what he does not owe ?"-This argument is produced by Mr. Toplady in a variety of dresses. The flaw of it consists in suppos ing, that there can be no medium between denying eternal salvation, and appointing to eternal damnation; and that, because God may absolutely elect as many of his creatures as he pleases to a crown of glory, he may absolutely reprobate as many as Calvinism pleases to eternal sin and everlasting burn. ings. The absurdity of this conclusion will be discovered by the reader, if he looks at it through the glass of the following illustrations. Mr. Toplady is not obliged by any rule of justice, to give Mr. Wesley an hundred pounds, because he owes him no money; and therefore Mr. T. may give Mr. Wesley an hundred gratuitous stripes, without breaking any rule of justice. The King may without any injustice gratuitously give a thousand pounds to one man, ten thousand to another, an hundred to a third, and nothing to a fourth; and therefore the King may also, without injustice, gratuitously give an hundred stabs to one man, a thousand to another, and ten thousand to a third; or he may necessitate them to offend, that he may hang and burn them with a show of justice. we ABG. XIX. [Page 36.] "I defy any man to shew in what single respect the actual limitation of happiness itself is a jot more just and equitable (in a Beiug possessed of infinite power) than the decretive limitation of the persons who shall enjoy that happiness." The question is not whether God can justly limitate the happiness of man, or the number of the men, whom he will raise to such and such heights of happiness. This never disputed on the contrary, we assert with our Lord, that when God gives degrees of happiness, as a Benefactor, he may do what he pleases with his own; he may give five talents to one man, or to five thousand men ; and two talents to two men, or two millions of men.-Wherein then does the fallacy of Mr. Toplady's argument consist ? In this most irrational and unjust conclusion God may, without injustice, limit the happiness of his human creatures, and the number of those, who shall enjoy such and such a degree of happiness; and there fore, he may also without injustice absolutely reprobate as many of his unborn creatures as he pleases, and decree to protract their infernal torments to all eternity, after having first decreed their necessary fall into sin, and their necessary continuance in sin, as necessary means in order to their necessary end, which is eternal damnation. Is not this an admirable Vindication of Calvin's decrees? Who does not see that the conclusion has no more to do with the premises, than in the following argument: The Lord Chancellor may without injustice present Mr. T. to a living of fifty pounds, or to one of two hundred pounds, or he may reprobate Mr. T. from all the Crown livings; and therefore the Lord Chancellor may, without injustice, sue Mr. T. for fifty pounds or two hundred pounds whenever he pleases. What name shall we give to the Logic which deals in such arguments as these? ARG. XX. [page 37.] "He [man] derives his existence from God, and therefore [says Armianism] God is bound to make their existence happy." I would rather say, God is bound both by the rectitude of his nature, and by the promises of his gospel, not to reprobate any man to remediless sin and eternal misery, till he has actually deserved such a dreadful reprobation, at least by one bad thought, which he was not absolutely predestinated to think. But Calvinism says, that God absolutely reprobated a majority of men, before they thought their first thought, or drew their first breath. If Mr. Toplady had stated the case in this plain manner, all his readers would have seen his doctrine of wrath without a veil, and would have shuddered at the sight. And ARG. XXI. [Ibid.] " If God owes salvation to all his creatures as such, even the workers of iniquity will be saved, or God must cease to be just."-I never heard any Arminian say, that God owes salvation, i. e. heavenly glory, to all his creatures as such ; for then all horses, being God's creatures as well as men, would be taken to heaven: But we maintain, that God will never mediately entail, necessary, remediless sin upon any of his creatures, that he may infallibly punish them with eternal damnation. we assert, that, if God had not graciously designed to replace all mankind in a state of initial salvation from sin and hell, according to the various dispensations of his redeeming grace, he would have punished Adam's personal sin by a personal damnation. Nor would he have suffered him to propogate his fallen race, unless the second Adam had extended the blessing of redemption so far as to save from eternal misery all who die in their infancy, and to put all who live long enongh to act as moral agents, in a capacity of avoiding hell by working out their own eternal salvation in the day of their temporary salvation :-a day this, which inconsistent Calvinists call “the day of grace." Mr. Toplady, after decrying our doctrine of grace, as leading to gross iniquity, indirectly owns, that the conditionality of the promise of eternal salvation guards our gospel against the charge of Antinomianism,-a dreadful charge this, which falls so heavily on Calvinism. Conscious that he cannot defend his lawless, unconditional election to eternal life, and his wrathful, unconditional reprobation to eternal death, without taking the conditionality of eternal salvation out of the way, he attempts to do it by the following dilemma. ARG. XXII. [Page 38.] "Is salvation due to a man that does not perform those conditions? If you say, yes; you jump, hand over head, into what you yourself call Antinomianism. If you say, that salvation is not due to a man, unless he do fulfil the con. ditions; it will follow, that man's own performances are meritorious of salvation, and bring God himself into debt." We answer, 1. To sow the tares of Calvinism, Mr. Toplady raises an artificial night by confounding the sparing salvation of the Father, the atoning salvation of the Son,the convincing, converting, and perfecting salvation of the Spirit. Yea, he confounds actual salvation from a thousand temporal evils,-temporal salvation from death and hell,-initial salvation from the guilt and power of sin,-present salvation into the blessings of Christianity, Judaism, or Gentilism, continued salvation into these blessings, eternal salvation from death and hell, -and eternal salvation into glory and hea ven :-He confounds, I say, all these degrees of salvation, which is as absurd as if he confounded all degrees of life,-the life of an embryo,-of a sucking child,—of a school-boy, -of a youth,-of a man,-of a departed saint, -and of an angel. When he has thus shuffled his cards, and played the dangerous game of confusion, what wonder is it if he wins it, and makes the inattentive readers believe, that what can be affirmed with truth of salvation into heavenly glory, must be true also, when it is affirmed of salvation from everlasting burnings; and that because God does not owe heaven and angelical honours to unborn children, he may justly reprobate them to hell, and to satanical, remediless wickedness as the way to it. 2. Distinguishing what Mr. Toplady confounds, we do not scruple to maintain, that though God is not bound to give existence, much less heavenly glory, to any creature ; yet, all his creatures, who never personally offended him, have a right to expect at his hand salvation from everlasting fire, till they have deserved his eternal aud absolute reprobation, by committing some personal, and avoidable offence. Hence it is, that all mankind are born in a state of inferior salvation: For they are all born out of eternal fire: And to be out of hell is a considerable degree of salvation, unless we are suffered to live unavoidably to deserve everlasting burnings, which is the case of all Calvin's imaginary reprobates. 3. Mr. Toplady "throws out a barrel for the amusement of the whale, to keep him in play, and make him lose sight of the ship," the fireship. For, in order to make us lose sight of absolute reprobation, remediless, wickedness, and everlasting fire, which [if Calvinism be true] is the unavoidable lot of the greatest part of mankind, even in their mother's womb; he throws out this ambiguous expression, salvation due; just as if there were no medium between salvation due, and Calvinian reprobation due! where. as it is evident, that there is the medium of non creation, or that of destruction in a state of seminal existence. 4. The flaw of Mr. Toplady's argument will appear in its proper magnitude, if we look at it through the following illustration. A whole regiment is led to the left by the colonel, whom the general wanted to turn to the right. The colonel, who is personally in the fault, is pardoned; and five hundred of the soldiers, who by the overbearing influence of their colonel's disobedience, were necessitated to move to the left, are appoint. ed to be hanged, for not going to the right. The General sends to Geneva for Tertullus, who vindicates the justice of the execution by the following speech. "Preferment is not due to obedient soldiers, much less to soldiers who have necessarily disobeyed orders; and therefore your gracious general acts consistently with justice, in appointing these five hundred soldiers to be hanged, for, as there is no medium between not promoting soldiers and hanging them, he might justly have hanged the whole regiment. He is not bound, by any law, to give any soldier a captain's commission; and therefore he is perfectly just, when he sends these military reprobates to the gallows." Some of the auditors clap Tertullus's argument: P. O. cries out that it is "most masterly:" But a few of the soldiers are not quite convinced, and begin to question whether the holy service of the mild Saviour of the world, is not preferable to the antinomian service of the absolute Reprobator of countless myriads of unborn infants. 5. The other flaw of Mr. Toplady's dilemma consists in supposing that gospel-worthiness is incompatible with the gospel; whereas all the doctrines of justice, which make one half of the gospel, stand or fall with the doctrine of evangelical worthiness. We will shout it on the walls of mystic Geneva: They that follow Christ shall walk with him in white, rather than they that follow antichrist; for they are [more] worthy."Watch and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape, and to stand [rewardable] before the Son of Man.- What ever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, &c. knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance." For he will say, in the great day of retribution, "Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom, &c. for I was hungry and ye gave me meat, &c.-Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, &c for I was hungry and ye gave me no meat," &c.-The doctrine of pharisaic merit we abhor: But the doctrine of rewardable obedience we houour, defend, and extol. Believers, let not Mr. Toplady "beguile you of your reward through voluntary humility.If ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.-Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.-For we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Look to yourselves, that ye lose not the things which ye have wrought."- So fight that you may not be reprobated by remunerative justice."So run, that you may [judicially] obtain an incorruptible crown:-Remember Lot's wife." -By patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory And God, according to his gracious promises, will render you eternal life For he is not untrue, to break his evangelical promise; nor unrighteous, to forget your work that proceedeth from love." Your per severing obedience shall be graciously rewarded by a crown of righteousnes, which the Lord the RIGHTEOUS JUDGE, shall give you at that day;" and then " great shall be your reward in heaven." For Christ himself hath said, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crow n of life."-"My sheep follow me, and I give unto them eternal life" in glory. For I am the author of ETERNAL salvation to them that OBEY me." What can be plainer than this gospel! Shall the absurd cries of Popery! Merit! &c. make us ashamed of Christ's disciples; of Christ's words; and of Christ himself! God forbid! Let the scriptures,-let God be true, though Mr. Toplady should be mistaken. ARG. XXIII. [Page 38.]" If he [God] be not obliged, in justice, to save mankind, then neither is he unjust in passing by some: nay he might, had he so pleased, have passed by the whole of mankind without electing any one individual of the fallen race; and yet have continued holy, just, and good." True: He might have passed them by without fixing any blot upon his justice and goodness, if by passing them by, Mr. T. means, leaving them in the wretched state of seminal existence, in which state his vindictive justice found them after Adam's fall. For then, an unknown punishment seminally endured, would have borne a just proportion to an unknown sin seminally committed. But if, by passing some men by, this gentleman means, as Calvinism does" absolutely predestinating some men to pecessary remediless sin, and to unavoidable, eternal damnation;" we deny that God might justly have passed by the whole of mankind :-we deny that he might justly have passed by one single man, woman, or child. Nay, we affirm that if we conceive Satan, or the evil Princi ple of Manes, an exerting, creative power, we could not conceive him worse employed, than in forming an absolute reprobate in embryo : That is, " a creature unconditionally, and absolutely doomed to remediless wickedness, and everlasting fire." As the simple are frequently imposed upon by an artful substituting of the harmless word passing by, for the terrible word absolutely reprobating to death, I beg leave to shew, by a simile, the vast difference there is between these two phrases. A king may, without injustice, pass by all the beggars in the streets, without giving them any bounty; because, if he does them no good in thus passing them by, he does them no harm. But suppose he called two captains of his guards, and said to the first, If you see me pass by little dirty beggars, without giving alms, throw them into the mire, or, if their parents have cast them into the dirt, keep them there; then let the second captain follow with his men, and take all the dirty beggars who have been thus passed by, and throw them, for being dirty, into a furnace hotter than that of Nebuchadnezzar's:-Suppose, I say, the king passed his little, indigent subjects by in this manner, would not his decree of preterition be a more than diabolical piece of cruelty? I need not inform my judicious readers, that the passing by of the king, represents calvinian passing by, that is, absolute reprobation to death;-that the first captain, who throws little beggars into the dirt, or keeps them there, represents the decree of the means, which necessitates the reprobate to sin, or to continue in sin;-and that the second captain represents the decree of the end which necessitates them to go into everlasting burnings. ARG. XXIV. [Page 39,] Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile calvinian reprobation with divine justice, by an appeal "to God's providential dealings with men in the present life." His verbose argument, stript of its Geneva dress, and brought naked to open light, may run thus: "If God may without injustice, absolutely place the sous of Adam in circumstances of temporary misery, he may also without injustice, reprobate them to eternal torments: but he may justly place the sons of Adam in circumstances of temporary misery: witness his actually doing it: and therefore he may without injustice, reprobate them to eternal torments, and to remediless sin, as the way to those torments." -The flaw of this argument is in the first proposition, and consists in supposing, that, because God can justly appoint us to suffer "a light affliction, which [comparatively speaking,] is but for a moment, and which [if we are not perversely wanting to ourselves,] will work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17; he can also justly appoint us to remediless wick edness, and eternal damnation. This conclusion is all of a piece with the following argument. A father may justly punish his disobedient child with a rod, and give his sick child a bitter medicine; and therefore he may justly break all his bones with a forge-hammer, and daily drench him with melted lead. To produce such absurd consequences without a mask, is sufficiently to answer them. See farther what is said upon page 42. ARG. XXV. [Page 40,] Mr. Toplady is, if possible, still more abundantly mistaken, while, to prove the justice of calvinian reprobation, he appeals to the real INEQUALITY of providential distributions below.-We can not "pronounce the great Father of all, unjust, because he does not make all his off. spring EQUALLY rich, good, and happy :" and therefore, God may JUSTLY reprobate some of them to eternal misery: Just as if inferior degrees of goodness and happiness, were the same thing as remediless wickedness, and eternal misery! ARG. XXVI. [Ibid,] "The devils may be cast down to hell to be everlastingly damned, and be appointed thereto; and it gives no great concern. No hard thoughts against God arise: No charge of cruelty, injustice," &c. Indeed if Dr. Gill, whom Mr. Toplady quotes, insinuated, that God had absolutely predestinated myriads of angels to everlasting damnation, through the appointed means of necessary sin; and that God had made this appointment thousands of years before most of those angels had any personal existence, it would give us great concern, both for the honour of God's justice, and for the angels so cruelly treated by free wrath. But as matters are, the case of devils gives us no great concern, because they fell knowingly, wilfully, and without necessity. To the end of the day of their visitation they personally rejected God's gracious counsel toward them: And, as they obstinately refused to subserve the judicial display of his remunerative BOUNTY, it is highly agreeable to reason and equity, that they should subserve the judicial display of his vindictive JUSTICE. ARG. XXVII. [Page 41,] "The king of Great Britain has unlimited right of peerage, &c. Will any body be so weak and perverse as to charge him with Tyranny and Injustice, only because it is not his will, though it is in his power, to make all his subjects noblemen?"-This is another barrel thrown out to the whale. This illustration does not touch, but conceal the question. For the similar question is, not whether the king is unjust in leaving gentlemen and tradesmen among the gentry and commonality, but whether he could, without injustice and tyranny, pretend, that, because he has an unlimited right of PEERAGE, he has also an unlimited right [of what I beg leave to call] FELONAGE,-a calvinian right this, of appointing whom he pleases to rob and murder, that he may appoint whom he pleases to a cell in Newgate, and a swing at Tyburn. This is the true state of the case. If Mr. T. has cast a veil over it, it is a sign that he is not destitute of the feelings of justice, and that if he durst look at his Manichean picture of God's sovereignty, without a veil, he would turn from it with the same precepitancy, with which he would start from the abomination of the Moabites, or from the grim idol to which the mistaken Israelites sacrificed their children in the valley of Hinnom. ARG. XXVIII. [Page 42.] "Misery, though endured but for a year, &c. is, in its own nature, and for the time being, as truly misery, as it would be if protracted ever so long, &c. And God can no more cease to be just for a year, or for a man's life-time, than he can cease to be just for a century, or for ever. By the same rule that he can, and does, without impeachment of his moral attributes, permit any one Being to be miserable for a moment; he may permit that being to be miserable for a much longer time: and so on, ad infinitum:"-That is, in plain English, for ever. The absurdity of this argument may be sufficiently pointed out by a similar plea. A surgeon may, without injustice, open an imposthume in my breast, and give me pain for an hour, and therefore he may justly scarify me, and flay me alive ten years. A judge may, without impeachment of his justice, order a man to be burnt in the hand for a moment, and therefore his justice will continue unstained, if he orders red-hot irons to be applied to that man's hands and feet, back and breast, "ad infinitum." I hope that when Mr. Toplady threw this scrap of Latin over the nakedness of his Diana, his good-nature suggested, that she is too horrible to be looked at without a veil. But could he not have borrowed the language of mother-church, without borrowing a maxim which might shock any inquisitor and might have put Bonner himself to a stand? ARG. XXIX. [Page 44.] "He [God] permits, and has for near six thousand years permitted the reign of natural evil. Upon the same principle, might he not extend its reign to--a never-ending duration?"-He might, if a never-ending line of moral evil personally and avoidably brought on by free-agents upon themselves, called for a never-ending line of penal misery and our Lord himself says, that he will: "these [the wicked, who have finally hardened themselves,] shall go away into FVERLASTING punishment,-where their worm DIETH NOT, and the fire is not QUENCHED, Matt. xxv. 46. Mark ix. 48. ARG. XXX. [Ibid.]" But still the old difficulty, [a difficulty which Arminianism will never solve,] &c. the old difficulty sur. vives; how came moral evil to be permitted, when it might as easily have been hindered, by a Being of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom ?"-Page 39, Mr. Toplady speaks partly the same language; giving us to understand as openly as he dares, that God worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked. His pernicious, though guarded insinuation runs thus : "You will find it extremely difficult, (may I not say, impossible?) to point out the difference between permission and design, in a Being possessed (as God most certainly is,) of unlimited wisdom, and unlimited power." Hence we are given to understand, that, because God does not absolutely hinder the commission of sin, "it would non-plus all the sagacity of man, should we attempt clearly to shew wherein the difference lies," between God's permitting sin, and his designing or decreeing sin; or [to speak with more candour,] between God's placing free-agents in a state of probation, with a strict charge not to sin, and between his being the author of sin. Is not this a "most masterly Vindication of the decrees and providence of GOD;" supposing you mean by God, the sin-begetting deity worshipped by the Manichees? This antinomian blow at the root of divine holiness, is dangerous: I shall therefore ward it off by various answers. 1. When God placed man in paradise, far from permitting him to sin, he strictly forbad him to do it. Is it right then in Mr. T. to call God" the Permitter of sin," when the scriptures represent him as the Forbidder of it? Nay, is it not very wrong to pour shame upon the holiness of God, and absurdity upon the reason of man, by making a cal vinistic world believe, that forbidding and threatening is one and the same thing with permitting and giving leave; or at least, that the difference is so trifling, that "all the sagacity of man will find it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, clearly to point it out?" 2. I pretend to a very little share of all the sagacity of man; and yet, without being nonplused at all, I hope to shew by the following illustration, that there is a prodigious difference between not hindering, and design, in the case of the entering in of sin. A general wants to try the faithfulness of his soldiers, that he may reward those who will fight, and punish those who will go over to the enemy in order to display, before all the army, his love of bravery, his hatred of cowardice, his remunerative goodness, and his impartial justice. To this end, he issues out a proclamation, importing that all the volunteers, who shall gallantly keep the field in such an important engagement, shall be made captains; and that all those who shall go over to the enemy shall be shot. I suppose him endued with infinite wisdom, know ledge, and power. By his omniscience, he sees that some will desert: By his omnipotence, he could indeed hinder them from doing it; for he could chain them all to so many posts stuck in the ground around their colours but his infinite wisdom does not permit him to do it; as it would be a piece of madness in him, to defeat by forcible means his design of trying the courage of his soldiers, in order to reward and punish them according to their gallant or cowardly behaviour in the field. And therefore though he is persuaded that many will be shot, he puts his proclamation in force; because, upon the whole, it will best answer his wise designs. However, as he does not desire, much less design, that any of his soldiers should be shot for desertion, he does what his wisdom permits him to do to prevent their going over to the enemy; and yet, for the above-mentioned reason, he does not absolutely hinder them from doing it. Now, in such a case, who does not see that the difference between not absolutely hindering, and designing, is as discernible as the difference between reason and folly ;-or between wisdom and wickedness? By such dangerous insinuations as that, which this illustration exposes, the simple are imperceptibly led to confound Christ and Belial; and to think, that there is little dif ference between the celestial Parent of good, and the Manichean Parent of good and evil; the Janus of the fatalists, who wears two faces, an angel's face, and a devil's face ; a mongrel, imaginary god this, whose fancied ways are, like his fancied nature, full of du plicity. 3. To the preceding illustration I beg leave to add the following argument. No unprejudiced person will I hope, refuse his assent to the truth of this proposition. A world, wherein there are rational free-agents, like angels and men ;- irrational free-agents, like dogs and horses ;-necessary agents, like plants and trees; and dead matter, like stones and clods of earth. -Such a world, I say, is as much superior in perfection to a world, where there are only necessary agents, and dead matter; as a place inhabited by learned men and curious beasts, contains more wonders than one, which is only stocked with fine flowers and curious stones. If this is granted, it necessarily follows, that this world was the most perfect which God could create to display his infinite power and manifold wisdom.-Now, in the very nature of things, rational free-agents, being capable of knowing their Creator, owe to him gratitude and obedience; and to one another, assistance and love; and therefore they are under a law, which [as free agents] they may keep or break, as they please. "But, could not God necessitate freeagents to keep the law they are under ?" Yes, says Calvinism, for he is endued with |