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who have adopted an erroneous view of Christian doctrine . We know that pure Calvinism , carried to its legitimate consequencesor , if any of your readers object to this declaration , I will say
Antinomianisin — does encourage acts of unrighteotisness in many men , while it cherishes acts of virtue in none * I say we know that it does ; for we have seen , often and often , that the doctrines of election and of reprobation , when admitted in their full extent , do
not fail to produce ; this effect in a corrupt and winked mind ^—aad who s&all exclude them from such a mind ? —for with such , joined to an active imagination , they are most acceptable . But they do not generally produce this effect ; and why do they not ?
There are many who hold these doctrines , in our view destructive of all moral distinctions , and yet are patterns of general virtue ; and , while their religion teaches that all the actions of their lives are equally
corrupt , and I might say vicious $ and that none of them , be they what they may , have any merit in the sight of Godj they give a decided preference to those which are pious and virtuous , admire them in others , and practise them themselves . There is an
incongruity in such a line of conduct too palpable to escape notice . If a man believe from his heart that every thing which he does is alike corrupt , that in the final issue of things it will make no difference in what manner his present life is passed , for that he must owe his salvation to the redemption
of the blood of Christ , or cannot obtain it at all , therefore , that his future welfare can be neither promoted nor prevented by any thing or by every thing he can do , —why should he not walk in the ways of his heart and in the sight of his eyes , in the assurance that for these things God will not call him into judgment I
It appears to me that the subject we are now upon explains to us why he does not . I think that while his theological system dictates to him one thing , his heart dictates another . It seems to me there is an open war declared between his creed and his
feehngs ; and that while in I 119 judgment he bows submissively to what he regards the written word of God ,
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he yields , and he cannot avoid yielding , a quiet submission to those dictates which are written by the finger of God upon his heart . Happy is it for frail humanity that a weak head cannot alvyays overcome the suggestions of a tender heart , and
that the error which so easily obtains a seat in the mind , is not in general powerful enough to counteract those delightful feelings which are madevthe basis of human excellence , and which alone can make the society of mankind happy upon earth . One cannot ^ help believing that , in order to convince
man of his weakness , he is allowed to wander in the deepest mazes of error , and follow all the leadings of a wayward mind , but that a check is provided by his beneficent Creator to the evil that must assuredly arise from his weakness , in those kind affections which are implanted within him , and which no accumulation of falsehood
and of bigotry can altogether destroy I . have seen , Sir , the remarks of " A Calvinist" in your last number ( Vol . XIX . p . 536 ) . He writes much about a consistent Calvinist . This is a very equivocal term . The shades of what is called Calvinism are varied as
the colours of the rainbow ; and in whatever line a man may place himself , from the tender violet to the ilaming red , I apprehend he thinks himself consistent . With his own principles he perhaps is so ; but ... he must allow us to judge , not from his thoughts , which are not open to us , but from the creeds of Calvinistic
churches , and catechisms , and those books which were written by the great men who have been held to be oracles of the party . There is high Calvinism , which is proper Calvitizsm , and there are modifications of it , which , in truth , are no Calvinism at all .
These modified systems have been prevalent for more than two centuries among the Dissenters of England and in the Established Churches , in spite of all their Articles and
Confessions of Faith ; and they have been held by those respectable characters of the family in which I was bom , whose Nonconformity I value , but whose theology , I must think , needed a purging not less efficient thai ^| hat by which the forma of the Church
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72 The " Faith of the Heart . "
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 72, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/8/
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