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    ascribed to God , and tliat they invited and exhorted all men to examine and receive their doctrine as being not only the truth , but such truth as gave evidence and display of the divine perfections . This was an

    appeal to the moral part of our nature , call it reason , the moral sense , or with the Apostle the law of God written in our hearts , whatever phraseology be chosen , the fact is the same : and their appeal was either without meaning or it meant , that taking the words justice , goodness and mercy to denote

    such moral qualities as they are generally used to denote among men , it appears , and appears to the human understanding in the Christian revelation , that God is infinitely just , good , and merciful . It is then , irrelevant and frivolous to object , that human reason is out of its limits when it

    presumes to inquire if any proceeding ascribed to the moral governor of the world be merciful or cruel , just or unjust . In this inquiry such a use is made of reason , or of the moral

    faculty , as was challenged and demanded by the first preachers of the gospel , and therefore it must be acknowledged by every Christian to be a lawful use of the faculty . Indeed it ivould . be absurd to attribute to

    Christian doctrine any instrumentality in forming the moral character , if the yioral perfections of the divine Nature , though exerted in the Christian Economy , were not also displayed to human apprehension . On any other supposition the exhortation to be followers of God , or to imitate his

    moral character , would be trifling at best , and in connexion with some religious tenets might be pernicious in the extreme . Believing then , that it is not only lawful , but incumbent on me , to examine whatever professes to be the scheme of the moral government of God disclosed in Christianity

    by the light of m ^ moral faculties , which is also " light from heaven , ' * 1 have judged it right to make the Calvinistic creed the subject of such examination 3 and I shall now add some reasons which appear to me conclusive against its pretensions to be considered the true form of Christian doctrine .

    1 . In that system we contemplate the Supreme Being , in his relation to the whole race of man , solely in a judicial character . It presents to u& -a legal

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    proceeding , and could not be explained in any other terms than such as are taken from the proceedings in courts of judgment . Nothing is built upon the parental relation to all and each of mankind . It stands as it

    might have stood , had the relation between God and man , universally , never been described in the Christian Scriptures to be that of a father and his children ; and for this reason it wants that amiable and attractive

    character which meets us in every page of the New Testament , that benign radiance which , falling upon the ordinary charities of our nature , kindles them into devotion . If in any part of the scheme the paternal mind is displayed , it is in the institution of an

    atonement for sin , that the merciful father may pardon those whom the righteous judge must condemn ; but since it was also predetermined ( for this makes a link in the system , ) that a part only of the offending family shall receive the benefit of this

    institution , with respect to the rest of mankind , that is , the vast multitude of the non-elect , the judicial character alone has been displayed . If offers of peace have been made to them , the grace

    which was necessary to acceptance of them , though granted to the chosen , has been withheld from them - and they perish beneath the sentence of the law , having received none of the benefit of a filial relation . Had the

    Roman father spared one of his equally guilty sons and ordered the other to execution , the survivor might recognize the father , but the victim of public justice only the judge : who could applaud either the father or the judge ? Yet he who was taught of God has commanded us to imitate our

    father who is in heaven ; * be ye perfect , as your Father who is in heavea is perfect . ' 2 dly . The system which I reject makes moral responsibility to exceed the measure of ability . If any pro * position may be regarded as an axiom in morals , this is one , that there

    cannot exist an obligation to perform what is naturally impossible . No mnn is obliged to perform miracles . It is said , that every , man inherits a corrupt nature , which is incapable of perfect obedience to the divine law . Perfect obedience , therefore , would be contrary to his nature ; and whether the deviation from a law of nature be

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    Reasons for rejecting the Calvinistie Theology . No . /• & 8

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/23/