“There is no heaven with a little hell in it - no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather! ... There is no clothing in a robe of imputed righteousness, the poorest of legal cobwebs spun by spiritual spiders. ... Christ is our righteousness, not that we should escape punishment, still less escape being righteous, but as the live potent Creator of righteousness in us, so that we, with our wills receiving His spirit, shall like Him resist unto blood, striving against sin; shall know in ourselves, as He knows, what a lovely thing is righteousness, what a mean, ugly, unnatural thing is unrighteousness. He is our righteousness, and that righteousness is no fiction, no pretense, no imputation. ... Any system which tends to persuade men that there is any salvation but that of becoming righteous even as Jesus is righteous; that a man can be made good, as a good dog is good, without his own willed share in the making; that a man is saved by having his sins hidden under a robe of imputed righteousness - that system, so far this tendency, is of the devil and not of God. Thank God, not even error shall injure the true of heart. They grow in truth, and as love casts out fear, so truth casts out falsehood.”
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.
Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence."
Even Mark Twain, who initially disliked MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald.
MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of Calvinism. But MacDonald never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine; indeed, legend has it that when the doctrine of predestination was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of the elect). Later novels, such as Robert Falconer and Lilith, show a distaste for the idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others.