Welcome to Arminianism, Another Gospel by William McLean. We are starting at the beginning of the book for this reading. This Reformation Audio resource is a production of Stillwaters Revival Books. Many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, CDs and much more at great discounts, are on the web at www.swrb.com. Also, please consider, pray, and act upon the important truths found in the following quotation by Charles Spurgeon. Quote, As the Apostle says to Timothy, so also he says to everyone, give yourself to reading. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological especially the Puritanic writers and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying." And now to SWRB's reading of Arminianism and Other Gospel, which we hope you find to be a great blessing and which we pray draws you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. For He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. John 14, 6. Arminianism, another gospel by William MacLean, this is the foreword, by Reverend Donald MacLean, Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Glasgow. Deputy to Rhodesia, Australia, and New Zealand. The glory of true religion is that it has its origin in the triune Jehovah, quote, all things are of God, says the Apostle, quote, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation." 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18. Any presentation of Christianity which does not attribute all the glory of salvation to God seeks to rob God of that which is dearest to himself, and cannot but grieve those who have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus, and for whom, quote, all things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, unquote. This is the great fault with Arminianism, which is dealt with and exposed in this booklet. By his misrepresentation of the doctrine of divine sovereignty, the Arminian strikes at the electing love of God, the Father. By the universalism of his doctrine of the atonement, he strikes at the redeeming love of the Son, and by his views on man's ability to believe in or to decide for Christ, he strikes at the spirit manifested in the work of regeneration and sanctification. The serious nature of Arminianism can be thus immediately seen, and the need for a booklet such as this is obvious. By those who dislike controversy, it is often alleged that Arminianism and Calvinism only differ in respect of the fact that, while the former chiefly stresses man's responsibility, the latter lays all the weight upon divine sovereignty. This is not a correct presentation of the facts. The Arminian does indeed stress man's responsibility to the exclusion of the sovereignty of God, and this is a fruitful cause of more than one error. The man, on the other hand, who stresses the sovereignty of God to the exclusion of man's responsibility, is a hyper-Calvinist, and is in error on this aspect of truth just as surely as the Arminian. The true Calvinist lays stress on both doctrines, as they are unfolded in the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is hoped that, by the blessing of God, this booklet will be instrumental in opening the eyes of many to the dangers of Arminianism and to the necessity of contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. Gisborne, New Zealand, April 1965. Arminianism. Arminianism is the name given to the doctrines held and propagated by Arminius, a theological professor at the University of Leiden in Holland, who died in the year 1609 These doctrines are a perversion of the truth of God and the way of salvation. They have no scriptural foundation. They were never taught by the prophets of the Old Testament Church, nor by the apostles of the Lamb and the New. Basically, they are a revival of the ancient semi-Pelagian heresy condemned by the Church of God. They are not the doctrines of the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc. All the confessions of the Reformed Churches in Britain and on the continent of Europe are diametrically opposed to them. The illustrious Synod of Dort, consisting of delegates from all the Reformed Churches which met in the year 1618, exposed and condemned them. It was not for Arminianism, the noble army of martyrs suffered and died. Their blood cries out against it. Arminianism appears as the gospel of Christ, but in reality is, quote, another gospel, unquote. It is a heresy, deadly and soul-ruining, and all the more so because subtle, plausible, and popular, quote, it is a scheme, unquote, in the words of Dr. Cunningham, the renowned theologian, quote, for dividing or partitioning the salvation of sinners between God and sinners themselves. instead of ascribing it, as the Bible does, to the sovereign grace of God, the perfect and all-sufficient work of Christ, and the efficacious and omnipotent operation of the Holy Spirit." Arminianism is the very essence of Popery. Christopher Ness of St. John's College, Cambridge, a Puritan divine, in his treatise, An Antidote Against Arminianism, recommended by the great Dr. John Owen, writes, quote, as blessed Athanasius sighed out in his day, quote, the world is overrun with Arianism. So it is the sad sigh of our present times. The Christian world is overrun, yea, overwhelmed with the flood of Arminianism, which cometh, as it were, out of the mouth of the serpent, that he might cause the woman, the church, to be carried away of the flood thereof." In Revelation 12 verse 15. He quotes Mr. Rouse, master of Eaton College, as saying, quote, Arminianism is the spawn of potpourri, which the warmth of favor may easily turn into frogs of the bottomless pit, unquote. And Dr. Alexander Layton, who calls Arminianism, quote, the Pope's Benjamin, the last and greatest monster of the man of sin, the elixir of anti-Christianism, the mystery of the mystery of iniquity, the Pope's cabinet, the very quintessence of equivocation." During the Arminian regime of Archbishop Laud, the persecutor of the Puritans and the Covenanters, zealous Arminians were promoted to the best bishoprics. A famous letter written by a Jesuit to the Rector of Brussels and endorsed by Laud himself was found in his study at Lambeth. A copy of this letter was found among the papers of a society of priests and Jesuits at Clerkenwell in 1627. The following is an extract. Now we have planted the sovereign drug of Arminianism, which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresy, and it flourisheth and beareth fruit in due season. I am at this time transported with joy to see how happily all instruments and means as well as great or smaller cooperate with our purposes. But to return to the main fabric, our foundation is Arminianism." In reference to the Calvinistic doctrines, the doctrines of free and sovereign grace held by the reformers in England Queen Mary and her Spanish husband well knew that Calvinism is the very life and soul of the Reformation, and that potpourri would never flourish till the Calvinistic doctrines were eradicated. Her efforts to destroy by sword and fire those who upheld the truth earned for her the unenviable appellation of Bloody Mary." The charge on which many of them were burnt at the stake was that they held to the doctrine of predestination and rejected the Arminian and Popish doctrine of free will. In the following century, the Caroline period, the reign of the Stuart kings, including Charles I and Charles II, Arminianism grew to be the prevalent faith of the Church of England, according to Dr. G. P. Fisher in his history of the Christian Church," page 430. In Scotland, too, Arminianism was making serious inroads. The saintly Samuel Rutherford, who occupied a professor's chair at St. Andrew's University, made use of his scholarship to defend the faith by publishing a notable book against Arminianism. It was this malicious spirit of Arminianism, writes the editor of the contender, Nova Scotia, that drove the Episcopal leaders, in conjunction with the civil power of the king, to persecute the Covenanters to prison and to death. As a direct result of his book against Arminianism, Rutherford was put through the form of a trial by a group of Arminian bishops who were led by Sid Cerf of Galloway, deprived of his pastoral charge at Anwath, and banished to the town of Aberdeen. In a letter Rutherford wrote to a minister in Ireland, Robert Cunningham, he says, quote, The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Armenians, whereof they accused me on those three days I appeared before them, unquote. And in a letter from Aberdeen in 1637 to Mr. John Ferguson of Achilletree, Rutherford refers to his trial saying, quote, I was judicially accused for my book against the Armenians and commanded by the Chancellor to acknowledge I had done a fault in writing against Dr. Jackson, a wicked Armenian, unquote. In a footnote to this letter, the editor Dr. Bonner says, quote, Dr. Thomas Jackson, Dean of Peterborough, first held Calvinistic sentiments but afterwards became an Armenian, a change which recommended him to the favor and patronage of Archbishop Laud. The character of Laud may be seen in relation to his part in the trial, sentencing, imprisonment, and torturing of Dr. Alexander Leighton at London. Dr. Leighton's views on Arminianism are quoted above. A sketch of Leighton's history is given in the preface to a letter which Rutherford wrote him while in prison. The sketch says that Leighton, because of his zeal, quote, zeal for Presbyterian principles and against the innovations of Lot, unquote, was arrested in 1629 and kept in an abominable cell 16 weeks before his trial by the Star Chamber. Because of this, quote, severe distress that had brought skin and hair almost wholly off his body, unquote, he could not attend his trial. The Star Chamber, quote, condemned the afflicted and aged divine to be degraded as a minister, to have one of his ears cut off and one side of his nose slit, to be branded on the face with a red-hot iron, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at a post, to pay a fine of one thousand pounds, and to suffer imprisonment until the fine was paid, when this inhuman sentence was pronounced, Laud took off his hat, and, holding up his hands, gave thanks to God, who had given the church victory over her enemies. The sentence was executed without mercy, and Leighton lay in prison till upwards of ten years. When liberated, he could hardly walk, see, or hear. He died in 1649. In 1631, five years before he was condemned and banished to Aberdeen, Rutherford wrote to Marion McNaught from his parish at Anwath concerning Dr. Henry Burton, whose footsteps he was later to follow. Says Rutherford in this letter, quote, Know that I am in great heaviness for the pitiful case of our Lord's Kirk. I hear the cause why Dr. Burton is committed to prison is his writing and preaching against Arminians. I therefore entreat the aid of your prayers for myself and the Lord's captives of hope and for Zion. The Lord hath let, and daily lets me see, how deep furrows Arminianism, and the followers of it, draw upon the back of God's Israel. But our Lord cut the cords of the wicked. Arminianism was not more rampant than it is now in England, Scotland, and our own North American continent. Let us not think that the malignant spirit of persecution that moved the Arminians, led by Bishop Sidcerf, Archbishop Laud, and others, died at the end of the covenanting struggles of long ago. The Armenians of today hold precisely the same false doctrines, and are just as relentlessly opposed to the absolute sovereignty of God and unconditional election as were the Armenians of old." The Contender, Nova Scotia, April, 1955. John Wesley John Wesley, the great apostle of Arminianism, in the following century manifested the same malicious spirit of persecution against Augustus Toplady, an earnest defender in his day of the doctrines of free and sovereign grace, and author of, quote, Rock of Ages, Clef for Me, unquote. When Toplady was thought to be on his deathbed, Wesley industriously circulated a report that Toplady had recanted the principles which it had been the business of his life to advocate. Wesley supposed Toplady to be too near the grave to contradict this foul calumny, and right in his own defence. But to the confusion of his enemies, to quote from Volume I of Toplady's works, Strength was given him to do both. Nor did he ever appear more triumphant than when, almost with his dying breath, he made so honourable and so successful an effort to repel the attacks of calumny and maintain the cause of truth. On Lord's Day, June 14th, less than two months before his death, he came from Knightsbridge, and after a sermon by his assistant, the Reverend Dr. Illingworth, he ascended the pulpit to the utter astonishment of his people and delivered a very short but a very effective discourse from 2 Peter Chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. When speaking of the abundant peace he experienced, and the joy and consolation of the Holy Ghost, of which for months past he had been a partaker, together with the persuasion that in a few days he must resign his mortal part to corruption as a prelude to seeing the king in his beauty. The effect produced was such as may perhaps be conceived, but certainly cannot at all be described. His closing address was in substance the same with the following paper, which was published the week after, and entitled, quote, The Reverend Mr. Toplady's dying avowal of his religious sentiments." Concerning Toplady's end, we are told, quote, all his conversations, as he approached nearer and nearer to his deceased, seemed more heavenly and happy. He frequently called himself the happiest man in the world. Oh, says he, how the soul of mine longs to be gone. Like a bird imprisoned in a cage, it longs to take its flight. Oh, that I had wings like a dove. then would I flee away to the realms of bliss and be at rest forever." Being asked by a friend if he always enjoyed such manifestations, he answered, quote, I cannot say there are no intermissions, for if there were not, my consolations would be more or greater than I could possibly bear. But when they abate, they leave such an abiding sense of God's goodness and of the certainty of my being fixed upon the eternal rock Christ Jesus that my soul is still filled with peace and joy." Within the hour of his death he called his friends and his servant and said, It will not be long before God takes me, for no mortal man can live, bursting, while he said it, into tears of joy, after the glories which God has manifested to my soul." Soon after this, he closed his eyes and found, as Milton finally expresses it, a death-like sleep, a gentle wafting to immortal life, on Tuesday, August 11, 1778, in the 38th year of his age. Page 119 and 120. Mr. Toplady was not long in his grave when John Wesley publicly asserted that, quote, the account published concerning Mr. Toplady's death was a gross imposition on the public, that he had died in black despair, uttering the most horrible blasphemies, and that none of his friends were permitted to see him, unquote. Sir Richard Hill, a friend of Mr. Toplady's, and also the Reverend J. Gockroger, He publicly wrote John Wesley and accused him of vilifying the ashes, introducing the memory of the late Mr. Augustus Toplady, and affirming that many respectable witnesses could testify that Mr. Toplady departed this life in the full triumph of faith. Volume 1, pages 121 through 128. The report continues that a pious dissenting minister expostulated in a pamphlet with Mr. Wesley on his unjust assertions in the following words, quote, Mr. Wesley and his confederates to whom this letter is addressed did not only persecute the late Mr. Toplady during his life, but even sprinkled his deathbed with abominable falsehood. It was given out in most of Mr. Wesley's societies, both far and near, that the worthy man had recanted and disowned the doctrines of sovereign grace which obliged him, though struggling with death, to appear in the pulpit, emaciated as he was, and to openly avow the doctrines he had preached, as the sole support of his departing spirit. Wretched must that cause be which has need to be supported by such unmanly shifts, and seek for shelter under such disingenuous subterfuges. O Mr. Wesley, answer for this conduct at the bar of the Supreme. Judge yourself and you shall not be judged. Dare you also to persuade your followers that Mr. Toplady actually died in despair? Fie upon sanctified slander! Fie! Fie! Those who have read the preceding letters by Sir Richard Hill and Reverend J. Gockroger, astonished as they must have been at their contents, will yet be more astonished to hear that to the loud repeated calls thus given to him to speak for himself, Mr. Wesley answered not a word, nor is it too much to say that by maintaining a pertinacious silence in such circumstances, the very vitals of his character were stabbed by himself. He thus consented to a blot remaining on his name amongst the foulest that ever stained the reputation of a professed servant of Christ." Why should Toplady, who kept the faith and finished his course in this world with joy, be the target of the shafts of Wesley's venom? It is because he refuted on scriptural grounds the Arminianism of Wesley, and fearlessly stood in defense of the eternal truths of free and sovereign grace. Quote, by what spirit, unquote, writes Toplady, quote, this gentleman and his deputies are guided in their discussion of controversial subjects, shall appear from a specimen of the horrible aspersions which in the church vindicated from predestination. They venture to heap on the Almighty Himself. The recital makes one tremble. The perusal must shock every reader who is not steeled to all reverence for the Supreme Being. Wesley and Salen are not afraid to declare that on the hypothesis of divine decrees the justice of God is no better than the tyranny of Tiberius, that God Himself is little better than Moloch. A cruel, unwise, unjust, arbitrary, a self-willed tyrant. A being devoid of wisdom, justice, mercy, holiness and truth. A devil, yea, worse than the devil. Did the exorbitancies of the ancient ranters or the impieties of any modern blasphemers ever come up to this? Observe, reader, that these also are the very men who are so abandoned to all sense of shame as to charge me with blasphemy for asserting with Scripture that God worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will, and that whatever God wills is right." It is amazing that any true evangelical Calvinist would ever quote John Wesley with approval, either in speech or in writing, wrote the late Reverend J.P. McQueen, London, quote, he bitterly hated and rejected Calvinism while he taught a theory of justification practically identical with sanctification. His apologists have tried to persuade their readers that Wesley's sacramentalism was merely an Oxford phase and that it disappeared when he entered upon active evangelistic efforts. His treatise on baptism, which he published in 1756, proves the contrary, by water, then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again, whence it is also called by the apostle the washing of regeneration. Herein a principle of grace is infused which will not be wholly taken away unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long-continued wickedness." If the foregoing quotation does not embody the false doctrine of baptismal regeneration, one does not know what does. Wesley commended the same so-called, quote, devotional literature, unquote, as the Oxford Tractarians, such as the works of Romanists like Thomas A. Kempis, Francois de Sales, and Cardinal Bona. He even published the Introduction to a Devout Life by Francois de Salis, the sworn foe of Calvinism in 1750. He advocated prayers for the dead, justifying himself thus, quote, Prayer for the dead, the faithful departed, in the advocacy of which I conceived myself clearly justified, unquote. In his works, edition 1872, volume 9, page fifty-five, the blessed departed are beyond the need of the poor, sin-stained prayers of the militant church, for they are perfect in holiness. Quote, It is of the very essence of historical falsehood, unquote, writes Mr. McQueen, quote, to declare that the Romanist Oxford Tractarian movement was the heir of the evangelical revival. whereas it was the logical development from the false teaching of the Armenian Methodist John Wesley." Dr. J. H. Riggs says concerning John Wesley, quote, The resemblance of his practices to those of modern high Anglicans is, in most points, exceedingly striking. He inculcated fasting and confession and weekly communion He refused the Lord's Supper to all who had not been baptized by a minister episcopally ordained. He re-baptized the children of dissenters, and he refused to bury all who had not received episcopal baptism." Churchmanship of John Wesley, pages 28-29. The present writer is amazed at evangelical Calvinists who say that while John Wesley was undoubtedly Arminian in his views, His brother Charles was Calvinistic. After a careful perusal of their lives and the views of both of them, I am thoroughly persuaded that they were both Arminian to the core, Charles's hymns notwithstanding. Their false undermining, Arminian teaching, and influence weakened the Protestant witness against Popery in England and throughout the British Dominions, while Scotland itself was by no means exempt, and this evil free-willism as a result continues rife and rampant in professedly evangelical circles in England and Scotland and the whole English-speaking world to this day. While thus the 18th century revival saved England from the withering blight of atheism masquerading under the euphemistic name of deism, it is a great mistake to confound evangelicalism with Wesleyanism, or to imagine that Wesley and Whitefield both belonged to one movement and preach the same gospel? On the contrary, their teaching was diametrically opposed, free grace being scriptural, while free will is the illegitimate product of the carnal mind. Whitefield was Calvinistic, while Wesley and his associates were Arminian, semi-Pelagian, and sacramentalist. One of the strangest and most persistent inaccuracies in British secular and religious history is that which describes John Wesley as the true author of the eighteenth-century evangelical revival," continues Mr. McQueen, whereas anything of permanent value in the evangelical movement must be attributed as God's honored instrument to the Reverend George Whitefield outstandingly. The contrary view could never find favor with any honest, impartial student or serious student of history. It is, however, conventional today among English and British Dominion evangelicals generally to give the whole credit for that revival to Reverend John Wesley and his brother Charles, while Mr. Whitfield is only occasionally, and these occasions very rare, mentioned incidentally. It is a popular error that needs to be corrected that The evangelicals were more or less indebted to the teaching and influence of the Wesley brothers. They were certainly not the leaders of the evangelical revival. The Reverend Dr. Ryle of Liverpool, in his book entitled Christian Leaders in the Eighteenth Century, declares regarding George Whitefield, I place him first in order of merit, without any hesitation, of all the spiritual heroes of that dark period. and describes him as the chief and first among the English reformers of the 18th century. Page 44. Extracts from the 18th Century Evangelical Revival by the Reverend J.P. McQueen, Free Presbyterian Magazine, Volume 55, pages 99-102. Dwight L. Moody Mr. D.L. Moody, the American evangelist, was the great apostle of Arminianism in the nineteenth century. In 1873-74, he and Ira D. Sankey conducted a great evangelistic campaign in Scotland, in the course of which thousands professed to have believed in Christ. The Reverend John Kennedy, D.D., of Dingwall, one of the foremost evangelical leaders in Scotland in his day wrote a review of Moody's religious movement, which he entitled, quote, Hyper-Evangelism, Another Gospel, Though a Mighty Power, unquote. When so many who had a high position and commanding influence in the church were declaring that it was a gracious work of God, Dr. Kennedy says that he has to confess that he is one of those to whom the movement has yielded more grief than gladness, and that he feels constrained to tell why he is a mourner apart. In forming an estimate of the doctrine that was mainly effective in advancing the movement, Dr. Kennedy says that he had sufficient material at hand, that he had heard Mr. Moody repeatedly, and that he had perused with care published specimens of his addresses. His objection to Moody's teaching was that it ignored the supreme end of the gospel, which is the manifestation of the divine glory, and misrepresented it as merely unfolding a scheme of salvation adapted to men's convenience. This confirmed objection he based on the following considerations. Number one, that no pains were taken to present the character and claims of God as lawgiver and judge, and no indication given of a desire to bring souls in self-condemnation to, except the punishment of their iniquity. 2. That it ignored the sovereignty and power of God in the dispensation of His grace. 3. That it afforded no help to discover, in the light of the doctrine of the cross, how God is glorified in the salvation of the sinner that believes in Jesus. that it offers no precaution against tendencies to antinomianism on the part of those who profess to believe. Quote, Go to the street, unquote, said the great American evangelist, to a group of young ladies who were seated before him, unquote, and lay your hand on the shoulder of every drunkard you meet, and tell him that God loves him and that Christ died for him, and if you do so, I see no reason why in forty-eight hours there should be an unconverted drunkard in Edinburgh." This selfish earnestness, remarks Dr. Kennedy, this proud resolve to make a manageable business of conversion work is intolerant of any recognition of the sovereignty of God. There is, of course, he continues, frequent references to the Spirit and an acknowledgment of the necessity of his work, but there is, after all, very little allowed for him to do, and bustling men feel and act as if somehow his power was under their control." True, much use is made of Christ's substitutionary death, but it is usually referred to as a disposing of sin so that it no longer endangers him who believes that Christ died for him, who accepts Christ as his substitute. This use of the doctrine of substitution has been very frequent and very effective. Christ as the substitute of sinners is declared to be the object of faith, but it is his substitution rather than himself. To believe in substitution is what produces the peace. This serves to remove the sense of danger. There is no direct dealing with the person who was the substitute. There is no appreciation of the merit of his sacrifice, because of the divine glory of him by whom it was offered. Faith in the convenient arrangement for deliverance from danger is substituted for trust in the person who glorified God on the earth, and in whom alone we can have redemption through his blood, unquote. The blood of Jesus was referred to, and there was an oft-repeated Bible reading on the subject of, quote, the blood, unquote, but what approximation to any right idea regarding it could there be in the mind, and what but misleading in the teaching of one who could say, quote, Jesus left his blood on earth to cleanse you, but he brought his flesh and bones to heaven." Souls who have a vague sense of danger, excited by the sensational instead of an intelligent conviction of sin, produced by the light and power of applied truth, are quite ready to be satisfied with such teaching as this. To these, such doctrine will bring all the peace they are anxious to obtain. But what is the value of that peace? It is no more than the quiet of a dead soul, from whom has been removed an unintelligent sense of danger." The new style of teaching made it seem such an easy thing to be a Christian. To find oneself easily persuaded to believe what was presented in the gospel, and to think that by this faith salvation was secured and that all cause of anxiety was forever gone, gave a new and pleasing sensation which thousands were willing to share. In connection with unscriptural devices resorted to in order to advance the movement, Dr. Kennedy mentions first excessive hymn singing as one of these. Quote, The singing of uninspired hymns, even in moderation, as part of public worship no one can prove to be scriptural. But the excess and the misdirection of the singing in this movement were irrational as well. Singing ought to be to the Lord, for singing is worship, but singing the gospel to men has taken the place of singing praise to God. Many profess to have been converted by the hymns. The use of instrumental music was an additional novelty, pleasing to the kind of feeling that finds pleasure in a concert. To introduce what is so gratifying there into the service of the house of God is to make the latter palatable to those to whom spiritual worship is an offense. The organ sounds effectively touch chords which nothing else would thrill." Yet it is not difficult to prove that the use of instrumental music in the worship of God is unscriptural, and that therefore all who have subscribed to the Westminster Confession of Faith are under solemn vow against it. There was a thorough change in the mode of worship affected by the Revolution, which introduced the New Testament dispensation. So thorough is this change that no part of the old ritual can be a precedent to us. For all parts of the service of the house of God, there must be New Testament precept or example. No one will pretend that for instrumental music in the worship of God, there is any authority in New Testament scripture. The fruit of the lips, issuing from hearts that make melody to the Lord, is the only form of praise it sanctions. We use the organ only as an aid. It is said, it is right that we should do our best in serving the Lord, and if the vocal music is improved by the instrumental accompaniment, then surely the organ may be used. On the same ground, you might argue for the use of crucifixes and pictures, and for all the paraphernalia of the Popish ritual. These, you might say, make an impression on minds that would not otherwise be at all affected. They vividly present before worshippers the scenes described in scripture, and if, as aides, they serve to do so, they surely cannot be wrong. To this there are three replies, equally good against the argument for instrumental worship. One, they are not prescribed in New Testament scripture, and therefore they must not be introduced into New Testament worship. 2. They are incongruous with the spirituality of the New Testament dispensation. 3. These additions but help to excite a state of feeling which militates against, instead of aiding, that which is produced by the Word. An organ may make an impression, but what is it but such as may be made more thoroughly at the opera? It may help to regulate the singing, but does God require this improvement? And whence arises the taste for it? It cannot be from the desire to make the praise more fervent and spiritual, for it only tends to take attention away from the heart, whose melody the Lord requires. It is the craving for pleasurable aesthetics for the gratification of mere carnal feeling that desires the thrill of organ sounds to touch pleasingly the heart. that yields no response to what is spiritual. If the argument against the use of the organ in the service of praise is good, it is, at least equally so against its use in the service of preaching. If anything did vanish away, it is surely the use of all such accessories in connection with the exhibition of Christ to men." Hebrews 8. The novelty of the inquiry room was another effective aid in establishing the movement. It is declared to be desirable to come into close personal contact with the hearers of the gospel, immediately after a sermon, in order to ascertain their state of feeling, to deepen impressions that may have been made, and to give a helping hand to the anxious. Such is the plea for the inquiry room. In order that it may be supplied, hearers are strongly urged, after a sensational address to take the position of converts or inquirers, they are pressed and hurried to a public confession. Why are men so anxious to keep the awakened in their own hands? They, at any rate, seem to act as if conversion was all their own work. They begin it, and they seem determined to finish it. If it is at all out of their hand, They seem to think that it will come to nothing. They must at once and on the spot get these inquirers persuaded to believe, and get them also to say that they do. They may fall to pieces if they are not braced round by a band of profession. Their names or numbers must, ere the night passes, be added to the roll of converts. They are gathered into the inquiry room. to act in a scene that looks more like a part of a stage play than anything more serious and solemn. Oh, what trifling with souls goes on in these inquiry rooms, as class after class is dealt with in rude haste, very often by teachers who never knew the grace of God in truth. The inquiry room may be effective in securing a hasty profession of faith, but it is not an institution which the Church of Christ should adopt or countenance. It will be a sad day, concludes Dr. Kennedy, for our country, if the men who luxuriate in the excitement of man-made revivals show with their one-sided views of truth, which have ever been the germs of serious errors, their lack of spiritual discernment and their superficial experience, become the leaders of religious thought and the conductors of religious Already they have advanced, as many as inclined to follow them, far in the way to Arminianism in doctrine and to Plymouthism in service. They may be successful in galvanizing by a succession of sensational shocks a multitude of dead, till they seem to be alive, and they raise them from their crypts to take a place amidst the living in the house of the Lord. But far better would it be to leave the dead in the place of the dead, and to prophesy to them there, till the living God himself shall quicken them? For death will soon resume its sway, stillness will follow the temporary bustle, and the quiet will be more painful than the stir. But to whatever extent this may be realized in the future of the Church in Scotland, our country will yet share, in common with all in the great spiritual resurrection that will be the morning work of that day of glory, during which the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, and all nations shall be blessed in Messiah, and shall call him blessed. Meantime, were it not for the hope of this, it would be impossible to endure to think of the present and of the immediate future of the cause of true religion in our land. The dead, oh, how dead! the living, oh, how undiscerning! And if there continue to be progress in the direction in which present religious activity is moving, a negative theology will soon supplant our Westminster confession of faith. The good old ways of worship will be forsaken for unscriptural inventions, and the tinsel of a superficial religiousness will take the place of genuine godliness. Arminian Errors The cardinal doctrines of the everlasting gospel which Arminians rest to their own destruction are 1. the sovereignty of God in His grace 2. total depravity 3. effectual calling 4. the atonement 5. the perseverance of the saints 1. the sovereignty of God in His grace God could have justly left all mankind to perish in their sin and misery as He left the angels which kept not their first estate but according to the good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ, before the foundation of the world, all whom he purposed to save. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him, in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 quote and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Romans chapter 8 verses 28 through 30. These verses from among many which could be quoted and the whole scheme of redemption from Genesis to Revelation afford infallible and unqualified proof that salvation is of free and sovereign grace. The ninth chapter of Romans is the Holy Spirit's commentary on the eternal decrees of God. In connection with these sublime mysteries, it becomes us, as sinful finite creatures, to be still and to know that He is God, just in all His ways, holy in His works all, that His judgments are unsearchable and His ways past finding out, as the election of all whom He purposed to save flows from His sovereign good pleasure. And so the passing by the rest of mankind has also its source in the unsearchable counsel of his sovereign will, in all the actings of which he is wholly just and true. Election is the expression of the divine mercy, reprobation of the divine justice. Whoever hold the doctrine of election must hold the doctrine of reprobation. Reprobation implies that God simply passes by the sinner, leaving him as he In election, he makes choice of the sinner in his sovereign grace. Both are acts of the sovereignty of God." Rev. D. Beaton, Free Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. 35, p. 244. The non-elect are ordained by God, according to the unsearchable counsel of His will, to dishonor and wrath for their sin. to the praise of His glorious justice." Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, Section 7. It is not for their being passed by that they are punished, but for their sins. Their being passed by is a sovereign act. Their condemnation is a judicial act of God in His capacity as a judge. Salvation is all of grace, damnation all of sin. Salvation of God from first to last, the Alpha and the Omega, but damnation of men, not of God. And if you perish at your own hands, must your blood be required. CH Spurgeon. The sovereignty of God is a stumbling block on which thousands fall and perish, and if we go contending with God about His sovereignty, it will be our eternal ruin. It is absolutely necessary that we should submit to God as an absolute sovereign and the sovereign of our souls, as one who may have mercy on whom he will have mercy and harden whom he will." Jonathan Edwards. All God's people, sooner or later, are brought to this point to see that God has a people, a peculiar people, a people separate from the world, a people whom he has formed for himself, that they should show forth his praise, election sooner or later is riveted in the hearts of God's people. And a man that lives and dies against this blessed doctrine lives and dies in his sins, and if he dies in that enmity, he will be damned in that enmity."J.C. Philpott. The Armenians, on the other hand, hold and teach conditional election on a ground of foreseen faith. This is contrary to the truth. As long as men are unregenerate, they are in a state of unbelief. Without hope in God, and without faith in Christ, when saved by grace they have faith, but that not of themselves, it is not of their own power or free will, but the gift of God, through the efficacious teaching of the Holy Spirit. Faith, therefore, cannot be the cause of election, it is the effect of it, and is insured by it. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Acts 13.48 For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10. The text quoted by Arminians in support of their doctrine of conditional election on the ground of foreseen faith is, quote, Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, etc. Romans 8.29. Such a view is superficial and untenable. The word foreknow is the New Testament usage as pointed out by Dr. W.G.T. Shedd, is employed in the sense of the Hebrew yada, which means no, which denotes love and favor, not foreknowledge as bare prescience, says Calvin, but the adoption by which God had always from eternity distinguished his children from the reprobate. The scriptures represent election as occurring in the past, irrespective of personal merit the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Romans 9 verses 11 through 13. The sovereignty of God's choice comes out clearly in the Pauline statement that Christ died for his people, why they were yet sinners. Romans 5 verse 8. It has been well said that Armenians take the choice out of the hands of God and place it in the hands of men. The Reformed Faith by the Reverend D. Beaton, page 24. But of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11 verse 36. Another subterfuge, resorted to by the Armenians in order to explain away the particular election of individuals, is to say that the text, quote, Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated, unquote, Romans 9 verse 13, means a national election, not particular persons. But Jacob's children and Esau's children, the children of Israel and the children of Edom, quote, now We ask them, by everything reasonable, is it not equally unjust of God to choose one nation and leave another? The argument which they imagine overthrows us overthrows them also. There never was a more foolish subterfuge than that of trying to bring out national election. What is the election of a nation but the election of so many units of so many people? and it is tantamount to the same thing as the particular election of individuals. In thinking, men cannot see clearly that if, which we do not for a moment believe, there be any injustice in God choosing one man and not another, but how much more must there be injustice in choosing one nation and not another No, the difficulty cannot be got rid of thus, but is greatly increased by this foolish resting of God's word. Besides, here is the proof that it is not correct. Read the verse preceding it. It does not say anything at all about nations, it says, for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, referring to the children, not to the nation. Of course the threatening was afterwards fulfilled in the position of the two nations. Edom was made to serve Israel, but the text means just what it says. It does not mean nations, but it means the persons mentioned, quote Jacob, unquote. That is the man whose name was Jacob. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Take care, my dear friends, how any of you meddle with God's Word. I have heard of folk altering passages they did not like. It will not do. You cannot alter them. They are really just the same. Our only power with the Word of God is simply to let it stand as it is, and to endeavor by God's grace to accommodate ourselves to that. We must never try to make the Bible bow to us, in fact we cannot for the truths of divine revelation are as sure and fast as the throne of God. If a man wants to enjoy a delightful prospect and a mighty mountain lies in his path, does he commence cutting away at its base in the vain hope that ultimately it will become a level plain before him? No, on the contrary, he diligently uses it for the accomplishment of his purpose by ascending it, well knowing this to be the only means of obtaining the end in view. So must we do. We cannot bring down the truths of God to our poor, finite understanding. The mountain will never fall before us, but we can seek strength to rise higher and higher in our perception of divine things, and in this way only may we hope to obtain the blessing." From Sermon on Jacob and Esau by C. H. Spurgeon. Cautions against the wrong use of the doctrine of election. The Westminster Divines in Chapter 3, Section 8 of the Confession of Faith state that the doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care It is as far removed from the dead and blind doctrine of fatalism as light is from darkness. The book of God's eternal decrees is in the hands of the Savior, Revelation 5. In the days of His flesh He gave thanks to the Father for the sovereignty of His grace. I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, For so it seemed good in thy sight, Matthew 11, verse 25 and 26. In the full light of that sovereignty which he as the Eternal Son could fathom, and which to him was the cause of praise and thanksgiving, he goes on in his mercy and love to give the gospel call, full, free, and unfettered, to sinners laboring and heavy-laden to come unto him, as the one in whom, alone, they would find rest for their souls. If the sovereignty of God in His grace was a cause of praise and thanksgiving to the great Prophet of the Church, who alone revealed to us the will of God for our salvation, how impious the cavilling of those who reject the doctrine of election or explain it away by attributing it to the fickle will of man, and not, as the Scriptures do, to the good pleasure of God's eternal will, when Christ gives thanks to the Father the Lord of heaven and earth, let us seek to have the mind that was in Him, and to offer praise and adoration before the sovereign will of the great I AM. On the other hand, and on the other to give the call and free offer of the Gospel, which He by His Spirit is able to make effectual to salvation. The Reverend R. M. McShane, in his sermon on the words, Unto you, O men, I call, and my voices to the sons of man, Proverbs 8 verse 4 says, quote, Very often awakened persons sit and listen to a lively description of Christ and of His work of substitution in the stead of sinners. But their question still is, Is Christ a Savior to me? Now to this question I answer, Christ is offered freely to all the human race. Unto you, O men, I call. There is no subject more misunderstood by unconverted souls than the unconditional freeness of Christ. So little idea have we naturally of free grace, that we cannot believe that God can offer a Savior to us, while we are in a wicked hell-deserving condition. Oh, it is sad to think how men argue against their own happiness and will not believe the very word of God. I knew I were one of the elect, I would come, but I fear I am not." To you I answer, nobody ever came to Christ because they knew themselves to be elect. It is quite true that God has of His mere good pleasure elected some to everlasting life, but they never knew it till they came to Christ. Christ nowhere invites the elect to Him. The question for you is not, am I one of the elect, but am I of the human race? If I could repent and believe, then Christ would be free to me, but I cannot repent and believe. To you I say, are you not a man before you repent and believe? Then Christ is offered to you before you repent and believe. Christ is not offered to you because you repent, but because you are a vile, lost sinner. If Christ be freely offered to all men, Then it is plain that all who live and die without accepting Christ shall meet with the doom of those who refuse the Son of God." The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us, etc. Deuteronomy 29, 29. It belongs not to us as sinners to pry presumptuously into the secret things which belong to the Lord our God. Let us rather concern ourselves with what the Lord says belongs to us. The free offers and invitations and warnings of the gospel belong to us, that we repent and turn to the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55 verse 7. No man, writes Christopher Ness, may judge himself a reprobate in this life and so grow desperate. For final disobedience, the only infallible evidence of reprobation cannot be discovered till death." An Antidote Against Arminianism, page 51. No person who is seeking God and salvation through his son, said the great divine theologian Dr. John Love, ought to apply the doctrine of the divine sovereignty thus. God is sovereign, and therefore, though I am seeking salvation, yet He may deny it to me. This is false, but thus, God is sovereign, and therefore He might have left me as He left others not to seek Him, but to reject and despise Him, but this He has not done. That is the proper sphere of sovereignty. It is manifested in the wonderful working whereby, in the course of His providence, one sinner is made to seek after Him. while another is left not to do so. But it is not manifested in this, that any ever sought his face in vain. They shall praise the Lord that seek him. Yea, in every degree of seeking him, this reflection should encourage and lead to say, Blessed be God, who has brought me thus far, further than others. The doctrine as to practice should be applied to things past, and not to anything that is to come. so it is always in Scripture we know the divine determination concerning events by the events themselves. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. 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Thank you again for listening to this SWRB reading, and remember that Isaiah 26.3 states, quote, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusted in Thee, unquote, and 2 Corinthians 13.11 concludes, quote, Finally, brethren, farewell, be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you."