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to commit adultery, had he 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 toward 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 toward them, when they come to act as free agents. 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. Toplady, 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 reme diless 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 show 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 that an "involuntary being" should be sinful? Why is the murderer's sword sinless? Why is the candle by which an incendiary fires your house an innocent flame? Is it not be. cause 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 upon the spot. The father of the child wants you hanged as a murderer: but the judge pronounces you perfectly guilt. less. Why? Truly because you were, 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.

SECTION V.

An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile Calvinian REPROBATION with Divine MERCY.

Ir it is impossible to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with Divine JUSTICE, how much more with Divine MERCY! This is however the difficult task which Mr. T. sets about next. Consider we his arguments :—

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. Nobody ever supposed 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 adamantine glory. But if God made every pebble an organized, 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 to be shot for desertion. To do this, I learn logic of Mr. T. and say, "As the king's forbearing 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 Manes' God.

ARG. XXXV. Page 46. "If therefore the decree of [Calvinian] reprobation be exploded, on account of its imaginary incompatibility 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 be 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 in not making 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 premise? What would Mr. T. think of me, if I presented the public with the fol lowing sophism? "Nobody can reasonably charge the king with want of goodness for not enriching and ennobling every body; and therefore nobody can reasonably charge him with want of mercy for 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 decree concerning their rebellion." Nevertheless, this absurd argument contains just as much truth and mercy, as that of Mr. Toplady.

ARG. XXXVI. (Ibid.) "There is no way of solidly, &c, justifying the ways of God with men, but upon this grand datum, That the exer cise of his own infinite mercy is regulated by the voluntary determina. tion 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 nonexertion of a peculiar mercy displayed toward some; whereas 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 show the same mercy to ALL, which he does to some. But it is absurd to suppose, that because he is not bound to "show mercy" to all those who have personally and unnecessarily offended him (or indeed to any one of them,) he may show injustice and cruelty to unborn creatures, who never personally offended him so much as by one wandering 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 show 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 Calvi. nian 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 altogether positive. Hence it is, that, p. 83, Mr. T. calls the decrees by which the repro bates sin, not only permissive but "effective;" and tells us, p. 77, that "God efficaciously permitted horrible wickedness." And herein he exactly follows Calvin, who, in his comment on Rom. ix, 18, says, “INDURANDI verbum, quum Deo in Scripturis tribuitur, non solum, PERMISSIONEM (ut volunt diluti quidam moderatores sed) Divinæ quoque IRE ACTIONEM significat." "The word HARDEN when it is attributed to God in Scripture, means not only PERMISSION, (as some washy, compromising divines would have it,) but it signifies also THE ACTION of Divine wrath.'

Beside, 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 firing on the contrary, I bid them fire away." This is exactly the case with the Manichean God and his imaginary reprobates. He bids them repent or perish, believe 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:

ARG. XXXVIII. Page 48. "If I am 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? Am I blamable for his poverty, because I do not give him the utmost I am able? Similar is

*Not unlike this argument is that of the letter writer, on whom I have already bestowed a note, sec. ii.

"Divine justice," says he, pp. 4, 5, could not condemn, till the law was broken." True; but Calvinian free wrath 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 con. demned them, if, in order to do 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 crimes, and inevitable guilt. The chain by which the God of Manes and Calvin drags poor reprobates to hell, has three capital links; the first is absolute, unconditional reprobation: the second is necessary, remediless sin: and the third is insured, eternal damnation. Now although the middle link intervenes between the first and the last link, it is only a necessary connection between them: for, says Mr. Toplady, p. 17, "God's own decree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means." That is, (when this doctrine is applied to the present case,) the first link, which is Calvinian reprobation, draws the middle, diabolical link, which is remediless wickedness, as well as the last link, which is infernal and finished damnation. Thus Calvin's God accomplishes damnation by means of sin; or, if you please, he draws the third link by means of the second. Who can consider this and not wonder at the prejudice of the letter writer, who boldly affirms that, upon the Calvinian scheme, God is no more the author and cause of the damınation of the reprobates, than the king is the cause of the condemnation of the criminals whom he does not pardon! For my part, the more I consider Calvinism, the more I see that the decree of absolute reprobation, which is inseparable from the decree of absolute election, represents God as the sure author of sin in order to represent him as the sure author of damnation. The horrible mystery of absolute reprobation, necessary sin, and insured damnation, is not less essential to Calvinism, than the glorious mystery of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is es sential to Christianity; and yet Calvinism is the Gospel! the doctrines of grace!

the case now in debate.

nature spiritually poor."

Ever since the fall of Adam, mankind are by

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 plough shall be stolen, that he shall fall sick, and that nobody 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 showed yourself ill natured to the poor man himself, To prove that this is a just state of the case, if the doctrine of absolute predestina. tion be true, I refer the reader to section ii, where he will find Calvinism" on its legs."

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 inconclusive 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 owing 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, neces. sarily sinned; obediently fulfilling God's absolute, irreversible, and efficacious decree of the means (sin:) an Antinomian decree this, by which, if Calvinism be true, God secured and accomplished the decree of the end, that is, the remediless sin and eternal damnation 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 means."

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."

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