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beacon lights of history-iii-2-第53章

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texts。  It should be the work of theologians to harmonize them and

show their general spirit and meaning; rather than to draw

conclusions from any particular class of subjects。  Any system of

deductions from texts of Scripture which are offset by texts of

equal authority but apparently different meaning; is necessarily

one…sided and imperfect; and therefore narrow。  That is exactly the

difficulty under which Calvin labored。  He seems; to a large class

of Christians of great ability and conscientiousness; to be narrow

and one…sided; and is therefore no authority to them; not; be it

understood; in reference to the great fundamental doctrines of

Christianity; but in his views of Predestination and the subjects

interlinked with it。  And it was the great error of attaching so

much importance to mere metaphysical divinity that led to such a

revulsion from his peculiar system in after times。  It was the

great wisdom of the English reformers; like Cranmer; to leave all

those metaphysical questions open; as matters of comparatively

little consequence; and fall back on unquestioned doctrines of

primitive faith; that have given so great vitality to the English

Church; and made it so broad and catholic。  The Puritans as a body;

more intellectual than the mass of the Episcopalians; were led away

by the imposing and entangling dialectics of the scholastic Calvin;

and came unfortunately to attach as much importance to such

subjects as free…will and predestinationquestions most

complicatedas they did to 〃the weightier matters of the law;〃 and

when pushed by the logic of opponents to the decretum horribile;〃

have been compelled to fall back on the Catholic doctrine of

mysteries; as something which could never be explained or

comprehended; but which it is a Christian duty to accept as a

mystery。  The Scriptures certainly speak of mysteries; like

regeneration; but it is one thing to marvel how a man can be born

again by the Spirit of God;a fact we see every day;and quite

another thing to make a mystery to be accepted as a matter of faith

of that which the Bible has nowhere distinctly affirmed; and which

is against all ideas of natural justice; and arrived at by a subtle

process of dialectical reasoning。



But it was natural for so great an intellectual giant as Calvin to

make his startling deductions from the great truths he meditated

upon with so much seriousness and earnestness。  Only a very lofty

nature would have revelled as he did; and as Augustine did before

him and Pascal after him; in those great subjects which pertain to

God and his dispensations。  All his meditations and formulated

doctrines radiate from the great and sublime idea of the majesty of

God and the comparative insignificance of man。  And here he was not

so far apart from the great sages of antiquity; before salvation

was revealed by Christ。  〃Canst thou by searching find out God?〃

〃What is man that Thou art mindful of him?〃



And here I would remark that theologians and philosophers have ever

been divided into two great schools;those who have had a tendency

to exalt the dignity of man; and those who would absorb man in the

greatness of the Deity。  These two schools have advocated doctrines

which; logically carried out to their ultimate sequences; would

produce a Grecian humanitarianism on the one hand; and a sort of

Bramanism on the other;the one making man the arbiter of his own

destiny; independently of divine agency; and the other making the

Deity the only power of the universe。  With one school; God as the

only controlling agency is a fiction; and man himself is infinite

in faculties; the other holds that God is everything and man is

nothing。  The distinction between these two schools; both of which

have had great defenders; is fundamental;such as that between

Augustine and Pelagius; between Bernard and Abelard; and between

Calvin and Lainez。  Among those who have inclined to the doctrine

of the majesty of God and the littleness of man were the primitive

monks and the Indian theosophists; and the orthodox scholastics of

the Middle Ages;all of whom were comparatively indifferent to

material pleasure and physical progress; and sought the salvation

of the soul and the favor of God beyond all temporal blessings。  Of

the other class have been the Greek philosophers and the

rationalizing schoolmen and the modern lights of science。



Now Calvin was imbued with the lofty spirit of the Fathers of the

Church and the more religious and contemplative of the schoolmen

and the saints of the Middle Ages; when he attached but little

dignity to man unaided by divine grace; and was absorbed with the

idea of the sovereignty of God; in whose hands man is like clay in

the hands of the potter。  This view of God pervaded the whole

spirit of his theology; making it both lofty and yet one…sided。  To

him the chief end of man was to glorify God; not to develop his own

intellectual faculties; and still less to seek the pleasures and

excitements of the world。  Man was a sinner before an infinite God;

and he could rise above the polluting influence of sin only by the

special favor of God and his divinely communicated grace。  Man was

so great a sinner that he deserved an eternal punishment; only to

be rescued as a brand plucked from the fire; as one of the elect

before the world was made。  The vast majority of men were left to

the uncovenanted mercies of Christ;the redeemer; not of the race;

but of those who believed。



To Calvin therefore; as to the Puritans; the belief in a personal

God was everything; not a compulsory belief in the general

existence of a deity who; united with Nature; reveals himself to

our consciousness; not the God of the pantheist; visible in all the

wonders of Nature; not the God of the rationalist; who retires from

the universe which he has made; leaving it to the operation of

certain unchanging and universal laws: but the God whom Abraham and

Moses and the prophets saw and recognized; and who by his special

providence rules the destinies of men。  The most intellectual of

the reformers abhorred the deification of the reason; and clung to

that exalted supernaturalism which was the life and hope of blessed

saints and martyrs in bygone ages; and which in 〃their contests

with mail…clad infidelity was like the pebble which the shepherd of

Israel hurled against the disdainful boaster who defied the power

of Israel's God。〃  And he was thus brought into close sympathy with

the realism of the Fathers; who felt that all that is valuable in

theology must radiate from the recognition of Almighty power in the

renovation of society; and displayed; not according to our human

notions of law and progress and free…will; but supernaturally and

mysteriously; according to his sovereign will; which is above law;

since God is the author of law。  He simply erred in enforcing a

certain class of truths which must follow from the majesty of the

one great First Cause; lofty as these truths are; to the exclusion

of another class of truths of great importance; which gives to his

system incompleteness and one…sidedness。  Thus he was led to

undervalue the power of truth itself in its contest with error。  He

was led into a seeming recognition of two wills in God;that which

wills the salvation of all men; and that which wills the salvation

of the elect alone。  He is accused of a leaning to fatalism; which

he heartily denied; but which seems to follow from his logical

conclusions。  He entered into an arena of metaphysical controversy

which can never be settled。  The doctrines of free…will and

necessity can never be reconciled by mortal reason。  Consciousness

reveals the freedom of the will as well as the slavery to sin。  Men

are conscious of both; they waste their time in attempting to

reconcile two apparently opposing facts;like our pious fathers at

their New England fire…sides; who were compelled to shelter

themselves behind mystery。



The tendency of Calvin's system; it is maintained by many; is to

ascribe to God attributes which according to natural justice would

be injustice and cruelty; such as no father would exercise on his

own children; however guilty。  Even good men will not accept in

their hearts doctrines which tend to make God less compassionate

than man。  There are not two kinds of justice。  The intellect is

appalled when it is affirmed that one man JUSTLY suffers the

penalty of another man's sin;although the world is full of

instances of men suffering from the carelessness or wickedness of

others; as in a wicked war or an unnecessary railway disaster。  The

Scripture law of retribution; as brought out in the Bible and

sustained by consciousness; is the penalty a man pays for personal

and voluntary transgression。  Nor will consciousness accept the

doctrine that the sin of a mortalespecially under strong

temptation and with all the bias of a sinful natureis infinite。

Nothing which a created m
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