"The Reformed faith condemns, indeed despises, the altar call. It has bad parentage: Finney. It is bad theology: universal grace dependent upon the free will of the sinner. It is bad practice: the transforming of the inner, spiritual activity of the heart into an outward, carnal activity of the body. The Scriptures nowhere present repentance or believing as a matter of "coming to the front." Besides, no Reformed church has an altar. But opposition to the altar call does not in any way imply opposition to the call of the gospel to the spiritually laboring and laden sinner to come to Christ for rest. God forbid!
The Reformed church rejects hyper-Calvinism, not because she hedges on her Calvinism at the last moment but exactly because of her Calvinism. Knowing her salvation as the sovereign, free, gracious calling of God in Christ, she burns the zeal for the glory of her God. In the love of her thankful heart, she desires that His great Name, Jesus, be published to the ends of the earth and that His good commandments be obeyed. God's grace in Jesus Christ has its sovereign way with her so that God's purpose in the calling of her is realized: "that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light" (2 Pet. 2:9)."
David J. Engelsma
Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel, pp. 209-210, 212
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