Section 7.

SECTION 7.

An answer to the arguments by which Mr. T. tries to reconcile Calvinism with the doctrine of a future judgment, and ABSOLUTE necessity with MORAL agency.

THEY who indirectly set aside the day of judgment, do the cause of religion as much mischief as they who indirectly set aside the immortality of the soul. Mr. Wesley asserts that the Calvinists are the men. His words are: “On the principle of absolute predestination, there can be no future judgment. It requires more pains than all the men upon earth, than all the devils in hell will ever be able to take, to reconcile the doctrine of [Calvinian] reprobation, with the doctrine of a judgment day.” Mr. T. answers: —

ARG. XLVI. Page 82. “The consequence is false; for absolute predestination is the very thing that renders the future judgment certain: ‘God hath APPOINTED a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ORDAINED.’“ If Mr. T. had put the words “in righteousness” in capitals, instead of the words “appointed” and “ordained,” (which he fondly hopes will convey the idea of the Calvinian decrees,) he would have touched the knot of the difficulty: for the question is not, whether there will be a day of judgment; but whether, on the principle of absolute predestination, there can be a day of judgment, consistently with Divine equity, justice, wisdom, and sincerity: and that there can, Mr. T. attempts to prove by the following reasoning: — ARG. XLVII. Page 83. “The most flagrant sinners sin voluntarily, notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment of God’s effective and permissive decrees. Now they who sin voluntarily are accountable: and accountable sinners are judicable: and if judicable, they are punishable.” Mr. T. has told us, p. 45, that “fallen men are involuntary beings;” and in this page he tells us that they sin voluntarily. Now we, who never learned Mr. T.’s logic, cannot understand how “involuntary beings” can sin voluntarily. But, letting this contradiction pass, and granting that sinners offend voluntarily, I ask, Is their will at liberty to choose otherwise than it does, or is it not? If you say it is at liberty to choose otherwise than it does, you renounce necessitating predestination, and you will allow the doctrine of free will, which is the bulwark of the second Gospel axiom, and the Scripture engine which batters down Calvinian reprobation; and, upon this Scriptural plan, it is most certain that God can “judge the world in righteousness,” that is, in a manner which reflects praise upon his essential justice and wisdom. But if you insinuate that the will of sinners is absolutely bound by “the efficacious purposes of Heaven,” and by the “effective decrees” of Him who “worketh all things in all men, and even wickedness in the wicked;” if you say that God’s decree concerning every man is irreversible, whether it be a decree of absolute election to life, or of absolute reprobation to death, “because God’s own decree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means;” (p. 17;) or, which comes to the same thing, if you assert that the reprobate always sin necessarily, having no power, no liberty to will righteousness, you answer like a consistent Calvinist, and pour your shame, folly, and unrighteousness upon the tribunal where Christ will judge the world in righteousness.

A just illustration will convince the unprejudiced reader, that this is really the case. By the king’s “efficacious permission,” a certain strong man, called Adam, binds the hands of a thousand children behind their backs with a chain of brass, and a strong lock, of which the king himself keeps the key. When the children are thus chained, the king commands them all, upon pain of death, to put their hands upon their breasts, and promises ample rewards to those who will do it. Now, as the king is absolute, he passes by seven hundred of the bound children, and as he passes them by he hangs about their necks a black stone, with this inscription, “Unconditional reprobation to death:” but being merciful too, he graciously fixes his love upon the rest of the children, just three hundred in number, and he ordains them to finished salvation by hanging about their necks a white stone, with this inscription, “Unconditional election to life.” And, that they may not miss their reward by non-performance of the above-mentioned condition, he gives the key of the locks to another strong man, named Christ, who, in a day of irresistible power, looses the hands of the three hundred elect children, and chains them upon their breasts, as strongly as they were before chained behind their backs. When all the elect are properly bound, agreeably to orders, the king proceeds to judge the children according to their works, that is, according to their having put their hands behind their backs, or upon their breasts. In the meantime a question arises in the court: Can the king judge the children concerning the position of their hands, without rendering himself ridiculous? Can he wisely reward the elect favourites with life according to their works, when he has absolutely done the rewardable work for them by the stronger man? And can he justly punish the reprobate with eternal death, for not putting their hands upon their breasts, when the strong man has, according to a royal decree, absolutely bound them behind their backs? “Yes, he can;” says a counsellor, who has learned logic in mystic Geneva; “for the children have hands, notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment of the king’s effective and permissive decrees: now children who have hands, and do not place them as they are bid, are accountable, and accountable children are judicable; and if judicable, they are punishable.” This argument would be excellent, if the counsellor did not speak of hands which are absolutely tied. But it is not barely the having hands, but the having hands free, which makes us accountable for not placing them properly.

Apply this plain observation to the case in hand, and you will see,

(1.) That it is not barely the having a will, but the having free will, which constitutes us accountable, judicable, and punishable.

(2.) That, of consequence, Mr. Toplady’s grand argument is as inconclusive as that of the counsellor.

(3.) That both arguments are as contrary to good sense, as the state of hands at liberty is contrary to the state of hands absolutely tied; as contrary to reason, as free will is contrary to a will absolutely bound. And,

(4.) That, of consequence, the doctrine of the day of judgment is as incompatible with Calvinian predestination, as sense with nonsense, and Christ with Belial.

However, if Mr. T. cannot carry his point by reason, he will do it by Scripture; and therefore he raises such an argument as this: — We often read in the Bible that there will be a day of judgment; we often meet also in the Bible with the words “must” and “necessity;” and, therefore, according to the Bible, the doctrine of a day of judgment is consistent with the doctrine of the absolute necessity of human actions: just as if, in a thousand cases, a decree of necessity, or a must, were not as different from absolute necessity, as the want of an apartment in the king’s palace is different from the absolute want of a room in any house in the kingdom. The absurdity of this argument will be better under. stood by considering the passages which Mr. T. produces, to prove that when men do good or evil, God’s absolute decree of predestination necessitates them to do it.

ARG. XLVIII. Page 60. “It must needs be that offences come. There must be heresies among you. Such things [wars, &c,] must needs be.” When Mr. T. builds Calvinian necessity upon these scriptures, he is as much mistaken as if he fancied that Mr. Wesley and I were fatalists, because we say, “Considering the course and wickedness of the world, it cannot but be Christendom will be distracted by heresies, lawsuits, wars, and murders: for so long as men will follow worldly maxims, rather than evangelical precepts, such things must come to pass.” Again: — Would not the reader think that I trifled, if I attempted to prove absolute necessity from such Scriptural expressions as these: “Seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. New wine must be put into new bottles. He must needs go through Samaria. I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. How can I sin against God? I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. The multitude must needs come together [to mob Paul,] (Acts 21:22.) A bishop must be blameless. Ye must needs be subject [to rulers] not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake?”

Once more: who does not see that there is what the poverty of language obliges me to call,

(1.) A necessity of duty: “I must pay my debts: I must preach next Sunday.”

(2.) A necessity of civility: “I must pay such a visit.”

(3.) A necessity of circumstance: “in going from Jerusalem to Galilee, ‘I must needs pass through Samaria,’ because the high way lies directly through Samaria.”

(4.) A necessity of convenience: “I am tired with writing, I must leave off.”

(5.) A necessity of decency: “I must not go naked.”

(6.) A necessity of prudence: “I must look before I leap, &c.” Now, all these sorts of necessity, and a hundred more of the like stamp, do not amount to one single grain of Calvinian, absolute, insuperable necessity. However, a rigid Predestinarian (such is the force of prejudice!) sees his imaginary necessity in almost every must; just as a jealous man sees adultery in almost every look which his virtuous wife casts upon the man whom he fancies to be his rival.

ARG. XLIX. Page 61. “Absolute necessity, then, is perfectly consistent with willingness and freedom in good agency, no less than in bad. For it is a true maxim, Ubi voluntas, ibi libertas;” that is, where there is a will, there is liberty. This maxim, which has led many good men into Calvinism, I have already exposed. (See Scales, page 186.) To what is there advanced, I add the following remark: — As there may be liberty, where there is not a will, so there may be a will, where there is not liberty. The first idle school boy whom you meet will convince you of it. I ask him, “When you are at school, and have a will, or (as you call it) a mind to go and play, have you liberty, or freedom to do it?” He answers, “No.” Here is then a will without liberty. I ask him again: “When you are at school, where you have freedom or liberty to ply your book, have you a will to do it?” He honestly answers, “No, again. Here is then liberty without a will. How false therefore is this proposition, that “where there is a will there is liberty!” Did judicious Calvinists consider this, they would no more say, “If all men were redeemed, they would all come out of the dungeon of sin.” For there may be a freedom to come out consequent upon redemption, where there is no will exercised. “O, but God makes us willing in the day of his power.” True: in the day of salvation he restores to us the faculty of choosing moral good with some degree of ease; and, from time to time, he peculiarly helps us to make acts of willingness. But to suppose that he absolutely wills for us, is as absurd as to say, that when, after a quinsy, his gracious providence restores us a degree of liberty to swallow, he necessitates us to eat and drink, or actually swallows for us.

ARG. L. Page 61. In his refusal to dismiss the Israelites, &c, “he [Pharaoh] could will no otherwise than he did, Exodus 7:3, 4.” Is not this a mistake? When Pharaoh considered, did he not alter his mind? Did he not say to Moses, “Be gone, and bless me also?” If Omnipotence had absolutely hardened him, could he have complied at last? Do the unchangeable decrees change as the will of Pharaoh changed? ARG. LI. Pages 61, 62. “So when Saul went home to Gibeah, it is said, ‘There went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.’ In like manner, God is said to have ‘stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. Then rose up, &c, the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised up.’ Will any man say that these did not will freely, only because they willed necessarily?”

1. I (for one) say, that while they willed necessarily, (in the Calvinian sense of the word “necessary,”) they could not will freely in the moral sense of the word free. Mr. Toplady is not morally free to will, so long as he is absolutely bound to will one thing, any more than a man is free to look to the left, who is absolutely bound to look to the right, let the object he looks at engage his heart and eye ever so pleasingly. God’s Spirit prevents, accompanies, and follows us in every good thing: all our good works are “begun, continued, and ended in him;” but they are not necessary, in the Calvinian sense of the word. In moral cases, God does not absolutely necessitate us, though he may do it in prophetic and political cases. Thus, he necessitated Balaam, when he blessed Israel by the mouth of that covetous prophet; and thus he necessitated Balaam’s ass, when the dumb animal reproved his rider’s madness. But then, whatever we do under such necessitating impulses, will not be rewarded as our own work, any more than Balaam’s good prophecy, and his ass’ good reproof, were rewarded as their own works.

2. From the above-mentioned passages, Mr. Toplady would make us believe, that upon the whole, the touches of God’s grace act necessarily like charms: but what says the stream of the Scriptures? God “touched the hearts” of all the Israelites, and stirred them up to faith: but the effect of that touch was so far from being absolutely forcible, that their hearts soon “started aside like a broken bow;” and, after having been “saved in Egypt through faith, they perished in the wilderness through unbelief.” “God gave King Saul a new heart;” and yet Saul cast away the heavenly gift. “God gave Solomon a wise and understanding heart;” and yet Solomon, in his old age, “made himself a foolish heart, darkened” by the love of heathenish women. God stirred up the heart of Peter to confess Christ, and to walk upon the sea; and yet, by and by, Peter sunk, cursed, swore, and denied his Lord. Awful demonstrations these, that, where Divine grace works most powerfully, when its first grand impulse is over, there is an end of the overbearing power; and the soul, returning to its free agency, chooses without necessity the good which constitutes her rewardable; or the evil which constitutes her punishable. Of this Mr. Toplady himself produces a remarkable instance, 2 Corinthians 8:16, 17, “Thanks be to God,” says the apostle, “who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you; of his own accord he went unto you.”

If a gentleman, who delights to be in houses of ill fame, more than in the house of God, sees, in a circle of ladies, one whom he suspects of being immodest, he singles her out as one that may suit his purpose: and to her he makes his bold addresses. I am sorry to observe that this is exactly the case with Calvinism unmasked. We find, in the Scriptures, a few places where God’s suffering some men to do a lesser evil, in order to prevent, or to punish a greater evil, is expressed in a strong, figurative manner, which seems to ascribe sin to him, just as, in other places, jealousy, repentance, wrath, and fury, together with hands, feet, ears, and a nose, are figuratively attributed to him. Now as popish idolatry screens herself behind these metaphors, so Calvinian Antinomianism perpetually singles out those metaphorical expressions which seem to make God the author of sin. Accordingly, —

ARG. LII. Page 61, &c. Mr. Toplady produces these words of Joseph: “It was not you that sent me hither, but God;” these words of David: “The Lord said to him, [Shimei,] Curse David;” these words of the sacred historian: “God had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom;” and these words of the prophet: “Howbeit, he [the Assyrian king, turned loose upon Israel to avenge God’s righteous quarrel with that hypocritical people] meaneth not so, neither does his heart think so: but it is in his heart to destroy;” these words in the Revelation: “God hath put it into their hearts [the hearts of the kings who shall hate the mystic harlot and destroy her, and burn her with fire] to fulfil his will, and to agree, and to give their kingdom to the beast, till the words of God shall be fulfilled;” and the words of Peter: “They [the accomplishers of the crucifixion of Christ] were gathered together to do whatsoever God’s hand, and God’s counsel had predestinated to be done,” &c.

With respect to the last text, if it be rightly f84 translated, it is explained by these words of Peter, Acts 2:23: “Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God:” by his gracious “counsel,” that Christ should lay down his life as a ransom for all; and by his clear “foreknowledge” of the disposition of the Jews to take that precious life away. This passage then, and all those which Mr. T. has produced, or may yet produce, only prove: —

(1.) That God foresees the evil which is in the hearts of the wicked, and their future steps in peculiar circumstances, with ten thousand times more clearness and certainty, than a good huntsmen foresees all the windings, doublings, and shifts of a hunted fox; and that be overrules their wicked counsels to the execution of his own wise and holy designs, as a good rider overrules the mad prancings of a vicious horse, to the display of his perfect skill in horsemanship, and to the treading down of the enemy in a day of battle.

(2.) That God “catches the wise in their own craftiness,” and that, to punish the wicked, he 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; 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 Philistines upon disobedient Israel, and the Romans upon the obdurate Jews, and their accursed city; using those wicked heathen as his vindictive scourge, just as he used swarms of frogs and locusts when he punished rebellious Egypt with his plagues.

(5.) That he sometimes let a wicked man loose upon himself, as in the case of Ahithophel, 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 hearts to spare his life: thus instead of destroying him, they only sold him into Egypt.

(7.) With respect to Revelation 17:17, 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 all the rules of criticism, decency, and piety, to take advantage of the dark construction of a sentence, or to avail one’s self of a parable, a 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 adultery, 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 to an adulteress, 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 connection 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 thy 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 8:11, proves that Christ countenances the filthy sin of adultery.

ARG. LIII. Page 64. Mr. T. thinks to demonstrate that the doctrine of the absolute necessity of all our actions, and consequently of 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, wo is me if I preach not the Gospel,’ 1 Corinthians 9:16. Yet he preached the Gospel freely, &c; necessity, therefore, and freedom, are very good friends, notwithstanding all the efforts of Arminianism 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 indispensable 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 reprobate 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: “Wo 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 work, and incurred the “wo” 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 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. Pages 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. Beside: if reprobates be sinless — nay, immutably 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 outrun his craft, when he advanced an objection, &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 sec. i, by my remarks upon a consequence as just as that of Mr. Wesley: for it is as evident that if the reprobate are “involuntary beings;” 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. Pages 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 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.”

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 disciples could not “walk:” for he says, “I am the vine, and ye are the branches;” and a vine can no more think, than branches can walk. I could prove that he was a “hen,” and the Jews “chickens:” for he says 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 astonished reader ask, 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 comer stone, a sure foundation, Isaiah 28:16. Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder, Matthew 21:34. The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner, Acts 4:11. To whom coming as to a living stone,” &c, 1 Peter 2:4. 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 demonstrate, (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 impositions of Pagan, popish, and Calvinian doctors. I find myself again in the 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. Toplady, far from recanting his argument a lapide, confirms it by the following: — ARG. LVI. Page 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.” 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, and 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 school master, 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 of you. A boy’s playful heart is by nature, so far as grammar is concerned, more intractable 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: whereas you resist my orders; you run away from your book; or you look off from it. In your playful heart there is every species of hatred and opposition to your accidence; and therefore more power is required to make you a scholar, than to make that stone a grammarian.” Mr. Toplady’s “voluntary humility” claps this argument as excellent; but his good sense hisses it as absurd, and says with St. Paul, “When I was a child, I spake as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” ARG. LVII. Page 71. Ah, but “God’s gracious promise to renew his people runs in this remarkable style: — I will take away the stony heart out 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 from Calvinian necessity, and from Pelagian, self-sufficient exertion? ARG. LVIII. Page 73. But God “worketh ALL things according to the counsel of his own will, Ephesians 1:11.” By putting the word “all” in very large capitals, Mr. T. seems willing to insinuate 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 “according 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 wrought absolutely 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 section ii, where he will find his peculiar gospel “upon its legs.”

I hope I need say no more upon this head, to convince the unprejudiced reader that Mr. T.’s arguments in favour of Calvinian necessity are frivolous, and that Mr. Wesley advances a glaring truth when he asserts that, on the principle of absolute predestination, there can be no future judgment, (upon any known principle of wisdom, equity, and justice,) and that it requires more pains than all rational creatures will be ever able to take, to reconcile the doctrine of (Calvinian) reprobation, with the doctrine of a judgment day.