Many speak as if Calvin invented those doctrines which are so frequently called by his name, and others as if he first discovered them in the Bible. He did neither the one nor the other. Before Calvin had birth or being, they had a place in the scriptures of truth; and before the Bible itself had birth or being, they had a place in the heart of God. The grand doctrine of election was not left for Calvin to discover in the Bible. It is not a faint, feeble glimmer in the word of truth, an obscure doctrine, which, with much painstaking and piecing of text to text, may at length be dimly descried lurking in some intricate passages, but a ray of light that shines through and illuminates the whole scripture from the first promise made in Eden to the close of the sacred canon.


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