>Calvinism cuts both ways.
>
>Southern Protestants seem to take Calvin's predestination to mean
>that they are assured of God's grace. They believe that as born
>again Christians they are guaranteed salvation regardless of
>what they do.
>
>Maybe that's bad theology, but I've had several dishonest
>businessmen tell me that.
Hmm, well it's a long way from Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" <http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/edwa_a45.htm>!
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell."