Whether we agree with the doctrinal teaching of Calvin, and the style in which he treated some of his subjects, we must give him full credit for zeal, devotedness, and industry. In a feeble and sickly body, and in a comparatively short lifetime, he accomplished a great work. It is to be feared, however, that some of his extreme statements, and his harsh language as to "reprobation," and "the reprobate," unsanctioned, we believe, by scripture, have done much harm to many precious souls. "But the fact, I believe is," says Scott, "that there was a coldness and hardness about Calvin's mind, which led him sometimes to regard as objects of mere intellect those things, which could not but deeply move the feelings of minds differently constituted; and hence, I cannot but concur, he did not duly appreciate the effect of the language he was using upon other persons. And to these extreme statements and this obnoxious language, I must think, is to be traced a considerable portion of that storm of obloquy and odium which has not ceased to beat upon the head of Calvin and Calvinism to this day."
(*Vol. 3, chap. 26.)