It is interesting that the great Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon placed a chapter entitled, ‘A Defence of Calvinism’ near the beginning, and not near the end, of his autobiography.  For the ‘doctrines of grace’ were not, for him, some distant climax of his faith, but, rather, its heart-beat and its foundation.

Listen to Spurgeon:-

‘That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts few can see clearly.  They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory, but they are not.  The fault is in our weak judgment.  Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other.  If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other.  I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity.  They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that the converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, when all truth doth spring.’

Autobiography I, 174.