n showing that the divine method of salvation is
through substantial rejection of evil and appropriation of good in
personal character, and not through royal proclamation and
forensic conformity.

The plan of God for the salvation of men, as its culmination is
seen in Christ, is the exhibition of the true type of being, the
true style of motive and action, for their assimilation and
reproduction: but Calvinism, when fundamentally analyzed, reduces
it to a monarchical manifesto and spectacular drama working its
effects through verbal terms, acts of mental assent and gesticular
deeds. Every sound teaching of philosophy refutes this exclusive
and arbitrary creed. In fact, its fictitious and mythological
nature is obvious the moment we see that the will of God is
represented in those laws of nature which are the direct
articulations and embodiments of his eternal mind, and not in
those political regulations or priestly and judicial formalities
which express the perverted desires and artificial devices of men.
The wearing of a certain dress, the bending of the knee, the
muttering of a phrase, may flatter an earthly sovereign and gain a
seat at his banquets. But it is childish folly to fancy any such
thing of God. It is absurd to suppose that he has two schemes of
government, one for the present state, another for the future; one
for the elect, another for the reprobate; one for those who gaze
on the spectacle of the crucifixion and make a certain sign,
another for those who do not. His laws, identified with the
unchangeable nature and course of the creation, sweep in one
unbroken order throughout immensity and eternity, awarding perfect
justice, and perfect mercy to all alike, making the experience of
all souls a hell or a heaven to them accordingly as they strive
against or harmonize with the divine system of existence in
which they have their being. The mere acceptance of a technical
dogma, the mere performance of a ritual action, cannot adjust
a discordant character with the conditions of blessedness so
as to reinstate an exile of heaven. To imagine that God will,
in consideration of some technical device, place in heaven a
man whose character fits him for hell, or, in default of that
conventionality, place in hell a man whose character fits him
for heaven, is to represent him as acting on an eccentric whim.
And surely every one who has a worthy idea of God must find
it much easier to believe that men have mixed mythol