Section 3.

SECTION 3.

An answer to some appeals to Scripture and reason, by which Mr. Toplady attempts to support the absoluteness and holiness of the Calvinian decrees.

LET us see if Mr. Toplady is happier in the choice of his Scriptural and rational illustrations, than in that of his arguments. To show that God’s decrees respecting man’s life and salvation are absolute, or (which is all one) to show that the decree of the end necessarily includes the decree of the means, he appeals to the case of Hezekiah, thus: —

ARG. XIII. Page 20. “God resolved that Hezekiah should live fifteen years longer than Hezekiah expected, &c. It was as much comprised in God’s decree that Hezekiah should eat, drink, and sleep, during those fifteen years, and that he should not jump into the sea, &c, as that fifteen years should be added to his life.” From this quotation it is evident that Mr. Toplady would have us believe that none of God’s decrees are conditional; that when God decrees the end, he does it always in such a manner as to insure the means necessary in order to bring about the end; and that Hezekiah is applied to as a proof of this doctrine. Unfortunate appeal! If I had wanted to prove just the contrary, I do not know where I should have found an example more demonstrative of Mr. Toplady’s mistake. Witness the following account: “Hezekiah was sick unto death, and Isaiah came to him and said, Thus saith [thus decrees] the Lord, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live,” Isaiah 38:1. Here is an explicit, peremptory decree; a decree where no condition is expressed; a decree which wears a negative aspect, “Thou shalt not live,” and a positive form, “Thou shalt die.” The means of executing the decree was already upon Hezekiah: he was “sick unto death.” And yet, so far was he from thinking that the decree of the end absolutely included that of the means, that he set himself upon praying for life and health; yea, upon doing it as a Jewish perfectionist. “Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart, &c; and Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith [thus decreeth] the Lord, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years,” verses 2, 5. From this account it is evident that Hezekiah might as easily have reversed the decree about his LIFE, by stabbing or drowning himself, as he reversed the decree about his DEATH, by weeping and praying; and that Mr. Toplady has forgotten himself as much in producing the case of Hezekiah in support of Calvinism, as if he had appealed to our Lord’s sermon on the mount in defence of the lawless gospel of the day.

A kind of infatuation attends the wisest men who openly fight the battles of error. In the end, their swords, like that of the champion of the Philistines, do their cause more mischief than service. Mr. Toplady will perhaps afford us another instance of it. After producing Hezekiah to establish the absoluteness of God’s decrees, he calls in the first Jewish hero; Joshua is brought to demonstrate that the decree of the end always binds upon us an unavoidable submission to the decree of the means; or, to speak more intelligibly, that God’s decrees to bless or to curse, are always absolute, and necessitate us to use the means leading to his blessing or his curse. ARG. XIV. Page 23. “Prior to the taking of Jericho, it was revealed to Joshua that he should certainly be master of the place. Nay, so peremptory was the decree, and so express the revelation of it, that it was predicted as if it had already taken effect: ‘I have given into thy hand Jericho,’ &c. This assurance, than which nothing could be more absolute, did not tie up Joshua’s hands from action, and make him sit down without using the means, which were no less appointed than the end. On the contrary,” &c. Here we are given to understand that Joshua and the Israelites could never cross any of God’s gracious decrees by neglecting the means of their accomplishment; because they were necessitated to use those means. Thus is Joshua pressed into the service of Calvinian necessity, and the absoluteness of God’s decrees; Joshua, who, of all men in the world, is most unlikely to support the tottering ark of Calvinian necessity. For when he saw in the wilderness the carcasses of several hundred thousand persons, to whom God had promised the good land of Canaan with an oath, and who nevertheless “entered not in because of unbelief,” he saw several hundred thousand proofs that God’s promises are not absolute, and that when he deals with rewardable and punishable agents, the decree of the end is not unconditional, and does by no means include an irresistible decree which binds upon them the unavoidable use of the means. But, consider the peculiar case of Joshua himself: “The Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,” Joshua 1:5. Now this peremptory decree of the end, far from necessarily including the means, actually failed by a single flaw in the use of the means. The disobedience of Achan reversed the decree; for he disregarded the means or condition which God had appointed: “Turn not to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest,” Joshua 1:7. Hence it is, that when Achan had “turned to the left,” the decree failed, and we find Joshua “prostrate before the ark a whole day with his clothes rent, and dust upon his head,” lamenting the flight of Israel before Ai, and wishing that “he had been content, and had dwelt on the other side Jordan.” Nor do I see, in God’s answer to him, the least hint of Mr. Toplady’s doctrine. “Why liest thou upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant: for they have even taken of the accursed thing. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing,” Joshua 7:1, 13. Hence it appears that when Mr. Toplady appeals to Joshua in defence of the absoluteness of God’s decrees, he displays his skill in the art of logic, as much as if he appealed to the peremptoriness of the famous decree, “Yet forty days, and [ungodly] Nineveh shall be destroyed:” and yet penitent Nineveh was spared. So unscriptural is the assertion, that the decree of the end insures the use of the means, when God tries moral agents in the day of salvation, in order to punish or reward them according to their works in the day of judgment!

Mr. Toplady supports these unfortunate appeals to Scripture, by the following appeal to reason: —

ARG. XV. Page 24. “Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an army, or to any single individual, that the former should certainly gain such a battle, and the latter certainly win such a race, would not the army be mad to say, Then we will not fight a stroke? Would not the racer be insane to add, Nor will I move so much as one of my feet, &c? Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley’s impudent slander, that the elect shall be saved, do what they will, &c. Either he is absolutely unacquainted with the first principles of reasoning, or he offers up the knowledge he has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the altar of malice, calumny, and falsehood.”

This severe censure will appear Calvinistically gratuitous, if we consider that it is entirely founded upon the impropriety of the illustrations produced by Mr. Toplady. If he had exactly represented the case, he would have said, “Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an army that they should certainly gain such a battle; that they could do nothing toward the victory by their own fighting; that the battle was fought, and absolutely won for them seventeen hundred years ago; that if they refused to fight to-day, or if they ran away, or were taken prisoners, their triumph would not be less certain; and that putting their bottle to their neighbours’ mouths, and defiling their wives, instead of fighting, would only make them sing VICTORY louder, on a certain day called a day of power, when Omnipotence would sovereignly exert itself in their behalf, and put all their enemies to flight: suppose again it were revealed to a racer that he should certainly win such a race, and receive the prize, whether he ran to-day backward or forward; because his winning the race did not at all depend upon his own swift running, but upon the swiftness of a great racer, who yesterday ran the race for him, and who absolutely imputes to him his swift running, even while he gets out of the course to chase an ewe lamb, or visit a Delilah; that the covenant, which, secures him the prize, is unconditionally ordered in all things and sure; that though he may be unwilling to run now, yet in a day of irresistible power he shall be made willing to fly and receive the prize; and that his former loitering will only set off the greatness of the power which is absolutely engaged to carry him, and all elect racers, quite from Egypt to Canaan in one hour, if they have loitered till the eleventh hour;” suppose, I say, Mr. Toplady had given us such a just view of the case, who could charge the soldiers with “madness,” and the racer with “being insane,” if they agreed to say, “We will neither fight nor run, but take our ease, and indulge ourselves, till the day of power come, in which we shall irresistibly be made to gain the battle, and to win the race?”

From these rectified illustrations it appears, if I am not mistaken,

(1.) That, when Mr. Wesley advanced his consequence, he neither “showed himself absolutely unacquainted with the first principles of reasoning,” nor “offered up the knowledge he has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the altar of malice, calumny, and falsehood.” And,

(2.) That, when Mr. Toplady’s appeals to Scripture and reason are made fairly to stand “upon their legs,” they do his doctrine as little service as his limping arguments.