The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Hank Hanegraff on calvinism

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]We might keep in mind that every time an Arminian prays for another person he is acting like a Calvinist.</font><hr></blockquote><p> You have provided but yet another occasion to post my overworn quotes from Kuyper and Spurgeon which I first introduced here, January 7, 1997! [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/evilgrin.gif" alt="evilgrin" title="evilgrin[/img]<blockquote>1) “Religion on earth finds its highest expression in the act of prayer. But Calvinism in the Christian Church is simply that tendency which makes a man assume the same attitude toward God in his profession and life which he exhibits in prayer. There is no Christian, be he Lutheran or Baptist, Methodist or Greek, whose prayer is not thoroughly Calvinistic; no child of God, to whatever Church organization he may belong, but in his prayer he gives glory to God above and renders thanks to his Father in heaven for all the grace working in him, and acknowledges that the eternal love of God alone has, in the face of his resistance, drawn him out of darkness into light. On his knees before God everyone that has been saved will recognize the sole efficiency of the Holy Spirit in every good work performed, and will acknowledge that without the atoning grace of Him who is rich in mercies, he would not exist for a moment, but would sink away in guilt and sin. In a word, whoever truly prays ascribes nothing to his own will or power except the sin that condemns him before God, and knows of nothing that could endure the judgment of God except it be wrought in him by divine love. But whilst all other tendencies in the Church preserve this attitude as long as the prayer lasts, to lose themselves in radically different conceptions as soon as the Amen has been pronounced, the Calvinist adheres to the truth of his prayer, in his confession, in his theology, in his life, and the Amen that has closed his petition re-echoes in the depth of his consciousness and throughout the whole of his existence.” - by Dr. Abraham Kuyper, 1891<br><br>2) “You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer — for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not — that is the difference between me and them.’ . . . Do I hear one Christian man saying, ‘I sought Jesus before he sought me; I went to the Spirit, and the Spirit did not come to me?’ No, beloved; we are obliged, each one of us, to put our hands to our hearts, and say:<br><br><center>‘Grace taught my soul to pray,<br>And made my eyes o’erflow;<br>‘Twas grace that kept me to this day,<br>And will not let me go.”</center><br><br>by Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, on December 2, 1855</blockquote>In His Grace,<br>