I.
SOME REMARKS
ON
MR. HILL’S “REVIEW OF ALL THE DOCTRINES
TAUGHT BY MR. JOHN WESLEY.”
Humanum est nescire et errare.
Be calm in arguing for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
Why should I feel another man’s mistakes
More than his sickness or infirmity?
In love I should; but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom neither; therefore gently move.
HERBERT.
1. MR. HILL has an immense advantage over me: He abounds in time, and I in business. I cannot therefore undertake to write page for page; I have not leisure, if I had inclination. And indeed it is not needful: For a full confutation of whatsoever is cited from the Eleven Letters commonly ascribed to Mr. Hervey, I need only refer to Mr. Sellon; who has not only answered every shadow of an argument contained in that poor piece of low invective, but even the reproaches; which indeed he could not pass over, without passing over great part of the book. If Mr. H. is afraid to read that answer, I am sorry for it. And for whatever he advances on particular redemption, or any of the points connected therewith, I refer everyone who is not afraid of the light, to those three tracts of Mr. Sellon, — “The Arguments against General Redemption answered,” “God’s Sovereignty vindicated against Elisha Coles,” and “The Church of England vindicated from the Charge of Calvinism.” I believe, if Mr. Hill had given this last a fair reading, he would know the Seventeenth Article is nothing to his purpose.
2. With regard to his objections to Mr. Fletcher, I refer all candid men to his own writings; his Letters, entitled, “A First, Second, and Third Check to Antinomianism;” the rather, because there are very few of his arguments which Mr. H. even attempts to answer. It is true, he promises “a full and particular answer to Mr. F.’s ‘Second Check to Antinomianism.”’ But it will puzzle anyone to find where that answer is, except in the title page. And if anything more is needful to be done, Mr. F. is still able to answer for himself. But if he does, I would recommend to his consideration the advice formerly given by a wise man to his friend: “See that you humble not yourself to that man; it would hurt both him and the cause of God.” It is pity but he had considered it sooner, and he might have escaped some keen reflections. But he did not; he imagined, when he spoke or wrote in the simplicity of his heart, that his opponents would have received his words in the same spirit wherein they were spoken. No such matter; they turn them all into poison; he not only loses his sweet words, but they are turned into bitterness, are interpreted as mere sneer and sarcasm! A good lesson for me I had designed to have transcribed Mr. F.’s character of Mr. H., and to have added a little thereto, in hope of softening his spirit: But I see it is in vain; as well might one hope to soften
Inexorable Pluto, king of shades!
Since he is capable of putting such a construction, even upon Mr. F.’s gentleness and mildness; since he ascribes even to him “a pen dipped in gall,” what will he not ascribe to me? I have done, therefore, with humbling myself to these men, to Mr. H. and his associates. I have humbled myself to them for these thirty years; but will do it no more. I have done with attempting to soften their spirits; it is all lost labor. Upon men of an ingenuous temper I have been able to fix an obligation. Bishop Gibson, Dr. Church, and even Dr. Taylor, were obliged to me for not pushing my advantage. But it is not so with these: Whatever mercy you show, you are to expect no mercy from them. Mercy did I say? Alas! I expect no justice; no more than I have found already. As they have wrested and distorted my words from the beginning, so I expect they will do to the end. Mr. H.’s performance is a specimen. Such mercy, such justice, I am to expect!
3. And does Mr. H. complain of the unhappy Spirit in which Mr. F. writes? Many writers have done marvelously; but thou excellest them all! For forty or fifty years I have been a little acquainted with controversial writers; some of the Romish persuasion, some of our own Church, some Dissenters of various denominations: And I have found many among them as angry as him; but one so bitter I have not found: Or one only, the author of those “excellent Letters,” as Mr. H. styles them; which he particularly “admires,” (that is his word,) and the “whole spirit” of which he has drank in. This is his peculiar character, his distinguishing grace: As a writer, his name is Wormwood. Accordingly, he charges Mr. F. with a “severe, acrimonious spirit,” with “sneer, sarcasm, and banter,” yea, with “notorious falsehoods, calumny, and gross perversions.” (Page 2.) Nay, “I accuse you,” says he, “of the grossest perversions and misrepresentations that ever proceeded from any author’s pen.” In the same spirit he is represented as “a slanderer of God’s people and Ministers, descending to the meanest quibbles, with a bitter, railing, acrimonious spirit;” (page 21) and, page 27, to go no farther, as “using stratagem and ungenerous artifices:” Although “I have treated you,” says Mr. H., “with all the politeness of a gentleman, and the humility of a Christian.” Amazing! And has he not treated me so too? At present, take but one or two instances: “Forgeries have long passed for no crime with Mr. Wesley.” (Page 27.) “He administers falsehoods and damnable heresies, rank poison, hemlock, and ratsbane. We cannot allow him any other title than that of an empiric or quack-doctor.” (Page 29.) Which shall we admire most here, — the gentleman or the Christian?
4. There is something extremely odd in this whole affair. A man falls upon another, and gives him a good beating; who, in order to be revenged, does not grapple with him, (perhaps sensible that he is above his match,) but, giving him two or three kicks, falls upon a third man that was standing by. “O,” says he, “but I know that fellow well; he is the second of him than beat me.” — “If he is, dispatch your business with the former first, and then turn to him.” However, if Mr. H. is resolved to fall upon me, I must defend myself as well as I can.
5. From the spirit and manner wherein he writes, let us now proceed to the matter. But that is so various, and scattered up and down for an hundred and fifty pages, without much order or connection, that it is difficult to know where to begin. However, all tends to one point; the good design of the writer is, to blacken. With this laudable view, he observes the old rule, “Throw dirt enough, and some will stick:” Knowing that the mud may be thrown in a trice; but it will take time and pains to scrape it off. Indeed, he takes true pains to fasten it on; to represent Mr. W. as a knave and a fool; a man of no conscience, and no understanding. It is true, the latter is insisted on most at large: By an hundred instances Mr. H. has made it plain to all the world, that Mr. W. never had three grains of common sense; that he is the veriest weathercock that ever was; that he has not wit enough to be fixed in anything, but is “tossed to and fro continually;” “that he is to this very moment so absolutely unsettled with regard to every fundamental doctrine of the gospel, that no two disputants in the Schools can be more opposite to each other than he is to himself”
6. But some may naturally ask, “What is the matter? What makes Mr. H. so warm? What has Mr. W. done, that this gentleman, this Christian, ita gladiatorio animo ad eum affectat viam? f45 that he falls upon him thus outrageously, dagger out of sheath, without either rhyme or reason?” “O, the matter is plain. Beside that he is Mr. F.’s friend, he is an Arminian; and nothing is bad enough for an Arminian.” “An Arminian! What is that?” “I cannot tell exactly; but to be sure it is all that is bad. For a Popish friar, a Benedictine monk, bears witness, (and Mr. H. avers the same,) that the tenets of the Church of Rome are nearer by half to Calvinism than to Arminianism; nearer by half to Mr. H.’s tenets than to Mr. W.’s.” “Truly, I always thought so. But still I ask, What is an Arminian?” “Why, in other words, an election-doubter.” And the “good old Preacher,” says Mr. H., “places all election-doubters” (that is, those who are not clear in the belief of absolute predestination) “among the numerous host of the Diabolonians. One of these being brought before the Judge, the Judge tells him, ‘To question election is to overthrow a great doctrine of the gospel: Therefore he, the election-doubter, must die.”’ (Page 37.) That is, plainly, he must die eternally for this damnable sin. The very same thing Mr. H. affirms elsewhere: “The only cement of Christian union is the love of God; and the foundation of that love must be laid in believing the truths of God;” (that is, you must believe particular redemption, or it is impossible you should love God;) for, to use “the words of Dr. Owen, in his ‘Display of Arminianism,”’ (see the truths which Mr. H. means,) “‘an agreement without truth is no peace, but a covenant with death, and a conspiracy against the kingdom of Christ.”’ (Page 39.)
7. I am sorry Mr. H. should think so. But so long as he remains in that sentiment, what peace am I or Mr. F., or indeed any Arminian, to expect from him? since any agreement with us would be “a covenant with death, and a conspiracy against the kingdom of Christ.” I therefore give up all hope of peace with him, and with all that are thus minded. For I do not believe what he terms “the truths of God,” the doctrine of absolute predestination. I never did believe it, nor the doctrines connected with it, no, not for an hour. In this, at least, I have been consistent with myself. I have never varied an hair’s breadth; I cannot while I believe the Bible, while I believe either the Old or New Testament. What I do believe, and always have believed in this matter, I will declare with all simplicity. “(1.) I believe no decree of reprobation. I do not believe the Father of spirits ever
Consign’d one unborn soul to hell,
Or damn’d him from his mother’s womb.
“(2.) I believe no decree of preterition, which is only reprobation whitewashed. I do not believe God ever sent one man into the world, to whom he had decreed never to give that grace whereby alone he could escape damnation.
“(3.) I do not believe (what is only preterition or reprobation in other words) any such absolute election, as implies that all but the absolutely elect shall inevitably be damned.
“(4.) I do not believe the doctrine of irresistible grace, or of infallible perseverance; because both the one and the other implies that election which cannot stand without preterition or reprobation.
“(5.) I do not believe salvation by works. Yet if any man can prove (what I judge none ever did, or ever will) that there is no medium between this and absolute predestination; I will rather subscribe to this than to that, as far less absurd of the two.”
8. Hinc illae lachrymae. Here is the source of Mr. H.’s implacable hatred to me. And hence arises his vehement displeasure at those “Minutes,” which Mr. Sh—— and he style “dreadful heresy.” The appellation is just, suppose (as Mr. H. asserts) all election-doubters are Diabolonians; suppose no man who is “not clear in the belief of absolute predestination” can love either God or his neighbor. For it is certain, the doctrine of the Minutes and of the decrees cannot stand together. If the doctrine of the decrees stands, then that of the Minutes must fall; for we willingly allow, that the one is incompatible with the other. If the doctrine of the Minutes stands, then that of the decrees must fall. For it is manifest, this, particularly the last article, strikes at the very root of Calvinism. Of what consequence is it, then, to one who is persuaded, the belief of Calvinism is essential to salvation, to expose those Minutes to the uttermost, as well as any that dares to defend them?
9. In order to this good end, Mr. H. publishes “A Review of all the Doctrines taught by Mr. John Wesley.” But is it possible for any man to do this without reading all the writings that I have published? It is not possible in the nature of things; he cannot give an account of what he never read. And has Mr. H. read all that I have published? I believe he will not affirm it. So any man of understanding many judge, before he opens his book, what manner of review it is likely to contain! However, it must be owned that he and his faithful allies have been at the pains of looking into many of my writings. I say many; for I apprehend there are many more, which they have not so much as looked into; nor does it appear that they have seriously looked through any, so as to observe the scope and tenor of them. However, from those which he or they have, after a fashion, revised, abundance of objections are extracted. It is true, none of them (one only excepted) are new, and there is hardly one that has not been answered again and again. Yet since they are proposed in a new form, they may seem to demand a new answer.
10. The grand objection is, that I am inconsistent with myself. This, therefore, I shall particularly consider. The others, which flutter up and down the whole work, I can but just touch upon. Mr. H. opens the charge thus: “Saying and unsaying is nothing new with Mr. W., who has only shown himself consistent, by a regular series of inconsistencies.” (Page 3.) “How full are you of contradictions to yourself! how full of contrary purposes! How often do you chide with yourself! How oft do you fight with yourself!” (Title page.) “Mr. W. seems well contented you should settle his creed. If you can, you will do in a few months what he himself has not been able to effect in near forty years.” “On this fluctuating ocean he has been tossed for so many years together.” (Page 20.) “All his Journals and Tracts are replete with proofs of his having been tossed from one system to another, and from one opinion to another, from the time of his ordination to this present moment.” (Page 143.) “The most ignorant collier can immediately see his inconsistency with himself.” (Page 145.) He sums up the whole charge in the lively words of Mr. Cudworth, graced with the name of Mr. Hervey: “Contradiction, didst thou ever know so trusty a friend, so faithful a devotee? Many people are ready enough to contradict others; but it seems all one to this gentleman whether it be another or himself, so he may but contradict.”
11. To prove this indictment, (urged home enough, though there is not one tittle of truth in it,) Mr. H. has cited no less than a hundred and one witnesses. f46 Before I enter upon the examination of these, I beg leave to transcribe what I wrote some time since to Dr. Rutherforth: “You frequently charge me with evasion; and others have brought the same charge. The plain case is this: I have wrote on various heads; and always as clearly as I could. Yet many have misunderstood my words, and raised abundance of objections. I answered them by explaining myself, showing what I did not mean, and what I did. One and another of the objectors stretched his throat, and cried out, ‘Evasion, evasion!’ And what does all this outcry amount to? Why, exactly thus much: They imagined they had tied me so fast, that it was impossible for me to escape. But presently the cobwebs were swept away, and I was quite at liberty. And I bless God I can unravel truth and falsehood, although artfully twisted together. Of such evasion I am not ashamed. Let them be ashamed who constrain me to use it.”
12. Mr. H.’s numerous proofs of my contradicting myself may be ranged under twenty-four heads. I shall examine these one by one, in what appears to me to be the most natural order: —
I.
1. “There was an everlasting covenant between God the Father and God the Son concerning man’s redemption.” vs. “There never was any such covenant between God the Father and God the Son.” (Page 128.) The latter of these I believe, and always did, since I could read my Bible. But Mr. H. brings a passage out of the Christian Library, to contradict this. On which he parades as follows: “If the Christian Library be, as Mr. W. affirms, ‘all true, all agreeable to the word of God,’ then what are we to think of his other works? They must be an adulteration of man’s devising.” (Page 128.) “The same may be said of the Minutes: If these be truly orthodox, upwards of forty volumes of the Library must be thoroughly heterodox. And then there is great reason to lament, that so many poor people’s pockets should be fleeced for what can do their souls no good.” Peremptory enough! But let us examine the matter more closely: “Mr. W. affirms, that the Christian Library is ‘all true, all agreeable to the word of God.”’ I do not; and I am glad I have this public opportunity of explaining myself concerning it. My words are, “I have made, as I was able, an attempt of this kind. I have endeavored to extract such a collection of English divinity, as, I believe, is all true, all agreeable to the oracles of God.” (Preface, p. 4.) I did believe, and I do believe, every tract therein to be true, and agreeable to the oracles of God. But I do not roundly affirm this, (as Mr. H. asserts,) of every sentence contained in the fifty volumes. I could not possibly affirm it, for two reasons:
(1.) I was obliged to prepare most of those tracts for the press, just as I could snatch time in traveling, not transcribing them; (none expected it of me;) but only marking the lines with my pen, and altering or adding a few words here and there, as I had mentioned in the preface.
(2.) As it was not in my power to attend the press, that care necessarily devolved on others; through whose inattention a hundred passages were left in, which I had scratched out; yet not so many as to make up “forty volumes,” no, nor forty pages. It is probable too, I myself might overlook some sentences which were not suitable to my own principles. It is certain, the correctors of the press did this, in not a few instances. I shall be much obliged to Mr. H. and his friends, if they will point out all those instances; and I will print them as an index expurgatorius to the work, which will make it doubly valuable.
The plain inference is, If there are a hundred passages in the “Christian Library” which contradict any or all of my doctrines, these are no proof that I contradict myself. Be it observed once for all, therefore, citations from the “Christian Library” prove nothing but the carelessness of the correctors.
II.
FOR ELECTION AND PERSEVERANCE. VS. AGAINST
ELECTION AND PERSEVERANCE. (PAGE 101.)
2. Mr. Sellon has clearly showed, that the Seventeenth Article does not assert absolute predestination. Therefore, in denying this, I neither contradict that Article, nor myself.
3. “I believe there is a state attainable in this life, from which a man cannot finally fall.” (But I never thought a babe in Christ was in that state, though he is a true believer.)
4. “Saved beyond the dread of falling.” (So says my brother. That is nothing to me.)
The note adds: “Mr. W. drew lots, whether or no he should preach against the Seventeenth Article.”
That paltry story is untrue; though Mr. H. potently believes it. So all the witticisms built upon it fall to the ground at once. I never preached against the Seventeenth Article, nor had the least thought of doing it. But did Mr. Hill never preach against the Thirty-first Article, which explicitly asserts universal redemption?
5. “I do not deny that those eminently styled the elect shall infallibly persevere.” (I mean, those that are “perfected in love.” (1 John 4:17,) and those only. So here is no contradiction.)
6. “The love divine, Which made us thine, Shall keep us thine forever.” (So my brother speaks. But his words cannot prove that I contradict myself.)
7. “From all eternity with love, Unchangeable thou has me view’d.” (I believe this is true on the supposition of faith foreseen, not otherwise.)
8. “Never again will he take him away.” (They are my brother’s words, not mine.)
9. “Jesus, the lover of his own, Will love me to the end.” (So are these.)
10. “Christ is in the elect world of his Church.” (This is cited from the “Christian Library.” So it goes for nothing.
The nine witnesses, therefore, examined on this head, prove just nothing at all. So that hitherto there is not the least proof that I contradict myself.