 
 structing. " Be there few saved ? " was asked. His reply is 
 well known. He was no geographer, never naming Egypt, Italy, 
 nor Syria; nor mountains, as Zion, Sinai, Moriah ; nor rivers, as 
 Jordan, Nile, Kishon ; nor sea, as Dead Sea, Great Sea, Red Sea, 
 Sea of Galilee. Was no historian — never alludes to battles the 
 Hebrews, Israelites, or Jews won. Stephen and Paul began their 
 apologies, Men, brethren, and fathers. He commenced as God 
 gave the Decalogue. He was no orator, though He never 
 stuttered, stammered, or revoked a word. Eloquence persuades, 
 but persuasion was not for Him who commanded at peril. Paul 
 says, "I speak as unto wise men : judge ye what I say." Never 
 He. Our Lord did not teach on Protestant principles, appealing 
 to judgment, but as the Pope, placing all on authority. He was 
 no autobiographer, never told anecdotes of Himself, and yet His 
 life was full of romance. We hear men speak thus : / ivell re- 
 memher ivlien a hoy travelling in ^gypt with my parents seeing, ^t. 
 Why not He 1 If He had, we should need no other proof that He 
 was not the Messiah. That would be placing Himself on a bio- 
 graphical platform with thousands, whereas He was to stand 
 on a pedestal, solitary, sublime, as coming straight from Heaven. 
 Hence He never uses father, mother, sister, brother as bodily re- 
 lated, whereby we see the anti-Christ in the Pope eternally prat- 
 ing about immaculate mother. Note, Joseph died between our 
 Lord Jesus being twelve years old and thirty, analogy leaning 
 heavily toward the former date, so that the memory of him 
 should conveniently, or more correctly. Providentially, die out. 
 Had he lived after the baptism of Jesus, whensoever our 
 Lord said, " My Father," carnal Jews would perversely un- 
 derstand his father. Providence is similarly seen in the death of 
 John. When our Lord's ministry was well on, John's position 
 was anomalous, he was in the way. He could not be an apostle, 
 as the apostolic college was completed ; nor could he journey with 
 Him as an equal, and being a mere outside disciple would ill fit 
 the greatest born of women : so he was cast into the Machoerus 
 prison. This did not overcome the difficulty. It would be 
 unnatural for the harbinger of the Saviour to die by disease in 
 gaol, nor was it to be thought of that John should remain a 
 
122 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 prisoner to a patriarchal age. Martyrdom, the glory of witness- 
 ing for the Truth with his blood, who had testified for Truth with 
 Jordan water, cut the knot graciously. Moral — Christian lives 
 are regulated in relation to Christ. Jesus was no chronologist. 
 His narratives are dateless as the stars. In His sayings no 
 allusion is made to epochs. He did not say the flood, the 
 destruction of the wicked cities, but merely Noah, Lot, never 
 went beyond hour or day, mentions no month by name, nor 
 characterised any past year as Amos i. i, "Two years before the 
 earthquake." He only used year once (Luke xiii. 8), and then 
 puts it in the mouth of a landlord. Yet time is reckoned in 
 relation to Him, being B.C. or A.D. Mentions no idol, 
 though neighbouring lands swarmed with gods. Beelzebub, the 
 Ekronite god, is mentioned, but not respecting worship. Jews 
 being the only monotheists, might we not expect He would 
 denounce idolatry ? He did, " God is a Spirit." He settled no 
 question of art, science, or literature. Left untouched Jewish 
 ethics, as — how far one might associate with Gentiles, Samaritans, 
 &c. Quoted from no book but His Book. Paul did from Aratus 
 or Cleanthes (Acts xvii. 28, and Titus i. 12), from Epimenides, 
 the Cretan Poet. Whoever thinks Jesus a ritualist is beyond 
 the pale of reason, as Christ was as unritualistic as the wind. 
 Could anything be more unritual than sending the twelve with 
 only one coat per man? (Luke ix. 3.) When they were travel- 
 stained, a discourse must be delivered without change of raiment ; 
 whereas the Presbyterian has his Geneva gown, the Episcopalian 
 his pulpit robes, while the Papist is bedecked in millinery 
 sufficient to clothe a small family, and even the Home Missionary 
 must be benecked with a white tie, or sermon there can be none. 
 Paul sacrifices (Acts xxi. 5), made vows (xviii. 18). Jesus did 
 neither. John the Baptist is never recorded as entering the 
 great centre of Jewish ritual, the Temple, nor even Jerusalem, 
 whereas his Lord spent six weeks yearly there, and was often in 
 the Temple, but did not connect Himself with sacrifices or any 
 rite, as Paul did. Jesus was no scholar. Learning is acquired by 
 observation or tuition. He had no library and no teacher. The 
 only book He read was the Book. Instead of learning, which is 
 earthly, He had wisdom, which is heavenly. Luke ii. 52 says, 
 "Jesus increased in wisdom." A child receives eyes at birth ; 
 he sees better when aged ten, better again at twenty, again at 
 thirty, for in latter stages he looks more intently and intelligently. 
 Jesus had the same wisdom, the same Divine life, but there was 
 a forthput in proportion to age in keeping with requirements. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 123 
 
 Our Lord was no politician, mentions by name neither emperor, 
 king, governor, nor government, as such, and that under circum- 
 stances when it was all but unavoidable ; He did not say Herod, 
 but " That fox." The Herodian trick to make him declare for 
 some side was demolished by "Show me a penny." The evan- 
 gelist does not say. He showed them a penny^ for Judas carried 
 the bag. Our Lord did not say, " Give to Tiberius," the emperor's 
 name, but Caesar, his title. I fancy He never had a coin in His 
 sacred hand before that, then, nor since, so that we may clearly 
 see " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of his posses- 
 sions." He was no logician, though He never violated logic. 
 Compare His approach to that position when He confuted the 
 Sadducees with the wherefores and therefores of Romans and 
 Hebrews. Sentimentalists run upon younrj, poor, heautiful, He 
 used them once each. Of the degree of comparison He avoids 
 the superlative ; joy in His kingdom here or " over there " is 
 nothing beyond good. "The Lord our God is good," not best. 
 " He went about doing good," not His best, as pious weaklings do. 
 " Bring forth the best robe " seems opposed to our view, but best 
 should be first, reinstated, like Paradise Regained. From am : 
 mother (our ma), nurse, we have amen : loving as a mother and 
 true as a nurse. Jesus was the Amen : faithful as to affection, 
 and true as to utterance. Christ Jesus alone uses the double 
 formula "Amen, amen" — I as Son of God testify, I as Son of 
 Man witness. John only records this unique reduplication, for 
 it bears on the God- Man position, which he wrote to emphasise. 
 A certain type of preachers try to alarm by parading Death, He 
 never. Maudlin ministers talk of going to Heaven, He never, 
 but said, " I go to the Father." Whether is greater, locality or 
 person ? 
 
 (C.) As for what He did, I shall not run up the gamut of 
 miracles, but concentrate on one. We have cases of raising a 
 corpse, but the sign I refer to affects my mind more than waking 
 the dead. Matt, xviii. 8 reads : " If thy hand or thy foot offend 
 thee, cut them off and cast them from thee : it is better to enter 
 life maimed," &c. Wherefore maimed means a portion of the 
 body lost. Turn to xv. 30, " Great multitudes came unto Him, 
 having with them lame, blind, dumb, maimed; and He healed 
 them." It was common when men were caught stealing to cut 
 off their hand, so that they would steal no more. Robbers cut off 
 hands of those fighting them. Men lost hands in battle. Jesus 
 restored limbs to such unfortunates. When Peter cut off the ear 
 of Malchus, and Jesus restored it, there was no suture, scar, mark. 
 
1 24 CAL V IN ISM POP ULA RISED 
 
 If Malchus told his story, and was asked to show the ear, he 
 would be laughed at, and told he had been dreaming or drinking. 
 Those maimed ones of Galilee whose limbs were restored would 
 stare at them bewildered, gazing at their new flesh (2 Kings v. 
 14). In that excited crowd there would be gesticulation, babbling, 
 and gabbling in Syrio-Chaldee, Greek, Latin, &c. When Christ 
 healed blind men, eyes were there ; when He raised Lazarus, his 
 corpse was there ; but when feet or hands were restored, it was 
 like an instalment of the resurrection — bones, muscles, veins, 
 nerves flashed into existence, and organically united without 
 stigma. We should never say Jesus cured such an one. Cure and 
 care are philologically identical. The proper definition of cure is 
 to recover by care, implying the idea of a process occupying some 
 time. Healing is an act, in the case of Christ, and an instan- 
 taneous one too. The only apparent case to the contrary is that 
 when our Lord led the blind man (Mark viii. 22) into the fields 
 adjacent to Bethsaida, and gradually raised the curtain of gloom, 
 so that he might have faith in Him generated. And yet that is 
 the way reading of His miracles affects my mind, whereas He 
 teaches that His master miracle was raising Himself from the 
 dead. When we read : " No sign shall be given unto this wicked 
 and adulterous generation, but the sign of the prophet Jonas," we 
 are evidently to understand that all other miracles are as nothing 
 compared with raising Himself from the sepulchre. When Jonah 
 was liberated, he preached to Gentiles ; and when our Lord loosed 
 Himself from the bonds of Death and the Grave, He preaches to 
 us Gentiles in the persons of missioned, for through them alone 
 does His spirit preach. The Church cannot mission a man. 
 She recognises what He does. 
 
 (D.) Here I shall say a little as to what He did not do, but as 
 a mere man would have done. Our Lord was the only Orient 
 who bowed but once, viz., to His Eternal Father on Calvary. 
 Joseph's brothers could not speak peaceably to him, could not say 
 Salaam : peace to you, and bow, do obeisance. When the Lord 
 rose from among the dead. He appeared to the disciples where 
 their feet had been washed, fifty days before they were flame- 
 crowned, and said Salaam. When he so said and stood erect as a 
 palm, a sensation ran through the little flock, and the ten whis- 
 pered, " It is the Lord." Though a landsman. He never followed 
 His disciples on board. Matt. viii. 23, " When He was entered 
 into a ship, they followed Him," presents the rule covered by 
 xxviii. 7, "He goeth before you." In guarding His dignity, 
 and protecting His Messiahship, He never shook hands with any, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 125 
 
 never kissed man, woman, or child, though He condemned Simon 
 for not doing so. "Thou gavest me no kiss." Jesus never 
 laughed. 
 
 He. Stop, stop ! I ask proof for that, at least. 
 
 /. Laughter expresses the lower faculties, and results from 
 comparing the is with the ouglit. A man leaves home with his 
 pants inside out, and folks laugh. Most laughter is an outcome 
 of blundering. Laughter is undignified, as surely as levity is not 
 gravity. There is more laughter at one country dance than at 
 ten state balls. Children laugh more than adults, the ignorant 
 more than the learned. He who knew all, seeing every event 
 in its illimitable relations, could not laugh. Ps. ii. 4 has, " He 
 shall laugh," because there is no Hebrew word for smile, and evi- 
 dently used in the sense of having enemies in derision. Would 
 you have our Lord with a vein of wit, humour, and comedy, when 
 these are voted in the highest circles as infra dig. ? 
 
 He. Well, well, go on with (D.) 
 
 /. Women ministered unto Him through Judas. He received 
 nothing directly, and then only for disciples as for Himself, but 
 dignity is not compromised by mentioning amount given. He 
 never hurried. I defy you to fancy our Lord running. He was 
 never in fear of being late. This is finely shown (Luke viii. 42). 
 Our Lord was on His way to see a critical case where He was 
 instantly required, but stays on the road conversing with an 
 ex-patient who had touched His fringe in faith. 
 
 He. You do not get fair attention, through my head running 
 on that statement that Jesus kissed no one. If not, why not ? 
 
 7. Kissing was, and is, symbolic under certain circumstances. 
 A lady kissing our Queen's hand signifies — I will love your 
 Majesty and obey your rule. Devotees abasing themselves to 
 kiss the Pope's toe signify — we will love your person, and obey 
 your rule absolutely. When Samuel anointed Saul he kissed him 
 (i Sam. X. i). The Psalmist advises to " Kiss the Son," promise 
 allegiance. When Judas kissed Jesus the act meant " I will love 
 Thee and obey Thee," whence the forceful rebuke: "Friend, be- 
 trayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss ? " Had He kissed any 
 one, it would have allowed inferiority to that person. Not 
 knowing that, fictional writers fall into blunders as : Gospel of 
 Nicodemus, xi. 21, "But Jesus laying hold on my hand, lifted 
 me from the ground, and the dew was then sprinkled upon 
 me; but He, wiping my face, kissed me, and said unto me. 
 Fear not, Joseph ; look upon Me, for it is L" So also "The 
 Prince of the House of David," describing the scene conse- 
 
126 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 quent upon the resuscitation of Lazarus. Perceiving Jesus, He 
 was about to cast himself at His feet in thankfulness ; but the 
 mighty Prophet drew him to His embrace and kissed him." 
 A work called " Philochristus," describing the Lord working a 
 miracle, writes : " Then, at last, His pity came back upon 
 His face all in an instant, so that His features seemed 
 even melted therewith; and He stooped down and embraced 
 the boy (demoniac), and kissed him." A double blunder, 
 forasmuch as Jesus invariably avoided touching demoniacs ; 
 a species of being separate from sinners in the stereo- 
 typed rebel form. Besides, " Philochristus " should say coun- 
 tenance, as pity is not seen in the face, which is physical, but 
 on the countenance, a moral index. Our Lord never interfered in 
 matters judicial (Luke xii. 14), " Who made Me judge over you ? " 
 John viii. 11," Neither do I condemn thee," judicially but morally, 
 by saying, " Sin no more " by committing adultery. Jews worship 
 with head covered. The only time His head was covered was 
 with the thorn-crown. The King of glory became King of shame 
 and pain, Jews went to the Temple to pray at canonical hours ; 
 He to His mountain closet, where Night shut-to the door, and 
 spoke to His Father in secret. It is allowed that Jesus never 
 slept in a city, as such had gates which were shut at sunset 
 and unopened until 6 a.m. It was His habit to go early in the 
 morning into the country to have undisturbed intercourse with 
 His Father. Hence when in Jerusalem, where He spent six 
 weeks yearly. His wont was to make for Bethany before the 
 city gates were closed. His sacred feet were never sandalled. 
 Sandals were soldierly. Paul says, "Having on the breastplate 
 of righteousness ; and your feet shod," but that was to soldiers 
 of the cross. "When the Baptist said, "Whose sandals I am not 
 worthy to bear," it does argue otherwise ; but John had not then 
 seen Jesus, and the formula was proverbial, meaning, I am vastly 
 His inferior. Forasmuch as Jesus sent forth the twelve (Mark vi. 
 9), shod with sandals, we are apt to think that He, too, wore them ; 
 but, strange as it may seem, there was a species of claiming 
 superior sanctity in having bare feet. The priests ministered in 
 the Temple with bare feet. Our Lord washed His disciples' feet 
 (John xiii.), to prepare them to walk the courts of that Jerusalem, 
 which is all temple. It became Him who wore the seamless robe 
 to be always unshod. Inspiration to prophets and duty to priests 
 came at times, but to Him were continual; so He claims not ritual, 
 local, occasional sanctity, but perpetual holiness. As it was 
 soldierly to wear sandals, so was it to ride horses. No Jew would. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 127 
 
 unless yielding to Gentile customs. Est. vi. 9, " Bring Mordecai 
 on horseback through the streets of the city of Shushan." 
 Hence the Prince of Peace rides into Jerusalem on a colt, 
 "whereon never man sat," its dam following. Had He ridden 
 an ass that some one had broken in, He and owner would be on a 
 level so far as that ass was concerned, conjoint benefiters ; but 
 He who makes all things new, must have all things new, hence 
 " He is placed in a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid." 
 Though a sorrowful man, the King of the troubled, He was not 
 ill one day, nor could be, as illness indicates sinfulness as certainly 
 as death, of which it is the forerunner. A day's sickness would 
 settle the question of Messiahship negatively. " Thou wilt not 
 suffer Thine holy One to see corruption." Death came upon Him 
 as our guilt did, but from within would argue sin there, for the 
 King of Terrors comes only of sin. Similarly, Jesus could not 
 have a grey hair. One would have been fatal to Christhood. 
 Ignorance of this led the writer of " The Prince of the House of 
 David " to write : "I saw John point out to Him our house. The 
 Prophet looked up, and gazed upon it an instant. I saw His 
 features plainly, His countenance (should be face) was not that 
 of a young man, but one past the middle age, though He is but 
 thirty years old. His hair was mingled with grey, and in His 
 finely shaped oval face deep lines were carved, evidence of care 
 and sorrow." One grey hair, and we are unredeemed. The 
 personnel of the Lord is veiled. We may say of the Gospel mount 
 of vision what Moses said of Sinai : " Ye heard the voice of the 
 words, but saw no similitude ; only a voice." Physically, what 
 sort of man was Jesus ? We know that Joseph was comely, Moses 
 handsome, Saul of lofty stature, David ruddy, Absalom had fine 
 hair, and so with many other persons named in the Bible. In 
 secular history we can tell that Homer was blind, Alexander the 
 Great held his head aside, that Artaxerxes was long-handed, 
 Demosthenes stuttered, Caesar was bald, William the Conqueror 
 was " of ordinary stature, but inclined to corpulency," the 
 Bohemian patriot Zisca was one-eyed, while as to Bluff Old King 
 Hal, Queen Bess, and James First and Fifth, it would be easy to 
 draw their portraits, although they left us centuries ago. Now, 
 of Jesus we know nothing as to bodily peculiarities ; and yet, 
 should we not expect that when four men write His biography, 
 two intimate with Him, they would drop hints to guide our 
 imagination ? They were restrained by the Holy Ghost. It 
 would derogate from dignity, and lead to iconolatria — to the worship 
 of His likeness, whether in painting or statuary. After the 
 
128 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 miraculous supply of food to thousands, as recorded by Mark, he 
 states — "When He had sent them away, He departed into a 
 mountain to pray." Imagine a preacher miraculously feeding five 
 thousand on the shores of Loch Lomond, ordering deacons and 
 elders to go over the lake in a boat, commanding the people to 
 depart, and Himself to ascend the Ben. It is certain that the 
 masses would not all leave, nay, nor half of them. I was struck 
 with an account of our Prince of Wales being mobbed in Norwich, 
 where he thought he could have a comfortable incog, stroll. He 
 entreated of his too ardent admirers to let him go on in peace. 
 Now, here is a Man who satisfied a multitude with food ordering 
 them away in thousands, and not one person disobeys. To my 
 mind, it was as great a sign as the multiplication of the food. 
 In Mark iv. 36 we read : " They took Him even as He was into 
 the ship." We go with some little preparation for the voyage. 
 He with none. Then the Evangelist says, " He was in the hinder 
 part of the ship, asleep on a pillow." Doubly precious portion ! 
 the only time we find our Brother sleeping. Yes ; but is it not 
 beautiful — " Asleep 07i a pilloiv I " These fishermen could sleep 
 back on a plank and head on a coil of wet ropes, but Jesus was a 
 landsman, so one of them gives their Babbi the best apology for 
 a bed, and took care His sacred head rested on a pillow. In the 
 Temple every priest stood to minister. Priests stood as servants, 
 but our Great High Priest sat in His Father's house. The council 
 of seventy Jewish aristocrats, termed the Sanhedrin, which means 
 sitting together, held sessions in a room partly built into the 
 Temple, to partake of its sanctity, but only partly in it, or they 
 would be unable to sit there, for such act would be desecration. 
 When our Lord entered and sat, they looked at the act with 
 amazement. It was claiming Sonship amidst servants. When 
 Christ cleansed the Temple, one reason for overturning the money- 
 changers' seats was their unlawfully sitting in an outer court of 
 the sacred edifice, which was suffered only in the Court of the 
 Gentiles as a species of patriotic contempt for their Boman 
 masters, by treating the part set aside for them as inferior to 
 the Jewish. 
 
 He. You make too much of Jesus sitting in the Temple, as 
 though He meant thereby anything beyond a casual act. 
 
 I. My error lies in an opposite direction, not presenting the 
 symbolism of the act in a powerful, clear, and therefore con- 
 vincing manner. Let me add that standing implies doubt, the 
 mind suffering uncertainty ; whereas sitting implies certainty, 
 the rest of the mind indicated by the rest of the body. Apply 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 129 
 
 that reasoning to a servant, soldier, lady, judge, king, and it will 
 be found that sitting is naturally the more dignified. When we 
 view it in connection with the Temple the act is elevated into a 
 claim to Sonship, sabbatising in the house of His Father where 
 all else stood awaiting the unknown command, whereas He knew 
 all things. After He forsook the Temple, whereby it became 
 desolate, you read nothing of an Apostle sitting to teach, their 
 more general style being thus told : " When Paul and Barnabas 
 came to Antioch, they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath 
 and sat down. And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets 
 the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying. Men and 
 brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say 
 on. Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, 
 Men of Israel," &c., but as to the Temple, you have no one sitting 
 there after Christ did, still less have you any one sitting and 
 teaching therein, for the Temple w^as for offerings only, not 
 orations. It would be, ordinarily, trenching on the sanctity and 
 end of the fane to teach therein. Jesus reformed, not as a Jew, 
 but as the Son of Man, related to all men, and as Son of God, 
 jealous of His Father's honour. Our Lord never wrote. In the 
 case of the anonymous adulteress He sat on the marble floor of 
 the Temple, where no other man ever sat, with His feet beneath 
 Him, and, stooping, drew figures on the salt that had lost its 
 savour, which was scattered to prevent persons slipping — drew 
 figures, as we see two men meeting after a shower, and while 
 conversing one draws figures on the mud with his walking stick, 
 and the other with his umbrella. So drew He, mechanically, as 
 though He heard them not. He wrote nothing, as He baptized 
 none. His writing would unbalance the canonical books, as we 
 might set a higher value on what the Son wrote than what 
 servants penned ; but that would be wrong, as all Scripture, being 
 God-breathed, is of identical authority. Baptizing some disciples, 
 they might take airs over those 07ily initiated by Apostles. What 
 Jew spoke so much in public as Jesus did, and never mentioned 
 the name of one tribe 1 Should we not naturally expect Him to 
 refer to Judah's royal tribe ? But no, it would give a factitious 
 importance to mention it. So also of countries ; suppose Spain 
 named, what airs the Spaniards might assume, their country 
 being the only one. He never admired any temporary thing, as 
 a building ; not the big, but the good, as that pertains to the 
 eternal. Jesus saw more moral grandeur in two pieces of brass 
 in a widow's hand, than architectural skill in the erection of the 
 Temple with vast blocks of stone. He rarely used the O ! of 
 
 I 
 
I30 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 admiration, and only once the ! of pain : "0 Jerusalem ! 
 Jerusalem ! " It was unusual with Him to address persons 
 by name, not even His mother, nor the Baptist, nor the be- 
 loved disciple. Jesus often spoke to Judas, but not by name. 
 It seems He did (Luke xxii. 48), "Judas, betrayest thou the 
 Son of Man with a kiss ; " but Tischendorf says Judas is inter- 
 polated. That sentimental semi-papal work " The Prince of the 
 House of David " has, " No, Judas, answered the Prophet, shaking 
 His head and gazing down compassionately upon His betrayer." 
 That was after betrayal; and though not opposed to authority, 
 is erroneous fancy ; but what shall we say to Dr. Ingraham for 
 direct contravention of the gospels : "Judas spilled the salt over 
 the board, and the sop fell from his grasp into the bowl ; upon 
 which Jesus gave him the piece He held, saying to him, ' Judas, 
 that thou doest, do quickly.' " There is only one ease of Deity 
 reduplicating a female name, "Martha! Martha!" There is 
 but one greater honour in the Book, viz., Jehovah taking the 
 latter part of His holy name and adding it to Sarai, whereby 
 she became Sarah (Gen. xvii. 15). Heaven has few honours 
 as high to bestow. Augustine said, "I would like to have seen 
 three things : Christ in the flesh, Paul in the pulpit, and Rome 
 in its glory." One would content me, to see Jesus bare-footed, 
 bare-headed, standing erect, looking up to Heaven, and saying, 
 "Father!" (John xvii.) 
 
 As to (E.) what was said of Him unrebuked, ordinary hearers 
 were left uncorrected, as (John vii. 41) "Others said. This is 
 Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee*?" So 
 much should we expect Him to correct this statement, that the 
 rev. author of "The Prince of the House of David" writes 
 thus : " ' Then whence is it, O Prophet, that Thou comest out 
 of Nazareth of Galilee 1 ' asked Nicodemus. ' I will tell thee, 
 Nicodemus,' answered Jesus. 'My mother dwelt in Nazareth, 
 and sojourning at Bethlehem in order to be registered in her 
 own family town David's town, I was there born.' " In contrast 
 with that, though John names the Rabbi thrice in his chap, iii., 
 our Lord does not once. He mentions neither Nazareth nor 
 Bethlehem. He allowed persons to go away in error as to His 
 Sonship, as He left parables unexplained, and as He lets many 
 still walk in darkness, for infinitely wise reasons, winking at 
 this their ignorance. An angel slew Herod for receiving Divine 
 honours. When He was risen and show^ed His glory scars. His 
 stigmata to Thomas, who said, " My Lord and my God," he was 
 unrebuked. Stephen prays (vi. 59), " Lord Jesus, receive my 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 131 
 
 spirit." Paul thrice entreats Him (2 Cor. xii. 8) to remove 
 the thorn in his flesh. The title Lord is so used in "The Acts," 
 that deliberation is needed before we can tell whether it applies 
 to His Father, as (ix. 13), ^' Walking in the fear of the Lord ; 
 and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost ; " and (x. 4), " What is 
 it. Lord?" (xii. 11), "Now I know of a surety, that the Lord 
 hath sent His angel." But the Pauline benediction settles con- 
 tention (2 Cor. xiii. 14), "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, 
 be with you all." It is unthinkable that a mere man would 
 occupy such a position, an ex-carpenter take precedence when 
 the Eternal is named ! supremely impossible ! ! 
 
 ]N^ow as for (F.) what things were done to Him without rebuke 
 read : "They came and held Him by the feet and worshipped 
 Him." When Mary would embrace the feet of the Blessed 
 now they newly trod Judea in resurrection power, He suffered 
 her not, hastening to His Father after long absence. Though 
 He permitted ordinary persons to err. He did not disciples, as 
 that error would multiply to millions, and last through ages ; 
 whereas the teaching of an outsider would be unauthorised, and 
 die with him. Who could conceive of a character so unique, 
 that even after reading it over many times, learned persons 
 still blunder as to the language employed by Him, which, if 
 made, they would not have known, still less the ignorant, but, 
 in such case He could not have been the Christ. 
 
 He. Make him Divine, and you lose your man, because man 
 is not Divine. Imagine a man with a sixth sense, while we 
 have five, and he is not a man, but may constitute an order of 
 beings by himself, another species, but cannot be a man. 
 
 /. Nay, man is Divine of origin, ceasing to be that is defective. 
 Man is dust vivified + mentality -i- morality -i- Divinity. A wicked 
 being is no more a man, than a wooden-legged person is a man 
 physically. When the wind is high the dust rises, but falls 
 with its fall. The wind is the soul of the dust, upbears it. A 
 human spirit upholds human dust, and unless a Divine Spirit 
 upholds that, he falls on, and falls ever. That our Lord was 
 perfect man is taught by John in this pathetic way : " It was 
 at Jerusalem the feast of the Dedication, and it was winter. 
 And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon's porch." Why 
 the porch 1 Because it was cold ; and as Jesus wore a thin linen 
 coat. He went to get shelter from the wind. 
 
 He. How can you tell whether He wore linen or woollen ? 
 
 /. The blessed in light are always represented clothed in fine 
 
132 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 linen, for it was not lawful to the holy to wear woollen clothes. 
 Hence we have (Ezek. xliv. i8), "They shall have linen bonnets 
 upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins ; 
 they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat." 
 Both dust and sweat symbolised sin. As Jesus differed from us 
 in so many points, it is only reasonable we should find Him 
 who was a bi-linguist, spoke two languages, the vernacular or 
 mother-tongue of His native land and Greek, using them in a 
 characteristic manner. Our Lord was in a position parallel to a 
 Celt at Aberdeen, frequently engaged in public meetings. Such 
 necessarily addresses the people in English, but there would be 
 cases when he would use his loved Gaelic. It was so with Jesus. 
 Every sermon was delivered in Greek ; but as the Gael makes love 
 in the tongue of old Gaul rather than in the Sassenach, so Jesus, 
 when deeply moved with love or grief, used the Syrio-Chaldee, a 
 dialect of the Hebrew. When Paul made his apology to the roar- 
 ing mob, he stood on the stairs of Antonia, and spake Hebrew. 
 "And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to 
 them, they kept the more silence." But some One spoke to him 
 in that tongue at twelve o'clock in the day. Little wonder he 
 liked speaking to them from above, when Jesus spoke therein 
 from Above to him. But he failed, being only a man, speaking to 
 many; whereas He succeeded, being Divine, speaking to one. We 
 are told (Mark vii. 32) about a deaf man who stammered. It is 
 certain he had not been deaf long, or else he would have also been 
 dumb, for speech is of memory and imitation. Any ordinary man 
 becoming deaf gradually becomes dumb, not through defect in 
 the organs of speech, but forgets words and sounds till he becomes 
 unintelligible. Our Lord looking up to Heaven, sighed, and 
 said, " Ephphatha : be opened " — " I am He that hath the key of 
 David" (Rev. iii. 7). Why this deep emotion indicated by speak- 
 ing the language of Joseph and Mary 1 This was not the case 
 when He raised the widow's son. The vulgar believed deafness 
 came of demoniacal possession, and that it was by the fault of 
 the demon the man stuttered. Moreover, those Jews supposed 
 attempting to exorcise the evil spirit must be useless, because he 
 could only be reached through the organs of the possessed. If, 
 then, the unhappy man was deaf, no one could make that devil 
 hear. That demon was like robbers possessing a stronghold, with 
 every avenue closed to its owner. Therefore they brought this 
 crucial case to Jesus, not in faith, but to see Him nonplussed^ as 
 His disciples were by a similar case while He was away. Of 
 course He healed him, and, as a consequence, they were beyond 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 133 
 
 measure astonished. But He, knowing what an ado they would 
 make, and not being a candidate for popularity, " charged them 
 that they should tell no man." The deaf man had no belief that 
 Jesus was the Christ, by whom he might be healed; so that 
 neither he nor the people that brought him expected the result. 
 They looked upon the patient as a stereotyped sinner, who was in 
 Satan's power. Hence they were astonied, stunned, were as 
 though struck on the head with a stone. Nothing of the kind is 
 related when the dead were raised. 
 
 He. I see nothing in particular warranting change of language. 
 
 /. Indeed ! Jesus seeing the depth into which His theocratic 
 people had fallen, their superstition, want of faith, misery, sub- 
 jection to idolatrous foes, and the wretched object before Him, 
 every man of feeling must sympathise with His sighing, and 
 cease wondering He spoke not in the tongue of the stranger, but 
 in that of the fathers. To my mind, the case of the lassock, 
 aged twelve, He raised is, in certain of its features, yet more in- 
 teresting. They were keening her, she having died while her 
 father was away seeking help, if help could come. When Jesus 
 arrived He stopped the wake, as He yet does whenever He comes 
 where our dead are surrounded by the living. The Lord said, 
 She sleeps ; they said, She is dead. Both were right. The girl was 
 alive to Him, to whom all are alive in some sort, though dead to 
 them. Having silenced the screaming dirge. He said to the new 
 corpse, "Talitha cumi," i.e., Maiden, come. Talitha is feminine, 
 like Zillah, Naamah, Keturah, Sarah, &c., while the cumi is our 
 come. " Damsel, I say unto thee arise," is its interpretation, not 
 its translation. Now her mother had often called her up of a 
 morning with those very words, and to be called up from the bed 
 of death, to many days of life, by Jesus in her mother's exact 
 words, was, to my mind, one of the most affecting forms of lan- 
 guage conceivable. How one of those three would think of 
 "Talitha cumi" when saying to Dorcas' body " Tabitha, arise." 
 Christ healed none under twelve, yet there was no upward limit. 
 Not till twelve could worshippers enter the Temple, lest being 
 younger its sacredness might not be realised. The Lord's 
 miracles qualified their subjects for serving therein, by making 
 them bodily perfect, short of which none entered, as the Temple 
 typified Heaven, where all are perfect. Had infants been healed, 
 they would be no forwarder on this line. The man healed at the 
 Pool of Bethesda, after thirty-eight years' exclusion, when qualified, 
 entered. Even Jesus was not permitted in until twelve. " Suffer 
 little children to come unto Me " is not the Judaic, but Messianic, 
 
134 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. Well, perhaps so ; but I don't see the sense of your mak- 
 ing a distinction between interpretation and translation. 
 
 /. Take the case of Daniel. When he cleared up the King's 
 dream the prophet told his monarch : " Tekel ; thou art weighed 
 in the balances, and found wanting." Now interpretation is 
 telling not only the literal meaning of the word, but all meant, 
 being commentary and paraphrase besides translation. Tekel is 
 the same as shelcel, and means weight. Just so Mene ; number 
 connected with our me?zsuration. Peres ; j^ortioned — Mark gives 
 a solemn illustration of what we are considering. It was in 
 Gethsemane. When He was scourged on Gabbatha, all was of 
 men, of the Father permissively, and so He said nothing in either 
 tongue ; but in the garden and at Golgotha, it was God and man 
 against the Son of Man, so that He groaned in two tongues, 
 8yrio-Chaldee and Greek. When breaking down under the weight 
 of our condemnation He said (Mark xiv. 56), "Abba, Pater! !" 
 nearly the same as saying. Thou art My Father. Christ claimed 
 Son ship in two languages, for in virtue of His Sonship those 
 Hebrews and we Gentiles, two flocks of one fold, have sonship, 
 even " The Spirit of Adoption by whom we (too) cry, Abba, 
 Pater," as Paul twice teaches (Rom. viii. 15 ; Gal. iv. 6). 
 
 He. If I am a son of God, as every man is, it matters nothing 
 whether I have such spirit or not. I have the right by creation 
 to call God, Father. 
 
 /. Well, be that so or no, the Bible does not so teach. That 
 Book teaches the right is of redemption, and God knows who 
 is redeemed, and to those who are He, in due and gracious time, 
 informs thereof by His Spirit. But let me present j^ou with the 
 crowning solemnit}'' of human history. The land was veiled 
 in awful gloom prophetic, and like what will soon cover earth 
 and ocean. Christ was on the cross. He cried in the Greek, 
 " Dipso : " I thirst. As this lack was of the body He expressed 
 it in the tongue, indicating less feeling, but His human spirit was 
 sinking in awful depths which Greek could not express, wherefore 
 He moaned, " Eli ! Eli ! Lama sabachthani ! My God ! My God ! 
 why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " Why His disciples forsook Him, 
 He knew, even we know, but His Father ! Jesus groaned to 
 God in Hebrew, to us in Greek, as far asunder as Father and 
 Brother. 
 
 He. Precisely my view. If God, how be forsaken of God ? 
 
 /. Because the Son was united to human nature, and we 
 deserve destruction, death, yea, the first and second death, from 
 God the Father, We were i^eceiving in] His person our deserts : 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 135 
 
 nevertheless, in that awful transaction He was mysteriously 
 united to His Father and His God, for He says, '' My God ! My 
 God ! " Any man in anguish may cry " God ! O God ! " but a 
 son only can say what the Son said. 
 
 /. The last point I insist upon, differentiating my Lord from 
 mere man, is this : Achilles had his Hector, Hannibal his Scipio, 
 Demosthenes his ^schines, Napoleon his Wellington, Pitt his 
 Fox, Disraeli his Gladstone — every great man has a rival. Paul 
 tells us that Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses (and Aaron), 
 and long after Korah, Dathan, and Abiram did so too ; but who 
 opposed Jesus *? He who did once was so thrilled and overcome 
 by Christ's awe-striking power, that he never attacked again. The 
 regular formula is, " Then answered the Jews, and said unto 
 Him." Plural, groups, one not daring an attack. Why should 
 we bracket Augustine and Pelagius, Milton and Salmasius, yet 
 present Jesus alone ? The only one that delivered solitary 
 combat against Him was not a man, but an angel; showing 
 clearly that Satan was bolder than men. Can He, who stood 
 alone as to incarnation, miraculous power, transfiguration, sanctity, 
 unselfishness, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, session, and 
 intercession. Who shall hereafter judge every son of Adam and 
 daughter of Eve, be a man, and that only ? Thousands of Jews 
 were named Jesus then, but none now. Holding his name 
 in execration, it ceased being given to their sons at circumcision. 
 No Christian calls his son Jesus, the name being too sacred. 
 Can there be a mere man whose name affects Jews and Gentiles 
 unto hatred or adoration, has done so for Avellnigh two millennia 1 
 It became God to give a model man. Not to educate mankind is 
 unthinkable of the Good ; but our natural constitution demands 
 we not only be told duty, but shown it. Tell an apprentice what 
 to do, yet if the lad never saw it done, what further is he ? If, 
 then, Jesus be no model for ages and nations, there is no Good in 
 the sky, as no good man below. But the Unitarian assumes God 
 is, which cannot be if we have no good example. "Actions speak 
 louder than words," so that the life of our Lord speaks more 
 loudly and deeply than Sinaitic thunders. Wherefore, Jehovah 
 said of Jesus, "This is My beloved Son : hear Him," 
 
Time.— SATUEDAY, Five o'clock p.m. 
 Place.— GAOL SQUARE. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 He. 
 The Arminian op Thursday turned Docile Inquirer. 
 
 /. 
 
 A Pronounced Calvinist. 
 
 Point of Contention. 
 
 The Origin of Evil. 
 
 He. Have you any definite opinions as to the origin of evil? 
 
 I. That subject having engaged the mightiest intellects of 
 humanity, it would be cruelly arrogant were I to say it is solv- 
 able, seeing no student is recognised as having untied the Gordian 
 knot, much more should I arrogate if saying I can disclose the 
 mystery. Howbeit, there is nothing wrong in exchanging notes 
 thereupon, for who can be a Christian thinker and not turn 
 attention thereto. 
 
 He. I ask, because it strikes me you make God the author of 
 evil, and I am jealous of His honour. 
 
 /. Such jealousy honours you. Let us begin reasoning thus : 
 there is one Perfect Being, Immutable, Holy, Eternal. All forms 
 of life, all actions of those multiform living ones that have been, 
 are, or will be, find in Jehovah their direct or indirect origin. 
 If He call aught from aboriginal nothing to become beast, man, 
 or angel, it must, in comparison, be finite, imperfect, and is 
 mutable, whereby a wide margin is left for growing more into 
 His similitude, all moral creatures being made in His likeness, as 
 John resembled Jesus, the former being affectionate, the latter 
 Love. The faculties with which creatures are endowed as to 
 
 136 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 137 
 
 number, kind, and degree are all gracious outflows of Sove- 
 reignty ; that is, our Creator is not obliged to give any amount 
 of power or ability to a creature, for the uncreated cannot deserve 
 creation, nor when created claim endowment. Had He made 
 jelly-fishes instead of angels, no wrong could be imputed. Con- 
 scious life coming direct from God, as angels and Adam, is a 
 blessing capable of graduation from a man to an archangel. 
 You perceive from this outlook creation was necessarily an evil. 
 
 He. Pray stop at that ! It is an awful inference ! 
 
 /. Not at all. To deny my proposition is blasphemy, because 
 anterior to creation, when " In the beginning the Word was with 
 God," He being perfect, nothing but perfection existed. Each 
 creature fashioned was perfect, as answering His purpose ; but 
 contrasted with him was imperfect, and, above all else, given to 
 change, which is the differentiating characteristic of creature- 
 hood as compared with Godhead. If I learn, change of mind by 
 increase of knowledge results, should I forget, change by decrease 
 occurs. A mere animal is super, compared with inanimate beings ; 
 a man or angel is superior, God Supreme. But all inferiority is 
 imperfection. You see a steam-plough working. Here is a 
 farmer having a watch in his pocket standing by a barrow study- 
 ing the engine. The barrow is good as such, but inferior to the 
 watch, which is a timekeeper, but inferior to the engineer, who is 
 inferior to an angel, who must not be compared with the In- 
 comparable. Reason obliges us to admit that creation is imper- 
 fect, limited, temporary, and ever changing to the glory of the 
 Perfect, Infinite, Eternal, Immutable. David says : " When I 
 consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers," not hands as built 
 like Pyramids by labour, but trivial ornaments cut out by shep- 
 herds while resting in the shade. What is the creation to its 
 Creator ? the universe to the XJnus ? 
 
 He. So reasoning limits the Omnipotent as complaining of a 
 man making inferior articles. 
 
 I. Can a man make his equal ? He may turn out a Psyche, 
 Rex, Zoe, or a Florentine Venus, but no more. Surely you 
 admit that the Underived could not make another underived. 
 Deity knows no commencement : therefore being perfect, all 
 flowing from Him must be defective. We term Him simply 
 Good, not best, because the latter would imply supremacy by 
 comparison with creatures, whereas He is absolutely Good, and 
 so Incomparable. Good is the philosophical superlative, where 
 comparative there is none. Hence Jesus says (Matt. xix. 17), 
 " None good but one, God." Not seeing there are no degrees of 
 
138 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 comparison, no good, better, best, has led careless Bible-readers 
 into blunders, of which this error is one : Our Saviour says 
 (Luke V. 39), " No man also having drunk old (wine), straightway 
 desireth new : for he saith, The old is good." Some early 
 copyist, to improve what the Perfect said, wrote better, which 
 comes to our age in this inferior form, but good is restored by 
 the Revisers. So in the narrative of the wedding at Can a ; it is 
 not said. Thou hast kept the best wine till now, because that 
 Divinely made was incomparable. In the kingdom of Christ 
 there is nothing but good ; in that of the wicked, nothing but bad, 
 evil ; and all evil has good for its basis, as every devil is an ex- 
 angel. Evil, morally considered, is good abused ; and as good is 
 of God, evil must be good, twisted, wrenched, wrung aside, dis- 
 torted. 
 
 He. You surely glide into error, for He said (Gen. i. 31), "God 
 saw everything that He had made, and behold, very good." That 
 is more than good. 
 
 /. As God created, He proclaimed each creature good; that 
 is, answering His idea, fitting in with creatures antecedently 
 made, as a mechanic might of machine-wheels as fast as made ; 
 and having finished His work He adjudged it, declared the 
 whole "Very good," as the same mechanic might of his machine, 
 each part working harmoniously, the whole corresponding to his 
 plan. One wheel would be good, the whole very good considering 
 a relation of parts and ends, but not of absolute goodness. Potatoes 
 are good in respect to a hungry man, and with other viands 
 are very good, but surely not in the high sense we are. 
 
 He. But we do not attribute that deficiency from good which 
 is known as evil to the heavenly bodies, mere inorganic sub- 
 stances, but to that which injures, gives pain, kills, 
 
 /. Yes, that is physical evil, illustrated by the stony pages of 
 geology. As soon as animal life was introduced, slaughter began, 
 even among animalcules. War rages in a drop of stagnant 
 water, and in the ever flowing mighty deep. Nor is the war ex- 
 hausted in the wet, but rages on the dry, from insects to tigers. 
 Man hardly appears when Cain slays Abel, probably with stone 
 or club ; but primeval Cain is improved upon by Krupp, Arm- 
 strong, and Martini, who slay their brethren afar off scientifically 
 and satisfactorily, except to the slain. Apparently a similar 
 contest raged among angels, though we cannot comprehend how, 
 as they are unembodied spirits, whose mode of being, doing, or 
 suffering is hard to realise by the embodied. 
 
 He. The chief objection to your dreadful Calvinism is its 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 139 
 
 unlimited draught on faith, in place of appealing to our rational 
 faculties. You teach that God foreordained ivhatsoever comes to 
 pass. Reason teaches that if He had, it would have been better 
 done when we should not be grieved by hearing of Chinese 
 famines, Thames collisions, mine explosions, railway accidents, 
 and these horrid Australian bank failures. 
 
 /. You, equally as I, assume God is, to which you add infinite 
 in loisdom, jDoicer, and goodness, yet whensoever He brings any- 
 thing about, you do not think good forthwith ; you libel His 
 wisdom, and question His goodness so far as that is concerned. 
 In the political world men act more rationally. Government, 
 whether Whig or Tory, conducts a vastitude of diplomacy, legis- 
 lation, and home administration that no ordinary man follows 
 into detail, and yet we give votes of confidence to the governors 
 we approve of at a general election. 
 
 He. Exactly so. We vote in the dark : probably if we under- 
 stood what they had been about, we would refrain from support- 
 ing them. 
 
 /. Very well said ; but if we understood Heaven's policy, we 
 would in every case vote approbation ; and if we poll in the dark 
 for a Premier, why not for Him whose infinite understanding 
 you allowed 1 
 
 He. But certain occurrences are manifestly not only mysterious, 
 but indefensible upon rational principles; for instance, that fearful 
 Chinese famine, with concomitant and consequent horrors, we 
 cannot bear to dwell upon, and yet you afiirm He planned the 
 calamities and cannibalism of it before the world was. 
 
 7. Your libel against the Divine policy amounts to this : there 
 sJtould he no evil in the world. Famine is one item in the black 
 detail of evils, the philosophy of which we proceed to look into. 
 The Ruler of the universe placed some portions of it under 
 physical laws, and other parts under mental and moral laws. 
 You admire heroism, applaud martyrs, reward inventors; how 
 could those virtues flourish if no evil 1 Sir William Wallace was 
 a notable patriot, but could he be so if no evil threatened Scot- 
 land ? How can we have patience, meekness, courage^ charity, 
 without evil? Whence comes the skill of oculist, dentist, 
 surgeon, physician ? or the tenderness of the nurse, without 
 illness 1 I know nothing of your imaginative faculty, but can- 
 not imagine parental affection were there no evil. Let us learn 
 lessons from fishes. They are a contrast to land animals in this ; 
 the latter are violently fond of their helpless offspring, whereas 
 fishes care nothing for theirs. The mother fish gobbles her finny 
 
I40 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 offspring as the sweetest morsel floating across her watery way. 
 The young of land animals need parental help, while those of 
 water need none. Evil makes us dependent upon each other, as 
 infancy and senility show. Now they are conditions of weakness 
 which is an evil ; but this weakness nourishes all we mean by 
 humanity — how will the strong behave to the weak ? No depen- 
 dence, and we should be as devoid of sympathy as cods and 
 haddocks, a greater evil than subjection to broken bones. Our 
 human condition is inconceivable apart from evil. That Adam, 
 Eve, and Eden business made a good provisional start, but it 
 would have been evil indeed had the whole world been, and 
 remained, a paradise. How, then, would minerals come to the 
 surface? How man conquer the sea, subdue animals, and lay 
 the earth under tribute ? The Canadian winter, when General 
 Wolfe took the Heights of Abraham, was six weeks longer than 
 now. By drainage, cutting down forests, &c., our emigrants 
 raised the sky all over the Dominion, clarifying the empyrean 
 from the Arctic verge to Lake Superior. To-day the air is less 
 laden with mist, the atmosphere freer from fogs, and the sky less 
 leaden. Blue above is due to labour below. A century since, 
 Queensland was several degrees hotter than now. Our country- 
 men cooled the climate by cultivation of the soil. Men are 
 brewing rain in the sky of Egypt by planting trees. The sky of 
 that land was rainless for ages. The Italians are driving malaria 
 from the beautiful shores of Lago Maggiore, by fringing it with 
 the eucalyptus, the fever scarer, a tree changing fever dens into 
 happy homes over thousands of miles of Algeria. When time 
 with man began, God gave Earth in the rough : when it ends, we 
 shall deliver our ancient charge somewhat improved. Evil is the 
 material out of which wise men make good. Ignorance is an 
 evil : the wise educate. Can you conceive of man starting into 
 existence learned ? The more we study our state, the more we 
 are satisfied with its wisdom. The wisdom of there being evil 
 is plain. 
 
 He. I admire your rambling, anywhere and everywhere, rather 
 than visit China. That famine overturns your philosophy. 
 
 /. Then to the famine we look. It must be conceded that God 
 has a right to take life suddenly by lightning, drowning, or heart 
 disease, or slowly by cancer, consumption, or leprosy, and no one 
 has a right of complaint, because all the good we receive is so 
 much grace, while any evil is of justice, we having, by rebellion, 
 forfeited all rights. The Bible teaches that in many ways, 
 amongst others this : in that beautiful book, the book of Ruth, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 141 
 
 we read, " Naomi had heard in the country of Moab how that 
 Jehovah had visited His people in giving them bread." 
 
 He. It seems unaccountable that He would leave them with- 
 out it. We imprison men for so doing by their families. 
 
 /. Quite right too, for they ought to provide for them ; but He 
 is under no obligation to feed you, me, nor any. Hence if the 
 Deity leaves Judea without food, why not China ? But, observe, 
 it is not only of justice this is done, but of kindness. 
 
 He. Surely you are joking upon a serious subject. 
 
 /. Not at all. Keep in view the federality of nations, look at 
 them corporately rather than as individuals. A nation is re- 
 warded that acts wisely, economically, scientifically, and punished 
 if it does the opposite. The Dutch raised dykes to keep out the 
 sea, and then draining their fens were neither drowned nor fevered, 
 but flooded Europe with kine and cheese. When I was a boy 
 ague was common in my country, but is there unknown through 
 drainage. The Chinese destroyed every forest, and consequently 
 no rain fell in the disforested portion. When people act foolishly, 
 do you say that the same events must be brought about as though 
 acting wisely? 
 
 He. Well, not precisely. If there is no forethought, they must 
 put up with the consequences, however bitter. 
 
 /. Suppose Britain subjected to droughts alternated with inun- 
 dations, would that not be much the same as the Governor of 
 nations uttering this commandment : Fashion you cisterns, tcni/rs, 
 and drains ; and then shall ye eat the fat of your land. ? As a rule, 
 starvation of one or many is a consequence of a wrong course. 
 If we all did our best as individuals and nations, and then starved, 
 we should have nothing to complain of; but we do not. Visiting 
 one of the largest poorhouses in Scotland, I discovered that of 
 near upon ten hundred paupers only from three to five were 
 Christians, the mass being there through personal or relative 
 misconduct. 
 
 He. Your reasoning rather silences than convinces, but no 
 reasoning can make me approve of the way Calvinists speak of 
 disasters. There's Spurgeon, when preaching about that dreadful 
 Princess Alice business, said : "God was master of the situation, 
 and the collision was evidently by the Divine will." To me that 
 makes God diabolical instead of Divine, 
 
 /. To me there can be no successful objection to his statement, 
 for the alternative cannot be faced : God was not master of the 
 situation, and the collision was as mucli against His will as it was 
 against the ivill of the pilot of the '^Bywell Castle." Because it was a 
 
142 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 dreadful event, and he said, /' God willed it," you say his God is 
 a devil ? Could he say other when his Master says : " Not a 
 sparrow falls to the ground without the will of your Father " 1 
 In many cases He giveth no account of His ways, else we should 
 admire and adore where we now bear perforce, and refuse to 
 say Amen ! You do not need more philosophy, but more faith. 
 
 He. That view is offensive in so far as it insults Divine bene- 
 volence and power — benevolence in making creatures, power in 
 not making them better. It is preferable not to be than so 
 to be. 
 
 /. Then take the alternative. The Creator should make 
 each creature perfect as Himself. This is supreme folly. The 
 creature is the door by which evil enters. You reason weakly 
 when saying better not he than he inferior. Consider the shades 
 and grades of social position between paupers and princes. 
 Would you think it better not to be, than be a duke, or even any 
 person between him and a healthy working-man ? Between 
 Satan and Seraph, the graduation of being is little short of 
 boundless, but where it ceases to be a blessing and becomes an 
 evil were hard to tell. The difference between evil and sin may 
 be illustrated thus : Evil is analogous to a paralysed arm ; Sin 
 like one violently wrenched, twisted, distorted. 
 
 He. Where is the difference, each being useless 1 
 
 I. True as to result, but no blame attaches in the case of the 
 withered arm, whereas, there was an assailant who wrung the 
 distorted member. Sin relates to law, evil to lack of per- 
 fection. Sickness and death come through want of health and 
 life ; darkness, of absent light ; cold, of wanting caloric. Weak- 
 ness, death, darkness, and cold are negatives. Surely you are 
 open to allowing that these vacuities, wants, are conditions of 
 evil? Health, life, light, and heat are positives. Existence is 
 a graduated blessing, from sea anemone to angels. How many 
 endowments, and of what type, shall be bestowed upon creatures, 
 is a question of sovereignty. When a moral being is made, 
 it must be subjected to known law, or else cannot improve 
 by knowing its origin and Originator. In addition to these 
 endowments, moral beings commence existence with latent 
 potentiality, which illimitable power of improvement compensates 
 for non-endowment with a higher type of being, as it leads into 
 the blessed fields of self-culture. Whether is preferable to be 
 made a stationary being, or a progressive one 1 How hard to 
 think, if not unthinkable, that God would make beings who 
 could learn nothing by experience or observation. But the 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 143 
 
 scholar's condition is one of imperfect progression, which is 
 desirable for the good creature, and is his everlasting lot. There 
 is more study in Heaven in one day of earth's measurement, than 
 in Hell for a thousand of our years. Light favours study : 
 darkness is wellnigh fatal thereto. As existence is a blessing, 
 the creature's first obligation is love to the Person and obedience 
 to the laws of Him who conferred it. This debt is easily 
 rendered, gratitude being present. The primar}^ duty of conscious 
 creatures is the same — love to God. As all are defective, they 
 need help of each other, as converse, social union, &c. ; and as 
 it is but just to give equally to what we take, the second law with 
 creatures is love to neighbour. God gives each newly created 
 one his talent, or talents, which, being endowed with free will, he 
 is free to use or abuse, w^herefore all creaturehood points to 
 judgment. Sin comes by misapplication of creature power. Sin 
 is KTong from wring : to twist, to distort. A contorted counte- 
 nance is wrong. It is transgression : going beyond a proper limit, 
 as gluttony to eating. It is trespassirig : passing beyond assigned 
 limits, as w^hen men go unlawfully from a path through a corn- 
 field. It is a debt, we owing perfect love to Father and Brother. 
 In this sense it assumes the form of omission, failure, short- 
 coming. Sin is a condition of heart whereby we cannot love God. 
 Angels and men were made mutable, defective, and free, having 
 all eternity to improve upward or change downward ; but one 
 change downward is fatal, being irrevocable. There is no power 
 in repentance to restore Heaven's lost favour. In law, whether 
 Divine or human, it goes for nothing. Considered in themselves, 
 angels and men were put upon probation when they were made, 
 and this always implies peril. 
 
 He. That being so, to be created subjects to great risk. 
 
 /. Truly it must, but is it not so to be born ? still we rejoice 
 when it is said, as of old, "A man-child is born." What sort of 
 reasoning do we call this : A penniless man seeing the City of 
 Glasgow Bank go to the bad, says. Ah, seeing banJis break, I am 
 glad I have no money deposited in any. On that principle we 
 prefer being down lest we fall. Angelic or human existence 
 must not be despised because it is not Divine and perfect. The 
 child becomes a man, all God's lower gifts being starting points. 
 "To him that hath shall be given," but hath must be first, and 
 less than given, or the latter will not glorify the Giver ; that is 
 to say, if we start with all possible endowments, no margin would 
 be left to be filled in, either by God or ourselves, during the 
 infinite to come. 
 
144 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 He. My jealousy is stirred. You are driving towards present- 
 ing our Creator as author of evil, sin, woe, and wickedness. 
 
 /. Suppose you give your son a classic education, but he turns 
 out grievously bad, and you receive a telegram from London, as 
 he is there in prison. In cell i6, on corridor B., he says, "Oh, 
 father, I am in for forgery, and all is your fault. If you had 
 not had me taught penmanship, I would never have written that 
 fatal George Stokes at the foot of a bill for ^£126, 6s." I fancy 
 you would be indignant. Had there been no tree of the know- 
 ledge of good and evil, how could evil be known 1 What your 
 education was to that son, God's endowments were to our parents. 
 Your son did what he knew to be wrong, so did they. His 
 education was good, though defective, as all education must be ; 
 their endowments were blessings, though deficient. If we blame 
 God for making man defective, and then giving him laws, we 
 blame wisdom for not making gods, na}^, Gods. The only 
 question raisable is : AVas man fairly endowed so as to conquer 
 in the conflict, if faithful ? Did he violate his knowledge 1 Had 
 Adam been placed in Eden like a bird in a wood, under no moral 
 restraint, he could not rise in the Divine similitude, being 
 ignorant of God. To know God obliges to become like Him, 
 and none can know Him except they be in His image, but that 
 image is an outline for him to fill, with eternity to do it in. To 
 leave Adam without law, would put God into the category of 
 parents neglecting children. Reason and relis^ion reject every- 
 thing but this : man was made defective, mutable, free, and this 
 was a gracious act for which we are under unspeakable obligation. 
 I can see and say God was the author of evil, seeing that creatures 
 are defective compared with the Perfect — He is the author of sin, 
 as the sun is of shadow, as life causes death. If no sun, no 
 shadow ; no life, no death ; no law, no sin ; no Lawgiver, no 
 law. Sin came of misused free will. Men talk of automatic, 
 spontaneous, instinctive, or necessar}^ action as degrading, think- 
 ing it grand to have free will ; but free will is a sharp razor, and 
 I am so foolish that I am unwilling to obey my Brother when 
 He bids me say to my Father, " Not my will, but Thine, be done," 
 and so put by the razor. 
 
 He. But your parallel fails. Had I given my son good pen- 
 manship, I could not know how he would use it ; or if I foresaw 
 he would abuse education, I had better leave him untaught; 
 whereas, God foreknew Adam would misapply gifts. 
 
 /. But Adam would have done the same had He not known, 
 for you cannot imagine that knowledge is causative. You are, 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 145 
 
 then, askinw that God should work in the dark until futurity 
 turned on the light ; that is, you postulate that our Maker be 
 ignorant, or else you are not fairly treated, another form of 
 asking there be no God. Instead of demanding absurdities, 
 suppose we suspect free will, and, doubting it, ask thus : 
 
 *• Guide me, Thou great Jehovah." 
 
 Seeing that leaning to their understanding gets creatures into 
 grief, let us lean heavily on the arm of Another. 
 
 He. But w^e cannot evacuate ourselves and cease to be men. 
 You teach mischief comes of unwise volitions. What is the 
 remedy ? 
 
 /. "We shall consider remedies when this is said — Adam sinninof 
 was no more able to repent than to make himself a day old. He 
 could, and did regret, but the root of repentance, love to God, 
 was not in him, wherefore, return to allegiance was impossible. 
 " In the day thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die," i.e., verily, 
 verily thou shalt die. Spiritually, he dropped dead when he 
 resolved to eat ; physically, he was mortally wounded, death 
 being an affair of time. The life of the soul is love to God ; and 
 unless He be in the soul, it signifies nothing what gifts are 
 bestowed ; unless He comes into the creature, it will apostatise. 
 He may place creatures in the Heaven of Heavens, endowing 
 them with powers and joys seraphim never l^knew, they will 
 prove ungrateful for all, unless God be not only before them, 
 but in them. 
 
 He. This is surpassingly strange, and I fail to see even the 
 slenderest connection between it and the plan of salvation. Tell 
 me, how is a soul saved ^ when ? why ? 
 
 I. Your inquiry contains the essence of divinity. An answer 
 will be attempted when more is said on creature variability, 
 in contrast with the Immutable. How variable is star-scape, 
 cloud-land, ocean, and nature as seen on the shore. Stars ever 
 perform their mystic waltz ; clouds continually form new shapes 
 from the ground to the empyrean ; tides, currents, storms, and 
 glassy quietude tell ocean's story ; organic life, whether vegetable 
 or animal, passes through annual dissolving views, secular and 
 seasonable change ; while as for man, " He cometh forth like a 
 flower, and is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow, and con- 
 tinueth not." All things, whether material or spiritual, are 
 moored by creational cables of greater or less length, but iden- 
 tical strength, to Zur-holamim, the Rock of Ages. The longer 
 those cables, the farther creatures are from God, and the more 
 
 K 
 
146 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 given to change. I came into the world seventy years since, and 
 found the Church had been singing Psalm xc. nearly 4000 
 years, while songs in the oak-groves by Druids, chanted by 
 Chemarim to Baal, played on the lyre to Thor, Apollo, or 
 Ashtaroth, are ceased. But when born the Jews had been 
 singing the tune " Leoni" nearly 3000 years, and Christians sing 
 it yet. In my day, 3000 secular songs and fashionable tunes 
 have tinkled away their merry short night, but now cease to 
 charm. 
 
 He. I really see no bearing of this upon the plan of salvation. 
 
 /. Have patience and you may. God in sovereignty is under 
 no obligation to continue life of any kind, that is, considered in 
 itself ; but when He imparts moral life, is bound by equity to 
 make that continuous, its receiver immortal. 
 
 He. Why ? I don't see a fragment of the why. 
 
 /. Because such recipient remaining good deserves continuance 
 of life, but if wicked, deserves to live that he may receive his 
 reward. Adam sinning, He was bound to immortalise him as a 
 sinner, or of sovereign grace take away his guilt, saving him as 
 millions since. Suppose the contrary, and an unfallen angel 
 might be deprived of life by an arbitrary act finding force in mere 
 will and power; but God is holy, and therefore equitable, con- 
 sequently moral beings must be immortal, their deathlessness 
 being guaranteed by God's justice. The Devil deserves to live, 
 that he may receive the reward of evil deeds; the prophets, 
 apostles, martyrs deserve to live, that they, too, be rewarded. If 
 moral, not mortal. The body is not moral, but the indweller — 
 hence the body is subject to death. 
 
 He. Now then approach the greater subject, how we are saved ? 
 as my interest culminates in that. 
 
 /. All are saved by identical agency, God the Spirit entering 
 his spirit, the Triune Jehovah dwelling in a man. That, and 
 that alone, sanctifies, as Sinai was hallowed by His presence : 
 "For the ground whereon thou standest is holy." Our guilty 
 parents were drawn to Jehovah's tribunal similarly to their being 
 afterwards driven out of Eden. When He said to the Serpent : 
 " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," the 
 Sanctifier entered the heart of each, and penitential tears furrowed 
 Eve's face. The quickening words were addressed directly to the 
 murderer, but obliquely to them to whom they became a sweet 
 smelling savour unto life, while to him they were his death-knell : 
 seeing it was the promise of redemption by Christ showing Satan 
 His power to counteract him in humanity, and then bring life 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 147 
 
 out of death by regeneration. "The Lord God made coats of 
 skins, and clothed them," applied to their souls the merit of the 
 coming Sacrifice, covering their bodies with skins of the lamb slain, 
 prophetic of Calvary. There is philosophy in covering, as it 
 teaches the things feared cannot come nigh. Noah pitched his 
 Ark, so that water came not at its gopher wood. A fish is so 
 enslimed, that neither salt water nor fresh reaches its body. The 
 Ark of the Covenant was the size of an ordinary clothes chest, 
 containing a pot of ever fresh manna, the fertile rod of Aaron, 
 and two stone tables. Its lid was golden, and termed the Mercy 
 Seat."^ This was besprinkled with the life-blood of an atonement, 
 whereby propitiation was made. When the lid was shut, the 
 once broken law-tables were blood-covered, no light revealing 
 guilt, no failure seen — all invisible, forgotten, as though it had not 
 been. An open lid symboHsed nakedness of the broken tables, 
 guilt apparent. Which things were dim shadows of that wedding 
 garment. Divine righteousness covering the soul, whereby the 
 shame of Adamic nakedness is hidden. The Lord Jesus was 
 crucified stark naked, not a thread upon His sacred body during 
 those six mortal hours of great agony. To this allusion is made 
 by Paul thus : " For the joy that was set before Him (our salvation) 
 endured the cross, despising the shame.^' He was made naked 
 for time, that we might be arrayed in white for eternity. The 
 forgiveness of sins is essentially one with that transaction, not 
 being a passing by of offences, which is more of inaction and 
 defective justice than aught else, but a positive bringing Christ 
 the Atoner into the soul, and the Spirit sent forth of the Father 
 and Son, whereby the spirit of the man becomes forgiven and 
 sanctified, and so continues of equity, deserving it by relationship 
 to Him, with whom alone is merit. When God said, " Light be ! " 
 He lit unquenchable fires, men call suns. When God says, " I 
 
 * The Ark was made of a heavy wood like our ebony, called shittim : 
 thorns, i.e., thorny tree wood. Though made of weighty material, and con- 
 taining a flat of stone, it weighed nothing to which our Lord seems to refer 
 when saying " My burden is light," i.e., no weight at all. What burden is 
 learning, piety, faith, to the good ? Had the Ark been its natural weight, 
 the priests would have had some excuse for putting it behind oxen, instead 
 of placing it lovingly, as we do our sacred dead, shoulder high. Neither 
 David nor Uzzah had cause of complaint when the latter was struck dead. 
 It seems a big order on credence that one should be asked to believe in 
 the levity of the Ark, but the more it is thought over, the more satisfactory- 
 such opinion appears. I met with it in the works of a Portuguese Eabbi, 
 and, though I kicked at his statement, I now hold it. The elephant's 
 skin is too heavy for a man to lift, but, like all parts of organisation, is no 
 weight to the bearer. 
 
148 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 will : be thou clean," the late sinner receives the Son and Spirit, 
 standing faultless before God, then and for aye. When God 
 wills, says, He does. I look at the does. 
 
 He. It is impossible we should be saved as Adam and Eve were, 
 seeing the circumstances are unrepeatable. 
 
 /. Yea, in like manner. Circumstances alter, the mode remains. 
 Saul is on the road to Damascus, at double day, high noon of 
 Syrian midsummer ; a brighter Light blinds him j^ro tern., that he 
 may see for ever. For Christ came that those who are blind 
 may see, and He had to blind Saul before he received very sight. 
 The voice said, "Saul, Saul." That was God in Eden saying, 
 " Where art thou ? " That was the Shepherd's joy cry, as He 
 found His lost sheep. The Spirit entered the soul of the arch- 
 inquisitor by the time Jesus uttered Saul ! the second time, else 
 he could not have called Him Lord : " For no man can callJesus 
 Lord save by the Holy Ghost." This man of Tarsus was the only 
 one Jesus sought of the group, or others would recognise Him. 
 The Spirit generally enters by a word or thought, which are 
 usually connected with the Word. A man entering a theatre 
 was arrested by, " This way to the Pit." A flood of thought burst 
 upon him as to where gaiety, vanity, and carnality lead to. He 
 then associated the thought of the pit with the abyss of evil. 
 He could not enter, but returned home, repenting as he went. 
 The Spirit somehow entered with that thought. "To as many 
 as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of 
 God." Regeneration is not an emotional effect, as we form a 
 strong determination, nor can it be produced by the moral influence 
 of one out of Christ admiring God's gifts to man. j[tjs^^roduced 
 l^y a PprsQ-" -Q^^^ing intiO th^^ ^^^""^ O^ rniothpr^ as actually as the 
 seven unclean spirits were in Mary Magdalene, rendering her in- 
 creasingly unclean, or, better yet, as the Eternal Son entered the 
 womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have a Bethlehem in our 
 bosom, Christ in us. With=Qsa.Mli;^iiwas.aiUfifiarnaticm, SFitkjis 
 _2tn inspiritation. It is a Person come to dwell for ever in the spirit 
 which to that instant hated Him and His people. Solomon Ben- 
 David built a temple, his greater Son builds temples to God, 
 which the Spirit inhabits, sanctifies, and preserves in that relation- 
 ship for ever. The temple of Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed ; 
 that of Ezra, Titus burnt ; those of Christ, no man defileth. 
 
 He. Are you describing conversion ? 
 
 /. No, regeneration. Conversion is our act, a turning to God, 
 an outcome of the new birth. We are passive in regeneration, 
 active in conversion. Should conversion be without antecedent 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 149 
 
 regeneration, it is formal, phenomenal, lacking the element of 
 continuity. Our will is not violated in salvation, because not 
 consulted. Will does not come into operation for or against the 
 Divine act in the new birth any more than in natural birth. 
 We being in a rebellious state when the glorious King shows us 
 sovereign favour, were w^e consulted as to bestowment it would be 
 rejected : "The carnal mind is enmity against God," ever saying, 
 •' Depart from us : we desire not the knowledge of Thee." 
 
 He. Surely we are consulted when thus invited : '' Come unto 
 Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you" ? 
 
 /. When He makes us weary of transgression, heavy laden 
 sinners, we are saved. 
 
 He. Christ make us sinners ? Why, we do that. 
 
 /, I mean makes us feel sinnership in an evangelical sense, 
 moan over innate depravity, till we feel we are the chief of sinners. 
 He came to save the lost, that sort of lost, lost in their own eyes, 
 precious in His. On earth the good feel sinful, but the wicked 
 feel good. Try the first impenitent man with an exhortation to 
 flee from coming wrath, and he resents it, probably saying, 
 " Well, I think I am as good as you at all events, though I keep my 
 religion to myself," &c. As soon as the Lord enters His temple, 
 our heart, the man becomes holy. Nothing we do makes us holy ; 
 it is His dwelling in the Bush, in the heart of the heretofore 
 faithless one. As life always comes from like life, so holiness 
 comes from the Holy One. Holiness is a condition of the mind, 
 as health is of the body, but can only be from a holy cause. Of 
 the Church it is said, " God in the midst of her doth dwell," the 
 same holds good in each vital member. Christ outside cannot 
 save. The nearer Christ comes by privilege, but fails to enter 
 by regeneration, the deeper condemnation ; for judgment begins 
 at the house of God, Jerusalem producing the vilest sinners. 
 Thus it was that Jesus giving Judas the sop, a kindly act which 
 should generate affection, was the occasion of Satan entering. 
 
 He. I presume, when so speaking of God dwelling in us, you 
 mean by faith, love. His word finding a lodgment in memory 
 and affections, our being affected by holy motives ? 
 
 /. I mean more. His indwelling is substantial, as actual as in 
 the case of the possessed, as truly as my soul dwells in my bod}^ 
 Remember Magdalene suffered the exorcism of unclean spirits, 
 but they could not be cast out if not in. 
 
 He. There's the rub. How could seven be in one ? 
 
 /. You mentally allow that seven occupy more space than one, 
 which is incorrect. We do not know how one spirit dwells in 
 
I50 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 another, but the fact is certain, or else no man could receive the 
 Spirit, My soul preserves my body from corruption by indwell- 
 ing, how, I know not ; so Christ keeps my soul pure, how, I know 
 not. The fact is theologically certain, but no man knoweth hoiVj 
 any more than we know how we love, hate, dream, think. Does 
 Paul mean less when saying (Phil. ii. 12), "Work out your own 
 salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in 
 you." And so Gal. ii. 20, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me." 
 
 He. These are figurative expressions, teaching not that God 
 dwells in my spirit, but only that we love divine things. 
 
 /. That hardly applies to texts such as Rom. viii. 9, " If so 
 be the Spirit of God dwell in you;" 2 Cor. vi. 16, "Ye are the 
 temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them 
 and walk in them." As the Shekinah was a true thing, not a 
 phantasm shining ever in the holiest, so is the Lord in each re- 
 generate heart. Jesus says (John xiv. 23), " If a man love Me, 
 he will keep My words : and My Father will love him, and We 
 will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." So of the 
 famous verse, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any 
 man hear My voice, I will both open the door and come in to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." No hint of leav- 
 ing ; the Lord hates putting away. He who stood at the door 
 stood on the ladder top, and said to sleeping Jacob, " I will not 
 leave thee until I have done what I have spoken to thee of." 
 After that He may. God was revealed to patriarchs and pro- 
 phets as dwelling with them, but the grander revelation was 
 reserved for us. The flesh of Jesus was hallowed by the fulness 
 of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily; and if God dwelt in 
 Him, He can in us, though the manner is diverse. The body of 
 the Christian is sanctified by indwelling Deity, whereby a won- 
 drous unity is brought about, the marvel of angeldom. " Know 
 ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ ? " That 
 could not be accomplished by principles, emotions, resolutions, or 
 spiritual laws. Members of the body are related to Him who 
 templeises therein ; wherefore He says (John vi. 39), " I will 
 raise it up again at the last day." He threatens to remove the 
 Ephesian candlestick, may forsake a temple, church, people, or 
 any corporation, but forsake an indwelt adopted one ! never ! ! 
 Whensoever the Lord enters a spirit, instantly he becomes abso- 
 lutely holy through identification with the Holy One. Else only 
 relatively holy, as Noah was just compared with contemporaries, 
 which does not qualify for glory. The receiver is forthwith 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 151 
 
 translated from the kingdom of Satan and tlie dominion of sin. 
 All the Devil can do to him is good ; as Balaam's curses turned 
 into Israelitish blessings, so all that evil spirits or wicked men 
 can do to injure the indwelt result in a Job-like termination — 
 the Serpent eating dust. What Satan meant for Job's head, God 
 meant for the Devil's belly. These indwelt ones are as faultless 
 before God as when treading the hills of immortality. " Who 
 shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is Christ 
 that justifieth." " He had not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither 
 hath He seen perverseness in Israel." Love is blind, and " God 
 is love." As when Christ cleansed a leper, he never fell ill of 
 leprosy, so whom He cleanses is never defiled. The Lord allowed 
 (Lev. XXV. 49) that in case an Israelite waxed poor, and sold him- 
 self for a slave, he might redeem himself if able. Had you and 
 I sold ourselves to be slaves of sin, as the poor Israelite, there 
 might be some way to redeem ourselves by repentance and good 
 works ; we were sold, and, as we went passively into slavery, we 
 cannot come out by personal act. Our Redeemer meant that 
 when on Sinai, saying, " I am the Lord thy God, that brought thee 
 up out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage." 
 Do not look upon the Hebrews walking as salvation, do not view 
 repentance and faith as salvation. They marched because re- 
 deemed ; we believe because ransomed. 
 
 He. But I distinguish between conviction, conversion, pardon, 
 justification, assurance, perseverance, and sanctification, whereas 
 you run them all into one act, and that Divine. 
 
 I. I look^at life, you at its manifestation. These processes are, 
 so far as we are concerned, the outgrowth of the Holy One in- 
 dwelling, nothing more than stages of the Divine life worked out 
 in experience of the saved. You may divide and time them as 
 you will ; but as God gave you life thirty years since, and gives 
 it now, has been all that time, and will for ever, you being 
 immortal, which constitutes life into one act, a continual gift ; so 
 with salvation, with this difference, that life natural is not God, 
 but from God, whereas spiritual life is a Person. Did He not 
 say, "I am the Life"? not, I am the cause of man living, but 
 much more, viz., I am the principle of vitality, the only source of 
 spirituality, or being holy. Christ does not give sanctity, does 
 not hallow at a distance, but sanctifies, hallows by presence. 
 Our Lord keeps the wicked alive, not by living in them graciously, 
 personally, eternally, but, similarly to His keeping alive organic 
 bodies, by natural laws and forces. Cut off from Him, we die 
 spiritually. Some speak of justification and sanctification as 
 
152 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 acts taking place at different times, whereas they are rather 
 talking of words than facts, inasmuch as whensoever a man is 
 justified, his nature is sanctified instantty, else how the dying 
 thief enter Paradise ? but his character is sanctified gradually, or 
 we may say he gradually appreciates relationship to God, and 
 grows in grace, in the realisation of God's favour ; for we cannot 
 grow in grace, seeing God does not love sons other than as He 
 loves His Son. " Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." 
 If Jehovah loved His Son less or more, He would cease, His being 
 determine, as changed affection involves the Invariable in 
 alteration. 
 
 He. Whether from your being in error or my ignorance, I do 
 not see your illustration as to the perpetuity and fulness of 
 pardon. 
 
 /. Well, I will help myself by another illustration. Christ 
 said, *' I am the Resurrection and the Life." By which I under- 
 stand, I raise every dead man to life, and keep him alive for 
 ever. Imagine that a million years after the rising from the 
 dead, here a redeemed man and there a lost soul dropped dead 
 till thousands passed into nonentity through failure of resurrec- 
 tion power : that would dishonour the Son, His Godhead would 
 be forfeited. !N"ow resurrection is an act, but its continuance for 
 ever a process ; but the two are the output of one Power, which 
 cannot fail, and therefore need not be repeated. So the forgive- 
 ness of sins is an act, but its continuance a process, and the act 
 guarantees the process. Pardon being revoked would be as 
 though the ex-leper became leprous, as though the resurrection 
 body died. As we cannot think of re-regeneration, nor of re- 
 resurrection, being raised from the dead more than once, so of a 
 man forgiven more than once. Peter was as much forgiven 
 when denying our Lord as now. The man who says the wicked 
 will have a resurrection unto destruction, makes Christ's slaying 
 power override His life-giving power. If one dies after resurrec- 
 tion, Christ thereby ceases to be the Resurrection and the Life, 
 
 He. Am I to understand you mean the Father loved Peter 
 equally when he denied Jesus as when he confessed, saying, 
 " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God " ? 
 
 /. Undoubtedly. We stand in Adam, and are judged by 
 works, or in Christ, being justified by relationship to Him. 
 Can you mix death and life ? You err by holding partial justifi- 
 cation, and that by works, viewing a regenerated man as justified 
 after regeneration by obedience, his failures made up by God's 
 pardoning defects and excesses ; whereas the man, not his sins. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 153 
 
 is forgiven, and that not again and again, but once for al]. 
 Howbeit, Christ in the corn-iield made it plain by saying, " On 
 the Sabbath day the priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath 
 (by doing butcher's work), and are blameless. But I say unto 
 you, That in this place is (who is) greater than the Temple." 
 The priests were not justified by what they did, but where they 
 did it. They were justified by being in the Temple, but that 
 justification covered only a day. Christians are justified by 
 being in the Temple all their days, from womb to tomb. Philo- 
 logically, profane means hefore the temple, not worthy to enter it ; 
 theologically, it is one without the Temple, not in Christ, and 
 therefore one whom Christ does not templeise. If a man is in 
 that Temple his life is sacred, whereby he becomes a. saint, a 
 holy one. Some bisect their biography by conversion, and view 
 the former part as forgiven, and the latter as partially justified 
 by obedience, and the balance pardoned ; whereas the whole is 
 forgiven, or, more correctly, the man is forgiven for life. The 
 supreme work is to get as near God consciously as He is to us, 
 to love Him as He does us, which is impossible ; but let us urge 
 the action for the sake of results. Seeing, then, I cannot justify 
 myself by love to Him, let me receive justification by His love 
 to me. In reference to justification, we stand on this rocky 
 basis : '' Jesus died for me ; " we cannot add to that, seeing we are 
 complete in Him whereby addition is not needed. 
 
 He. This is too good to be true. What, then, would be left 
 for us to do % 
 
 I. We be heirs. Heirs come in for property apart from 
 moral or intellectual qualifications. Yet ought they not to 
 qualify themselves to appreciate and adorn their position 1 If 
 our Prince could not read, it would not affect legal right to 
 reign ; but should he not be educated ? The more we work or 
 suffer for our Master, the brighter Heaven will be, as concerts 
 are greater treats to musical students than to the uncultured. 
 The penitent robber was as welcome at the pearly gate as 
 Wishart, but after he reached the green fields where we gather 
 at the river, he would not enjoy it so fully. He of the cross 
 drinks the new wine of the kingdom from a tiny cup, he of the 
 mantle of flame from a temple bowl. The chosen Jew has a 
 small golden lyre strung of God, the elect Scotchman a harp of 
 gold, from whose wire he strikes higher notes and deeper joy. 
 Do vou know the favourite title of Jesus as given by John 1 
 
 He. The Word of God. 
 
 /. No, John applies Sent many times for Word once. Sent 
 
154 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 implies moral distance from God. Our Lord says, "Abide in 
 Me, and I in you." As Noah stayed in his Ark until He said, 
 " Go forth," as the sons of Abraham obeyed Moses when saying, 
 " None of you shall go out of the door of his house," so we abide 
 in Him by profession ; but we shall not permanently dwell unless 
 He abide in us by possession, make in us His humble dwelling. 
 
 He. Excuse me for saying that I have taught and thought 
 salvation comes of believing and behaving, for so long it seems 
 impossible to settle down to these novelties. Moreover, I know 
 nothing from Biblical statements of two ways of keeping the 
 commandments — absolutely and relatively — considered in them- 
 selves, and in respect to other people. 
 
 /. Of course not in so many words, but it is there by fair 
 inference. Supposing you say, Women ouglit not to partake of the 
 Lord's Supper. Either give examples of its being done in the 
 apostolic days, or a commandment to do it. I cannot accept infer- 
 ence. Then if you say. Unless you give either precept or exampile, 
 I hold it is unscriptural for woman to receive sacraments, nothing 
 remains but excluding the sisterhood. 
 
 He. But I do not go to such absurd lengths. 
 
 /. If not, you are compelled to hold the proposed view from 
 these considerations. God said (Exod. xx. 6), " Shewing mercy 
 unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My command- 
 ments." That cannot mean keep them absolutely, for then no 
 mercy is needed. It is a case of contrasting pious Israelites 
 with rebellious x^malekites. Hence Peter says, " If the right- 
 eous scarcely (the human side of salvation through laxity of 
 obedience), where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? " So 
 Jesus says (John xiv. 15), "If ye love Me, keep My command- 
 ments." By loving God, the Jew observed the first table, by 
 loving Christ Jesus, the Christian observes both tables, seeing 
 that He is our God and neighbour ; but who does that perfectly 
 from cradle to coffin ? not when in raptures, but life through. 
 Christians keep the ordinances of Jesus compared with world- 
 lings, and that is what is meant. 
 
 He. But surely I can keep a commandment for one minute, 
 and if for a minute, why not a month, and so on 1 
 
 I. You cannot keep the Law a moment, which is evident when 
 we consider how defective our service is. You may neither steal, 
 covet, nor lie for a given time ; but say you pray, can you 
 answer for it that your feelings and language are what they 
 would be if Jesus were in your place ? 
 
 He. But I do not profess to be as good as He. 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 155 
 
 7. He was simply good, and you must be good. How say a 
 man can keep the commandments one minute when we cannot 
 keep them in prayer? Keasoning with a friend on this pro- 
 position, When God pardons sins, He forgives past, present, and 
 to come, he thought to come too strong. What avails it if He 
 forgave up to conversion, when we need re-forgiveness the next 
 minute through defective service ? He thought God pardoned 
 up to regeneration, but afterwards as we repented. Howbeit, our 
 tears need washing in blood, our repentance is inaccurate and 
 defective, and we fall short, omit, and are filled with secret faults 
 all unconsciously, and so need a constant flow of vital energy. 
 Negate this, and we stand in virtue of personal obedience, whereas 
 we stand by reason of Christ's obedience. It is no more of 
 works after conversion than before. 
 
 He. From your argument, I suppose you believe in Final 
 Perseverance. 
 
 /. Christ being the Good Shepherd, He can lose no sheep. 
 Then He might be goodish or goodly, but not good, as that is 
 absolute, the superlative degree in theology. We being "bone 
 of His bone," and God keeping all His bones, His loss is unthink- 
 able. Calvinists object to the expression perseverance of the saints, 
 for it involves their act and deed rather than His. Howbeit, I 
 believe in j^^'^servation of saints. One word tells all oiu* story. 
 Hence we sing : 
 
 " The LorS thee keeps, the Lord thy shade 
 
 On thy right hand doth stay : 
 The moon by night thee shall not smite, 
 
 Nor yet the sun by day. 
 The Lord shall keep thy soul ; He shall 
 
 Preserve thee from all ill. 
 Henceforth thy going out and in 
 
 God keeps for ever will." 
 
 Peter meant the same when describing God's people as " kept 
 by the power of God through faith unto salvation." 
 
 He. Why, that is my pet text, tl trough faith. There comes 
 in my active element. 
 
 /. But He does not say because of faith ; we are saved by 
 faith, not because of it. There is no merit therein, seeing it 
 is the outworking of the Indweller. Surely there is no merit 
 in looking to Jesus aiter He gives eyes to see, and puts into the 
 heart the yearning desire to behold the lily of Israel. 
 
 He. But does not a man holding his infallible salvation 
 savour of presumption ? 
 
156 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 I. A man is ill, his medical adviser says, " I can cure you." 
 Is he presumptuous for believing? The Good Physician says 
 (Hos. xiv. 4), " I will heal their backsliding, I will love them 
 freely." If "freely," not for obedience. If He loves "freely," 
 He loves everlastingly. "I give (not offer) unto My sheep (not 
 all ilesh) eternal life." Thought of loss has two sides : His loss, 
 our loss ; His would be failure of honour, ours perdition of soul. 
 Howbeit, His honour is as dear to Him as our soul to us. But 
 best of all it is written, " The just shall live." 
 
 He. You do not fully and fairly quote. It saj^s, "By His 
 faith." 
 
 /. What care I about the omission? My argument is the 
 just shall live, you merely tell how, not touching the assertion 
 to injury, but to help. He who thinks that a loved one may 
 be a lost one does not see the oneness of Christ and Christian. 
 Hear Moses : " Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled 
 me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among 
 the Canaanites and the Perizzites ; and I being few in number, 
 they shall gather themselves against me, and slay me; and I 
 shall be destroyed, I and my house." There are not twenty 
 sweeter verses in his five books. How beautiful the parallel 
 between Jacob with his family, and Jesus with His disciples. 
 " I being few in number." " Fear not, little flock." " I " was 
 amenable for all misdeeds. They deserved reprobation, but (Gen. 
 xlix.) were blessed. Every book but our Bible would say, "We 
 are fewer than they," howbeit His people run up into Him, their 
 Federal Head. 
 
 He. You overdo relationship, and make little of individuality. 
 
 /. Impossible that. My error is not embossing, making it 
 stand out clear in theology, like the boss of a buckler. I know 
 of no other hope for the Church, Heathens or Children. David 
 laid down the principle: "As his part is that goeth down to 
 the battle, so his part that stays by the baggage." Those who 
 work not, whether sinner in Christendom, rebel in heathendom, 
 or infant in cradle, may come equally under the head of the 
 200, and none but sons of Belial except that, for our great 
 David giveth us the victory ; we don't win, though we no less 
 triumph. She that tarried at home divided the spoils. 
 
 He. Well, may it be as you say, for I always viewed salvation 
 incomplete till death, while its continuity depended greatly upon 
 wise deportment. You insist on its being an instantaneous act 
 infallibly flowing on. Can you apply your theory to David ? 
 Being indwelt, how murder ? 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 157 
 
 /. Look at that tree. In winter its growth ceases, and only 
 for experience we should fancy it dead. Life is there, but 
 latent, lying hid as heat and gas in coal. God dwells in the 
 godly, but is not always manifest in them, nor to them, by 
 consciousness. They do foolish, sinful, and even atrocious things, 
 for which they suffer correction, chastisement, discipline, but 
 not punishment. 
 
 He. Not punished ! Was not Samson by the loss of his 
 two eyes ? David by a sword always on his track ? 
 
 /. A father corrects, chastises, disciplines — a judge punishes. 
 Our Father cannot punish, all penalty was absorbed by the Man 
 of Calvary. If we be judged, we take our place with the world. 
 '* There is no judgment to them that are in Christ Jesus." 
 Those who were judged in the person of Jesus, cannot also 
 l)e judged by Jesus. 
 
 He. But the harmony between that notion and John's state- 
 ment. " He that is born of God cannot sin," is far from obvious. 
 
 /. The absolute stands for the comparative. The regenerate 
 cannot sin as once they did, and as the wicked still do. Many a 
 sinner recites guilty acts with shouts of laughter. A mason 
 named M'Crindle told me he committed a presumptuous sin, 
 after which his semmet was wet night and day for nine months, 
 with so great a baptism of sweating anguish did God correct him. 
 Had he been unregenerate it would have been a passing joke, 
 but the indwelling Spirit made it a long agony. Christians are 
 under the Law — every moral being is bound to love God, and his 
 fellow. This we cannot do unto justification, and we do not 
 plead obedience to the Law as a ground of hope, but are under 
 the Law as a guide of conduct, and shall be no less in Heaven 
 than here. But no Christian plays the antinomian by living in 
 sin, and claiming relationship to Christ, for many reasons, these 
 amongst others : The Spirit will not suffer him. He cannot 
 have more liberty than his Lord ; and does not Jesus love His 
 Father and us ? Who desires a dispensation from that blessed 
 condition 1 who lingers for a forty days' indulgence ? *' God 
 is love," and who loves most is most like God. Asking release 
 from the Law, is seeking relief from the burden of loving our 
 Fcither and our brother. 
 
 He. I should like to hear your views on Effectual Calling. 
 
 7. Rather term it Gracious Entry. If God, Who is love, enters 
 by the preached gospel, the usual mode, His first work is generat- 
 ing love to Him, which instantly manifests itself. 
 
 He. Surely not. When I came under conviction through 
 
158 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 these words, " The Master is come, and calleth for thee," I had 
 no rest, often fell to weeping bitterly through the burden of 
 my sins. 
 
 I. Well, that is what I said. 
 
 He. Excuse me, you said a man loved directly the Lord made 
 His gracious entry. 
 
 /. And you say so too, but unwittingly. Sorrow for sin is 
 a form of love to Him we grieved. See it thus : A fellow goes 
 rushing and blundering along the street, where he knocks down 
 a little girl, but does not inquire about the result. Were he 
 a philanthropist he would stop and be sorely grieved. The man 
 of love grieves for injuries done. God's Spirit wrought in you 
 godly sorrow for sin, whereby He manifested indwelling and 
 illustrated the text : "We love Him because He first loved us." 
 I doubt not that so far as salvation is concerned, our safety is 
 more shown by grief than belief, and I question the character 
 of any convert's experience who did not weep before consciously 
 believing. The experience of most Christians will be : Word of 
 God coming by human agency, as preached, written, printed, or 
 by a thought — that used as the means by which the Spirit 
 entered the heart — grief for sin of varied duration, from a sensa- 
 tion of distress to spirit anguish lasting years — peace through 
 believing. Jesus showed love to Lazarus by tears. I rely more 
 on deep contrition than high profession. A friend told me of 
 a lady who, through admiration of Christ, began a Christian life 
 without passing through penitential pangs and dread eclipse. 
 I replied, Eegeneration does not come from sentimental faculties, 
 but from Divine Entry. When He comes to possess, love out- 
 flows, but through pain, as the Jew eats his Passover with bitter 
 herbs. Of Peter we know "he went out and wept bitterly." 
 The bitterer his tears, the sweeter his heart. 
 
 He. It seems you take no notice of man's free agency. If 
 man is regenerated by Divine Entry, over which he has no 
 control, what's the use of his will ? 
 
 7. Man does not co-operate in salvation, it being the act of 
 Deity. Howbeit, this does not touch his will, and therefore 
 cannot violate it. A lady was out in a boat with a party of 
 friends on a lake, and was accidentally thrown in. With great 
 skill, and at much peril, she was got on shore, but so long elapsed 
 all feared she was gone. One of the company, by hot cloths, 
 a warm bath, and breathing into her, was rewarded by a sigh 
 and a shiver. She came to, and that evening took tea with the 
 party. She did not co-operate with those attempting her resus- 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 159 
 
 citation, but did not oppose it, and when she understood the 
 position was grateful. You try to get a carnal man to be 
 spiritual by reading, praying for him, and seeking his company 
 to worship. There the Spirit enters, therethrough he repents, 
 believes, rejoices. Now he is thankful to you for the interest 
 taken in him ; but if you think he concurred in salvation, you err. 
 Paul was regenerated at noon. Say it was the seventh stroke 
 of the twelve when Jesus said to him, " Saul, Saul ! " he was 
 regenerated before the eighth stroke. The truth, I fear, is too 
 strong for you; all saved, are saved in no time; it is not momentary, 
 but in no time, i.e., in no cognisable time, as quick as light. 
 There is, then, no time for concurrence nor resistance. The 
 saved co-operate as the lady did, being restored to consciousness 
 until conscious of salvation ; but that differs from salvation, with 
 which Arminians confound it. 
 
 He. Still, do you not think a gracious work may begin on 
 God's part and be broken off on ours. 
 
 /. There is no gracious work begun previous to Entry, before 
 which He knows all our future sins of omission, commission, 
 deficiencies, and delinquencies. He does not Enter, but finding 
 it becoming to leave, departs. God is no experimenter. Entering 
 is His alpha, and omega there is none. "I am alpha and 
 omega," means. What I begin I complete. Solomon's temple 
 was forsaken in the day of Ezekiel, and the earth will be when 
 He delivers the world over to be consumed by fire ; but union 
 with an individual is of the covenant in Christ dating back to 
 hidden cycles ; His call is of Almighty love, and given to those 
 He enters, and when these be called f]-om the earth that He may 
 manifest love to them in Heaven, as He called Eve from Adam 
 that he might love her in Eden. The Divine call is in the 
 singular number, for the love of God is individual, as when Jesus 
 called Zaccheus out of the tree into the Church. He does not 
 love the Church, but each member of it, as though he w^ere the 
 only one for whom He died. The members of His mystical body 
 are loved severally, not collectively. We speak of them in the 
 latter form for convenience. He cherishes the name of each 
 enrolled, as though He loved only that. The name by which 
 a ransomed one is known in Heaven is unknown, but the saints 
 militant know it as recorded in the Lamb's book of the living, 
 for the named ones lived to Him before time, and He died for 
 them in time. I know not whether there be any material 
 correspondent to a book, but there is something which is to Him 
 what a book is to us. 
 
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 He. I need hardly ask whether you teach the irresistibility of 
 grace, for all you say points thereto. 
 
 I. You believe God is almighty outside in the material world, 
 believe also that He is omnipotent inside in the moral world. 
 He gave you eyes. Can you resist the gift ? 
 
 He. No, but I need not see unless I like. 
 
 /. Perfect error. I challenge you to shut your eyes one day. 
 Nature inside prompts you to look, and circumstances around 
 urge you to their use. Grace is God working graciously, and 
 it is reasonable that He works successfully. 
 
 He. How do you understand the expression ^V^ OJirist ? 
 
 I. Ah ! that was the favourite epitaph of co-religionists in- 
 terred in the Catacombs. The expression applies to nominal 
 Christians, not belonging to the seed royal. Thus Jesus says 
 (John XV. 2), " Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He 
 taketh away." Jews were in the covenant by circumcision, and 
 partaking of the Passover — Christians are by receiving baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper. So being in does not guarantee salvation. 
 Of the four kinds of seed in the parable of the Sower, three 
 correspond to those in Christ by privilege, profession, confession. 
 Such answer to the foolish virgins, virgins, but foolish. The 
 saving sense is seen in i Thess. iv. 16, "The dead in Christ 
 shall rise first." Any may live in Christ professionally, but the 
 true only sleep in Him. We are said to be in Him as our 
 Federal Head, such have His entire merit, whereby to them He 
 becomes "The Lord our righteousness," which being Divine 
 cannot be augmented by human righteousness. Anything added 
 thereto would be analogous to some portion of the body of a 
 beast added to mine. Being in Him we become fellow-heirs of 
 His inheritance, which passes understanding. As we say a man 
 is in drink, love, or anger, meaning drink, love, or anger is in 
 him, so it holds good of this expression. A man in Christ 
 means Christ in a man, the hope of glory. Does not that coincide 
 with the words of Jesus, when teaching this culminating glory 
 of Christian dogma, "Abide in Me, and I in you"? "That 
 they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that 
 they also may be one in Us"? Christ dwells in each literally, 
 as God dwells in Christ, but not, of course, infinitely, as did the 
 Father, howbeit truly, personally. Christians dwell in Christ 
 federally, legally. We cannot be in Christ as Christ is in the 
 Father, but the Father dwells in the Son, and in each son. 
 
 He. Do you mean that the Lord must be in our affections ? 
 
 /. No, more, far more. Christ the Spirit is in the spirit of 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED i6i 
 
 the saved as actually as Satan entered into Judas after receiving 
 the sop. Papists distort this truth when teaching they receive 
 Christ into the stomach by the Host passing from tongue and 
 throat. Even allowing the Host to be Christ, they do not 
 receive Christ into them. 
 
 He. There you must be wrong, for suppose the wafer is tran- 
 substantiated into the Lord, and they swallow (here I am puzzled 
 whether to say it or Him), He must be in them. 
 
 /. Blank error. A priest can only tantalise, not give the 
 water of life. I see a steak in a flesher's, and, as it takes my 
 fancy, I buy it. Surely it is nearer to me. It now lies in my 
 hand. It is yet nearer. It is cooked, and I eat it. Now it is in 
 my stomach, but my stomach is not my person, nor, conversely, am 
 I my stom.ach. It is assimilated by digestion, and becomes part 
 of my body, not of me. You tell a sinner about Christ, and the 
 Holy Ghost \avifies your words that they return not void, there- 
 by the Spirit enters his spirit. Matter can get at matter, mind 
 at mind, but spirit only at spirit. Do you know, I revel in the 
 thought of demoniacal possession ! 
 
 He. Upon my word, you have a remarkable taste ! How defend 
 such proclivities 1 A weakness for devils is incomprehensible. 
 
 /. The manner of salvation Kes greail^ia tlie.penetrabiKty^ 
 human spirits, as compared with ang©ii^ I can no more think 
 of one devil dwelling in another, than I can of a man's spirit 
 possessing a demon. It seems the body of man is penetrable by 
 matter, and his spirit (the true he, the very ego) is penetrable by 
 spirit, or, may I say, is indwellable ? When the Holy Ghost 
 filled Stephen, was that less than the Spirit filled his spirit ? 
 " The kingdom of Heaven is within you," because the King is. 
 Christ gathered all good persons to Him, for unto Him shall the 
 gathering of the people be, and as in the outer kingdom of Heaven, 
 so in the inner. He gathers all good round Him, gradually ; in 
 the soul is a kind of spirit nucleus, a Seed Royal, bringing forth 
 fruit unto eternal life. Ap angel is indwellable of the Almighty 
 Spirit, but man seems much more naturally indwellable than 
 those unembodied spirits. There seems a receptivity in the 
 human spirit that invites entry, a species of moral vacuity that 
 waits an evil or a holy spirit to enter, but angels cannot enter 
 the innermost court of humanity, so that the human afield seems 
 to lie between evil spirits and the Spirit. 
 
 He. You give me something to meditate upon passing strange ; 
 but I cannot see where to put in the negative, for I seem like a 
 man on a ship hearing a diver relate marvellous things concerning 
 
 L 
 
i62 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 the depths, but not having donned a diver's costume, cannot 
 contradict him, but suspend judgment till^I see more. So I 
 do, yet I feel urged to propose one objection to your view, 
 viz., How can Christ be whole and entire in thousands at one 
 time 1 This, you doubtless know, is our stock objection to the 
 wafer-god. 
 
 I. Kome teaches He is present, body, soul, bones, nerves, and 
 Divinity, while we know He sits at the right hand of the Majesty 
 on high, and that a body cannot be at two places at once. 
 Observe, they speak of the human nature, Jesus — I of the Divine 
 Spirit, Christ. God is where we speak, whole and entire, but He 
 is no less so where others speak in London, Berlin, Plevna, 
 Pekin, and all portions of the creation, whether Heaven, Hell, or 
 Earth. If, then. He is wholly everywhere, why not, in a special 
 and gracious manner, dwell in the regenerate ? 
 
 He. You prove too much, for on your showing He dwells in 
 just and unjust. 
 
 /. Do we not say, " Our Father which art in Heaven ; " mean- 
 ing, He is there graciously and gloriously manifested ? God 
 dwells in yonder willow as He did in the Burning Bush, but how 
 diverse the manner. He is in the unjust as in the willow, but 
 in His saved as in the Bush. He dwells in the elect, whether 
 angels, Christians, or Christ, but in each differently. When we 
 read of (Matt. xxiv. 30) "The sign of the Son of Man in Heaven," 
 that means Himself, He being His own sign. So (Luke ii. 12), 
 "This shall be a sign unto you : Ye shall find the Babe." When 
 you read, " God created man in His image," remember nothing 
 less than the Divine One is the Divine Image, as, says Paul 
 (2 Cor. iv. 4), " Christ is the image of God; " also that famous 
 text (Heb. i. 3), " The Son is the express image of the Father,'"' 
 for so it means. Hence, Christ in you is the restored image 
 forfeited by Adam, in him naturally, and all nature is temporary, 
 in Christians graciously, and all grace is eternal. 
 
 He. I still hold that God offers me and every man life. 
 
 /. Remember God is a despot. Now despots give, not offer, 
 because the latter compliments the presentee, which the holy God 
 could not do to sinful men. 
 
 He. Am I to remember that the Blessed is a despot ? No 
 fears of me. It is rank blasphemy. 
 
 /. Well it will not be blaspheming to prove it, which I now do. 
 Despots govern without consulting the will or judgment of those 
 governed. The kingdom of Heaven is not a constitutional 
 monarchy, but an absolutised personal reign. Our Queen needs 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 163 
 
 advisers, people, Parliament, and Cabinet. Our Creator having 
 all wisdom, consults no creature. The covenants were not agree- 
 ments between God and people, but arrangements made by Him, 
 and bowed to by them with a deep Amen. So says Isa. xl. 14, 
 "With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and 
 taught Him in the path of judgment ? " 
 
 He. It may be so, but there is a vast difference between that 
 and a despot. Why, the word is loathsome to a Briton, and you 
 apply it to God ! 
 
 /. Your error lies in not observing that despots are of two 
 kinds — good and bad. Every schoolmaster, sea-captain, general, 
 yea, and family head, is a despot. These do not consult the will 
 of those under them, but, if good despots, consult their wellbeing. 
 When aged Simeon embraced the infant Redeemer, he said (Luke 
 ii. 29), "0 Despot, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." 
 He could die as Moses did, without a sigh, for he had not only 
 seen the promised land, but the Promised Man. When he called 
 the Lord Despot, he meant God had arranged his life and times 
 without consulting him, and had done it well. I glory in the 
 thought of God being my Despot, ordaining me and my affairs 
 without asking my advice. Does not Simon the son of Jonas 
 say (2 Pet. ii. i), "Denying the Despot who bought them"? 
 Not only did Luke and Peter recognise Him as the Despot not 
 to be gainsaid, but the angels so know Him ; according to John, 
 the deathless ones who circle with songs the throne of the life 
 Giver call Him a despot. Rev. vi. 10, " How long, Despot, 
 holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them 
 that dwell on the earth " 1 God does not consult them as to 
 times and seasons, they consult the Despot of Heaven ; were He 
 a bad despot. He would allow no consultation. The Lord God 
 despotic cannot consult us, man proves a poor oracle, but graci- 
 ously permits us to consult Him. If He is not ashamed of being 
 called Despot by Simeon in Jerusalem the old, and angels in 
 Jerusalem the new, why should you think it wrong for a worm 
 of sin and darkness so to term Him in Glasgow? One of the 
 sweet thoughts I enjoy is this despotism of God. It is a political 
 form of that trade analogy, the potter and clay. Our perfection 
 is being a lump of clay full of eyes — clay to be passively fashioned 
 as to Providence, full of eyes to behold His wondrous workings. 
 Arminianism is iron (the strength of God) mingled with clay 
 (man's works combined with God's). Calvinism is the head of 
 gold, all excellent metal, and far from the defilement of dust. 
 In the last washing, that at Jordan, if not before (John xiii. 8), 
 
t64 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 all the clay must be baptized away, for, ''In me dwelleth no 
 good thing." 
 
 He. Evidently our translators did not like calling God, Despot, 
 or they would transfer the word, as they did Hallelujah, instead 
 of translating it by Lord. 
 
 J. But Lord carries the meaning of Despot with it. When the 
 dying robber on the cross, and Saul on the road, severally said 
 " Lord ! " they each meant, TJiou Who hast absolute dominion over 
 7ne, doing what Thou loilt, I submit my will to Thy unll. Does not 
 Jesus so teach (Luke xii. 46), " The Lord of that servant will come 
 in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is 
 not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his 
 portion with unbelievers " ? Despot involves the idea of all rights 
 being in the ruler, and none in the ruled. Surely that is the 
 relationship of our Holy Creator to rebellious creatures. 
 
 He. But you say He never consults us, whereas Isa. i. 18 says, 
 " Come now, let us reason together." 
 
 I. Let me now illustrate the two callings, direct and indirect. 
 The former is invariably effectual — when God calls a man 
 immediately, as to Adam in Eden (Gen. iii. 9), to Noah (vii. i), 
 or Zaccheus (Luke xix. 5). God called the antediluvian rebels 
 for 120 years, but none came. He called directly to Noah, when 
 he came forthwith. So salvation comes by the direct call then 
 and since. 
 
 He. How so, seeing that no man now hears the voice of his 
 Maker, as did Adam or Noah 1 
 
 I. It is heard now, as then, but diversely, internally, thus : 
 A young woman was in our Royal Infirmary. Her surgical 
 attendant told her she needed to undergo a serious operation. 
 She prayed, doubting whether to submit, and a voice inly said, 
 " This is the way : walk thou therein." That was God speaking 
 directly. A man said on Glasgow Green, in the debating ring, 
 to an audience of 2000 souls, "The prayer of the wicked is'an 
 abomination unto the Lord." A young man was regenerated 
 thereby, who died years ago in the Gallowgate. To 1999 souls 
 that was man speaking, or at most God speaking indirectly, but 
 to one soul God spoke straight, and therefore unto life. So the 
 indirect may be made the direct, or may not. When we read 
 (Prov, i. 25), " Ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would 
 none of My reproof," it must not be thought God consults 
 directly, but only that His will is presented by missioned ones. 
 While they so present it He has mercy on whom He will have 
 mercy, but to those who hear that message ungraciously it 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 165 
 
 becomes a savour of death unto death, whereby they are hardened. 
 When you read (Rev. xix. 9), " Blessed are they which are called 
 to the marriage supper of the Lamb," it is the direct call, as He 
 gave Xoah. No man comes at the indirect call. When Jesus 
 preached to the many, that was indirect, but to Him pertained 
 a power no other preacher ever had of giving the call direct, as 
 he did to Zaccheus. The direct call is never given to more than 
 one at a time ; it is always singular. Jesus never says, I called, 
 hut thou ivouldst not. His tears correspond to His general call, 
 many — His blood to His direct personal call, one — He weeps as 
 a ministering man over many, but dies as Immanuel over one. 
 
 He. E-omanists teach the Divine entry by four modes : water 
 in baptism, confirmation, the mass when Christ is received into 
 the stomach, and laying on of hands of bishops. In three of 
 these the Spirit enters in connection with an outward and visible 
 sign. How do you teach in relation to that ? 
 
 /. We have no guarantee a person is born again by baptism, 
 whether it be infant or adult. Indeed, Luke teaches the other 
 way. Acts viii., " Then Simon (the Magician) himself believed 
 also : and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and 
 wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done : 
 . . . But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, 
 because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased 
 with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter : for 
 thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Ptepent therefore of 
 this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of 
 thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art 
 in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." His creed 
 was correct, and baptism apostolic, but he was in the gall of bitter- 
 ness, because the Spirit that sweetens the soul was not there. 
 The honest searcher for truth needs no other proof that neither 
 creeds nor rites can save, that glory being reserved for a Person. 
 Peter won't answer for his being forgiven even if he repents : all 
 depending upon whether the Man in session gives Simon con- 
 trition. We can be attrite, but God only makes us contrite. 
 Attrition dreads punishment, contrition hates sin. The first time 
 Peter cast the gospel net into the Gentile sea, after pulhng his 
 take to shore, he said, " Can any man forbid water, that these 
 should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as 
 well as we 1 " Therefore the Gentiles did not receive the Spirit 
 by water, He having entered by the preached word. Now as to 
 the mode in which Christ is thought to be received in the mass, 
 it is only necessary to say that such teaching is more worthy of 
 
i66 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 Ethiopia than of Europe. As to bishops receiving the imposition 
 of hands, prophets, priests, or kings being anointed or consecrated, 
 it is supposed that they had already received the Holy Ghost 
 personally for salvation, but now officially. I therefore teach 
 that the Sanctifier is given ordinarily to men as He was to our 
 earth naturally, without sign on His part or seeking on ours. 
 Moses so teaches : " And the Spirit of God moved upon the face 
 of the waters." In such case the Spirit enters by the word, as 
 when a hundred hear the same sermon and one is regenerated 
 thereby. If it be not by preaching, reading, or thinking, as in 
 the case of infants, it is not given to man to know the manner 
 of entry any more than it is to know how life is transferred in 
 plant or animal. 
 
 He. But are you not opposing our Rabboni when saying, 
 " Amen, amen, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water 
 and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God " ? 
 
 /. By no means. The reformer said, " I indeed baptize you 
 with water unto repentance : but He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost, even fire." Paraphrased, it reads thus : I wash you 
 religiously unto the purification of tJae outer man, but He shall 
 purify the inner by Spirit. Water and fire are figures of the 
 Cleanser. They are neither cleansers nor yet media of purifica- 
 tion, but signs of it. Purity is a great gift to sinners, but we 
 never get it without the Giver. We cannot have grace unless 
 by having the gracious Person. There is no possessing the 
 streams unless the fountain dwells in us. " In the last day, that 
 great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man 
 thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on 
 Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of him shall flow rivers of 
 living (life-living) water." There is something awful about that, 
 Jesus stood and cried, reminding one of Rev. x. 5. There is 
 nothing like it in the gospels. These words clearly involve the 
 doctrine taught the solitary woman : " Whosoever drinketh of 
 the water that I shall give him, shall not thirst ever" (as the 
 rich man now does) ; God quickens a soul by Spirit entry who is 
 the eternal river of life, flowing eternally : then that soul by 
 inward necessity seeks Christ, guided by the star of promise, till 
 he finds the Promised. But let him shun a thought of saving 
 himself by going or doing. A lady explained to a gentleman 
 that their religion differed by two letters. This was his 
 puzzle, which the elect lady explained by showing her legalist 
 friend hers was d, 0, 71, e, while his was d, 0. Hers, done by 
 Christ, and given : his, he himself had to do. Hers admitted of 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 167 
 
 no increase, because complete when Jesus cried " It is finished." 
 His could not be, from the legal standpoint, completed until he 
 could say the same ; but finished covers from cradle to coffin, 
 and probably he did not begin trying to do until of age, twenty 
 years too late, consequently finished could never apply thereto. 
 " If thine eye be single, thou shalt be full of light : " therefore, 
 " Behold the Lamb," and Him only. 
 
 He. What say you to that obsolete party, the saint ? I was 
 taught saints were persons of astounding piety, with whom it is 
 uncomfortable to companionise. It appears they are dying out. 
 Ireland has produced none for 700 years, whereas it was called 
 the Isle of Saints. 
 
 /. There are a thousand saints now for one a thousand years 
 ago. At Divine Entry a man becomes a saint, a sanctified one. 
 God outside man means guilty ; inside, means holy. Canonising 
 a saint by the Vatican process costs thousands of pounds, but 
 by Jerusalem the golden they are hallowed for nothing for ever. 
 Have another look at the Burning Bush. It is flame and 
 bramble. If instead of a bush it had been olive or vine, laden 
 with fruit, it would symbolise salvation by works, teach we 
 cannot be saved except by being fruitful in goodness before we are 
 good. The bramble preaches free grace. When Jesus exorcised 
 seven unclean spirits from Mary, Christ entered Magdalene. Sin 
 abounded as a foil that grace might be seen to much more abound ; 
 the thorns were many, but they were glorified, transfigured by 
 Flame. Entry is ennoblement. Beasts have a mortal spirit, 
 unregenerate men an immortal spirit ; in Christians the Eternal 
 dwells. As the altar sanctified the gift, so the Spirit regulates 
 moral status. Can you tell me on what altar the Son was 
 offered ? 
 
 He. Why, the cross, most certainly. 
 
 /. Certainly not. When lambs were slain in the Temple, they 
 were mutton until placed upon the altar, when they passed into a 
 propitiation. The altar, an impassible, unalterable thing, was 
 greater than the lamb subject to death, not in itself, being but 
 inert matter, but by Divine appointment. Now Christ by the 
 Eternal Spirit offered Himself an immaculate atonement to God. 
 It was the Eternal Spirit that exalted humanity into a full and 
 sufficient offering for the sins of the whole world. The cross being 
 wood, a mere accident in the transaction, had no more virtue 
 in it than a priest's crucifix. That same Spirit sanctifies us by 
 indwelling. Men are kept from corruption of the tomb by the 
 indwelling of a human spirit, and are sanctified for ever by the 
 
i68 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 Indweller. Less is short of eternal life. That being. so, our 
 very bodies are holy unto Him, whence He keeps vigil over them 
 with unbounded affection, illustrated by the oldest sepulchre now 
 on the earth. 
 
 He. If you mean Machpelah, I hardly see its bearing on 
 redemption. 
 
 L Let us see. When in the bush the Lord said, " I am the 
 God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," showing His eye 
 was on the dwellers in Machpelah, who had been buried 150 
 years, and that His regard guaranteed they would be raised 
 in resurrection glory. They are paired off thus : Abraham and 
 Sarah, neither Keturah nor Hagar : Isaac and Rebekah : Jacob 
 and Leah, his favourite Rachel not there, nor Bilhah or Zilpah 
 in that monogamic cave. As Adam and Eve, Noah and his 
 anonymous wife, Christ and His Shulamite bride, the Church, so 
 those three pair of sleepers. Those six being dead, yet speak, 
 nay, chant in the tomb : Faitliful art Tliou, Lord, and Thy cove- 
 nant is stronger than Death. Thou, our God, hast the keys of Hell, 
 wherefore we rest in hojpe waiting to sing our resurrection song. 
 Death, where is thy sting ? Grave, where is thy victory ? — God 
 makes the soldiers of many nations walk sentry-go over the six 
 sleepers to show that all things work together for good to His 
 Elect. Those six are nigh unto waking. 
 
 He. I allow that certain of your views please, yet I fear adopt- 
 ing them because of their novelty. They seem too new^ to be 
 true. Moreover, you plainly concuss with revelation, which 
 puts faith first, and salvation as its consequent. Paul said to 
 the nameless gaoler : " Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou 
 shalt be saved," whereas you put it, Be saved and believe. 
 Worse, you leave the Be out, affirming we have no power over 
 salvation. 
 
 /. By preaching the Spirit enters whomsoever He will : after- 
 wards faith operates, and we realise salvation. After the forth- 
 putting of faith comes conscious union by love with our Lord. 
 When the woman touched His fringe, " She felt in her body that 
 she was healed." We receive Christ unconsciously, and then 
 believe on him consciously. I attempt presenting salvation in 
 tlie philosophical form, causationally, but the Scriptures present 
 it in the popular form, and rather in its accomplishment than as 
 to how, mode, cause. Moses gives no scientific account of 
 creation, but something better, one fitted for the masses, because 
 men, as a rule, are not thinkers. The Gospels supply illustra- 
 tions of my meaning, thus (John xii. 17) : "The people therefore 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 169 
 
 that was with Him when He called Lazarus out of his grave, and 
 raised him from the dead, bare record," It is plain He must have 
 raised him first. Our being quickened precedes coming out of a 
 death of sin into a life of righteousness. As to the " Be," if you 
 are bent on a self-raising virtue so far as salvation is concerned, 
 Christ can be dispensed with. Phenomenally, the sun goes round 
 the earth, but actually, the earth causes day by rotation, howbeit, 
 our language fashions itself to the apparent, so the Bible as to 
 the plan of salvation. Mercifully it is put in an exoteric form, 
 I endeavour to present it in the esoteric shape. As in school, 
 so in church — the many are in the bottom class, but the cream 
 teaching is reserved for upper standards. I endeavour to give 
 standard six. 
 
 He. I still suffer misgivings about your views. Placing salva- 
 tion, life in the Spirit, before Faith in Christ seems contrary to 
 the express word, which again and again insists upon salvation 
 by faith. Indeed, I fear you depart from the Lutheran basis of 
 salvation by faith as opposed to works. Eemember, "Without 
 faith it is impossible to please God." 
 
 /. Let me try my hand at a Glasgow parable. A Mrs. Sims was 
 deserted by her husband through being unable to obtain employ- 
 ment. On the Friday before rent day, Monday, November nth, 
 she determined upon writing to a brother at Ayr, but not having 
 corresponded for years is doubtful as to address. M'Phee, for 
 so was he named, was so affected at the thought of his sister 
 being without house or home that he sent a parcel containing 
 the amount by a friend who was that morning passing through 
 Glasgow for Inverness. After so doing he felt so ill at ease lest 
 she should not receive the parcel, that he sent the amount by 
 P. 0. Now, assuming Mrs. Sims received both, would it be of 
 any importance the way it came ? 
 
 He. Of course not. She does not think of medium, but of 
 help. 
 
 /. Life eternal taking the place of death spiritual is what we 
 need, but your head runs on the route by which it comes till the 
 way becomes more important than the thing sent. Say that 
 salvation comes by faith (but that is only true of the conscious- 
 ness of salvation) even then it is hi/ faith through faith, via 
 fides, not because of faith, for there can be no virtue in us until 
 we are virtuous. Paul writing to the Gallo-Grecians says (Gal. 
 V. 22), "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," Now these 
 graces are Spirit fruit ; you insist that one of them is the root. 
 
I70 CALVINISM POPULARISED 
 
 As well say that peace is of human generation, of carnal origin. 
 It is true that without faith in God as to being and promise we 
 cannot please Him. Would Abraham please God had he with- 
 held Isaac through lack of confidence ? But God was pleased w^ 
 Abram when He called him (Gen. xi.-xii.) many years before : on 
 Moriah He was pleased ivith him. Li is father of with. I trace 
 grace to the Gracious failing to see godliness growing out of 
 any root but God. You lose sight of the difference between 
 electioji and selection. The former leaves God free; the latter 
 takes from Him sovereignty, leaving nothing but a position that 
 any ordinary man is competent to occupy. In election, its reason 
 lies in God ; in selection, the reason for being chosen lies in the 
 thing presented for choice. Who could elect one of the dying 
 robbers 1 After one had received grace and professed faith, any 
 one would prefer him to his late companion. Has a man faith, 
 it must be by prevenient grace, God's favour producing it. " 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." 
 "It is God that worketh in you, to will and to do of His good 
 pleasure." If it be so, say Amen ! Do not demand that you do 
 Divine work ; enough if you receive it. 
 
 He. I may call myself in theology an out and out Jacobite, for 
 there are few parts of God's word I admire more than the 
 catholic letter of James. Now, the very last thing he says is, 
 " He who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall 
 save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." 
 That looks like our activity in salvation ; in saving others if not 
 ourselves. 
 
 I. As well think a spade digs. The ivord, the Bible is the 
 sword of the Spirit, but that sword cannot cut; it is He, the 
 Spirit, using the word. We may be the instruments of convert- 
 ing souls, but the man-saved man is no nearer the kingdom. 
 Look at Noah, who preached 120 years, converting none, and yet 
 is honoured of God as pre-eminent for faithfulness. Howbeit 
 One saves whom He will, by whom He will, seems to have saved 
 none by Him in that period, whereas by the faithless grumbler 
 Jonah He saved thousands in three days. One saith, "Be thou 
 faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." All 
 hinges on faithfulness, and when we faithfully work a long time 
 we earn nothing, for He saith, "I will give thee;" not Thoit 
 shall be paid. It is immense to work for Jesus without fee, pay, or 
 reward ; as we get everything of grace we ought to do everything 
 of grace. The true Calvinist thinks nothing of reward in the 
 
CALVINISM POPULARISED 171 
 
 sublime to come. His view is that creation, salvation, status in 
 Heaven is all so much grace. Should God give a prize-fighter, 
 converted on his deathbed, the first place in Glory, and Paul the 
 lowest, the apostle would have nothing to complain of, nor- would. 
 All the man of Tarsus did was work out what God inwrought. 
 All our springs are in the Fountain, without whom we should be 
 dry as dust, and barren as Arabia Deserta. By Him we become 
 vases in this howling wilderness, receiving heavenly rain. To 
 bring forth fruit is reward enough. 
 
 THE END 
 
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