:

and had said, like Mr. Fulsome, "I have had a call, and my election is safe as my good works can add nothing to my finished salvation, so my bad works can take nothing from it. Satan may pound me, if he pleases; but Jesus must replevy me. Let me wander where I will from God, Christ must fetch me back again. The covenant is unconditionally ordered in all things and sure. All things work for good to the elect." "And if all things," says Mr. Hill, "then their very sins and corruptions are included in the royal promise." "Whoredom and drunkenness may hurt another, but they cannot hurt me. God will overrule sin for my good, and his glory. Whatsoever is, is right: for God worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked, and how much more in his elect, who are his chosen instruments!" If Mr. Thomson, I say, had been a Calvinist, and had thus stood his ground in the Antinomian gap, which Calvin, Dr. Crisp, Mr. Fulsome, Mr. Hill, and Mr. Toplady have made; who could reasonably have beaten him off? Do not all his conclusions flow from the doctrine of absolute election and finished salvation, as unavoidably as four is the result of two and two?

ARG. LXX. Page 97. Mr. Toplady attempts again to stop up the Antinomian gap, which fatalism and Calvinian predestination make in practical religion. Calling to his assistance Zeno, the founder of the stoics, or rigid Predestinarians among the heathens, he says, "Zeno one day thrashed his servant for pilfering. The fellow, knowing his master was a fatalist, thought to bring himself off by alleging that he was destined to steal, and therefore ought not to be beat for it. You are destined to steal, are you?' answered the philosopher; then you are no less destined to be thrashed for it:' and laid on some hearty blows extraordinary." I do not wonder that Mr. Hill, in his Finishing Stroke, calls Mr. Toplady's arguments "most masterly;" for this argument of Zeno is yet more masterly than his own: "I shall not take the least notice of him, any more than, if I were travelling on the road, I would stop to lash, or even to order my footman to lash every little impertinent quadruped in a village, that should come out and bark at me." Mr. Toplady, in the advertisement placed at the head of his pamphlet, represents some of us as "unworthy of even being pilloried in a preface, or flogged at a pamphlet's tail:" we are now arrived at the tail of his pamphlet, in the body of which he has thought Mr. Wesley so highly worthy of his rod, as to "flog" him with the gratuity, absoluteness, mercy, and justice, which are peculiar to the reprobation defended through the whole performance. If seriousness did not become us, when we vindicate the injured attributes of "the Judge of all the earth," I might be tempted to ask, with a smile, Has Mr. Toplady so worn out his rod in making "more work for Mr. Wesley," that he is now obliged to borrow Zeno's stick to finish the execution "at the pamphlet's tail?" For my part, as I have no idea of rivetting orthodoxy upon my readers with a stick, and of solving the rational objections of my opponents by "laying on some hearty blows," and so "thrashing" them into conviction, or into silence, I own that Logica Zenonis and Logica Genevensis being of a piece, either of them can easily beat me out of the field. Arguments a lapide are laughable; but I flee before arguments a baculo. However, in my retreat, I will venture to present Mr. Toplady with the following queries:

If Zeno, in vindicating fatalism, could say to a thief, that he was absolutely predestinated to steal, and to be thrashed for stealing; is it not more than Mr. Toplady can say in vindication of Calvinism? For, upon his scheme, may not a man be absolutely predestinated not only to steal, but also to escape thrashing, and to obtain salvation by stealing? Mr. Toplady is Mr. Hill's second: and Mr. Hill, in his fourth letter, (where he shows the happy effects of sin,) tells the public and me, "Onesimus robbed Philemon his master; and fleeing from justice, was brought under Paul's preaching, and converted." Thus Zeno's predestination failed, and with it Zeno's argument: for robbery led not Onesimus to thrashing, but to conversion and glory, if we believe Mr. Hill. And if Mr. Fulsome is an elect person, why might he not be guilty of as fortunate a robbery? Why might not a similar decree "secure and accomplish the [same evangelical] end by the [same Antinomian] means?" Mr. Toplady may prevail over us by borrowing Zeno's cane, and the whip of Mr. Hill's lashing footman; but his pen will never demonstrate, (1.) That Calvinism does not rationally lead all her admirers to the deepest mire of speculative Antinomianism. And, (2.) That when they are there, nothing can keep them from weltering in the dirt of practical Antinomianism, but a happy inconsistence between their actions and their principles.

SECTION XI.

A caution against the tenet, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT: an Antinomian tenet this, which Mr. T. calls "a first principle of the Bible"-An answer to his challenge about finding a middle way between the Cal. vinian doctrine of providence, and the Atheistical doctrine of chance. WHATEVER the true God works, is undoubtedly right. But if the Deity absolutely works all things in all men, good and bad, it evidently follows, (1.) That the two-principled Deity preached by Manes is the true God. (2.) That the bad principle of this double Deity works wickedness in the wicked, as necessarily as the good principle works righteousness in the righteous. And, (3.) That the original of wickedness being Divine, wickedness is as right as the Deity from whom it flows. Upon this horrid, Manichean scheme, who can wonder at Mr. Toplady saying:

ARG. LXXI. Page 96. "This is a first principle of the Bible, and of sound reason, that whatever is, is right, or will answer some great end, &c, in its relation to the whole." Error is never more dangerous than when it looks a little like truth. But when it is imposed upon the simple as "a first principle of the Bible and of sound reason," it makes dreadful work. How conclusively will a rigid Predestinarian reason if he says, "Whatever is, is right; and therefore sin is right. Again: it is wrong to hinder what is right: sin is right, and therefore it is wrong to hinder sin. Once more: we ought to do what is right; and therefore we ought to commit sin." Now, in opposition to Mr. Toplady's first principle, I assert, as a "first principle of reason," that though it was right in God not absolutely to hinder sin, yet sin is always wrong.

"O! but God permitted it, and will get himself glory by displaying his vindictive justice in punishing it: for the ministration of condemnation is glorious.' This argument has deluded many a pious Calvinist. To overthrow it, I need only observe that "righteousness exceeds condemnation in glory!"

In what respect is sin right? . Can it be right in respect of God, if it brings him less glory than righteousness? Can it be right in respect of man, if it brings temporal misery upon ALL, and eternal misery upon SOME? Can it be right in respect of the Adamic law, the law of Moses, or the law of Christ? Certainly no: for sin is equally the transgression of all these laws. "O! but it is right with respect to the evangelical promise." By no means: for the evangelical promise, vulgarly called the Gospel, testifies of Christ, the destroyer of sin, and offers us a remedy against sin. Now, if sin were right, the Gospel which remedies it, and Christ who destroys it, would be wrong. I conclude, then, that if sin be right, neither with respect of God, nor with respect of man; neither with regard to the law, nor with regard to the Gospel; it is right in no shape, it is wrong in every point of view.

"But why did God permit it?" Indeed, he never properly permitted it, unless Mr. Toplady, who does not scruple to call God" the permitter of evil," can prove, that to forbid, in the most solemn manner, and under the severest penalty, is the same thing as to permit.

Should you say, Why did not God absolutely hinder sin? I still answer, (1.) Because his wisdom saw that a world where free agents and necessary agents are mixed, is better (all things considered) than a world stocked with nothing but its necessary agents, i. e. creatures absolutely hindered from sinning. (2.) Because his distributive justice could be displayed no other way, than by the creation of accountable free agents, made with an eye to a day of judgment. (3.) Because it would be as absurd to necessitate free agents, as to bid free agents be, that they might not be free agents; as foolish as to form accountable creatures, that they might not be accountable. And, (4.) Because when God saw that the free agency of his creatures would introduce sin, he determined to overrule it, or remedy it in such a manner as would, upon the whole, render this world, with all the voluntary evil, and voluntary good in it, better than a world of necessary agents, where nothing but necessary good would have been displayed: an inferior sort of good, this, which would no more have admitted of the exercise of God's political wisdom and distributive justice, than the excellence of stones and fine flowers admits of laws, rewards, and punishments.

Should the reader ask how far we may safely go to meet the truth which borders most on Mr. Toplady's false principle, Whatever is, is right? I answer, (1.) We may grant, nay, we ought to assert, that God will get himself glory every way. Evangelical grace, and just wrath, minister to his praise, though not equally: and therefore God willeth not primarily the death of his creatures. Punishment is his strange work; and he delights more in the exercise of his remunerative good. ness, than in the exercise of his vindictive justice. (2.) Hence it ap pears that the wrath of man, and the rage of the devil, will turn to God's praise: but it is only to his inferior praise. For though the blessed will sing loud hallelujahs to Divine justice, when vengeance

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

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

a tapster, who pleads for drunkenness as plausibly as some good, mis taken men do for all manner of wickedness.

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

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

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

From this quotation it is evident, (1.) That Mr. T. indirectly charges us with holding an Epicurean, Atheistical doctrine about providence, because we abhor the doctrine of a predestination, which represents God as the author of sin. And, (2.) That he defies or challenges us to point out a middle way between the Atheistical doctrine of chance, and the Calvinian doctrine of providence. This challenge is too important to be disregarded: an answer to this will conclude the argumentative part of this tract.

There are two opposite errors with respect to providence. The FIRST is that of the Epicurean philosophers, who thought that God does not at all concern himself about our sins, but leaves us to go on as we please, and as chance directs. The SECOND is that of the rigid Predes tinarians, who imagine that God absolutely predestinates sin, and neces sarily brings it about to accomplish his absolute decrees of eternally saving some men through Christ, and of eternally damning all the rest of mankind through Adam. Of these two erroneous sentiments, the