The doctrinal belief of our fathers was thoroughly Calvinistic. They assented to the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith in 1648, and adopted the Savoy Confession, which was about the same thing in matters of doctrine, in 1680. John Cotton, of Boston, said that, after studying twelve hours a day, he wanted to sweeten his mouth with a morsel from John Calvin before he went to sleep.

When this church adopted the Savoy Confession, they said, "We do heartily close in with it for the substance of it;" by which they meant to reserve to themselves a degree of liberty in the interpretation of it. We should probably use more liberty than they did; that is, we should reject altogether the doctrine of a limited atonement, for we believe that Christ died for all men. We do not believe the doctrine of the imputation of the guilt of the sin of our first parents to all their posterity, and it is not at all probable that Mr. Hobart or Mr. Cotton, or any of the divines of their day, meant, when speaking of this doctrine, that we are guilty of Adam's sin,- a thing impossible,- but only that we endure the consequences of it in our mortality, and in the depraved nature which we inherit from him. Calvin himself says, "It is not to be understood as if we, though innocent, were loaded with the guilt of Adam's sin; but because we are all subject to a curse in consequence of his transgression, he is therefore said to have involved us in guilt." Where the creed says, "We have wholly lost all ability of will to

any spiritual good," we should prefer to say that we have lost all inclination to and love of spiritual good, though we could obey the gospel if we would.

Such things as these in the creed Dr. Woods, of Andover, used to call the fag-ends of Calvinism, and we ought not to judge of a whole system by its fag-ends. So the doctrine that one ought to be willing to be damned, if it should be for the glory of God, is a fag-end of Hopkinsianism. The creed of Andover Seminary was formed to please both Calvinists and Hopkinsians. Those points in which both parties could agree were retained in it, and the fag-ends of both creeds were lopped off, so that that creed may be said to represent what we have in mind when we say that we accept the Savoy Confession, for the substance of it.

The doctrine of "inability to all spiritual good" is found frequently in the writings of Mr. Hobart and of Mr. Cotton. The doctrine of election is found occasionally, though not often.

'The doctrine that one ought to be willing to be damned for the glory of God is very well answered by Mr. Hobart. He says: “Such willingness includes in it full and perfect enmity against God and Christ, which no man should be willing to. It also includes a willingness and contentment that God and Christ should not have his power and grace glorified in their salvation. The expression of Moses desiring to be blotted out of God's book, and of Paul wishing himself accursed from Christ, do not at all favor such an opinion, inasmuch as these words were uttered by them from a loathness and unwillingness that others should be lost and perish. Now, if a man ought not to be willing that others should be damned, neither then should he will his own eternal ruin, for there is a regular self-love, which men owe first to themselves, and this is made the rule of their love to others." "Absence of the Comforter," p. 259.

Mr. Hobart thus answers an objection founded upon the doctrine, saying to the objector, "Perhaps you will say, 'I know not that Christ intercedes for me, for he said, "I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me." Foolish and vain man thus to side with Satan against God's glory and your own good! Men do not argue thus in temporal affairs. Suppose there is an office of dignity and profit left vacant. A hundred men, it may be, will sue for it, when they certainly know that ninety-nine will fail to get it. Only one can have it; every one hopes he shall be that one. If you will pray to God for the gift of his spirit, you know not but that every one of you will obtain it, and yet you make such frivolous objections. God commands you to pray and wait, and this is the way to know that Christ intercedes for you; but you stand to capitulate that God shall first assure you that you are one of those who are given to Christ out of the world."

1

Mr. Hobart here virtually admits to the objector that it may be true that Christ does not pray for him, but with great energy and force he reminds him that if he were as earnest in seeking salvation as he would be in seeking a desirable office, he would then know that Christ did intercede for him, and his objection would be taken out of the way.

This doctrine we still hold, because we think we find it not only in the Bible, but in Nature and in

1" Absence of the Comforter," p. 312.

Providence. Darwin's theory of "natural selection" involves the same principle. The circumstances of every man's birth, his surroundings, his parentage, his ancestry, all beyond his control, subject him to influences and inclinations which often determine his character and career for time and for eternity. Accordingly, James Anthony Froude says, "If Arminianism most commends itself to our feelings, Calvinism is nearer to the facts, however harsh and forbidding those facts may seem."1

"One thing is certain," said the late Henry B. Smith, "infidel science will rout everything except thorough-going Christian orthodoxy. All the flabby theories and the molluscous formations will go by the board. The fight will be between a stiff thorough-going Orthodoxy and a stiff thoroughgoing Infidelity. It will be, e. g., Augustine or Comte, Athanasius or Hegel, Luther or Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill or John Calvin. Arianism gets the fire on both sides; so does Arminianism; so does Universalism."

We hold to the Confession of 1680 still, as our fathers did, for the substance of it, but we do it with the warmest Christian affection for those who differ from us. We join hand and heart with our Methodist brethren. Professor Shedd, who is as stanch a Calvinist as can be anywhere found, speaks somewhere of the "beloved Methodist," and then adds, "We feel a deep and warm affec

"Essay on Calvinism," p. 12.

tion towards that large denomination, which goes everywhere preaching the doctrine of man's guilt and his forgiveness through atoning blood." So desirous are we for union with our Methodist brethren, as well as with the other great Christian bodies, in promoting the interests of Christ's kingdom, that in the declaration of faith made by our own council of 1865 on Burial Hill in Plymouth, the word "Calvinism" is not used. The creed now used by this church has nothing in it which a Methodist brother could not subscribe to if he wished to join the church.

Calvinism, notwithstanding all the prejudice which there is against it, is a mighty system. By creating in every man's mind a sense of his own worth as a being called of God into his own kingdom and glory, and redeemed by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, it has asserted human rights and the equality of all men before God as no other system ever did. In its encounters with the Church of Rome, it compelled that church, after long and bloody wars, to surrender its claim to the right to hang and burn those who differed from it. David Hume said that England owed all the liberty she had to the Puritans; and George Bancroft says that the monarchs of Europe, with one consent and with instinctive judgment, feared Calvinism as republicanism. John Fiske says that the promulgation of the theology of Calvin was one of the longest steps that mankind