08.03.15. Note E—Page 28

Note E—Page 28 The Wesleyans—English and Scottish Theology. This reference to a body of Christians, whom to disparage were to question the seal of God himself—for no society has been more evidently owned as a branch of the true Church than the community of Wesleyan Methodists—was made, at the time, with the utmost respect, and simply for the sake of illustration. I would deeply regret it, if I supposed it to be fairly capable of a construction that might seem invidious or unkind. The truth is, in discussing this subject, one is anxious to keep an open door for the mutual recognition of one another’s Christianity, between parties that seem to differ; and especially, to make allowance for the different points of view from which they may have been led, by circumstances, to contemplate it. We can afford to smile at the bitter hatred of Calvinism which breathes through the writings of John Wesley and his friends, when we perceive the caricature of that system which they set up to be attacked; and still more, when we take into account their thorough recognition of the sovereignty of divine grace, in the work of regeneration and conversion. With the high doctrine which they hold respecting the work of the Spirit, it becomes rather an inconsistency, than a heresy, with them, that they put a more lax interpretation on the extent of the work of the Son. On the other hand, any departure from the strict view of the extent of the atonement, among us, is to be most anxiously dreaded and deprecated; because it almost uniformly indicates a lurking tendency to call in question the sovereignty of divine grace altogether; and it is invariably found, in our Churches, to open a door for the influx of a tide of Pelagian, as well as Arminian, error.

It would be an interesting subject of historical and theological inquiry, to investigate the cause of a distinction which, we think, may be traced throughout, between the practical divinity of England, and that of Scotland, at least since the days of the Covenant and Puritan contests. In England, Calvinism has much more frequently lapsed into Antinomianism than in Scotland; whereas in Scotland, Arminianism has always run more immediately into Pelagianism than in England; for these are evidently ,the opposite tendencies of the two systems—Calvinism inclining towards Antinomian fatalism, and Arminianism towards Pelagian self-righteousness or self-conversion. Now in Scotland, a Calvinist is rarely Antinomian, while an Arminian has almost always a leaning towards Pelagianism; whereas in England, a hard, cold, and indolent orthodoxy, was found to take the place of living piety, among too many of the successors of the Calvinistic and Nonconformist divines—until the philosophical necessity of the Socinian Priestly almost came to be held as the legitimate representation of the Predestinarian theology; and, on the other hand, an Arminian notion of the extent of the atonement has sprung up, in connection with a strictly Calvinistic view of the new birth, under a free and fervid preaching of the gospel of the grace of God. The national difference, in point of intellectual talent and moral temperament, may go far to explain the fact to which we have referred—the different histories of the two countries, still farther—but that it is, substantially, a fact correctly stated, can scarcely be questioned; and if so, it is one deserving of elaborate inquiry, especially in present circumstances, on the eve, as we cannot doubt, of events that must stir the public mind, on matters of religion—and on the very matters which occupied the minds of our fathers, ranging between high Arminian Prelacy on the one hand, and the extreme of lawless speculation on the other—as it has never been stirred since the days of the Commonwealth. Without entering on this tempting theme, we may content ourselves with observing that a departure from Calvinism, in Scotland, has almost uniformly been the index, whether as cause or as effect, of a decline of vital godliness, and the introduction of the broadest Pelagianism, in the assertion of a general power in man’s will to believe, as well as a general purpose in God’s will to save; whereas, in England, at least hitherto, it has been often found, that, starting from practically Antinomian orthodoxy, or mere Pelagian formality, evangelical and living religion has taken a form that bears somewhat of the Arminian character. At the same time, the present is an era in which the Lord is trying every man’s work; and we have no idea that the position which even the most evangelical Armenians take up, is one that will stand the test. On the contrary, we anticipate either a more thorough searching of the depths of theology, with a view to a surer foundation being laid, by all who hold the doctrine of the divine sovereignty; or otherwise, a scattering of the ranks even of the godly, and a springing up of multitudinous sects and shades of party and of opinion, such as gave a victory to the ungodly in the last strife of thought that convulsed our country. A disaster like this God may avert; or he may remedy the evil, after years of licentiousness and persecution; but if it were possible for men of God to meet, confer, and be of one mind beforehand, it were well.