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permits their wicked counsels to be defeated, and their best concerted schemes to prove abortive.-3. That he frequently tries the faith, and exercises the patience of good men, by letting loose the wicked upon them, as in the case of Job and of Christ.-4. That he often punishes the wickedness of one man by letting loose upon him the wickedness of another man; and that he frequently avenges himself of one wicked nation by letting loose upon it the wickedness of another nation. Thus he let Absalom and Shimei loose upon David. Thus, a parable spoken by the prophet Micaiah informs us, that God, after having let a lying spirit loose upon Zedekiah, the false prophet, let Zedekiah loose upon wicked Ahab. Thus the Lord let loose the Philistine upon disobedient Israel, and the Romans upon the obdurate Jews, and their accursed city; using those wicked heathens as his vindictive scourge, just as he used swarms of frogs and locusts, when he punished the rebellious Egyptians with his plagues.-5. That he sometimes lets a wick ed man loose upon himself, as in the case of Ahitophel, Nabal, and Judas, who became their own executioners.-6. That when wicked men are going to commit atrocious wickedness, he sometimes inclines their hearts so to relent, that they commit a less crime than they intended. For instance, when Joseph's brethren were going to starve him to death, by providential circumstances God inclined their heart to spare his life: Thus, instead of destroying him, they only sold him into Egypt.-7. With respect to Rev. xvii. 17. the context, and the full stream of the Scripture, require that it should be understood thus: "As God, by providential circumstances, which seemed to favour their worldly views, suffered wicked kings to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, to help the beast to execute God's judgments upon corrupted churches and wicked states: so he will peculiarly let those kings loose upon the whore, and they shall agree to hate her, and shall make her desolate and naked."

Upon the whole, it is contrary to the rules of criticism, decency, and piety, to take advantage of the dark construction of a sentence, or to avail ones self of a parable, an hyperbole, a bold metaphor, or an unguarded saying of a good man interwoven with the thread of scripture-history; in order to make appear [so far as Calvinism can] that "God worketh all things in all men; even wickedness in the wicked." Such a method of wresting the oracles of God, to make them speak the language of Belial and Moloch, is as ungenerous, as our inferring from these words, I do not condemn thee, that Christ does not condemn adulterers; that Christianity encourages; and that this single sentence, taken in a filthy, Antinomian sense, outweighs all the sermon upon the mount, as

well as the holy meaning of the context: for these words being spoken of an adultress, whom the magistrates had not condemned to die, and whom the Pharisees wanted Christ to condemn to be stoned according to the law of Moses; it is evident that our Lord's words when taken in connexion with the context, carry this edifying meaning. "I am come to act the part of a Saviour, and not that of a magistrate: if the magistrates have not condemned thee to be stoned, neither do I condemn thee to that dreadful kind of death: avail thyself of the undeserved reprieve: go, and repent, and evidence the sincerity of thy repentance by sinning no more." Hence I conclude, that all the texts quoted by the Fatalists, prove that God necessitates men to sin by his decrees, just as John vii. 11. proves that Christ countenances the filthy sin of adultery.

ARG. LIII. [p. 64.] Mr. T. thinks to demonstrate, that the doctrine of the absolute necessity of all our actions, and consequently all our sins, is true, by producing St. Paul's case as a preacher. "Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel," 1 Cor. ix. 16. Yet he preached the gospel freely, &c. Necessity, therefore, and freedom, are very good friends, notwithstanding all the efforts of Arminian. ism to set them at variance." The Apostle evidently speaks here of a necessity of precept on God's part, and of duty on his own part: and such a necessity being perfectly consistent with the alternative of obedience, or of disobedience, is also perfectly consistent with freedom, and with a day of judgment: and Mr. T. trifles when he speaks of all the efforts of Arminianism, to set such a necessity at variance with freedom: for, it is the distinguishing glory of our doctrine, to maintain both the freedom of the will, and the indispensible necessity of cordial obedience. But, in the name of candour and common sense, I ask, What has a necessity of precept and duty to do with calvinian necessity, which, in the day of God's power, absolutely necessitates the elect to obey, and the reprobates to disobey; entirely debarring the former from the alternative of disobedience, and the latter from the alternative of obedience? That the Apostle, in the text before us, does not mean a Calvinian, absolute necessity, is evident from the last clause of the verse, where he mentions the possibility of his disobeying, and the punishment that awaited him in case of disobedience: is me, says he, if I preach not the gospel.—A necessity of precept was laid on Jonah to preach the gospel to the Ninevites; but this necessity was so far from calvinistically binding him to preach, that (like Demas, and the clergy who fleece a flock which they do not feed,) he ran away from his appointed

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work and incurred the woe mentioned by the Apostle. Therefore, St. Paul's words, candidly taken together, far from establishing absolute necessity, which admits of no alternative, are evidently subversive of this dangerous error, which exculpates the sinner, and makes God the author of sin.

Hence Mr. Wesley says, with great truth, that if the doctrines of absolute predestination and Calvinian necessity are true, there can be no sin; seeing "It cannot be a sin in a spark to rise, or in a stone to fall." And therefore," the reprobate," [tending to evil by the irresistible power of divine predestination, as unavoidably as stones tend to the centre, by the irresistible force of natural gravitation] "can have no sin at all." This is a just observation taken from the absurdity of the doctrine of an absolute necessity, originally brought on by God's absolute and irresistible decrees. Let us see how Mr. T. shows his wit on this occasion.

ARG. LIV. [P. 71, 72.] "The reprobate can have no sin at all. Indeed? They are quite sinless, are they? As perfect as Mr. Wesley himself? O excellent reprobation! &c. What then must the elect be? &c. Besides if reprobates be sinless-nay, immu tably perfect, so that they can have no sin at all, will it not follow that Mr. Wesley's own perfectionists are reprobates? For surely if reprobates may be sinless, the sinless may be reprobates. Did not Mr. John's malice out. run his craft, when he advanced an objec tion, &c. so easily retortible?"

This illogical, not to say illiberal answer, is of a piece with the challenge, which the reader may see illustrated at the end of Sect. I. by my remarks upon a consequence as just as that of Mr. Wesley's for it is as evident, that if the reprobate are "involuntary Be⚫ ings"- Beings absolutely necessitated by efficacious, irresistible predestination, to act as they do, they are as really sinless, as a mountain of gold is really heavier than a handful of feathers. And Mr. Wesley may believe, that both consequences are just, without believing, either that the wicked are sinless, or that there is a mountain of gold. On what a slender foundation does Logica Genevensis rest her charges of craft and malice! And yet, this foundation is as solid as that, on which she raises her doctrines of unscriptural grace and free-wrath. But Mr. T. advances other arguments.

ARG. LV. [p. 69, 70.] "The holy Baptist, without any ceremony or scruple, compared some of his unregenerate hearers to Stones; saying, "God is able even of these stones to raise up children to Abraham," &c. "Ye therefore as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, &c." They (the elect) shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in the day when I make up my jewels :" Now, unless I am vehemently mistaken, jewels are but another name for precious stones. Hence,

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the reader is given to understand, that when Mr. Wesley opposes the doctrine of absolute necessity, by saying, that, It cannot be a sin in a stone to fall, he turns "the Bible's own artillery against itself, and gives us too much room to fear that it is as natural to him to pervert,-as it is for a stone to sink."

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By such arguments as these, I could prove transubstantiation: for, Christ said of a bit of bread, This is my body.-Nay, I could prove any other absurdity. I could prove that Christ could not think, and that his dis ciples could not walk: for he says, "I am the vine, and ye are the branches:" and vine can no more think, than branches can walk. I could prove that he was a hen, and the Jews chickens: for he said, that he "would have gathered them, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings." Nay. I could prove, that Christ had no more hand in our redemption, than we are supposed by Calvinists to have in our conversion; that his " poor free-will [to use Mr. Toplady's expressions [page 70,] with respect to us} had no employ" that he was absolutely passive, and that redemption "is as totally the operation of" the Father, "as the severing of stones from their native quarry, and the erecting them into an elegant building are the effects of human agency." If the aston ished reader asks, how I can prove a proposition so subversive of the gratitude, which we owe to Christ for our redemption? I reply, By the very same argument, by which Mr. T. proves, that we are absolutely passive," in the work of conversion, and that "conversion is totally the operation of God:" that is, by producing passages where Christ is metaphorically called a stone; and of these there are not a few. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation," Isa. xxviii. 16. "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder," Matt. xxi. 34. "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner," Acts iv. 11. "To whom coming as to a living stone, &c." I Pet. ii. 4. If to these texts we add those, in which he is compared to a foundation, to a rock, and to jewels, or precious stones, I could demon. strate [in the Calvinian way that Christ was once as "absolutely passive" in the work. of our redemption as a stone. When I consider such arguments as these, I cannot help wondering at the gross imposition of pagan, popish, and calvinian doctors. I find myself again in ihe midst of Ovid's metamorphoses. Jupiter, if we believe the Poet, turned Niobe into a rock. The tempter wanted Christ to turn a stone into bread. Logica Romana turns bread into Christ. But Logica Genevensis carries the bell, for she can,even without.the Hocus Pocus of a massing priest, turn Christ

into a stone. Mr. Toplapy, far from recant ing his argument a lapide, confirms it by the following

A RG. LVI. [p. 71.] "A stone has the advantage of you: man's rebellious heart is, by nature, and so far as spiritual things are concerned, more intractable and unyielding than a stone itself, I may take up a stone, and throw it this way or that, and it obeys the impulse of my arm. Whereas in the sinner's heart, there is every species of hatred and opposition to God: nor can any thing but omnipotent power, slay its enmity."

from Calvinian necessity, and from Pelagian, self-sufficient exertion?

ARG. LVIII. [p. 73.] But, God "worketh ALL things according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11. By putting the word ALL in very large capitals, Mr. T. seems willing to iusinuate, that God's decree causes all things; and, of consequence, that God absolutely works the good actions of the righteous, and the bad deeds of the wicked. Whereas the Apostle means only, that all the things which God works, he works them ac cording to the counsel of his own most wise, gracious, and righteous will. But the things which God works, are, in many cases, as different from the things which we work, as light is different from darkness. This passage, therefore, does not prove calvinian necessity for, when God made man, according to the counsel of his own will, he made him a free-agent, and set before him life and death; bidding him choose life. Now, to include Adam's eating of the forbidden fruit, and choosing death, among the things which God worketh, is to turn Manichee with a witness; it is to confound Christ and Belial; the acts of God, and the deeds of sinners. It is to suppose [horrible to think !] that God will send the reprobates to hell for his own deeds, or, if you please, for what he has absolutely wrought in them and by them, according to the counsel of his own necessitating will. This dreadful doctrine is that capital part of Calvinism, which is called absolute predestination to death. If Mr. T. denies, that it is the second pillar of his doctrine of grace, he may turn to Sect. II. where he will find his peculiar gospel "upon its legs."

I am glad Mr. T. vouchsafes, in this place, to grant, that omnipotent power can slay the enmity. I hope he will remember this concession, and no more turn from the Prince of Life, to preach up the monster Death, as the slayer of the enmity. But, to come to the argument: would Mr. T. think me in earnest, if I attempted to prove that a stone had [once] the advantage of him, with respect to getting learning, and that there was more omnipotence required to make him a scholar, than to make the stone he stands upon, fit to take a degree in the University? However, I shall attempt to do it: displaying my skill in orthodox logic, I personate the schoolmaster, who taught Mr. Toplady grammar, and probably found him once at play, when he should have been at his book, and I say, "Indeed, master, a stone has the advantage over you. A boy's playful heart is by nature, so far as grammar is concerned, more intractible and unyielding than a stone itself."-[Now for the proof!] "I may take up a stone, and throw it this way or that, and it instantly, and without the least degree of resistance, obeys the impulse of my arm : I hope I need say no more upon this head, whereas you resist my orders, you run away to convince the unprejudiced reader, that from your book, or you look off from it. In Mr. T.'s arguments in favour of Calvinian your playful heart, there is every species of necessity are frivolous; and that Mr. Weshatred and opposition to your accidence; and ley advances a glaring truth, when he asserts, therefore more is required to make you a that, On the principle of absolute predestinascholar, than to make that stone a gramma- tion, there can be no future judgment, [upon rian." Mr. Toplady's voluntary humility any known principle of wisdom, equity, and claps this argument as excellent; but his justice:] and that it requires more pains than good sense hisses it as absurd, and says with all rationals will ever be able to take, to reSt. Paul," When I was a child, I spake as concile the doctrine of [calvinian] reprobaa child: but when I became a man I put tion, with the doctrine of a judgment-day. away childish things."

ARG. LVII. [p. 71.] Ah but "God's gracious promise to renew his people, runs in this remarkable style: "I will take away the stony heart ont of your flesh."--And does this prove Calvinian bound will, any more than these gracious commands to renew our own hearts, prove Pelagian free-will? "Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked." "Make you a new heart and a new spirit." "Turn yourselves, and live ye?" Who does not see, that the evangelical union of such passages, gives birth to the scripture doctrine of assisted free-will, which stands at an equal distance

SECTION VIII.

An Answer to the Argument taken from GOD'S prescience, whereby Mr. Toplady tries to prove that the very cruelty which Mr. Wesley charges on Calvinism, is really chargeable on the doctrine of general grace.

Mr. Toplady is a spirited writer. He not only tries to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with divine mercy, but he attempts to retort upon us the charge of holding a cruel doctrine.

ARG. LIX. [p. 74.] "But what, if, after all, that very cruelty which Mr. Wesley pre

tends to charge on Calvinism, be found really chargeable on Arminianism? I pledge myself to prove this-before I conclude this tract." And accordingly [p. 86, 87,] Mr. Toplady, after observing in his way, that according to Mr. Wesley's doctrine, God offers his grace to many who put it from them, and gives it to many who receive it in vain, and who, on this account, are condemned: Mr. Toplady, I say, sums up his argument in these words: "If God knows, that the offered grace will be rejected; it would be mercy to forbear the offer. Prove the contrary if you are able."

I have answered this objection at large, Scripture Scales, Sect. XIX. However I shall say something upon it here. 1. God's perfections shine in such a manner as not to eclipse one another. Wisdom, justice, mercy, and truth, are the adorable, and well-proportioned features of God's moral face, if I may venture upon this expression. Now, if in order to magnify his mercy, I thrust out his wisdom and justice [as I should do if I held a lawless calvinian election ;]-or, if, in order to magnify his justice, I thrust out his mercy and wisdom [as I should do, if I consistently held calvinian reprobation :] should I not disfigure God's moral face, as much as I should spoil Mr. Toplady's natural face, if I swelled his eyes or cheeks to such a degree, as to leave absolutely no room for his other features? The Calvinists forget that as human beauty does not consist in the monstrous bigness of one or two features, but in the harmonious and symmetrical proportion of all; so divine glory does not consist in displaying a mercy and a justice, which would absolutely swallow up each other, together with wisdom, holiness, and truth. This would, however, be the case, if God, after having wisely decreed to make free-agents, in order to display his holiness, justice, and truth, by judging them according to their works, ne cessitated them to be good or wicked, by decrees of absolute predestination to life and heaven, or of absolute reprobation to hell and damnation.

2. Do but allow, that God made rationals in order to rule them as rationals, namely, by laws adapted to their nature;-do but admit this truth, I say, which stands or falls with the Bible; and it necessarily follows, that rationals were made with an eye to a day of judgment and the moment this is granted, Mr. Toplady's argument vanishes into smoke. For, supposing that God had displayed more mercy towards those who die in their sins, by forbearing to give them grace and to offer them more grace; or, in other words, supposing that God had shewn the wicked more mercy, by shewing them no mercy at all [which by the by is a contradiction in terms; yet, such a merciless mercy [if I may use the expression] would have blackened his wis

dom, overthrown his truth, and destroyed his justice. What a poor figure, for instance, would his justice have made among his attributes, if he had said, that he would judicially cast his unprofitable servants into outer darkness, for burying a talent which they never had, or for not receiving a Saviour who was always kept from them? And what rationals would not have wondered at a Governor, who, after having made moral agents in order to rule them according to their free nature, and to judge them in righteousness according to their works, should, nevertheless, shew himself, 1. So inconsistent as to rule them by efficacious decrees, which absolutely necessi tate some of them to work iniquity; and others to work righteousness; 2. So unjust, as to judge them according to the works, which his own binding decrees, had necessi tated them to do; and 3. So cruel and unwise, as to punish them with eternal death, or reward them with eternal life, according to a sentence of absolute reprobation to death, or of absolute election to life, which he passed be. forehand, without any respect to their works, thousands of years before most of them were born? By what art could so strange a conduct have been reconciled with the titles of Lawgiver, and Judge of all the earth, which God assumes; or, with his repeated declarations, that justice and equity are the basis of his throne; and that, in point of judgment, his ways are perfectly equal?

If Mr. T. should try to vindicate so strange a proceeding, by saying, that God could justly reprobate to eternal death myriads of unborn infants for the sin of Adam; would he not make a bad matter worse; since [upon the plan of the absolute predestination of all events] Adam's sin was necessarily brought about by the decree of the means; which decree, [if Calvinism is true] God made in order to secure and accomplish the two grand decrees of the end, namely, the eternal decree of finished damnation by Adam, and the eternal decree of finished salvation by Christ?

The absurdity of Mr. Toplady's argument may be placed in a clearer light by an illustration. The king, to display his royal benevolence, equity, and justice, to maintain good order in his army, and excite his troopers to military diligence, promises to give a reward to all the men of a regiment of light horse, who shall ride so many miles without dismounting to plunder: and he engages himself to punish severely those who shall be guilty of that offence. He foresees indeed, that many will slight his offered rewards, and incur his threatened punishment: nevertheless, for the above-mentioned reasons, he proceeds. Some men are promoted, and others are punished. A Calvinist highly blames the king's conduct. He says, that his Majesty would have shewn himself more gracious, and would have asserted his sover

eignty much better, if he had refused horses to the plunderers, and had punished them for lighting off horses which they never had: and that, on the other hand, it became his free-grace to tie the rewardable dragoons fast to their saddle, and by this means to necessitate them to keep on horse-back, and deserve the promised reward. Would not such a conduct have marked his Majesty's reputation with the stamp of disingenuity, cruelty, and folly? And yet, astonishing! because we do not approve of such a judicial distri-Ten men have a mortal disorder; a phy bution of the rewards of eternal life, and the punishments of eternal death, Mr. Top. lady fixes the charge of cruelly upon the gospel which we preach: He goes on:

there is no needs must in the eternal death of any man, because Christ imparts a degree of temporary salvation to all, with power to ober, and a promise to bestow eternal salvation upon all that will obey. How ungenerous is it then, to charge upon us the very doctrine which we detest, when it has no necessary connexion with any of our principles! How irrational to say, that if our doctrine of grace is true, God's grace must become the ministration of death to millions!

ARG. LX. [p. 85.]" According to Mr. Wesley's own fundamental principle of universul grace; grace itself, or the saving in fluence of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of men, does, and must become the ministration of eternal death to thousands, and millions." -[p. 89.] Level therefore your tragical exclamations, about unmercifulness, at your own scheme, which truly and properly deserves them."

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The flaw of this argument consists in the words" does and must," which Mr. T. puts in italics. 1. In the word does it is a great mistake to say, that upon Mr. W.'s principles, grace itself does become the ministration of eternal death to any soul. It is not for grace, but for the abuse or neglect of grace, and its saving light, that men are condemned, "This is the condemnation, (says Christ himself) that light [the light of grace] is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light." and St Paul adds, that "the grace of God which bringeth salvation, hath [in different degrees] appeared to all men," John iii. 19; Tit. ii. 11.-There is no medium between condemning men for not using a talent of grace which they had, or for not using a talent of grace which they never had. The former sentiment, which is perfectly agreeable to reason, scripture, and conscience, is that of Mr. Wesley: the latter sentiment, which contradicts one half of the Bible, shocks reason, and demolishes the doctrines of justice, is that of Mr. Toplady.

2. When this gentleman says, that God's grace, upon Mr. Wesley's principles, must become the ministration of death to millions, he advances as groundless a proposition, as I would do, if I said, that the grace of creation, the grace of preservation, and the grace of a preached gospel, absolutely destroys millions; because millions, by wilfully abusing their created and preserved powers, or by neglecting so great salvation as the gospel brings, pull down upon themselves an unnecessary, and therefore a just destruction. 3. We oppose the doctrine of absolute necessity, or the Calvinian must, as being inseparable from Manicheism and we assert, that

sician prepares a sovereign remedy for them all five take it properly and recover, and five, who will not follow his prescriptions, die of their disorder now, who but a prejudiced person would infer from thence, that the physician's sovereign remedy is become the ministration of death to the patients who die, because they would not take it? Is it right thus to confound a remedy with the ob stinate neglect of it? A man wilfully starves himself to death with good food before him. I say, that his wilfulness is the cause of his death: No, replies a decreist, it is the good food which you desire him to take. This absurd conclusion is all of a piece with that of Mr. Toplady's.

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ARG. LXI. [p. 89.]" The Arminian system represents the Father of Mercies as offering grace to them, who he knows, will only add sin to sin, and make themselves two-fold more the children of hell by refusing it." Indeed it is not the Arminian system only, that says this: I. All the Calvinists, who allow that God gave angelic grace, to angels, though he knew that many of them would fall from that grace, and would fall deeper, than if they had fallen from a less exalted station -2. Jesus Christ, who gave Judas the grace of apostleship, and represents God as giving a pound to his servants who squander it, as well as to those who use it properly: -and 3. Mr. Toplady himself, who [notwithstanding his pretended horror for so scriptural a doctrine] dares not deny, that God gave the grace of creation to those who shall perish. Now, the grace of creation implies spotless holiness: and if God could once gra ciously give spotless holiness to Judas in the loins of Adam, why could he not graciously restore to that Apostle a degree of free-agency to good, that he might be judged according to his own works, and not according to Calvinian decrces of finished wickedness and finished damnation in Adam? But-4. What is still more surprising, Mr. T. himself [p. 51.] quotes these words, which so abundantly de'cide the question: "Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, [by the peculiar favours and gospel-privileges bestowed upon the e,] shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day," Matt. xi. 23. New

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