B. B. Warfield and William James on the Difference Between Moralism and True Religion

In his short essay, "What Is Calvinism?" (from the Presbyterian, Mar. 2, 1904, 6-7), B. B. Warfield writes,

"`There is a state of mind' says Professor William James in his lectures on `The Varieties of Religious Experience,' `known to religious men, but to no others, in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God.  [James] is describing what he looks upon as the truly religious mood over against what he calls `mere moralism'  `The moralist' he tells us, `must hold his breath and keep his muscles tense': and things go well with him only when he can do so.  The religious man, on the contrary, finds his consolation in his very powerlessness; his trust is not in himself but in his God; and the `hour of his moral death turns into his spiritual birthday."

Says Warfield in response, "the psychological analyst [William James] has caught the exact distinction between moralism and religion.  It is the distinction between trust in ourselves and trust in God.  And when trust in ourselves is driven entirely out, and trust in God comes in, in its purity, we have Calvinism.  Under the name of religion at its height, what Professor James has really described is therefore just Calvinism."

William James, by the way, once called himself a Methodist without the Savior.