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infinite power : But scripture, good sense, and matter of fact, says No: because though God is endued with infinite power, he is also endued with infinite wisdom. And it would be as absurd to create free-agents in order to necessitate them, as to do a thing in order to undo it. Besides [I repeat it] God's distributive justice could never be displayed, nor could free obedience be paid by rationals and crowned by the Rewarder and Judge of all the earth, unless rationals were free-wil. ling creatures. And therefore, the moment you absolutely necessitate them, you destroy them as free-agents, and you rob God of two of his most glorious titles, that of Rewarder, and that of Judge. Thus we account for the original of evil in a scriptural and rational manner, without the help of Fatalism, Manicheism, or Calvinism. Mr. Toplady replies:

ARG, XXXI [Page 44, 45,]" Oh, but God himself is a free-agent, though his will is necessarily, unchangeably, and singly determined to good, and to good only. So are the elect angels. So are the glorified souls of saints departed, &c. and so might Adam have been, had God so pleased to have so created him. "

This is the grand objection of President Edwards, which I have answered in the Scripture Scales, page 278, &c. I shall, however, make here a few remarks upon it.If God worketh all things, &c. even wickedness in the wicked," as the consistent predestinarians directly or indirectly tell us ; it is absurd in them to plead that he is singly determined to good, and to good only: For every body knows that the god of Manes is full of duplicity : having an evil principle, which absolutely predestinates, and causes all the wickedness ! and a good principle, which absolutely predestinates and causes all the virtue in the world. As for the God of christians, he is not so necessitated to do that which is good but he might, if he would, do the most astonishing act of injustice and barbarity: for he might, if he would, absolutely doom myriads of unborn infants to remediless wickedness and everlasting fire, before they have deserved this dreadful doom, so much as by the awkward motion of their little finger. Nor need I tell Mr. Toplady this, who believes, that God has actually done it. 2. God is not in a state of probation, under a superior Being who calls himself the Rewarder, and who says, "Vengeance is mine and I will repay :" Nor shall he ever be tried by one who will judicially render to him according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

3. If faithful angels are unchangeably fixed in virtue, and unfaithful angels in vice, the fixedness of their nature is the consequence of the good or bad use, which they have made of their liberty; and therefore

their confirmation in good, or in evil, flows from a judicial election or reprobation, which displays the distributive justice of their Judge, Rewarder, and Avenger.

4. Nothing can be more absurd than to couple absolute necessity with moral freeagency. Angels and glorified souls are necessitated to serve God and love one another, as a good man is necessitated not to murder the king, and not to blow his own brains out. Such a necessity is far from being absolute : For, if a good man would, he might gradually overcome his reluctance to the greatest crimes. Thus David, who was, no doubt, as chaste and loving once as Joseph, overcame his strong aversion to adultery and murder.

Should it be said, What? Can glorified saints and angels fall away? I reply : they will never fall away, because they are called off the stage of probation, stand far above the reach of temptation, and have "henceforth crowns of righteousness laid up for them, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give them at that day." In the meantime, "they rest from their [probatory] labours, and their works follow them." But still, in the nature of things, they are as able to disobey, as Joseph was to commit adultery, if he had set his heart upon it: for, if they had no capacity of disobeying, they would have no capacity of obeying in the moral sense of the word : their obedience would be as necessary, and as far from morality as the passive obedience of a leaden ball, which you drop, with an absurd_command to tend towards the centre. If I am not mistaken, these answers fully set aside Mr. T's argument taken from the necessary goodness of God, angels, and glorified saints.

ARG. XXXII. [Page 45,] "God is, and cannot but be, inviolably just, amidst all the sufferings of fallen angels and fallen men, involuntary beings as they are. And he will continue to be just in all they are yet to suffer."-That God is, and will be just, in all that fallen angels and men have suffered, and may yet suffer, is most true, because they are voluntary Beings [Mr. Toplady says "involuntary Beings] and free-agents, [Mr. Toplady would say, necessary agents,] who personally deserve what they suffer; or who, if they suffer without personal offence, as infants do, have in Christ a rich cordial, and an efficacious remedy, which will cause their temporary sufferings to answer to all eternity the most admirable ends for themselves, if they do not reject God's gracious, castigatory, probatory, or purificatory counsels towards them, when they come to act as freeagents. But that God is and will be just in absolutely ordaining "involuntary beings" to sin and be damned, is what has not yet been proved by one argument which

can bear the light. However, Mr. Top. ady, with the confidence which suits his peculiar logic, concludes this part of his subject by the following triumphal exclamation:

ARG. XXXIII. [Ibid.] "And if so, what becomes of the objection to God's decree of preterition," [a soft word for absolute reprobation to remediless sin and eternal death,] "drawn from the article of injustice ?"

Why it stands in full force, notwithstanding all the arguments which have yet been produced. Nay, the way to shew that an objection is unanswerable, is to answer it, as Mr. Toplady has done; that is, by producing arguments which equally shock reason and conscience, and which are crowned with this new paradox: "fallen angels, and fallen men, are involuntary Beings." So that the last subterfuge of moderate Calvinists is now given up. For when they try to vindicate God's justice, with respect to the damnation of their imaginary reprobates, they say, that the poor creatures are damned as voluntary agents. But Mr. Toplady informs us that they are damned as "involuntary Beings," that is, as excusable Beings :-and might I not add, as sinless Beings? For [evangelically speaking] is it possible than an involuntary Being should be sinful? Why is the murderer's sword sinless? Why is the can. dle, by which an incendiary fires your house, an innocent flame ? Is it not because they are involuntary Beings, or mere tools used by other Beings? A cart accidentally falls upon you, and you involuntarily fall upon a child, who is killed on the spot. The father of the child wants you hanged as a murderer! but the judge pronounces you perfectly guiltless? Why? Truly because you was, in that case an "involuntary Being," as well as the cart. When, therefore Mr. Toplady asserts that we are involuntary Beings, and insinuates that God is just in absolutely predestinating us to sin necessarily, and to be damned eternally, he proves absurdum per absurdius-injustum per injustius-crudele per crudelius. In a word, he gives a finishing stroke to God's justice; and his pretended "Vindication" of that tremendous attribute proves, if I may use his own expression, a public, though [I am persuaded] an undesigned" defamation," of it.

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ARG. XXXIV. [Page 45,] "As God's forbearing to create more worlds than he has, is no impeachment of his omnipotence: so his forbearing to save as many as he might, is no impeachment of his infinite mercy.' The capital flaw of this argument consists in substituting still the phrase "not saving," for the phrase absolutely reprobating to remediless. sin and everlasting burnings. The difference between these phrases, which Mr. Toplady uses as equivalent, is prodigious. No body ever dreamt that God is unmerciful because he does not take stones into heaven, or because he does not save every pebble from its opacity, by making it transparent and glorious as a diamond; for pebbles suffer nothing by being passed by, and not saved into adamantic glory. But, if God made every pebble an organised, living body, capable of the keenest sensations; and if he appointed, that most of these "involuntary [sensible] beings," should be absolutely opaque, and should be cast into a lime-kiln, there to endure everlasting burnings, for not having the transparency, which he decreed they should never have would it not be impossible to reconcile his conduct to the lowest idea we can form even of Bonner's mercy?

Having thus pointed out the sandy foundation of Mr. Toplady's argument, I shall expose its absurdity by a similar way of arguing. I am to prove that the king may, without impeachment of his mercy, put the greatest part of his soldiers in such trying circumstances as shall necessitate them to desert, and be shot for disertion. To do this, I learn logic of Mr. T. and say, "As the king's for bearing to create more lords than he has, is no impeachment of his unlimited right of peerage; so his forbearing to raise as many soldiers as he might is no impeachment of his great mercy." So far the argument is conclusive. But if by not raising soldiers, I artfully mean, absolutely appointing and necessitating them to desert and be shot, I vindicate the king's mercy as logically, as Mr. T. vindicates the mercy of Mane's god.

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ARG. XXXV. [page,46.] "If therefore the decree of [Calvinian] reprobation be exploded, on account of its imaginary incom. patibility with divine mercy, we must, upon the same principle, charge God with want of goodness in almost every part of his relative conduct."-If this dark argument is brought to the light, it will read thus: "God is infinitely good in himself, though he limits the exercise of his goodness in not forming so many beings as he might, and not in mak ing them all so glorious as he could; and therefore he is infinitely merciful, though he absolutely appoints millions of unborn creatures to remediless sin and everlasting fire." But what has the conclusion to do with the premises? What would Mr. T. think of me, if I presented the public with the following

sophism ? "No body can reasonably charge the king with want of goodness, for not enriching and ennobling every body and therefore, no body can reasonably charge him with want of mercy, as decreeing, that so many of his new-born subjects shall necessarily be trained up in absolute rebellion, that he may legally throw them into a fiery furnace, for necessarily fulfilling his absolute de cree concerning their rebellion." Neverthe less, this absurd argument contains just as much truth and mercy, as that of Mr. Toplady's.

ARG. XXXVI. [Ibid.] "There is no way of solidly, &c. justifying the ways of God with men, but upon this grand datum. That the exercise of his own infinite mercy, is regulated by the voluntary determination of his own most wise and sovereign pleasure. Allow but this rational, scriptural, &c. proposition, and every cavil, grounded on the chimerical unmercifulness of non-election ceases even to be plausible."-The defect of this argument consists also in covering the left leg of Calvinism, and in supposing, that Calvinian non-election is a bare non-exertion of a peculiar mercy displayed towards some; where it is a positive act of barbarity. We readily grant that God is infinitely merciful, though his infinite wisdom, truth, and justice do not suffer him to shew the same mercy to ull, which he does to some. But it is absurd to suppose, that, because he is not bound to shew mercy to all those, who have personally and unnecessarily offended him [or indeed to any one of them] he may shew injustice and cruelty to unborn creatures, who never personally offended him so much as by one wan dering thought, and he may absolutely doom myriads of them to sin without remedy, and to be damned without fail.

ARG. XXXVII. [Page 48.] After all his pleas, to shew that God can, without impeachment of his holiness, justice, and mercy, absolutely appoint his unborn creatures to remediless wickedness and everlasting torments; Mr. Toplady relents, and seems a little ashamed of Calvinian reprobation. He tells us, that "Reprobation is, for the most part, something purely negative," and "has so far as God is concerned, more in it of negation than positivity." But Mr. Toplady knows that the unavoidable end of absolute reprobation is damnation, and that the means conducive to this fearful end, is unavoidable wickedness : And he has already told us, p. 17, that " God's own decree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means." Now securing and accomplishing a thing, is something alto gether positive. Hence it is, that page 83, Mr. T. calls the decrees by which the reprobate sin, not only permissive, but ،، effec. tive ; and tells us, page 77, “ God eficap ciously permitted" horrible wickedness. And

herein he exactly follows Calvin, who, in his comment on Rom. ix. 18, says, "Indurandi verbum, quom Deo in scripturis tribuitur non solum permissionem (ut volunt diluti quidam moderatores) sed divinæ quoque iræ actionem significat."-The word harden, when it is attributed to God in Scripture, means not only permission, [as some washy, compromising divine would have it] but it signifies also the action of divine wrath."

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Besides, something negative amounts, in a thousand cases, to something positive. A general, for example, denies gunpowder to some of his soldiers, to whom he owes a grudge; he hangs them for not firing, and then exculpates himself by saying, My not giving them powder was a thing purely NEGATIVE. I did nothing to them to hinder them from iring: on the contrary, I bad them fire away." This is exactly the case with the Manichean god and his imaginary reprobates. He bids them repent or perishbelieve or be damned-do good works or depart into everlasting fire. And yet, all the while, he keeps from them every dram of true grace, whereby they might savingly repent, believe, and obey. Is it not surprising that so many of our gospel-ministers should call preaching such a doctrine, preaching the Gospel, and exalting Christ !-But Mr. Toplady replies: "If I am

ARG. XXXVIII. [Page 48.] acquainted with an indigent neighbour, and have it in my power to enrich him, but do it not; am I the author of that man's poverty, only for resolving to permit him, and for actually permitting him to continue poor?

Writer, on whom I have already bestowed a note, Not unlike this argument is that of the Letter

Sect. II.

"Divine justice [says he, p. 4, 5.] could not condemn till the law was broken."-True: but Calvinian Freewrath reprobated from all eternity, and consequently before the law was either broken or given." Therefore condemnation did not take place before a law was given and broken.-This Author trifles; for, if Calvinian reprobation took place before the creation of Adam, and if it necessarily draws after it the uninterrupted breach of the law, and the condemnation consequent upon that breach, Calvinian reprobation differs no more from everlasting damnation, than condemning and necessitating a man to commit murder, that he may infallibly be hanged, differs from condemning him to be hanged. But, "suppose that out of twenty found guilty, his Majesty King George should pardon ten, he is not the cause of the other ten being executed. It was his clemency that pardoned any: it was their breaking the laws of the kingdom that condemned them and not his Majesty."-Indeed it was his Majesty who condemned them, if in order to do it without fail, he made. 1. Efficacious and irresistible decrees of the means, that they should necessarily and unavoidably be guilty of robbery: and, 2. Efficacious and irresistible decrees of the end, that they should unavoidably be condemned for their necessitated crimes, and inevi table guilt. The chain by which the god of Manes and Calvin drags poor reprobates to hell, has three eapital links : the first is, Absolute, unconditional reprobation ; the second is, Necessary, remediless sin : and the third is, Ensured, eternal damnation. Now although the middle link intervenes between the first and the last link, it is only as a necessary connexion be

Am I blameable for his poverty, because I do not give him the utmost I am able? Similar is the case now in debate. Ever since the fall of Adam, mankind are by nature spiritually poor."

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Mr. T. is greatly mistaken when he says, "similar is the case now in debate." To show that it is entirely dissimilar, we need only make his partial illustration stand fairly upon its legs." If you know that your neighbour, who is an industrious tenant of yours, must work or break; and if, in order to make him break, according to your decree of the end, you make a decree of the means -an efficacious decree, that his cattle shall die, that his plow shall be stolen, that he shall fall sick, and that no body shall help him; I boldly say, You are "the author of that man's poverty."-And if, when you have reduced him to sordid want, and have, by this means, clothed his numerous family with filthy rags, you make another efficacious absolute decree, that a majority of his children shall never have a good garment, and that at whatsoever time the constable shall find them with the only ragged coat, which their bankrupt father could afford to give them, they shall all be sent to the house of correction, and severely whipt there, merely for not having on a certain coat, which you took care they should never have; and for wearing the filthy rags, which you decreed they should necessarily wear; you show yourself as merciless to the poor man's children, as you shewed yourself ill-natured to the poor man himself. To prove that this is a just state of the case, if the doctrine of absolute predestination is true, I refer the reader to Section II. where he will find Calvinism ON ITS LEGS.

sive as those, by which he tries to reconcile it with divine justice: both sorts of arguments drawing all their plausibility from the skill with which Logica Genevensis tucks up the left leg of Calvinism, or covers it with deceitful buskins, which are called by a variety of delusive names, such as passing by, not electing, not owning salvation, limiting the display of goodness, not extending mercy infinitely, not enriching, &c. just as if all these phrases together conveyed one just idea of Calvinian reprobation, which is an absolute, unconditional dooming of myriads of unborn creatures, to live and die in necessary, remediless wickedness, and then to depart into everlasting fire, merely because Adam, according to divine predestination, necessarily sinned; obediently fulfilling God's absolute, irreversible, and efficacious decree of the means [sin.] An Antinomian decree this, by which, if Calvinism is true, God secured and accomplished the decree of the end, that is, the remediless sin and eternal dam nation of the reprobate: for, says Mr. T. [p. 17.] "God's own decree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the meaus."

And now, candid reader, say, if Mr. T. did not act with a degree of partiality, when he called his book "A Vindication of God's Decrees, &c. from the Defamations of Mr. Wesley ?"-And if he could not, with greater propriety, have called it, "An unscriptural and illogical Vindication of the horrible decree, from the scriptural and rational exceptions made against it by Mr. Wesley?"

SECTION VI.

A View of the Scripture-Proofs by which Mr. T. attempts to demonstrate the truth of Calvinian Reprobation.

Upon the whole, if I mistake not, it is evident that the arguments by which Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with divine mercy, are as inconcluTHAT the Old and New Testament hold forth a partial reprobation of distinguishing tween them: for says Mr. Toplady [p. 17.]" God's own grace, and an impartial reprobation of retridecree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means." That is, when butive justice, is a capital truth of the gosthis doctrine is applied to the present case,] The first pel. One of the leading errors of the Callink, which is Calvinian reprobation, draws the middle vinists consists in confounding these two diabolical link, which is, remediless wickedness, as reprobations, and the elections which they well as the last link, which is infernal and finished draw after them. By the impetuous blast of damnation. Thus Calvin's god "accomplishes" damnation by means of sin; or, if you please, he draws the prejudice, and the fire of heated imagination, third link by means of the second. Who can consider modern Aarons melt the partial election of this and not wonder at the prejudice of the LetterWriter, who boldly affirms, that upon the Calvinian grace and the impartial election of justice; scheme, God is no more the author and cause of the and, casting them in the mould of confusion, damnation of the reprobates, than the king is the cause they make their one partial election of unof the condemnation of the criminals whom he does not pardon! For my part, the more I consider Calvinism, scriptural, necessitating, antinomian Freethe more I see, that the decree of the absolute repro- grace, to which they are obliged to oppose bation, which is inseparable from the decree of abso- their one partial reprobation of necessitating lute election, represents God as the sure author of sin, Manichean Free-wrath. Now, as the scripin order to represent him as the sure author of damnation. The horrible mystery of absolute reprobation, tures frequently speak of the harmless repronecessary sin, and ensured damnation, is not less bation of grace, and of the awful reprobaessential to Calvinism, than the glorious mystery of tion of justice, it would be surprising indeed, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is essential to Christianity: and yet, Calvinism is the Gospel 1-the doc if, out of so large a book as the Bible, Logica Genevensis could not extract a few passages,

trines of grace !"

which, by being wrested from the context, and misapplied according to art, seem to favour Calvinian reprobation. Such passages are produced in the following pages.

ARG. XXXIX. [Page 49.] After transcribing Rom. ix. 20-23, Mr. Toplady says, "Now, are these the words of scripture, or are they not? If not, prove the forgery. If they be, you cannot fight against reprobation, without fighting against God."-Far from fighting against scripture reprobation, we maintain, as St. Paul does in Rom. ix. 1. That God has an absolute right gratuitous. ly to call whom he pleases to either of his two grand covenants of peculiarity [Judaism and Christianity] and gratuitously to reprobate whom he will, from the blessings pecu liar to these covenants.; leaving as many nations and individuals as he thinks fit, under the general blessings of the gracious covenants, which he made with reprieved Adam, and with spared Noah.-2. We assert, that God has an indubitable right judicially to reprobate obstinate unbelievers, under all the dispensations of his grace, and to appoint, that [as stubborn unbelievers] they shall be vessels of wrath fitted for destruction by their own unbelief, and not by God's free-wrath. This is all the reprobation which St. Paul contends for in Rom. ix. See Scales, Sect. xi. where Mr. T's objection is answered at large. Therefore, with one hand we defend Scripture reprobation and with the other, we attack Calvinian reprobation; maintaining that the Scripture reprobation of grace, and of justice, are as different from Calvinian damning reprobation, as appointing a soldier to continue a soldier, and not to be a captain, or appointing a wilful deserter to be shot, is different from appointing a soldier necessarily to desert, that he may unavoidably be shot for desertion.

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Having thus vindicated the godly reprobation maintained by St. Paul, from the misapprehensions of Mr. Toplady, we point at all the passages which we have produced in the Scripture-Scales in defence of the doctrines of justice, the conditionality of the reward of the inheritance and the freedom of the will. And, retorting Mr. T.'s argument, we say, "Now, are those the words of scripture, or are they not? If not, prove the forgery. If they be, you cannot fight against the [conditional] "reprobation" [which we defend] "without fighting against God."-You cannot fight for Calvinian reprobation, without fighting for free-wrath and the evil-principled deity wor shipped by the Manichees.

ARG. XL. [Page 51.] Mr. T. supports abso-lute reprobation by quoting 1 Sam. ii. 24. "They [the sons of Eli] hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay then-Here we are given to understand that, by the decree of the means, the Lord se

cured the disobedience of these wicked men, in order to accomplish his decree of the end, that is, their absolute destruction.

To this truly Calvinian insinuation we answer, 1. The sons of Eli, who had turned the tabernacle into an house of ill fame, and a den of thieves, had personally deserved a judicial reprobation: God therefore could justly give them up to a reprobate mind, in consequence of their personal, avoidable, repeated and aggravated crimes.-2. The word killing does not here necessarily imply eternal damnation. The Lord killed, by a lion, the man of God from Judah, for having stopped in Bethel :-he killed Nadab and Abihu, for offering strange fire:-he killed the child of David and Bathsheba,-he killed many of the Corinthians, for their irreverent taking of the Lord's Supper :-but the sin unto [bodily] death is not the sin unto eternal death; for St. Paul informs us, that the body is sometimes "given up to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord," 1 Cor. v. 5.-3. The Hebrew particle, which is rendered in our translation because, means also therefore: and so our translators have rendered it after St. Paul, and the Septuagint Ps. cxvi. 10. I believed, 2, and therefore will I speak :" see 2 Cor. iv. 13. If they had done their part as well in translating the verse quoted by Mr. Toplady, the doctrines of free-wrath would have gone propless; and we should have had these edifying words; "they [the sons of Eli] hearkened not to the voice of their father, and therefore the Lord would slay them." Thus the voluntary sin of free agents would be represented as the cause of their deserved reprobation and not their undeserved reprobation, as the cause of their necessary sin. See Sect. II.

ARG. XLI. [Page 51.] Mr. T. tries to prove absolute reprobation by quoting those words of our Lord, "Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, should be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would [or might] have remained unto this day."

This passage, if I am not mistaken, is nothing but a strong expostulation and reproof admirably calculated to shame the unbelief, and alarm the fears of the Capernaites. Suppose I had an enemy, whose obstinate hatred had resisted for years the constant tokens of my love and suppose I said to him, "Your obduracy is astonishing: if I had shewn to the tiercest tiger the kindness which I have shewn you, I could have melted the savage beast into love:" would it be right, from such a figurative supposition, to conclude, that I absolutely believed, I could have tamed the fiercest tiger?

But this passage, taken in a literal sense, far from proving the absolute reprobation of

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