communication of spiritual life which can never afterwards be
forfeited or lost. No sins, however enormous, can endanger the
elect, although they may for a time cloud their evidences. The
effects produced by this doctrine on the mind of that individual who
believes himself to be thus specially distinguished, must be of a
very dangerous kind, unless counteracted as it frequently is by
other principles, or restrained by the genuine spirit of
Christianity operating with antagonist energy.

It is this _necessary_ corruption of the great truths of the Gospel
that renders Calvinism an object of distrust and alarm. If it was a
mere speculation, which was intended, in the calm spirit of
Christian philosophy, to solve a problem in theology or morals,
leaving untouched the essential character of revealed religion, it
might pass without rebuke. But it weakens the moral sense, and it
leads to the subversion of all that is consolatory in our prospects
of the final destinies of the human race, leaving us no security for
the salvation even of the supposed elect; for what hope can repose
with confidence on the supreme Arbiter of events, when He is
believed to be the author of a religion which represents Him as
acting without any intelligible moral motive, destroying the
majority of the human race for offences not their own, and saving
the remnant without regard to their Christian virtues!

It is remarkable that, while in modern times many disavow their
belief in those views of the _divine decrees_ which form the basis
of the Calvinistic creed, and which have occasioned this corruption
of Christian truth, they still hold to these corruptions, and write
and preach on the implied principle that the grace of God is limited
by decree to those whom they specially designate his children. They
have been driven from the foundation, and still they cleave to the
superstructure. They assume the designation of _moderate_
Calvinists, not perceiving that the doctrines of particular
redemption, and special grace, and exclusive assumption of a filial
relation to God, are untenable when absolute predestination is
exploded. Calvinism, after all, is their creed, since the system to
which they adhere cannot rest on any other foundation.

It is to be inferred, therefore, that for persons of a certain
temperament this doctrine has charms so powerful as to negative the
calm dictates of the judgment, and practically to render the mind
insensible to the fo