indiscriminate bestowment of grace; but denies that even the elect are regenerated in baptism, leaving it to the arbitrary determination of God’s decree, at what given period, and under what circumstances, they shall be, instantaneously, and without regard to any foregoing state of mind or habits of life, transformed into the beloved, and loving, and lovely children of God⁴!

In a word, Calvinism supposes and requires an order of administration totally distinct from that which actually exists in the visible Church of God. And, accordingly, various Calvinistic communions, which have separated from the Church since the Reformation, have attempted a literal “fellowship of saints,” presuming to discriminate from the mass of nominal Christians those who have experienced the conclusive and saving change of Calvinistic conversion, and admitting such only to the full enjoyment of Church privileges and to the Lord’s table. It seems not a little surprising, that not only sagacious individuals but extensive communities should persevere in an attempt which, in the nature of things, can lead only to disappointment; for, the sincerity of that species of conversion which is supposed to be final, of that grace which is said to be irrevocable, can never be decided until the Judge of all has pronounced his verdict. In the meantime, the terms of communion must agree in some measure with the actual state of man; and when the matter is quietly examined, it appears that even in Calvinistic communions the terms of membership are reduced to a profession of the received “faith and order,” and an assurance, on the part of the initiated, that he believes himself to be a converted person by God’s special grace. This is all that is required besides evidence of good moral character; more than this is impracticable. The spirit of Calvinism can never be fully embodied in a system of Ecclesiastical polity corresponding exactly with its own nature, and marked by its own exclusiveness; for who shall discern the elect?

This discovery appears to have been made by an eminent Calvinistic clergyman of the present day, who, instead of coming to the legitimate conclusion that Calvinism is therefore untenable, as being an impracticable system, has recourse to a delusive theory of ecclesiastical fellowship, which confounds the visible with the invisible Church, or reduces the former to a mere nullity. According to his view of the subject, the Church of Christ consists, not of the collective body of persons who may happen to be in fellowship with any particular Christian communities, nor of the aggregate of persons who throughout the world make an outward profession of our holy faith, but of those, and those only, who “maintain the doctrines of grace, and uphold the authority of Christ in the world,” with whatever denomination of Christians they are in external fellowship. These, being the truly regenerate, are to tolerate each other’s differences on minor questions, to love each other as being one in Christ, and to co-operate in every way for the diffusion of their common principles throughout the world. Mr. Noel’s theory confirms the statement made in this section, that Calvinism, which it is presumed he means by “the doctrines of grace,” denies the claim of any mixed body of professing Christians, such as the Anglican, or the Lutheran, or the Scottish, or any other church, in its aggregate character, to be a church, or a distinct branch of the Catholic Church. That is, Calvinism is opposed to the constitution and the purposes of a visible church. Mr. Noel’s theory is fatal to its existence. For, when it is said of those exclusively, who, in whatever denomination, “maintain the doctrines of grace,”—“and this one body is the church,”—it is clearly proveable, that these persons have no intelligible grounds on which to rest that high and exclusive pretension; they are not the visible church.

These persons may, or may not, be members of the spiritual or invisible Church; that is known only to the Searcher of the heart. They may or may not be the most holy and sincere individuals in the several churches or denominations with which they hold external communion; that also remains to be confirmed or refuted by “the final sentence and unalterable doom.” But they do not constitute what is commonly understood by the visible Church of God. They have no ministry, no worship, no administration of the sacraments, visibly distinct from the mass of persons who are of the same external fellowship with themselves; and the error of assigning to them the distinction of being alone the true Church arises from the ambiguity of the word Church, on which changes are rung, producing a confusion of ideas—a double confusion of ideas, “confusion worse confounded.” What is the mental process by which Mr. Noel arrives at this point? First, the invisible Church is tacitly put and mistaken for the visible, the truly spiritual for the nominal, it being assumed that we can know the hearts of others. Then, secondly, this invisible Church is supposed to become visible, and to be alone visible, in the persons of those who maintain the doctrines of grace; while the really external Church, consisting of the entire body of professing Christians throughout the world, vanishes out of sight, and is declared to have no ecclesiastical existence! The truth is, that Calvinism and a visible Church are incongruous ideas, and that no man, of whatever talent he may be possessed, can make them harmonize. The Calvinist believes, and is consistent in his belief, that the elect only are “the Church,” but since it is impossible to discriminate them from others, it is impossible to unite them in an exclusive visible fellowship. And, if it were possible, they would form such a Church as never before existed. Calvinism is irreconcileable with the order which has descended from the apostolic age, by the consent of the Catholic Church, and with any visible constitution.

If Mr. Noel has succeeded in making converts to his theory of a visible Church, from the difficulty they find in detecting its fallacies, it only proves, that

“Sheer no-meaning puzzles more than wit.”

The dissenter who, on objecting to a Church rate, said, that “If all Churchmen were like Mr. Noel, neither he nor his brethren would object to join them,” does not seem to have been aware that they were already members of Mr. Noel’s Church. Or, what is more probable, it was designed significantly to hint to that reverend gentleman, that he was no more attached than themselves to the Church of which he is a pastor, and whose ordination vows are upon him,—and that with Churchmen who are prepared so to betray or deny their Church, under an erroneous sense of duty, dissenters may without difficulty form an alliance⁵.