Section 11.

SECTION 11.

A caution against the tenet, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT: an Antinomian tenet this, which Mr. T. calls “a first principle of the Bible” — An answer to his challenge about finding a middle way between the Calvinian doctrine of providence, and the Atheistical doctrine of chance.

WHATEVER the true God works, is undoubtedly right. But if the Deity absolutely works all things in all men, good and bad, it evidently follows,

(1.) That the two-principled Deity preached by Manes is the true God.

(2.) That the bad principle of this double Deity works wickedness in the wicked, as necessarily as the good principle works righteousness in the righteous. And,

(3.) That the original of wickedness being Divine, wickedness is as right as the Deity from whom it flows. Upon this horrid, Manichean scheme, who can wonder at Mr. Toplady saying: —

ARG. LXXI. Page 96. “This is a first principle of the Bible, and of sound reason, that whatever is, is right, or will answer some great end, &c, in its relation to the whole.” Error is never more dangerous than when it looks a little like truth. But when it is imposed upon the simple as “a first principle of the Bible and of sound reason,” it makes dreadful work. How conclusively will a rigid Predestinarian reason if he says, “Whatever is, is right; and therefore sin is right. Again: it is wrong to hinder what is right: sin is right, and therefore it is wrong to hinder sin. Once more: we ought to do what is right; and therefore we ought to commit sin.” Now, in opposition to Mr. Toplady’s first principle, I assert, as a “first principle of reason,” that though it was right in God not absolutely to hinder sin, yet sin is always wrong. “O! but God permitted it, and will get himself glory by displaying his vindictive justice in punishing it: for ‘the ministration of condemnation is glorious.’“ This argument has deluded many a pious Calvinist. To overthrow it, I need only observe that “righteousness exceeds condemnation in glory!”

In what respect is sin right? Can it be right in respect of God, if it brings him less glory than righteousness? Can it be right in respect of man, if it brings temporal misery upon ALL, and eternal misery upon SOME? Can it be right in respect of the Adamic law, the law of Moses, or the law of Christ? Certainly no: for sin is equally the transgression of all these laws. “O! but it is right with respect to the evangelical promise.” By no means: for the evangelical promise, vulgarly called the Gospel, testifies of Christ, the destroyer of sin, and offers us a remedy against sin. Now, if sin were right, the Gospel which remedies it, and Christ who destroys it, would be wrong. I conclude, then, that if sin be right, neither with respect of God, nor with respect of man; neither with regard to the law, nor with regard to the Gospel; it is right in no shape, it is wrong in every point of view. “But why did God permit it?” Indeed, he never properly permitted it, unless Mr. Toplady, who does not scruple to call God “the permitter of evil,” can prove, that to forbid, in the most solemn manner, and under the severest penalty, is the same thing as to permit.

Should you say, Why did not God absolutely hinder sin? I still answer,

(1.) Because his wisdom saw that a world where free agents and necessary agents are mixed, is better (all things considered) than a world stocked with nothing but its necessary agents, i.e. creatures absolutely hindered from sinning.

(2.) Because his distributive justice could be displayed no other way, than by the creation of accountable free agents, made with an eye to a day of judgment.

(3.) Because it would be as absurd to necessitate free agents, as to bid free agents be, that they might not be free agents; as foolish as to form accountable creatures, that they might not be accountable. And,

(4.) Because when God saw that the free agency of his creatures would introduce sin, he determined to overrule it, or remedy it in such a manner as would, upon the whole, render this world, with all the voluntary evil, and voluntary good in it, better than a world of necessary agents, where nothing but necessary good would have been displayed: an inferior sort of good, this, which would no more have admitted of the exercise of God’s political wisdom and distributive justice, than the excellence of stones and fine flowers admits of laws, rewards, and punishments.

Should the reader ask how far we may safely go to meet the truth which borders most on Mr. Toplady’s false principle, Whatever is, is right? I answer,

(1.) We may grant, nay, we ought to assert, that God will get himself glory every way. Evangelical grace, and just wrath, minister to his praise, though not equally: and therefore God willeth not primarily the death of his creatures. Punishment is his strange work; and he delights more in the exercise of his remunerative goodness, than in the exercise of his vindictive justice.

(2.) Hence it appears that the wrath of man, and the rage of the devil, will turn to God’s praise: but it is only to his inferior praise. For though the blessed will sing loud hallelujahs to Divine justice, when vengeance shall overtake the ungodly; and though the consciences of the ungodly will give God glory, and testify that he is holy in all his works, and righteous in all his vindictive ways; yet this glory will be only the glory of the ministration of condemnation: a dispensation this, which is inferior to the dispensation of righteous mercy. Hence it appears that those who die in their sins would have brought more glory to God by choosing righteousness and life, than they do by choosing death in the errors of their ways. But still, this inferior praise, arising from the condemnation and punishment of ungodly free agents — this inferior praise, I say, mixed with the superior praise arising from the justification and rewards of godly free agents, will far exceed the praise which might have accrued to God from the unavoidable obedience and absurd rewards of necessitated agents, of angels and men absolutely bound to obey by a necessitating grace like that which rigid bound willers preach; were we even to suppose that this forcible grace had Calvinistically caught ALL rational creatures in a net of finished salvation, and had drawn them all to heaven, as irresistibly as “Simon Peter drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three.” For before the Lawgiver and Judge of all the earth, the unnecessitated, voluntary goodness of one angel, or one man, is more excellent than the necessary goodness of a world of creatures as unavoidably and passively virtuous, as a diamond is unavoidably and passively bright.

ARG. LXXII. Page 96. With respect to the second part of Mr. Toplady’s doctrine, that whatever is, is right, because “it will answer some great end, &c, in its relation to the whole,” it is nothing but logical paint put on a false principle to cover its deformity: for error can imitate Jezebel, who laid natural paint on her withered face to fill up her hideous wrinkles, and impose upon the spectators. I may perhaps prove it by an illustration. I want to demonstrate that cheating, extortion, litigiousness, breaking the peace, robberies, and murders, are all right, and I do it by asserting “that they answer some great ends in their relation to the whole; for they employ the parliament in making laws to prevent, end, or punish them; they afford business to all the judges, magistrates, lawyers, sheriffs, constables, jailers, turnkeys, thief catchers, and executioners in the kingdom: and when robbers and murderers are hanged, they reflect praise upon the government which extirpates them; they strike terror into the wicked; and their untimely, dreadful end, sets off the happiness of a virtuous course of life, and the bliss which crowns the death of the righteous. Beside, many murderers and robbers have been brought to Christ for pardon and salvation, like the dying thief, who, by his robbery, had the good luck to meet Christ on the cross: so that his own gallows, as well as our Lord’s cross, proved the tree of life to that happy felon.” The mischievous absurdity of these pleas for the excellence of wickedness, puts me in mind of the arguments by which a greedy publican of my parish once exculpated himself, when I reproved him for encouraging tippling and drunkenness. “The more ale we sell,” said he, “the greater is the king’s revenue. If it were not for us, the king could not live; nor could he pay the fleet and army; and if we had neither fleet nor army, we should soon fall into the hands of the French.” So “great are the ends” which tippling “answers in its relation to the whole” British empire, if we may believe a tapster, who pleads for drunkenness as plausibly as some good, mistaken men do for all manner of wickedness.

From the whole, if I am not mistaken, we may safely conclude, that though all God’s works are right, yet sin, the work of fallen angels and fallen men, is never right; and that though the universe, with all its sinfulness, is better than a sinless world necessitated to be sinless by the destruction of free agents; yet, as there is so much sin in the world, through the wrong use which free agents make of their powers, Mr. T. advances an unscriptural and irrational maxim, when he says that whatever is, is right; and he imposes upon us an Antinomian paradox, when he asserts that this dangerous maxim “is a first principle of the Bible, and of sound reason.” I repeat it: it was right in God to create free agents, to put them under a practicable law, and to determine to punish them according to their works, if they wantonly broke that law; but it could never be right in free agents to break it, unless God had bound them to do it, by making Calvinian decrees necessarily productive of sin and wickedness. And supposing God had forbid free agents to sin by his law, and had necessitated (which is more than to enjoin) them to sin by Calvinian decrees; we desire Mr. T. to show how it could have been right in God to forbid sin by law, to necessitate men to sin by a decree, and to send them into eternal fire for not keeping a law which he had necessitated them to break.

The reasonableness of this doctrine brings to my remembrance the boldness of Mr. T.’s challenge about the Calvinian doctrine of providence — a doctrine this, which asserts that God absolutely necessitates some men to sin and be damned. (See sec. 2.)

ARG. LXXIII. Page 73. “Upon the plan of Mr. Wesley’s consequence, the wretch was not a fool, but wise, who said in his heart, There is no God. I defy the Pelagian to strike out a middle way between providence and chance,” that is, between chance and the Calvinian notions of a providence, which absolutely predestinates sin, and necessitates men and devils to commit it, &c. “Why did the heathens themselves justly deem Epicurus an Atheist? Not because he denied the being of a God, (for he asserted that,) but because he denied the agency of God’s universal providence.” From this quotation it is evident,

(1.) That Mr. T. indirectly charges us with holding an Epicurean, Atheistical doctrine about providence, because we abhor the doctrine of a predestination, which represents God as the author of sin. And,

(2.) That he defies or challenges us to point out a middle way between the Atheistical doctrine of chance, and the Calvinian doctrine of providence. This challenge is too important to be disregarded: an answer to this will conclude the argumentative part of this tract.

There are two opposite errors with respect to providence. The FIRST is that of the Epicurean philosophers, who thought that God does not at all concern himself about our sins, but leaves us to go on as we please, and as chance directs. The SECOND is that of the rigid Predestinarians, who imagine that God absolutely predestinates sin, and necessarily brings it about to accomplish his absolute decrees of eternally saving some men through Christ, and of eternally damning all the rest of mankind through Adam. Of these two erroneous sentiments, the latter appears to us the worse; seeing it is better to represent God as doing nothing, than to represent him as doing wickedness. The truth lies between these two opinions; God’s providence is peculiarly concerned about sin, but it does by no means necessarily bring it about. By this reasonable doctrine we answer Mr. T.’s challenge, and strike out the middle way between his error, and that of Epicurus.

If you ask how far God’s providence is concerned about sin, we reply, that it is concerned about it four ways. First, In MORALLY hindering the internal commission of it before it is committed. Secondly, In PROVIDENTIALLY hindering (at times) the external commission of it when it has been intentionally committed. Thirdly, In making, bounding, and overruling it, while it is committed. And, Fourthly, In bringing about means of properly pardoning, or exemplarily punishing it, after it has been committed. Dwell we a moment upon each of these particulars.

1. Before sin is committed, Divine providence is engaged in morally hindering the internal commission of it. In order to this, God does two things: first, he forbids sin by natural, verbal, or written laws. And, secondly, he keeps up our powers of body and soul; enduing us with liberty, whereby we may abstain, like moral agents, from the commission of sin; furnishing us beside with a variety of motives and helps to resist every temptation to sin: a great variety this, which includes all God’s threatenings and promises; all his exhortations and warnings; all the checks of our consciences, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit; all the counsels of good men and the exemplary punishments of the wicked, together with the tears and blood of Christ, and the other peculiar means of grace, which God has appointed to keep Christians from sin, and to strengthen them in the performance of their duty.

2. When sin is committed in the intention, God frequently prevents the outward commission, or the full completion of it, by peculiar interpositions of his providence. Thus he hindered the men of Sodom from injuring Lot, by striking them with blindness: he hindered Pharaoh from enslaving the Israelites, by drowning him in the Red Sea: he hindered Balaam from cursing Israel, by putting a bridle in his mouth: he hindered Jeroboam from hurting the prophet who came out of Judah, by drying up his royal hand, when he stretched it forth, saying, “Lay hold on him:” he hindered Herod from destroying the holy child Jesus, by warning Joseph to flee into Egypt, &c, &c. The Scriptures, and the history of the world, are full of accounts of the ordinary and extraordinary interpositions of Divine Providence, respecting the detection of intended mischief, and the preservation of persons and states whom the wicked determined to destroy: and, to go no farther than England, the providential discovery of the gunpowder plot is as remarkable an instance as any, that God keeps a watchful eye upon the counsels of men, and confounds their devices whenever he pleases.

3. During the commission of sin, God’s providence is engaged in marking it, in setting bounds to it, or in overruling it in a manner quite contrary to the expectation of sinners. When Joseph’s brethren contrived the getting money by selling him into Egypt, God contrived the preservation of Jacob’s household. Thus, when Haman contrived a gallows to hang Mordecai thereon, the Lord so overruled this cruel design, that Haman was hung on that very gallows. Thus, when Satan wanted to destroy Job, God set bounds to his rage, and bid the fierce accuser spare the good man’s life. That envious fiend did his worst to make the patient saint curse God to his face; but the Lord so overruled his malice, that it worked for good to Job: for when Job’s patience had had its perfect work, all his misfortunes ended in double prosperity, and all his tempestuous tossings raised him to a higher degree of perfection: for “the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment,” 2 Peter 2:9. Thus, again, to preserve the seed of the righteous, God formerly kept one hundred prophets, and seven thousand true Israelites, from the cruelty of Jezebel; and, for the sake of the sincere Christians in Judea, he shortened the great tribulation spoken of, Matthew 24:22. When the ungodly are most busy in sinning, God’s providence is most employed in counterworking their sin, in putting bounds to their desperate designs, and in making “a way for the godly to escape out of temptation, that they may be able to bear it: for the rod of the ungodly cometh not [with its full force] into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hand unto iniquity,” through such powerful and lasting temptations, as would make it impossible for them to stand firm in the way of duty, Psalm 125:3.

4. When sin is actually committed, the providence of God, in conjunction with his mercy and justice, is employed, either in using means to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and pardon, or in inflicting upon them such punishments as seem most proper to Divine wisdom. To be convinced of it, read the history of man’s redemption by Jesus Christ. Mark the various steps by which Providence brings the guilty to conviction, the penitent to pardon, the finally impenitent to destruction, and all to some degree of punishment. By what an amazing train of providential dispensations were Joseph’s brethren, for instance, brought to remember, lament, and smart for their cruel behaviour to him! And how did God, by various afflictions, bring his rebellious people to consider their ways, and to humble themselves before him in the land of their captivity! What an amazing work had Divine Providence in checking and punishing the sin of Pharoah in Egypt; that of the Israelites in the wilderness; that of David and his house in Jerusalem; and that of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar in Babylon!

Evangelically and providentially opening the way for the return of sinners, and repaying obdurate offenders to their face, make one half of God’s work, as he is the gracious and righteous Governor of men. We cannot doubt it, if we take notice of the innumerable means by which conversions and punishments are brought about. To touch only upon punishments: some extend to the sea, others to the land: some spread over particular districts, others over whole kingdoms: some affect a whole family, and others a whole community: some affect the soul, and others the body: some only fall upon one limb, or one of the senses, others upon the whole animal frame, and all the senses: some affect our well being, others our being itself: some are confined to this world, and others extend to a future state: some are of a temporal, and others of an eternal nature. Now, since Providence, in subserviency to Divine justice, manages all these punishments, and their innumerable consequences, how mistaken is Mr. T. when he insinuates that our doctrine supposes God to be an idle spectator while sin is committed!

5. With respect to the gracious tempers of the righteous, we believe that they all flow, (though without Calvinian necessity,) from “the free gift which is come upon all men, and from the light which enlightens every man that cometh into the world.” And as to their good works, we are so far from excluding Divine grace and providence, in order to exalt absolute free will, that we assert, Not one good work would ever be begun, continued, or ended, if Divine grace within us, and Divine Providence without us, did not animate our souls, support our bodies, help our infirmities, and (to use the language of our Church) “prevent, accompany, and follow us” through the whole. And yet, in all moral, and in many natural actions, we are as free from the laws of Calvinian necessity, as from those of the great mogul.

6. With regard to the families and kingdoms of this world, we assert that God’s providence either baffles, controls, or sets bounds to the bad designs of the wicked; while it has the principal hand in succeeding the good designs of the righteous as often as they have any success: “for, except the Lord keep the city,” as well as the watchman, “the watchman waketh but in vain.” And with respect to the course of nature, we believe that it is ordered by his unerring counsel. With a view to maintain order in the universe, his providential wisdom made admirable laws of attraction, repulsion, generation, fermentation, vegetation, and dissolution. And his providential power and watchfulness are, though without either labour or anxiety, continually engaged in conducting all things according to those laws; except, when on proper occasions, he suspends the influence of his own natural decrees; and then fire may cease to burn; iron to sink in water; and hungry lions to devour their helpless prey. Nay, at the beck of Omnipotence, a widow’s cruise of oil, and barrel of meal, shall be filled without the help of the olive tree, and the formality of a growing harvest; a dry rod shall suddenly blossom, and a green fig tree shall instantly be dried up; garments in daily use shall not wear out in forty years; a prophet shall live forty days without food; the liquid waves shall afford a solid walk to a believing apostle; a fish shall bring back the piece of money which it had swallowed; and water shall be turned into wine without the gradual process of vegetation.

If Mr. T. do us the justice to weigh these six observations upon the prodigious work, which God’s providence carries on in the moral, spiritual, and natural world, according to our doctrine; we hope he will no more intimate that we Atheistically deny, or heretically defame that Divine attribute.

To conclude: we exactly steer our course between rigid free willers, who suppose they are independent on God’s providence; and rigid bound willers, who fancy they do nothing but what fate or God’s providence absolutely binds them to do. We equally detest the error of Epicurus, and that of Mr. Toplady. The former taught that God took no notice of sin, the latter says that God, by efficacious permissions and irresistible decrees, absolutely necessitates men to commit it. But we maintain that although God never absolutely necessitated his creatures to sin, yet his providence is remarkably employed about sin, in all the above-described ways. And if Mr. Toplady will call us defamers of Divine Providence, and Atheists, because we dare not represent God directly or indirectly as the author of sin; we rejoice in so honourable a reproach, and humbly trust that this, as well as all manner of similar evil, is rashly said of us for righteousness’ sake.