ourself contending against some of God's truths." Now that it
is so fashionable to denounce Calvinism, it is perhaps well to act on
the good bishop's advice, and see whether we thoroughly comprehend it,
or whether all the time we are not contending with a creation of our
own imagination which is but a caricature of the thing itself. Even
Froude, the great historian, who, whatever else he is, is not a
Calvinist, inquires how it is that Calvinistic doctrines have
"possessed such singular attractions for some of the greatest men who
have ever lived? If it be a creed of intellectual servitude, how was it
able to inspire and sustain the hardest efforts ever made by man to
break the yoke of unjust authority?"

Of course in Calvinism, as in the opposite doctrine, some have gone to
great extremes and brought ridicule on the subject, but as Gordon's
views were strictly moderate, and eminently practical, it is not
necessary to consider to what extreme lengths some may go who differ
from him on either side, nor is it necessary to consider all the
revolting doctrines which have been attributed to Calvin by his
enemies, nor some of the things he may even have said in the heat of
argument. Gordon was distinctly of the moderate school of Calvinists;
he believed that the heart of man was so corrupted by the Fall, that he
could not of his own accord turn to God, and that consequently in the
case of those who did turn, it must have been God's work, drawing the
heart to Himself. He contended that to look at Christianity from the
opposite standpoint, that of Human Responsibility, pandered to the
pride which is innate in the human heart. Thus the individual would be
always tempted to think that it was _his_ wisdom, _his_ foresight,
_his_ strength, _his_ decision, or _his_ something, that made him
close with the offer of mercy, and so looking around him, and seeing
many going astray, he would be tempted to congratulate himself on _his_
success, when so many failed, and to fondly imagine that it was a case
of the survival of the fittest. Once let the Christian grasp the actual
truth, and he is deprived of this element of self-glorification. His
title to honour is removed by the thought that an exterior power,
unknown to himself, drew him with the cords of love, or drove him with
the lash of fear. There are numerous passages in which Gordon expressed
himself on this subject, but perhaps the following states his views as
well as any:--

"