Thomas Scott, when he spoke of 'great names sanctioning Antinomianism,' had Romaine in view; at any rate, there is no contemporary 'great name' to whom the remark would apply with equal force. As instances of what is meant, we may take the following passages from the 'Life and Walk of Faith': 'He is of a legal spirit who is under the law, and apprehends himself bound to keep it as the condition of life requiring of him, Do this, and thou shalt live.' 'There is in us all a continual leaning to the law, and a desire to attain righteousness by the works of it. We are all wedded to this way of gaining God's favour.' 'Why dost thou disquiet thyself about attaining the righteousness of the law, and thereby suffer the law to disturb the peace of thy conscience, since thou hast a far better righteousness, which ought to reign there, even the righteousness which is of God by faith? For thou art a believer; and although a weak one, yet thou hast as good a title to Christ and his righteousness as the strongest believer in the world.' 'Believers will never live comfortably till they see the law dead and buried, and then willingly give themselves up to be espoused to Christ, who will make them free indeed.' 'Thou art not bound to keep its [the law's] precepts, in order to have life for thy obedience. Thy Surety undertook to act and suffer for thee. He was to answer the law, in its commands and demands, to every jot and tittle. . . . And he has absolutely discharged thee from it as a law of works. Thou art to have nothing to do with it in that view.' 'Remember thou art not required to obey in order to be saved for thine obedience, but thou art already saved; and therefore out of gratitude to thy dearest Saviour, thou art bound to love him and obey him, not for life but from life.' Of course there is a sense in which every Christian who admits that we are saved through grace will agree with Romaine. But the principle stated as Romaine states it, without the counterbalancing statements of the duty of obedience, runs perilously near to the verge of Antinomianism; and at a time when Antinomianism was doing fatal damage to the cause of Christianity, the danger of such 1 See Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith, by W. Romaine especially pp. 102, 99, 98, 149, 158, 182, 192, 28, 40, 227, 229, 232, 233, 274, 275, 286, 287, 321. statements was not imaginary. There is a similar danger in Romaine's mode of stating the doctrine of final perseverance. 'He cannot cease to be a Father, and they cannot cease to be his children; for if one of them could, they all might. And then, his covenant purpose to bring many sons unto glory would be defeated; his relation to them as a Father would be broken; he would be a Father without children.' The fatal logic of those who argued that a man might always know for a certainty when he was a believer, and that one who was once a believer must always be a believer, no matter what sins he might fall into, if it be not actually sanctioned might be indirectly, though unintentionally, encouraged by such arguments as the following:- This is the wonderful contrivance of the Three in covenant. The Father accepted his coequal Son in the place of his people, and his obedience unto death in their stead; he is now perfectly reconciled to them in Jesus. . . . I have his word for it [my salvation], confirmed by promise, ratified by the covenant oath of the Blessed Trinity. These engagements cannot be broken. On the part of the Divine covenanters all is sure. They have given me the fullest security that can be. I shall be kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.' The passage last quoted illustrates another feature of extreme Calvinism which is more conspicuous in Romaine than in the generality of the Evangelical school in the eighteenth century. Conscious irreverence was very far indeed from being in Romaine's thoughts. Neither would it be correct to say that his conception of the Deity was anthropomorphic. Still he has a way of stating doctrines, very common among the Puritans of the seventeenth century, which jars upon the feelings of many who realise the immense distance there is between God and man. Such descriptions as the following, though it is fully admitted that there is a real element of truth in them, are yet expressed in such a way as not only to give one the idea of anthropomorphism, but even to represent not the highest type of man:-'His mercy has no motive but his own will. It is from mine own freedom and sovereignty that I have mercy on any sinners. It is from mine own mere love that I have determined to be gracious to them; only my love has determined to save them, and the way also in which I will save them. I have appointed the end and the means at the same time. Of mine own motive and good will I have resolved to give my Son for them, and my Spirit to them.' 'God aims at his own glory in all his mercies. Thy Father calls upon thee to do good, that he may be glorified thereby.' The notions of arbitrariness and self-glorification are not notions which we associate with the highest types of manhood, and they are the very last which we should attribute to the Godhead. Many other expressions in this remarkable work (for it is a remarkable work in spite of its drawbacks) remind one much more of the earlier Puritanism than of the later Evangelicalism. Take, for instance, the following":-'A natural man has no sense of his indwelling sins, because they are in him as worms in a dead body; just so it is with the perfectionist.' 'Man is born as ignorant of God as a wild ass's colt. 'The Hottentots knew as much of God as the Greeks and Romans did.' It need scarcely be said that with his strong Calvinism Romaine felt great repugnance against John Wesley's doctrine of sinless perfection, and he expressed himself against it with characteristic force. If,' he wrote, 'I should fancy myself in a state of sinless perfection, the Holy Ghost charges me with self-deceit. A dreadful delusion! arising from the pride of my heart and its rebellion against God, and discovering the most gross ignorance of God's righteousness, &c.; but if I was to say as well as to think it, I should tell a great lie.' It should be added in conclusion that the 'Life, &c., of Faith' possesses the strength as well as the defects of early Puritanism. It is, perhaps, on the whole, the strongest book, and its author was the strongest man of any who appeared among the Evangelicals. To find his equal we must go back to the previous century. We have hitherto been tracing the work of the Evangelical clergy in remote country villages and in London. We have now to turn to one whose most important work was done in a different sphere from either. Henry Venn (1724-1797) is chiefly known as Vicar of Huddersfield, though he only held that post for twelve out of the seventy-three years of his life. Like all the rest of the Evangelical clergy whom we have noticed, Venn was a connecting link between the Methodists and the Evangelicals proper. Like Romaine, he be longed to Lady Huntingdon's Connexion until the secession of 1781. He was also in the habit of itinerating during the early part of his Evangelical ministry. He was on the most intimate terms with the Wesleys and Whitefield, and thoroughly identified himself with their practical work. But his son tells us in his most interesting biography that his views changed on this matter. 'Induced,' he writes, 'by the hope of doing good, my father in certain instances preached in unconsecrated places. But having acknowledged this, it becomes my pleasing duty to state that he was no advocate for irregularity in others; that when he afterwards considered it in its different bearings and connections, he lamented that he had given way to it, and restrained several other persons from such acts by the most cogent arguments.' The dispute between Venn and John Wesley as to whether the Methodist preachers should be withdrawn from parishes where an Evangelical incumbent was appointed has been already noticed. The career of Henry Venn is particularly interesting and important, because it shows us not only the points of contact between the Methodists and Evangelicals, but also their points of divergence. In spite of his itinerancy and his strong sympathy with the Methodist leaders, Venn furnishes a more marked type of the rising Evangelical school than any whom we have yet noticed. Apart from his literary work, it was as a parish priest rather than as an Evangelist that Venn made his mark. His preaching at Huddersfield was unquestionably most effective; but its effect was at least as much due to the great respect which he inspired, the disinterestedness of his whole life and work, the affectionate earnestness and sound practical sense of his counsel-in short, to his pastoral efforts-as to his mere oratory. Again, the Calvinism of Henry Venn was distinctly that of the later Evangelical school rather than that of Whitefield and Romaine. He had hitherto,' writes his biographer,' 'been a zealous Arminian, hostile to Calvinism, which he considered repugnant to Scripture and reason; but the experience he 'Memoir of the Author,' prefixed to Venn's Complete Duty of Man (new ed. London, Religious Tract Society), p. xiii. preface 3. now had of the corruption of his nature, of the frailty and weakness of man, of the insufficiency of his best endeavours, led him to ascribe more to the grace of God, and less to the power and free-will of man. This change gave a tincture to his preaching; he exalted in higher strains the grace and love of God in Christ, and spoke less of the power and excellence of man. But his Calvinism stopped here. It was not the result of a theory embraced by reading books of that class; he did not attempt to reconcile the difficulties which are found in that system; he did not enforce as necessary upon others those particular views which he had himself imbibed; he did not break the bond of brotherly love and union with those of his friends who were still zealous Arminians; and, above all, it did not lead him to relax his views on the necessity and nature of holiness. Rather, he urged the practice of it more effectually from what he conceived to be stronger and purer motives. Once when asked about a young minister, whether he was a Calvinist or Arminian, he replied: 'I really do not know; he is a sincere disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is of infinitely more importance than his being a disciple of Calvin or Arminius.' In short, he was what was called a 'moderate Calvinist'-a term which was much cavilled at in the hot days of the Calvinistic controversy, but which really expressed the form which the Calvinism of the Evangelical school ultimately assumed. He was a Calvinist of precisely the same type as Newton, and Scott, and Cecil, and the two Milners. As this phase of Calvinism first meets us in connection. with the name of Henry Venn, the present seems to be the proper place to consider what it really meant. By 'moderate Calvinism' is understood that frame of mind which loved especially to dwell upon man's utter unworthiness of the least of God's mercies, of his entire helplessness in spiritual things, and his need of God's grace 'preventing him that he may have a good will, and following him when he has that goodwill.' It is well expressed in the beautiful verse of the old hymn Nothing in my hand I bring, |