IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) /. 'wV 7-. J) / /^5' f/. 1.0 •.' 13 2 !l|!^ I.I m m 12.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 j 1.4 1.6 < 6" — ► '^^W/ W / 6^. Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STkEET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S8C (716) 872-4503 CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1981 1^ Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Not«s techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut a microfilm6 le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui I 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-§tre uniques du point de vue bibliographiciue, qui peuvent modifier une linage reproduite, ou qui peuveni exiger une modification da,is la m6thode normale de filmage sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. r~~>^Coloured covers/ 1^1 Couvdrture de couleur □ Coloured pages/ Pages ds couleur n Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagee Covers restored anrS/or laminatad/ Couverture restaurde et/ou peiiiculde □ Pages damaged/ Pages endommag^es □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaur^es et/ou pelliculees D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque G Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d^colordes, tachet^es ou piqu^es Coloured maps/ Cartes g^.ographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)'' Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) □ Pages detached/ Pages detach^es r~n/^howthrough/ I I Transparence D Coloured p'ates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou ill'tstrations en couleur □ Bound with other material/ Reli§ avec d'autres documents □ Quality of print varies/ Quality in6gale de I'impression □ Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du material supplementaire D D Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reiiure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long 'Je la marge int^rieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, oes pages n'ont oas 6t6 film^es. □ Only edition available/ Seule D Edition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de facon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. D Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl^mentaires: This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 10X I^X 18X 22X / 26X 30X 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X :ails du )difier une nage The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada The images appearing hare are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. L'exemplaire film^ fut reproduit grSce d la g6n6rusit6 de: Bibliothdque nationals du Canada Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de Tcy^mplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du rontrat de filmage. D 32X Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustr&ted impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — ♦- (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Maps, plates, charts, etc., rr.ay be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large ':o be entirely included iii one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to botton', as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont film^s en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film§s en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dern;§re page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — •- signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent etre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document eft trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche it droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. irruta to pelure, n i 1 2 3 V— /^VA/ .^ -•IT rc '/ / /y7 t ^'-C'C- ip^ . ^^^^ ^sy ^- * X t^- v.- y PKiCE 15 CENTlr^. CALVINISM: AN Al)I)Rl':SS 1)1:LIVEIIED ITih march, 1871, AT Tlii: I'XTVEriSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. ^'^N ) I 1 w BY TllK LORD RKCTOIl A N T no N Y F R O IT I ) 1 ^ , ^I . A . , Al TIIOR 01' TIIIO " irsTOKV (iF KNULAND K'tOM Til!': V \hh OV W )L3:.Y TO Tin; ]>K1"KAT OF illK Sl'ANIsS;! Al'.MADA.' T K N a' ' : 1371. 3 XT & c:o. 1 • ^3 CALVINISM: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 17th MARCH, 1871, AT THE UNIVEKSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. BY THE LORD RECTOR AISTHONY PROIJDE, M.A., AUTHOR OF THE " HISTORY OP ENGLAXD FROM THK FALL OF W0L8ET TO THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANI8U ARMAD*.. TORONTO: 1871. / ^U-ii^ REPKINTED FROM VERBATm REPORT IN THE EDINBURGH '' DAIL^X REVIEW." LOVELU & QIBSON, PRlNTEHSi ON CALVINISM. Gentlemen, — While I am nnvvilling to allow the temporary connection between us to come to an end without once nv)ro addressing you, I find it difficult to select a sul)ject on which it may be worth your while to listen to what I have to say. You know yourselves, better than I can tell you, the purposes for which you are assembled in this place. Many of you will have formed honourable resolutions to ac(iait yourselves bravely and manfully, both in your term of preparation here, and m the life which you are about to enter— resolutions which would make exhortations of mine to you to persevere appear unmeaning and almost impertinent. Yon are conscious in det,.il of the aims which yuu have i.et before your- selves—you hove, perhaps, already chosen the profession which you mean to follow, and are better aware than I can be of the subjects which you have to master if you 'uean to pursue theui successfully. I should show myself unworthy of the honour which you conferred on me in my election as your rector, were I to waste your time with profitless gener alities. [ have decided, after due consideration, to speak to you of things which, though not immediately connected with the University of St. Andrews, or any other university, yet concern us all more nearly than any other matter in the world; and though I am not vain enough to suppose that I can throw new material light upon them, yet where there is so mucii division and uncertainty, the sincere convictions of any man, if openly expressed, may be of value cts factors in CALVINIHM. tlio proLlom. At all events, T shall hope that the hour for Avliich I shiill ask yon to attcnul to me will not have passed away without leaving some definite traces behind it. • I may say at onco that I am about to travel over serious ground, i sliall not trespass on theology, though I must <'0 near the frontiers of it, I shall give you the conclusions which 1 have been led to form upon a series of spiritual phenomena which have appeared successively in ditlbrent ages of the world — which have exercised the most remark- able inlluence on the chai-acter and history of mankind, and hive left their traces nowhere more distinctly tiian in thia Scotland where we now stand. Everyone here present must have become familiar in lato years with the change of tone throughout Europe and America on the subject of Calvinisui. After being accej>ted for two centuries througliout all Protestant countries as the final ; cjount of the relations between man and his Maker, it has come to be regarded by liberal thinkers as a system of belief incredible in itself, dishonouring to its object, and as intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. Tlie Catholics whom it overtluew take courage from the philosophers, and assail it on the same ground. To represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as incurably wicked — wicked by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal decree — as doomed, unless exempted by special grace wliich he cannot merit, or by any effort of his own obtain, to live in sin wliile he remains on earth, and to be eterna,lly miserable when he leaves it — to represent him as born unable to keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlast- ing punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to reason and conscience, and turns existotice into a hideous nightmare. To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible. To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair. To what purpose the effort to be virtuous when it is an eftort which is foredoomed to fail — when those that are saved are saved by no effort of their own, and confess themselves the CAliVI^ISM. j worst of Blnncrs, even whoti r.' cuoil fron thu jxMjaUics of sin; and tlio.so that are lost arcs lost 1>y an cviirlastin'^ sou- teiico il(;crcc(l against thenv bi-ttie titoy wero l)orn ? Huw are wo to call the Rnler who laid ns nnder this iron code hy tho nanioof Wise, or Jn /tori sense of what ought in equity to be. The necessitarian falls back upon the experienced reality of facts. It is true, and no argument can gainsay it, that men are placed in the win-ld unequally favoured, both in inward disposition au'l oufwai'd circumstances. Some children are born with tomperamonta which make a life of innocjuce and puiifcy natural and viiy to them ; others are born with violent passions or oven with distinct tendencies to evil inhoritod from their ances- tors, and seemingly unoonquorablu— s .mo are cunsL. nation- ally brave, others are constitntiouaily cowanls — so^no are born in religh)us families, and aro c:ire fully educated and watched over; others draw their first breath in an atmos- idiero of ci-ime, and cease to inhale it only whe:i tlioy p.n^ into their graves. Only a fourth part of mankind are \, )rn Christians. The remainder never hear tlie name of Christ except as a reproach. The Cinneso and the Jap i.nes,>~ue may almost say every weaker race with whom wt; iiave come in cmitact — connect it oidy wuh the forc-d i'lrnsiou of strangers whose behaviour among th>;ni has served ill to recommend their cree rowa-d o- pnui-;]i, as the attitude we assume towards it is wise or unwise. Our liumiu laws are but the copies, more or le-i-i imperfect, of the etm-- nal laws, so far a^ we cm read the n, and eithjr pucco.id and promote our welfare, or fail and brim,' confusion and dis* aster, according as the legislator's iusigiit has detect(;d the true principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or .sullishuesa And these laws are absolute, inflexible, irreversible, the Lteudy friends of the wise and good, the eternal enemies of the blockhead and the knave. No Pope can dispense with a statute enrolled in tlie Chancery of Heaven, or popular vote repeal it. The discipline is a stem one, and ni.iny a wild endeavour men have made to obtaiu less l)ard condi- tions, or imagine them other than tli.y are. They have con- ceived the rule of the Almighty to be like the rule of one of themselves. They have fancied that they could bribe or ap- pease Him — tempt Him by penance or pious offering to suspend or turn aside His displeasure. Taey are asking that His own eternal nature shall become othec than it i;. 0)ie thing only they can do. They for themselves, l)y changing their own courses, can make the law which they have broken thenceforwai'd their friend. Ttieir dispositions and nature will revive and become healthy again when they are no longer in opposition to the will of their Maker. Tins is the natu- ral action of what we call repentance. liut the penalties of the wrongs of the past remain unrepealed. As men have sown they must still reap. Tlie protiigate who lias ruin ^d his health or fortune may learn before ho dies that he ha.s lived as a fool, and may recover sometiiing of his peacj of mind a.« he recovers hi::< understanding ; but no miracle takes away his paralysis, or gives back to his children tho bread of which he has robbed them. He may himself be pardoned, but the consequouces of his acts remain. V 10 CALVINISM. Once moie : ami i^ is the must awful feature of our con- dition. The laws of natui-e ai-e general, and are no i-cspec- ters of persons. There has been and there still is a cliiMnuo- impression that the sufferings of men are the results o, thoir own particular misdeeds, and that no one is or c;ui l)e punished for the faults of others. I shall not dispnr,,- ;i.,.,.it the W(.rd " puuishinent." "The fathers have eaten ^ .iir grapes," said the Jewish proverb, "and the ehildre i'. I,.- nh are set on edge." So said Jewish experience, an I E', ^a-ioI answered that these words should no longer be n-^l .. . , ig them. "Tiie soul that sinneth, it shall die." Yes, t i ; • is a promise that the soul shall be saved, there is n > so •. i p o- miseforthe body. Every man is the architect of his own character, and if to the extent of his opportunities Ip." has lived purely, nobly, and uprightly, the misfortnne, wuoh may fall on Iiim through +^^he crimes or err. >rs of othu.- nun cannot injnre the immortal part of him. But it is n . loss true that we are made dependent one U[>on anotl t-r t . a de- gree which can hardly be exairgerated. The winds and waves are on the side of the best navigator— the seaman wh . host understands them. Place a fool at the helm, and c ev and passengers will perish, be they ever so innocnit. The Tower of Siloam fell, not for aj)y sins of the eighteen wii . w.-re crushed by it, but through bad mortar probably, the lo ting of a beam, or the uneven setting of the foundations. The () t- Bons who should have suHerea, according to our notions of distributive justice, were the ignorant architects or masons who had done their work amiss. But the guilty had ])e' haps long been turned to dui^t. And the hiw of gravity bi an_;ht the tower down at its own time, indifterent to the poisons Vih J might be under it. Now the feature whi^Ii distinguishes nian from oth.-r ani- mals is, that he is able to observe and discover these laws which aieof such mighty moment to Inm, and direct his conduct in conformity with them. The more subtle may be revealed only by complicated experience. The plainer and mo\e obvious— among those especially which are called I I CALVINISM. 11 I moral — have been ap|>rehen(led among the higlior races easily and readily. 1 shall not ask how the knowledge of them has been obtained, whether by external revelation, oc by natural insight, or by some other influence working through human faculties. The fact is all we are concerned "with, that from the earliest times of which we h;ive histori- cal knowledge, there have always been men who have recog- nized the distinction between the nobler and baser parts of their being. They have perceived that if they would be men and not beasts, they must control their animal pas- sions, prefer truth to falsehood, courage to cowardice, jus- tice tr> violence, and compassion to cruelty. Thest» are the elementary principles of morality, on the recoguition of which the welfare and improvement of mankind depend, and human history has been little more than a record of the struggle which began at the beginning and will continue to the end between the few who have had the ability to see into the truth and loyalty to obey it, and the multituile who, by evasion or rebellion, have hoped to thrive in spite of it. Tluis we see that in the better sort of men there are two elementary convictions ; that there is over all things an un- sleeping, inflexible, all-ordering, just power, and that thia power governs the world by laws which can be seen in their effects, and on the obedience to which, and on nothing else, human welfare depends. And now I will si;ppose some one whose tendencies are naturally healthy, though as yet no special occasion shall have rous !d him to serious thought, growing up in a civi- lized community, where, as usually happens, a C()ni[)romise has been struck between vice and virtue, where a certain difterence between right and wrong is recognized decently on the surface, while below it one-half of the people are rushing steadily after the thing called pleasure, and the other half labouring in drudgery to provide the means of it for the idle. Of practical justice in such a connnunity there will be ex- ceedingly little, but as society cannot go along at all with' 12 CALVINISM. 'i out paying morality some outward homage, there will of course be an established religion — au Olympus, a Valhalla, or some system of theogony or theology, with temples, priests, liturgies, public confessions in one form or another of the dependence of the things we see upon what is not seen, with certain ideas of duties and penalties imposed for neglect of it. These there will be, and also, as obedience is di-;agrceal)lo and requires abstinence from various indul- gences, there will be contrivances by which the indulgences can be secured, and no harm come of it. By the side of the moral law there grows up a law of ceremonial observan-^e, to which is attached a notion of superior sancity and especial obligation. Morality, though not at fii-st disowned, is slighted as comparatively trivial. Duty in the high sense comes to mean religious duty, that is to say, the attentive observance of cortai]! forms and ceremonies, and these forms and cere- monies come into collision little or not at all with ordinary life, and ultimately have a tendency to resolve themselves intr. pajanents of money. Thus risc's what is called idolatry. I do not mean by idohitry tlie mere worship of manufactured images. I mean the separation between practical obligations, a new luoon and Sal)baths, outward acts of devotion, or for- mulas of particular opinions. It is a state of things perpet- ually recurring ; for there is nothing, if it would only act, more agreeable to all parties concerned. Priests fitid their office magniiied and their consetjueuce increased. Laymen can be in favt)ur with God and man, so priests tell them, wliile their enjoyments or occupations are in no way interfered with. The mischief is that the laws of nature remain mean- while unsuspeuded ; and all the functions of society become poisoned through neglect of them. Religion, which ought to pro- e a restraint, becomes a fresh instrinnent of evil — to the imaginative and the weak a contemptible superstition, to tjie educated a mockery, to knaves and hypocrites a cloak of iniquity, to all alike — to those who suffer and tliose who seem tt) profit by it — a lie so palpable as to be worse than atheism itself. -4, t u CALVINISM. 13 There comes a time when all this has to end. The over- induli(enco of the few is the over-penury of the many. Injustice begets misery, and misery resentment. Something happens perhaps —some unusual oppression, or some act of religious mendacity especially glaring. Such person as f am supposing asks himself, "What is the meaning of these things?" Mis eyes are opened. Gradually he discovers that he is living surrounded with fals8ho_.d, drinking lies like water, his conscience polluted, his intellect degraded by the abon)inations which envelope his existence. At first perhaps ho will feel most keenly for l.uniself. He will not suppose that he can set to right a world that is out of joint, but he will himself relinquish his share in what he detests and despises. He withdraws into himself. If what others are doing and saying is obviously wrong, then he has to ask him- self what is rigiit, and what is the true purpose of his exist- ence. Light breaks more clt-arly on him. Ho becomes conscious of impulses towards something purer and higher than he has yet experienced or even imagined. Whence these impulses come he cannot tell. He is too keenly aware of the selfish and cowardly thoughts which rise up to mar and tliwart his nobler aspirations to believe that they can possibly be his own. If he conquers his baser nature, he feels that he is conquering hiur^elf. The con(iueror a!id tiie conquered cannot be the same ; and he therefore c aiiclu'los, not in vanity, but in profound humiliation and self-abase- ment, that the infinite grace of God and nothing else is rescuing him from destruction. He is converted, as the theologians say. He sets his face upon another road from that which he has hitlierto travelled, and to which he can never return. It has been no merit of his own. His dispo- sition will rather bo to exaggerate his ov.'n worthle-sness that he may exalt the more what has been done for him, and he resolves thenceforward to enlist himself as a soldier on the side of truth and right, and to have no wishes, no desires, no opinions, but what the service of his Master im- poses. Like a soldier, he abandons his freedom, desiring u CALVINISM. only like a soldier to act and speak no lon(j;er as of himself, but aHCOtuuiissioned from some supreme authority. In such a condition a man becomes m;iguetic. There are epid.Muica of nobleness as well as ei)idemics of disease ; and he infects others with his own enthusiasm. Even in the most corrupt ages there ai-e always more persons than we suppose who in their hearts rebel against the prevailing fashions ; one takes courage from another, one supports another ; commmiities form themselves with higher principles of ;iction and purer intellectual beliefs. As their numbers multiply tliey catch fire with a common idea and a common indignation, and ultimately burst out into open war with the lies and iniqui- ties that surround them. 1 have been describing a natural process which has re- peated itself many times in human histoiy, and, unless the old opinion that we are more than animated chiy, and tliat our nature has nobler affinities, dies away into a dream, will repeat itself at recurring intervals, so long os our race survives upon the planet. I have told you generally what I conceive to be our real position^ and the administration under wliich we live ; and 1 have indicated how naturally the conviction of the truth would tend to express itself iu the moral formulas of Cal- vinism. I will now run briefly over the most remarkable of the great historical movements to which I have alluded ; and you will see, in the striking recurrence of the same peculiar mode of thought and action, an evidence that, if not completely accurate, it must possess some near and close affinity with the real fact. I will take first the example with which we are all most familiar — that of the chosen people. I must again remind you that I am not talking of theology. I say nothing of what is called technically revela- tion. 1 am treating these matters as phenomena of human experience, the lessons of which would be identically the same if no revelation existed. The discovery of the key to the hieroglyphics, the exca- vatidis in the tombs, the investigations carried on by a CALVINISM. 15 r T * series of careful inquirers, from Belzoni to Lopsiiis, into the antiq.aties of the Valley of Nile, inteipreting and in turn inteipieted by Manethy and Herodotus, have thrown a lii^ht ill iiiaiiy respects singularly clear upon the condition of the first country which, so far as history can tell, succoeled in achieving a state of high civilization. From a period the remoteness of which it is unsafe to conjecture, there had been establislied in Egypt an elaborate and splendiil empire ■which, though it had not escaped revolutions, had sutlered none which had caused organic changes there. Jt had strength, wealth, power, coherence, a vigorous mcniarchy, doiuii).uit and exclusive castes of nobles and priests, and a proletariat of slaves. Its cities, temples, and nionumciits are still, in their ruin, the admiration of engineers and the despair of architects. Original intellectual conceptions inspiied its public buildings. Saved by situation, like China, from the intrusion of barbarians, it developed at leisure il9 own ideas, undisturbed from without ; and when it bocouies historically visible to us it was in the zenith of its glory. The habits of the higher classes were elaborately luxurious, and the vanity and the self-indulgence of the few weie made possible — as it is and always must be where vanity and self- indulgence exist — by the oppression and misery of the mil lions. You can see on the sides of the tombs — for their pride and their pomp folic »ved them even in their graves — the etieminate patrician of the Court of t'ie Pharaohs re- clining in its gilded gondola, the attendant eunuch waiting upon him with the goblet or plate of fruit, the bevies of languishing damsels fluttering round him in their trans- parent draperies. Shakespeare's Cleopatra might have sate for the portrait of the Potipliar's wife who tried the virtue of the son of Jacob. By the side of all this there was a no less elaborate re- ligion — an ecclesiastical hierarchy — powerful as ihe sacerdo- talism of Mediieval Europe, with a creed in the middle of it which was a complicated idolatry of the physical forces. There are at bottom but two possible religions— that te CALVINISM. which rises in the moral nature of man, and which takes shape in moral commandments, and that which grows out of the observation of the material energies which operate in tlio external nniverse. The sun at all times has been the cen- tral ol)ject of this material reverence. The sun was the parent of light ; the sun was the lord of the sky and the lord of the seasons ; at the sun's bidding the earth brought fortli her harvests and ripened them to maturity. The sun, too, was beneficent to the good and to the evil, and, like the lawH of political economy, drew no harsh distinctions between one person and another. It demanded only tliat certain work should be done, and smiled equally on the crops of the slave driver and the garden of the innocent peasant. Tiie moon, when the sun sunk to his night's rest, reigned as his vicegerent, the queen of the revolving heavens, and in hor waxing and waning and singular movement among the stars, wao the perpetual occasion of admiring and ador- ing curiosity. Nature in all her forms was wonderful ; nature in her beneficent forms was to be loved and wor- shiped ; and being, as nature is, indilforent to morality, be- stowing pros- 'rity on principles which make no demands on chastity or equity, she is, in one form or other, the divinity on whose shrine in all ages the favoured sections of society have always gladly paid their homage. Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self- denial. The object of life is the pursuit of wealth and the pleasures which wealth can purchase ; and the rules for our practical guidance are the laws, as the economists say, by which wealth can be acquired. It is an excellent creed for those who have the happiness to iirofit by it, and will have its followers to the end of time. In these latter ages it connects itself with tlie natural sciences, progress of the intellect, specious shadows of all kinds which will not interfere with its supreme manage- ment of political arrangements. In Egypt, where knowledge was in its rudiments, every natural force, the minutest plant or animal, which influenced human fortunes for good or evil, CALVINISM. 17 came in for a niche in the shrine of the temples of the snn and moon. Snakes and crocodiles, dogs, cats, cranes, and beetles, were propitiattd by sacrifices, by laboured ceremonials of laudation ; nothing living was too mean to find a place in the omnivorous devotioualism of the Egyptian clergy. We in these days, proud as we may be of our intellectual advances, need not ridicule popular credulity. Even here in Scotland, not so long ago, wretched old women were supposed to run about the country in the shape of hares. At this very hour the ablest of living natural philosophers is looking gravely to the courtships of moths and 'utte -^ies to solve the pro- blem of the origin of man, and pr(,vo his descent from an African baboon. There was, however, in ancient Egypt, another article of faith, besides nature-\ orship, of transcendent moment— a belief which had probably descended from earlier and purer ages, and liad then originated in the minds of sincere and earnest men— as a solution of the real problem of humanity The inscriptions and paintings in the tombs near Thebes make it perfectly clear that the Egyptians looked forward to a future state— to the judgment bar of Osiris, where they would each one day stand to give account for their actions. They believed as clearly as we do, and with a conviction of a very similar kind, that those who had done good would go to everlasting life, and those who had done evil into eternal perdition. Such a belief, if coupled with an accurate perception of what good and evil mean— with a distinct certainty that men will be tried by the moral law, before a perfectly just judge, and that no subterfuges will avail-cannot but exercise a most profound and most tremendous influence upon human conduct. And yet our own experience, if nothmg else, proves that this belief, when moulded into tra- ditional and conventional shapes, may lose its practical power ; nay, without ceasing to be professed, and even sin- cerely held, may become more mischievous than salutary. And tliis is owing to the fatal distinction of which I spoke 2 18 CALVINISM. just now, which seems to have an irresistible tendency to shape itself, in civilized societies, between religions and moral duties. With the help of this distinction it becomes possible for a man, as long as he avoids gross sins, to neglect every one of his positive obligations — to bo careless, selfish, unscrupulous, indifferent to everything but his own plea- sures — and to imagine all the time that his condition is per- fectly satisfactory, and that he can look forward to what is before him without the slightest uneasiness. All accounts represent the Egyptians as an eminently religious people. No profanity was tolerated there, no scepticism, no insolent disobedience to the established priesthood. If a doubt ever crossed the mind of some licentious philosopher as to the entire sacredness of the stainless Apis, if ever a question forced itself on him when the Lord of heaven and earth could really be incarnated in the stupidest of created beasts, he kept his counsels to himself, if he was not shocked at his own impiety. The priests, who professed supernatural powers — the priests, who were in communication with the gods themselves — they posaiessad the keys of the sacred mysteries, and what was philosophy that it should lift its voice against them 1 The word of the priest — nine parts a charlatan, and one part, perhaps, himself imposed on — was absolute. He knew the counsels of Osiris, he knew that the question which would be asked at the dread tribunal was no<- whether a man had been just and true and merciful, but whether he had believed what he was told to believe, and had duly paid the fees to the temple. And so the world went its way, controlled by no dread of retribution ; and on the tomb-frescoes you can see legions of slaves under the lash dragging from the quarries the blocks of granite which were to form the eternal monuments of the Pharaohs' tyranny ; and you read in the earliest authentic history that when there was a fear that the slave races should multiply so fast as to be dangerous, their babies were flung to the crocodiles. CALVINISM. 19 > Ono of those slavo-races rose at last in revolt. Noticeably it did not rise a^aiIl«t oppression as such, or directly in con- 8C([uence of opprf^ssion. We hear of no inaHsacre of slave- drivers, no burning of towns or villages, none of the usual acconjpaninieuta of peasant insurrections. If Egypt was plagued, it was not by mutinous mobs or incendiaries. Half a million men simply rose up and declared that they could endure no longer the nundacity, hypocrisy, the vile and in- credible rubbish which was otlered to them in the sacred name of religion. ''Let us go," they said, "into the wild- erness, go out of those soft water-meadows and cornfields, forsake our leeks and our fleshpots, and take in exchange a life of hardship and wandering, that we may worship the God of our fathers. " Tiieir leader had been trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and among the rocks of Sinai had learnt that it was wind and vanity. The half-obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life again, and were rekindled by him in his people. Tiiey would bear with lies no longer. Tliey sliook the dust of Egypt from their feet, andtlie falsehood of it from their souls, and they withdrew, with all belonging to them, into the Arabian desert, that they might no longer serve cats and dogs and bulls and beetles, but the Eternal Spirit who had been pleased to make his existence kuown to them. They sung no paeans of lib- erty. They were delivered from the house of bondage, but it was the bondage of mendacity, and they left it only to Assume another service. The Eternal had taken pity on them. In revealing His true nature to them, he had taken them for his children. They were not their own, but his, and they laid their lives under commandments which were as close a copy as, with the knowledge which tlioy pobsessud, they could make, to the moral laws of the Maker of the Universe. In essentials the Book of the Law was a cove- nant of practical justice. Rewards and punishments were alike immediate, botli to each separate person and to the collective nation. Retribution in a life to come was drop- ped out of sight, not denied, but not insisted on. The 20 CALVINISM. belief in it liacT been corrupted to evil, nnd ra^iher eiiervutod than encouraged the efforts after present eqrity. Every man was to reap as he had sown — here, in tho immediate world — to live under his own viae and fig-tree, to thrive or Buffer according to his actual deserts. Religion was not a thing of past or future, an account of things that had been, or of thiii'^s which one day woidd be again. God was tho actual living ruler of real evory-day life ; nature-worsliip was swept away ; and in tho warmth and pafision of convic- tion tliey became, as ] said, the soldiers of a purer creed. In Palestine, where they found idolatry in a form yet foaler and more cruel than what they had left behind tliem, they trampled it out as if in inspired aboDiijiution of a system of which the fruits were so detestal)le . Tlxey were not perfect —very for from perfect. A)i army at best is made of mixed materials, and war, of all ways of malting wrong into ri^ht, is ihQ hardest ; but they were directed by a noble purpose, and they have left a mark never Lu be efiacod in the history of the human race. Tiie fire died away. '*The Israelites," we are told, "mingled among tlio hoatlxen and learnerl their works." They ceased to be missionaries. They lundly and jitrnlly preserved tlie records of tho meaning r>f their own exodus. Eight huudred years went by, and the flame reliiudled in another country. Cities more splendid oxen than the hun- dred-gated Theboa itself had risen on tho baoks of the Euphra^ea. Grand P)ilitary empires had been Couiided on war and conquest. Peace had followed when no enemies ▼'^ere left to conquer ; and witli peace had come p]uIosophy, '•"nee, agricultural enterprise, magnificent engineering li for the draining and irrigation of the Mesopotamian as. Temples and pal-ices towered into the sky. The ^ .»..np and luxury of A-»ia rivalled, and even surpassed, the glories of Egypt ; and, by the side of it, a second nature- worship, which, if less elaborately absurd, was more deei'ly detestable. The foulest vices were consecrated to the service of the gods, and the holiest ceremonies were \ t CALVINISM. 21 iuonnlated with hnpttrity and sensuality. Tho Hovei)h centiiry beloro the Christian era was cllsLin- gninhed over the wlido East by cxiruordinary religioiis revuli'tions. With the most remarkiiblo of these, that wliich bears the name of r3iuldha, I a:n not here concerned. Buddhism has been the creed for niui-e than two thousand years of lialf the human race, but it left iinaffectcd our own Westi^rn world, and vhorefore 1 here pass it by. Simultaneously with Buddha appeared anolher teacher, Zcrdusht, or, as the Greeks called him, Zoroaster, among the hardy tribes of the Persian mountains. He taught a creed which, like that of the Israelites, was essentially moral and extremely simple. The Persians caught rapidly Zoroaster's spirit. Uncor- rnpted by luxury, they responded eagerly to a voice which Ihcy recognised as speaking truth to them. They have beeu called the Puritans of the Old World. Never any people, it is said, hated idolatry as t!iey hated it, and for thb simple reason that they hated lies. A Persian lad, Herodotus tails us, was educated in three especial aoeompliislimonts. He was baught to ride, to shoot, a^id to speak Ihe truth — that is to say, he was brought up to be brave, active, valiant, and upright. W^en a man speaks the truth, you may count pretty surely that ho po 'sesses most other virtues. Half the vices in the world rise out of cowardice, and one v/ho is afraid of lying is usually afraid of notlnng else. This seems lo have bee'i che Persian temperaaient, and in virtue of it they were chosen as theinstrurneutfi — clearly rec(»gnized as such by the Prophet •saiah for one — which, were to sweep the earth clean of abominations which had grown to an intolerable heiyht. Bel bowed down, and Nebo had to stoop before them. Eabylou, the lady of kuigdoms, was laid i)) the dust, anace, careless, so their deity was not denied, of tf»e woe or weal of hauanity : the liviog fact, supreme in CUnrch au I S';ate, being the wearer of the piirple, who, as the practical realization of authority, assumed the i>a,ue as well Jis the substance. The one god immediately known to man wa-s henceforth the Divus Cu»sar, whose throu') in the :id it pleased hiai to join or rejoia his kindred divinities. It was tlie era of at'ieisni — atheis"'! such as this earth never witne3;etl before or since. Yon who have read Taci- tus know the practical fruits of it, as 'Jioy appeared at tho hea-'t of the sy>Le'n in the second Babylon, thi prond city of the Sjvcn Hill-*. Yon will reme n'>er how, for th^ crime of a sill ^-le slave, the entire h.)a3e'.'>ld of a Roman patrician, four liundred inno^ienfc hu.na . bein js, were led in chains across tho Forum and murdered by what was called law. Yon will remember ':he exal appetites. The stoic did not argue that, " as fate governs all things, I can do no wrong, and therefore I will take my pleasure ;" but rather, ^' the moral law within me is the noblest part of my being, and compels me to submit to it." He did not withdraw from the world liica the Christian anchorite. He remained at his post in the Senate, the Forum, or the army. A stoic in Marcus Aurelius gave a passing dignity to the dishonoured purple. In Tacitus, stoicism has left an eternal evidence how grand a creature man may be, though unassist- ed by conscious dependence or external spiritual help, through steady disdain of what is base, steady reverence for all thiit deserves to be revered, and inflexible integrity la word and deed. regene- But stoicism could under no circumstances be a rating power in the genci-al world. It was a position only tenable to the educated ; it was without hopo and without enthusiasm. From a contempt of the objects which man- kind most desired, the step was short and inevitable to contempt of mankind tliemselves. Wrapped in mournful self-dependence, the stoic could face calmly for h.mself whatever lot the Fates might send : — Si fractus iilabatur orbis, Impavidum ferieiit ruinse. But, natural as such a creed might be in e, Roman noble under the Empire, natural perhaps as it may always be in corrupted ages and amidst disorganised beliefs, the very sternness of stoicism was repellent. It carried no consola- tion to the hearts of the suffering millions, who were in no danger of being led away by luxury, because their whole lives were passed in poverty and wretchedness. It was in- dividual, not missionary. The stoic declared no active war against corruption. He stood alone, protesting scornfully in silent example against evils which he was without power to cure. Like Ciesar, he folded himself in his mantle. • • CALVINISM. 27 * The world might do its worst. He would keep his own goul unstained. Place beside the stoics their contemporai'ies the Galilean fishermen and the tentmaker of Tarsus. I am not about to sketch in a few paragraphs the rise of Christianity. I mean only to jjoint to the principles on which the small knot of men gathered themselves together who were about to lay the foundations of a vast spiritual revolution. The guilt and wretchedness in which the world was steeped St Pa'U felt as keenly as Tacitus. Like Tacitus, too, he believed that the wild and miserable scene which he beheld was no result of accident, but had been ordained so to be, and was the direct expression of an all-mastering Power. But he saw also that this Power was no blind necessity or iron cliain of connected cause and effect, but a perfectly just, perfectly wise being, who governed all thing's by the everlasting, im- mutable laws of his own nature ; that when these laws were resisted or forgotten, they wrou.,dit ruin and confusion and slavery to death and sin ; that when they were recognized and obeyed the curse would be taken away, and freedom and manliness come back again. Whence the disobedience had first risen was a problem which St. Paul solved in a manner not at all unlike the Per.iians. There was a rebellious spirit in the universe, penetrating into men's hearts, and pfompt- ing them to disloyalty and revolt. It reiuov^ed the question a step fuL'ther back without answering it, but the fact was plain as tlie sunlight. Men had neglected the laws of tht'ir Maker. In neglecting them they had brought universal ruin, not on themselves only, but on all society, and if the world was to be saved from destruction they must be per- suaded or forced back into their allegiance. The law itself had been once more revealed on the mountains of Palestine, and in the person and example of One who had lived aad died to make it known ; and those who had heard and known Him, being possessed with His spirit, felt themselves com- missioned as a missionary legion to publish the truth to mankind. They were not, like the Israelites or the Per- 28 CALVINISM. ■ians, to fight with tlie sword — not even in their own defence. The sword can take life but not give it ; and the comm i»id to the Apostles was to sow the invisible seed in the hot-bod of corrupfciou, and feed and footer it. and water it with the blood, not of others, but themselves. Their o.vu wills, ambitions, hopes, desires, emotions, were swallowed up iv the will to which they liad surrendered thcmselve3. Tliay were soldiers. It was St. Paul's meta- phor, and no other is so appropriate. They claiuied no merit tln'ou'^h thoir o.vllinjj ; thny were too conscioui^ of their own sins to indulge in the poisonous refloctiun, th:i,t thay were not as oLlier men. They were summoned out on their allegiance, and armed with the rjpiritual strength which be- longs to the consciousness of a just cause. If they in- dulged any personal hope, it was only that their weakness ■would nob be remembered against them — that, havin,5 been chosen for a work in which the victory was assured, they would be made themsalves worthy of their calling, and, though they might r;.lide, would not be allowed to fall. Many mysteries remained unsolved. Man was as clay in the potter's hand — oiie vessel was made to honour and another to diahonour. Why, who could lell ? This only thoy knew, ti)at ti»ey must themselves do no dishonour to the spirit that was in them — gain others, gain all who would join them for tlseir common purposes, and fight with all their souls against ignorance and sin. The fishermen of Gennesaret planted Christianity, and many a winter and ":auy a summer have since rolled over it. More than once it has shed it leaves and seemed to be dying, and when the buds burst again the colour of the foliage was changed. The theory of it which is taught to- day in the theological schools of St. Andrews would have sounded strange from the pulpit of yo\ir once proiil cathe- dral. As the same thonglit expresses itself ir. many langi'ages, so spiritual truths assume ever- varying forms. The garment fades — the moths devour it — the woven fibres disintegrate and turn to du.st. The idea only is immortal, 4 4 CALVINISM. 29 I ' and never fades. The hermit who made his cell below the cliff whore the cathedral stands, the monkish architect who desigf^ed the plan of it, the princes who brought it to per- fection, the Protestants who shattered it into ruin, the preacher of last Sunday at the University Church, would have many a quarrel, were they tliey to meet now, before they would understand each other. But at the bottom of the minds of all the same tliought would be predominant— that they were soldiers of the Almighty, commissioned to fight with lies and seljQJmeas, and that all alike, thoy and those agaiii'jt whom they were contendiug, were in His hands, to deal with after His own pleasure. Again six centuries goby. Christianity Decomes the re- ligion of the Homan Empire. The Empire divides, and the Church is divided witJi it. Europe is overrun by tlie Northern nations. The power of the Western Cjjesars breaks in pieces, but the Western Church stands erect, niakea its way into the hearts of the conqu'.irors, pyuetrales the German forests, opens a path into liritain and Ireland. By the noble Gothic nations it is welcomed witli pas^iionate euthusiasni. The warriors of Odin are transformed into a Christian chivalry, and tlie wild Valhalla iiico a Chrisaati heaven. Fiery, passionate )iaLions are not taia^d in a gen- eration or a century, but a now conception of what was praiseworthy and excellent had taken hold of vlieir imagij>a- tion and tlie understanding. Kings, when their day of toil was over, laid down crown and sword, aud retired into cloisters, to pass wliat remained of life to tlieni in. prayer and meditation on eternity. The supreme object of reverence was no longer the hero of the battleijt'y tlio III our rehiti vo es, tho poniu. les aiul otJior ^ Bast flrnioi" 3W or- isatioii ■ession cos of )f evil take iVork- trutli ijina- es of eno- inds are ural and -I I talismans, could not bo dispollod by science, for science did not exist. Tho Churcl; thuroforo entered into competition with her evil rivals on their own i,'ronnd. The Saint came into the field ac,'ainst the enchanter. Tho powers of charms and amulets were eclipsed by martyr's relics, sacraments, an its sanction is but a feeble un- certainty. If it be recog.. )d as part of the constitution of the world, it carries with it its right to command ; and those who see clearly what it is will insist on submission to it, and derive authority from the distinctness of their recognition to enforce submission where their power extends. Pliilosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve. Ccnrpare the remonstrance of the casual passer-by if a mob of ruflians are misbehaving them- selves in the street with the downright energy of the policeman who strikes in fearlessly, one against a do/on, as a minister of the law. There is the same difference through life between the man who has a sure conviction and him whose thoughts never rise beyond ''perhaps." Any fanatic may say as much, it is again answered, for the wildest madness. But the elementary princijjies of morality ai'c not forms of madness. No one pretends that it is uncertain whether truth is better than falsehood, or justice than injus- tice. Speculation can eat away the sanction, superstition can erect rival duties ; but neither one nor the other pretends to touch the fact that these principles exist, and the very essence and life of all great religious movements is the re- cognition of them as of authority and as part of the eternal framework of things. I i V CAIiVINTSM. 41 «/ There is, however, it must be allowed, soiuothing in what objectors say. The power of Calvinism has waned The disci- phne which it once aspired to maintain has fallen slack. Desire for ease and self- indulgence drag for ever in quiet times at the heel of noble aspirations, while the shadow struggles to re- main and preserve its outline when the substance is passing away. The argumentative and logical side of Calvin's mind has created once more a fatal opportunity for a separation between opinion and morality. We have learnt, as we say, to make the best of both worlds, to take political economy for the rule of our conduct, and to regulate religion into the profession of orthodox doctrines. Systems have been invented to explain the inexplicable. Metaphors have been translated into formulas, and paradoxes unintelligible to emotion have been thrust upon the acceptance of the reason ; »vhile duty, the loftiest of all sensations which wo are permitted to experience, has been resolved into the ac- ceptance of a sche»ne of salvation for the individual human soiil. Was it not written long ago, " He that will save his soul shall lose it ?" If we think of religion only as a means of escaping what we call the wrath to come, we shall not escape it ; we are already under it ; we are under the burden of death, for we care only for ourselves. This was not the-religion of your fathers ; this was not thw Calvinism which overthrew spiritual wickedness, and hurled kings from their thrones, and purged England and Scotland for a time at least, of lies and charlatanry. Calvinism was the spirit which rises in revolt against untruth ; the spirit which, as I have shown you, has appeared and reap- peared, and in duo time will appear again, unless God be a delusion and man be as the beasts that perish. For it is but the inllashing upon the conscience o? the nature and origin of the laws by which mankind aid governed — laws which exist, whether we acknowledge them or whether wo deny them, and will have their way, to our weal or woe, ac- cording to the attitude in which-we please to place ourselves toward them — inherent, like the laws of gravity, in the 42 CALVINISM. nature cf things, n<'t niaJo by us, not to be altered by us, but to be aiscornedand ubeyed by us at our everlastiu*^ peril. Nay, rather the law of gravity is but a property of material things, and matter and all that belongs to it may one day fade away like a cloud and vanish. The moral law is inherent in eternity. " Heaven and earth shall pass av\ ay, but My word shall not pass away." The law is the expression of the will of the Spirit of the Universe. The spirit in man corre.spond3 to and perceives the Eternal Spirit is part of its essence, an^ immortal as it is immortal. The Calvinists called the eye within us the inspiration of the Almighty. Aristotle could see that it was not of earth, or any creature of space and time . What the thing is which we call ourselves we know not. It may be true— I for one care not if it be — that the descent of our mortal bodies may be traced through an ascending series to some glutinous jelly formed on the rocks of the primeval ocean. It is nothing to me how the Maker of me has been pleased to construct the organized substance which I call my body. It is mine, but it is not me. The nous, the intellectual spirit, being an ousia — an essence— we believe to be an imperishable something which has been engendered in us from another source. As Wordsworth says : — " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; The soul that rises in us, our life's star. Hath elsewhere had its setting, And Cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness. Not in utter nakedness. But trailing clouds of glory do we come, From heaven, which is our home." . wiiciii!.'tliat tliey Iiavu ma lo ,i;r iiij^c- lupii's I'oi" tlic is\ ii!(4' Prd^jictnf lie-, frcl tliat. «liai. \va< adxaU'fil ill i4ii'it ill. a the initial iiuiiih' r of " ! he '■ ulpit Harvest," which they will shorlly i.ssue, will he very iulere.stediy rt.ecived, and the .scries be largely suhserihed for. 1= :e^ o s IP :fi: c T TJ s • Tn iir'ijpctinj^ " '' he 1 ii'pit l'arv(>st " the Puldi.-hors a'lriat siipplyintf ' n. ni'liui rollers of liie i •},'ieal an 1 t'cvo'ional I.i'oraMivo, with a sele. ti.in, in cheap seri.il ^haie, of 'h" best eriiiie>s df (heiia,.', fr ni the j>o s uf il.e al lest nioilcrii Di\iiie>' of \arlous dein iniiiatimis. Vuch of thobost «r'tiiiv:H <>f the many thiii'ar.s uf the time is iii '. na lily acP'^Bsilih; to the masses ; mid mmy of the finest -criiMns lunc ti> be .^dn^^ht fur ill mujh that Is weir, in'^- mvl u'luttra.'tive to ucnoral reailcrs ; n ', in Ih ■ case I if nnpubtis'ied .'■'•rni >ns, so few eorir),irafivel\ are jirivileyed tn eiijny the lllilli^tr:ltillns uf tlic vreat orat us of the pulpit, that mn-h that i.-; '••uund and ap'prrivcJ in duc'rino, f -edi ail mis-iv«> in th u'^'it, ^ind '■ur.'ic-.f and fureiblo in appe:il is lust (o the world. It hi , th ,'r fore, been deeiiied hy the pubIi^llcrs that a Serial uiviiiu; the ere nn of the paljiit utter aiecs of the first minds, would moot with lireat favour, and be eneonrafjiuily suiipurto 1 in the country. It has been further deemed that in a day liltuiiec .and eiiM-t the intcnst uf tho Church It need only be ad led that the publishers, in the proi)riety of the selections, and in the arrangements for ub aining oriuinal ;ennons from the leading" men of the > ana lian pu'jiit, will < ndi avonr to merit the support and encoura^emjiit wliieh they trust the imblieatiuii will receive. Xl ADAM, STEVENSON S^ CO., PUBLI.SKERS. Kinp: Street East, Toronto, April, IS71. \ li ''^■^"■iti.V'^i.i^v-