A brief but nonetheless thorough examination of history from an appreciation of the direction that the Providence of the Lord God necessarily imparts to it as Sovereign over all of His creation ["For I am the LORD, I change not..." Malachi 3:6; "But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Job 23:3; "And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" Daniel 4:35]
Effects of Calvinism:
Purported: "fatal to morality" [because it denies free will]
Actual: "makes moral law the rule of life for States as well as persons."
Purported: "[it is] a creed of intellectual servitude"
Actual: "inspires the bravest efforts ever made by man to break the yoke of unjust authority."
Quotes from the Address:
"Illustrious natures do not form themselves upon narrow and cruel theories."
"The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness."
"The conqueror and the conquered cannot be the same..." [The logic of that statement demonstrates the futility of "works salvation". The heart of man, "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9), has not in itself means or motive to improve itself. Therefore, if morality is possible at all, one must conclude that it is "the infinite grace of God and nothing else rescuing...from destruction."]
"When a man speaks the truth, you may count pretty surely that he possesses most other virtues." [Thus if he is a liar (or a Jesuit casuit or probabalist) he is pretty surely devoid of real virtue.]
"...One who is afraid of lying is usually afraid of nothing else."
"Speech is an article of trade in which we are all dealers, and the one beyond all others where we are most bound to provide honest wares..."
The Fatal Sequence of Great Nations:
"Virtue and truth produced strength; strength dominion; dominion riches; riches luxury; and luxury weakness and collapse."
[Consider the history of the great nation we know as the United States of America, and see if you can figure out where we are in the sequence.]
[Repentance from the unmanliness of luxuriating in weakness makes possible renewal unto virtue and strength. But as we saw above, the morality for that must come from the infinite grace of God; nothing else rescues from destruction. But you'll not find a nation in history that God sheds His grace upon that is ill disposed to His commands; that worships false gods; or that blasphemes His name. A revival of our founding principles is not impossible but highly unlikely when -- as Yeats observed -- "...The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."]
http://books.google.com/books?id=hPV2aUS98EYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false