Full text of "Works"
to
of
of
The Estate of the late
Effie M. K. Glass
THE WORKS
OF THE
REYEREND JOHN FLETCHER,
LATE VICAR OF MADELEY.
IN FOUR V GLUMES.
VOLUME II.
PUBLISHED BY CAKLTON & PHILLIPS
200 MULBERRY-STREET.
1854.
6X
ZELOTES AND HONESTUS RECONCILED :
OR,
THE SECOND PART
' •
OF
AN EQUAL CHECK
TO
PHARISAISM AND ANTINOMIANISM:
BEING THE FIRST PART
OF THE
SCRIPTURE SCALES
TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH, TO BALANCE A MULTITUDE OF OPPOSITE
SCRIPTURES, TO PROVE THE GOSPEL MARRIAGE OF FREE GRACE AND FREE
WILL, AND RESTORE PRIMITIVE HARMONY TO THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY.
WITH A PREFACE,
CONTAINING SOME STRICTURES UPON THE THREE LETTERS OF RICHARD HILL, ESQ.,
WHICH HAVE BEEN LATELY PUBLISHED.
BY A LOVER OF THE WHOLE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS.
How is the most fine gold changed ! Take heed that ye be not deceived ; for many shall come
in my name, saying, "I am Christ," doctrinal : " I am Christ," moral : but, " to the law,
and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no
light in them, [or at least because] their wine is mixed with water, and their silver is [partly]
become dross." — Bible.
Si non est Dei gratia, quomodo salvat mundum 1 Si non est liberum arbitrium, quomodo
judicat mundum 1 — Aug.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
I. SCRIPTURE SCALES, TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH,
—PART FIRST,— BEING THE SECOND PART OF AN EQUALrCHECK
TO PHARISAISM AND ANTINOMIANISM.
ADVERTISEMENT Page 9
PREFATORY EPISTLE. — Description of a true Protestant — The author's three
protests, ........... 11
SECTION I. The cause of the misunderstanding of pious Protestants — View
of the Gospel axioms or weights of the sanctuary, . . . .23
II. General observations on God's free grace, and man's free will — Salvation
originally of the former, and damnation of the latter, . . . .27
III. The golden beam of the Scripture scales — The chains by which they are
suspended, and a rational account of the origin of evil, . . .31
IV. Remarks on the terms of the two covenants — Salvation and damnation
have two causes — The glory of Christ, and original merit, balanced
with the importance of obedience and derived worthiness, . . .34
V. The importance of faith balanced by that of works, . . . .39
VI. The moral law of Christ, and that of Moses, one and the same ; and the
Sinai covenant an edition of the covenant of grace. . . . .41
VII. The doctrine of the preceding section weighed in the Scripture Scales, 53
VIII. What is God's work, and what our own — The two are balanced, . 57
IX. The most wonderful work of free grace, the redemption of the world
balanced with the most wonderful work of free will, the obstinate
neglect of that redemption, ......... 63
X. The doctrine of free grace, and that of free will, farther maintained, . 76
XI. A rational and Scriptural view of the ninth chapter to the Romans, . 88
XII. Of an unconditional election of sovereign grace, and a conditional
election of impartial justice, 109
XIII. A view of St. Paul's doctrine in the, first chapter to the Ephesians, . 119
II. SCRIPTURE SCALES.— PART SECOND.
PREFACE. — An invitation to the contending parties to end the controversy, . 129
Explanation of some terms used in this work, ...... 134
SECTION I. The Scripture doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, . . 137
II. The doctrine farther weighed in the Scripture Scales, .... 146
III. The declaration of our Lord and his apostles concerning fallen believers, 153
IV. A double declaration proposed to guard the doctrines of free grace and
free obedience, 159
V. The doctrines of free grace and free will farther maintained by Scrip.
tural arguments, ........... 170
VI. How prescience is consistent with liberty, 176
VII. President Edwards and Voltaire's doctrine of necessity considered and
refuted, 184
VIII. The doctrines of free grace and free will, here maintained, are the very
doctrines of the primitive Church, and Church of England, . 199
IX. The earliest fathers held the doctrine of the Scripture Scales, . . 210
X. The marriage of free grace and free will reflects no dishonour on God's
sovereignty, .'••••«'<* '«n? . 226
XI. The Scriptures hold forth first and second causes, and primary and sub.
ordinate motives, . . *'•• . \ •'••«. ;':..... 238
XII. The author sums up the opposite errors of Zelotes and Honestus, and
invites them to a speedy reconciliation, • ' » ••' • : -.:. . 247
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
III. THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE.
SUCTION I. A plain account of the Gospel, and its various dispensations — It
holds forth the doctrines of justice as well as those of grace, Page 261
II. Remarks on the two Gospel axioms upon which the doctrines of grace
and justice are founded, 268
III. By whom chiefly the Gospel axioms were systematically parted, . 271
IV. Luther and Calvin did not restore the balance of the Gospel axioms; but
Cranmer did, 273
V. The two modern Gospels, and their dreadful consequences, . . . 277
IV. THE RECONCILIATION; OR, AN EASY METHOD TO UNITE
THE PEOPLE OF GOD.
SECTION I. The sad consequence of the division of those who make a pecu
liar profession of faith in Christ, ........ 285
II. Moderate Calvinists and Arminians may be easily reconciled to each other, 290
III. Eight pair of opposite propositions on which the opposite doctrines of
grace and justice are founded, ........ 296
IV. Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism stated in two essays, . . 299
V. Inferences from the two essays, 33G
VI. A plan of general reconciliation and union between moderate Calvinists
and Arminians, ........... 342
VII. Directions how to secure the blessings of peace and brotherly love, . 350
VIII. Farther motives to a speedy reconciliation, 357
V. REMARKS ON MR. TOPLADY'S SCHEME OF CHRISTIAN AND
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY.
INTRODUCTION, . . . . 3G7
SECTION I. A view of Mr. Toplady's scheme — It represents God as the first
cause of all sin and damnation, 369
II. His error is overthrown by fourteen arguments, 376
III. Twelve keys to open the passages of Scripture on which he founds his
scheme, . 386
IV. The capital objections of the necessitarians to the doctrine of liberty
answered, ............ 402
V. The doctrine of necessity is the capital error of the Calvinists, and the
foundation of the most wretched schemes of philosophy and divinity, . 408
VI. ANSWER TO MR. TOPLADY'S VINDICATION OF THE DECREES.
INTRODUCTION, 415
SECTION I. The Calvinian scheme evidently implies that some men shall be
saved, do what they will; and others damned, do what they can, . 417
II. Calvinism upon its legs : or a full view of the arguments by which Mr.
Toplady attempts to reconcile Calvinism with God's holiness, . . 420
III. Mr. Toplady appeals in vain to Scripture and reason to support the ab
soluteness and holiness of the Calvinian decrees, .... 429
IV. Calvinian reprobation cannot be reconciled with Divine justice. . . 432
V. Much less can it be reconciled with Divine mercy, . . . 443
VI. A view of the manner in which Mr. Toplady attempts to prove Calvinian
reprobation from the Scriptures, 447
VII. The arguments answered by which Mr. Toplady tries to reconcile Cal
vinism with a future judgment, and absolute necessity with moral agency, 451
VIII. Mr. Toplady's arguments from God's prescience answered, . . 462
IX. An answer to the charges of robbing the trinity, and encouraging Deism, 467
CONTENTS CF \OLUME II. /
SECTION X. Mr. Topiady attempts in vain to retort the charge of Antinomian-
ism, and to show that Calvinism is more conducive to holiness, than the
opposite doctrine, Page 469
XI. A caution against the tenet, " Whatever is, is right," .... 473
XII. Some encouragements for those who, from a principle of conscience,
bear their testimony against absolute election and reprobation, . . 480
VII. POLEMICAL ESSAY.
PREFACE. — Reasons of the title given to this tract — The doctrines of the
heathens, the Papists, and Calvinists, concerning the purgation of souls
from the remains of sin — The purgatory recommended in this book, . 485
SECTION I. The doctrine of Christian perfection placed in a Scriptural light, 491
II. Pious Calvinists dissent from us chiefly because they confound the law of
innocence, and the law of liberty, or Adamic and Christian perfection, 495
III. Objections against this doctrine solved merely by considering the nature
of Christian perfection, 501
IV. The ninth and fifteenth articles of our Church, properly understood, are
not against the doctrine of Christian perfection — That our Church holds
it, is proved by thirteen arguments, 506
V. St. Peter and St. James declare for Christian perfection, . . .517
VI. St. Paul preached Christian perfection, and professed to have attained it, 521
VII. St. Paul was not carnal, and sold under sin — The true meaning of Gal.
v, 17, and of Rom. vii, 14, 529
VIII. An answer to the arguments by which St. Paul's supposed carnality is
fenerally defended, 540
t. Paul presents us with a striking picture of a perfect Christian, by
occasionally describing his own spirituality, 547
X. St. John is for Christian perfection, and not for a death purgatory, . 552
XI. Why the privileges of believers under the Gospel cannot be justly mea
sured by the experience of believers under the law of Moses, . . 559
XII. A variety of arguments to prove the absurdity of the twin doctrines of
Christian imperfection and a death purgatory, 564
XIII. A variety of arguments to prove the mischievousness of the doctrine
of Christian imperfection, 572
XIV. The arguments answered, by which the imperfectionists support the
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin till death, . 579
XV. The doctrine of Christian perfection is truly evangelical — A recapitula
tion of the Scripture proofs whereby it is maintained, .... 593
XVI. The distinction between sins and infirmities is truly Scriptural — An
answer to Mr. Henry's grand argument for the continuance of indwell
ing sin, 601
XVII. An address to perfect Christian Pharisees, 611
XVIII. To prejudiced imperfectionists, 616
XIX. To imperfect believers, who embrace the doctrine of Christian perfection, 627
XX. Address to perfect Christians, 657
ADVERTISEMENT.
IT is the author's desire that the following pages should be considered
as written for all those whom they exactly suit. And in order to this,
he informs the reader that, in general,
ZELOTES represents any zealous Solifidian, who, through prejudice,
looks upon the doctrine of free mil as heretical.
HONESTUS — any zealous moralist, who, through prejudice also, looke
upon the doctrine of free grace as enthusiastical.
LORENZO — any man of sense, yet unsettled in his religious principles,
CANDIDUS — any unprejudiced inquirer after truth, who hates bigotry,
and would be glad to see the differences among Protestants settled upon
rational and Scriptural terms.
A SOLIFIDIAN is one who maintains that we are completely and
eternally saved [sold fide] by sole faith — by faith alone ; and who does
it in so unscriptural a manner as to make good works unnecessary to
eternal salvation ; representing the law of Christ as a mere rule of life ;
and calling all those who consider that law as a rule of judgment,
legalists, Pharisees, or heretics.
A PREFATORY EPISTLE,
HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO THE TRUE PROTESTANTS
IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
Containing some remarks upon the distinguishing character of true Pro
testants, and upon the contrary disposition — True Protestants are chosen
judges of the doctrines advanced in this book — A sketch of the author's
plan — Observations upon the manner in which it is executed — General
directions to the reader — True Protestants are encouraged to protest
against religious absurdities, and unscriptural impositions — The author
enters a double protest against the ANTINOMIAN and PHARISAIC gospels
of the day, and continues to express his love and esteem for the good
men, who, through the force of prejudice, espouse and defend those par
tial gospels.
BRETHREN AND FATHERS, — Ye know how hard the Romanists fought
for their errors at the time of the reformation. They pleaded that
antiquity, synods, councils, fathers, canons, tradition, and the Church
were on their side : and they so obscured the truth by urging Scripture
metaphors, and by quoting unguarded passages from the writings of the
fathers, that thousands of simple people knew not which of the contend-
ing parties had the truth on its side. The great question debated in
those days was, whether the host, that is, the bread consecrated by the
priest in the Lord's Supper, was to be worshipped as the identical body
of our Lord. The Romanists produced Christ's own words : " Take
and eat, THIS is my body — this is my blood — drink of it. Except you
eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no life in you." The re-
formers answered, "That those expressions being fgurative, it was
absurd to take them in a literal sense ;" and they proved their assertion
by appeals to reason and to the Scriptures, where the consecrated bread
is plainly called bread. The Romanists replied, " that in matters of faith
we must set aside reason:" and some of them actually decried it as the
greatest enemy to faith ; while others continued to produce crude quota
tions from all the injudicious, inconsistent, overdoing fathers. The
reformers seeing that at this rate there would be no end to the contro
versy, protested three things in general : (1.) That right reason has an
important place in matters of faith. (2.) That all matters of faith may
and must be decided by Scripture understood reasonably, and consistently
with the context. And, (3.) That antiquity and fathers, traditions and
councils, canons and the Church, lose their authority when they depart
from sober reason and plain Scripture. These three 'pretests are the
very ground of our religion, when it is contradistinguished from popery.
They who stand to them deserve, in my humble opinion, the title of true
Protestants ; they are, at least, the only persons to whom this epistle is
inscribed.
12 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
If the preceding account be just, true Protestants are all candid
Christian candour being nothing but a readiness to hear right reason and
plain Scripture. Sincerely desirous to " prove all things, to hold fast that
which is good, and to approve things which are excellent," Protestants
are then never afraid to bring their creed to a reasonable and Scriptural
test. And conscious that the mines of natural and revealed religion are
not yet exhausted, they think, with the apostle, that if any man supposes
he has learned all that he should know, " he is vainly puffed up in his
fleshly mind, and knows nothing yet as he ought to know."
Hence it is, that of all the tempers which true Protestants abhor,
none seerns to them more detestable than that of those Gnostics, — those
pretenders to superior illumination, who, under the common pretence of
orthodoxy or infallibility, shut their eyes against the light, think plain
Scripture beneath their notice, enter their protests against reason, steel
their breasts against conviction, and are so rooted in blind obstinacy,
that they had rather hug error in an old fantastic dress, than embrace
the pure truth, newly emerging from under the streams of prejudice.
Impetuous streams these, which " the dragon casts out of his mouth, that
he may cause the celestial virgin to be carried away by the flood," Rev.
xii, 15. Alas ! how many professors are there, who, like St. Stephen's
opponents, judges, and executioners, are neither able to resist, nor willing
to admit the truth ; who make their defence by " stopping their ears, and
crying out, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we !"
who thrust the supposed heretic out of their sanhedrim ; who, from the
press, the pulpit, or the dictator's chair, send forth volleys of hard insin
uations or soft assertions, in hope that they will pass for solid arguments ;
and who, when they have no more stones or snow balls to throw at the
supposed Philistine, prudently avoid drawing " the sword of the Spirit,"
retire behind the walls of their fancied orthodoxy, raise a rampart of
slanderous contempt against the truth that besieges them, and obstinately
refuse either candidly to give up, or manfully to contend for the im-
scriptural tenets which they would impose upon others as pure Gospel.
Whether some of my opponents, good men as they are, have not in-
clined a little to the error of those sons of prejudice, I leave the candid
reader to decide. They have neither answered, nor yielded to the argu
ments of my Checks. They are shut up in their own city. Strong and
high are thy walls, O mystical Jericho ! Thy battlements reach unto the
clouds ; but truth, the spiritual ark of God, is stronger, and shall pre
vail. The bearing of it patiently around thy ramparts, and the blowing
of rams' horns in the name of the Lord, will yet shake the very founda
tion of thy towers. O that I had the honour of successfully mixing my
feeble voice with the blasts of the champions who encompass the devoted
city ! O that the irresistible shout, " Reason and Scripture, Christ and
the truth" were universal ! If this were the case, how soon would Jeri
cho and Babylon, Antinomianism and Pharisaism, fall together !
Those two antichristian fortresses are equally attacked in the follow
ing pages : and to you, true Protestants, I submit the inspection of the
attack. Direct me where I am wrong, assist me where I am right, noi
refuse to support my feebleness by your ardent prayers ; for, next to
the Captain of our salvation, I look to you for help and comfort.
My opponents and I equally pretend to Protestantism ; and who shall
PREFATORY EPISTI»E. 13
judge between us ? Shall it be the men of the world ? No : for St. Paul
says, " I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a WISE MAN
among you ? No, not one that shall be able to judge among his bre
thren ?" There are wise men in our despised camp, able to judge be
tween us : and ye are the men, honoured brethren ; for ye are all will
ing to hear reason, and ready to weigh Scripture. Therefore, on my
part, I sincerely choose you as judges of the present dispute.
And that you may not look upon this office as unworthy of your
acceptance, permit me to tell you, that our controversy is one. of the
most important wmch was ever set on foot. To convince you of it. 1
need only remind you, that the grand inquiry, What shall I do to be
saved 1 is entirely suspended on this greater question, Have I any thing
to do to be eternally saved ? A question this which admits of three an
swers : (1.) That of the mere Solijidian, who says, "If we are elect,
we have nothing to do in order to eternal salvation, unless it be to be
lieve that Christ has done all for us, and then to sing finished salvation ;
and if we are not elect, whether we do nothing, little or much, eternal
ruin is our inevitable portion." (2.) That of the mere moralist, who is as
great a stranger to the doctrine of free grace as to that of free wrath ; and
tells you " that there is no free, initial salvation for us ; and that we
must work ourselves into a state of initial salvation by dint of care, dili -
gence, and faithfulness." And (3.) That of the reconciler, whom I con
sider as a rational Bible Christian, and who asserts: (1.) That Christ
has done the part of a sacrificing priest and teaching prophet upon earth,
and does still that of an interceding and royal priest in heaven, whence
he sends his Holy Spirit to act as an enlightener, sanctifier, comforter,
and helper in our hearts. (2.) That "the free gift of initial salvation,"
and of one or more talents of saving grace, "is come upon all" through
the God-man Christ who "is the Saviour of all men, especially of
them that believe." And (3.) That our free will, assisted by that sav
ing grace imparted to us in the free gift, is enabled to work with God
in a subordinate manner : so that we may freely (without necessity) do
the part of penitent, obedient, and persevering believers, according to the
Gospel dispensation we are under.
This is the plan of this work, in which I equally fight pro OTIS etfocis,
for faith and works, for gratuitous mercy and impartial justice ; reconcil
ing all along Christ our Saviour with Christ our Judge, heated Augus
tine with Pelagius, free grace with free will, Divine goodness with
human obedience, the faithfulness of God's promises with the veracity of
his threatenings, FIRST with SECOND causes, the original merits of Christ
with the derived worthiness of his members, and Gi/d's foreknowledge
with our free agency.
The plan, I think, is generous ; standing at the utmost distance from
the extremes of bigots. It is deep and extensive ; taking in the most
interesting subjects about which professors generally divide, such as the
origin of evil, liberty, and necessity, the law of Moses and the Gospel
of Christ, general and particular redemption, the apostasy and per
severance of the saints, the election and reprobation maintained by St.
Paul, &c. I entirely rest the cause upon Protestant ground, that is, upon
reason and Scripture. Nevertheless, to show our antagonists that we arc
not afraid to meet them upon any ground, I prove, by sufficient testimo-
14 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
nies from the fathers and the reformers, that the most eminent divines^
in the primitive Church and our own, have passed the straits that I
point out ; especially when they weighed the heavy anchor of prejudice,
had a good gale of Divine wisdom, and steered by the Christian mari
ner's compass, the word of God, more than by the false lights hung ou*
by party men.
If I have in any degree succeeded in the execution of this reconciling
plan, I hope that my well meant attempt will provoke abler pens to exert
themselves ; and will excite more respectable di'7ineis to strike heavier
blows, and to repeat them, till they have given the finishing stroke to
divisions, which harden the world against Christianity, which have torn
the bosom of the Church for above twelve hundred years, and which
have hurt or destroyed myriads of her injudicious children ; driving
some into Pharisaic obedience, others into Antinomian immorality, and
not a few into open infidelity or fierce uncharitableness.
If a tradesman be allowed to recommend his goods, when he does it
in a manner consistent with modesty and truth, shall I be accused of
self conceit if I make some commendatory remarks upon the following
papers ? I venture to do it in the fear of God. And,
1. They are plain. I deal in plain reason and plain Scripture ; and
when the depth of my subject obliges me to produce arguments that re
quire close attention, I endeavour so to manage them, that they do not
rise above the reach of mechanics, nor sink beneath the attention of
divines.
2. I have been charged with widening the breaches, which the demon
of bigotry has made among religious people ; but, if I have done it, I
take the Searcher of hearts to witness, that it has been with such a de
sign as made our Lord bring fre upon the earth, — the fire of truth, to burn
the stubble of error, and to rekindle the flame of love. However, if I
have, in years past, made a wound rashly, (of which I am not yet con
scious,) in this book I bind it up, and bring the luealing, though (to proud
or relaxed flesh) painful balsam. This book is entirely written upon a
pacific plan. If I sometimes give the contending parties a keen reproof,
in obedience to the apostolic precept, " Rebuke them sharply," it is only
to make them ashamed of their contentious bigotry, that I may bring
them to reason the sooner. And if prejudiced readers will infer from
thence that I am a bad man, and that my pen distils gall, I forgive their
hasty conclusion : I once more send them back to the good men of old,
who have reproved far less errors with far greater severity than I allow
myself to use : and I ask, if persons, impatient of control, do not always
put wrong constructions upon the just reproofs which they are deter-
" mined to disregard ?
3. I hope that, notwithstanding the outcry raised against my former
Checks, they have been of some service to such readers as are not
steeled against argument and Scripture ; but I flatter myself that, through
God's blessing, this tract will be more useful : I prefer it, at least, far
before the others, because it has far more of GOD'S word, far less of
mine ; the Scriptures having so large a place in the following sheets,
that you will find whole sections filled with balanced passages, to
which, for brevity's sake, I have added nothing but a few illustrations in
brackets [ ]
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 15
4. My method, so far as I know, is new. I have seen several Con
cordances made of Scripture words, but have not yet met with one of
Scripture doctrines upon the delicate subjects handled in this book.
And I flatter myself that, as whatever throws light upon the Bible has
always met with approbation from true Protestants, you will not despise
this attempt to make the seeming contradictions of that precious book
vanish away, by demonstrating that they are only wise oppositions, not
less important in the world of grace, than the distinction of man and
wife is in the world of nature.
• 5. I hope that you will see, in the following pages, many passages
placed in such a light, as to have their force heightened, and their ob
scurity removed by the opposition of the scriptures with which they are
balanced ; the passages which belong to the doctrine of FREE GRACE,
illustrating those which belong to the doctrine of FREE WILL, and vice
versa, just as the lights and shades of a picture help to set off each other.
I therefore earnestly entreat all my readers, especially those who read
much and think little, to take time, and not to proceed to a new pair of
scriptures till they have found out the balance of the last pair which
they have reviewed. If they deny me this request, my trouble will be
lost with respect to them ; and, through their hurry, my Scales will de
generate into a dull collection of texts ; the very life and spirit of my
performance consisting in the harmonious opposition of the scriptures,
which prove my capital doctrine, that is, the Gospel marriage of free
grace and free will. And that the reader may find out, with ease, in
every couple of texts, the hands by which they are joined, and see (if I
may carry the allegory so far) the ring, by which their marriage is
ascertained, and their gender known, I have generally put in DIFFERENT
CHARACTERS the words on which the opposition or connection of the
paired texts chiefly depends ; hoping to help the reader's mind by giving
his eyes a silent call, and by meeting his attention half way. If he ex
erts his powers, and
" Si callida verbum
Rediderit junctura novum,"*
he will, through God's grace, profit by his labour and mine. But I
repeat it, he must find out the delicate connection, and harmonious oppo
sition of the paired scriptures which I produce, or my Scales will be of
as little service to him as a pair of scale bottoms without a beam would
be to a banker, who wants to weigh a thousand guineas.
6. As I make my appeal to true Protestants, I lay a particular stress
upon the Scriptures. And there I find a doctrine which, for a long suc
cession of ages, has been partly buried in the rubbish of popery and
Calvinism : I mean the doctrine of the various dispensations of Divine
grace toward the children of men ; or of the various talents of saving
grace which the Father of lights gives to heathens, Jews, and Christians.
To the obscurity in which this doctrine has been kept, we may chiefly
impute the self-electing narrowness, and the wide-reprobating partiality
of the Romish and Calvinian Churches. I make a constant use of this
important doctrine. It is it chiefly which distinguishes this tract from
most polemical writings upon the same subject. It is my key and my
* If a delicate connection renders the word new to him.
16 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
sword. With it I open the mysteries of election and reprobation ; and
with it I attempt to cut the Gordian (should I not say the Calvinian and
Pelagian ?) knot. How far I have succeeded is yours to decide.
If these general observations, O ye true Protestants, make you cast a
favourable look upon my Scales ; and if, after a close trial, you find
that they contain the reconciling truth, and the ONE complete Gospel of
Christ, rent by Zelotes and Honestus to make the TWO partial gospels
of the day ; let me entreat you to show what you are, by boldly stand
ing up for reason and Scripture, that is, for true Protestantism. Equally
enter your protest against the Antinomian innovations of Zelotes, and
the Pharisaic mistakes of Honestus. These two champions have indeed
their thousands, and tens of thousands at their feet ; and they may unite
their adverse forces to oppose you, as Jews and Gentiles did to oppose
the Prince of Peace. But resist them with " the armour of righteous
ness on the right hand and on the left," and you will in time make them
friends to each other and to yourselves ; I say in time, because when
peaceful men rush between fierce combatants in order to part them,
they at first get nothing but blows. The confusion for a time increases ;
and idle spectators, who have not love and courage enough to rush into
the danger, and to stop the mischief, say that the peace makers only add
fuel to the fire of discord. Thus are the courageous sons of peace
" hated of all men" but of true Protestants, for treading in the steps of
the Divine Reconciler, whom the two rivals, Herod and Pilate, agreed
to set at naught — whom Jews and Gentiles concurred to crucify, inve
terate enemies as they were to each other ! He died, the loving Recon
ciler — he died ! but by his death " he slew the enmity — broke down the
middle wall of partition — of twain made one new man ; so making peace"
between Herod and Pilate, between Jews and Gentiles. And so will
you, honoured brethren, between Zelotes and Honestus, between the
Calvinists and the Pelagians, between the Solifidians and the moralists ;
if you lovingly and steadily try to reconcile them. You may indeed be
"numbered among transgressors" for attempting it. Your reputation
may even die between that of the fool and of the knave — that of the
enthusiast and of the felon : but be not afraid. Truth and the Cruci
fied are on your side. God will raise you secret friends. A Joseph, a
Nicodemus, will take down "the hand writing that is against you." A
Mary and a Salome will embalm your name ; and if it be buried in obli
vion and reproach, yet it will rise again the third day.
If God is for you, fear not then what man can say of you, or even do
to you. Smile at Antinomian preterition : triumph in Pharisaic repro
bation : and when you are reviled for truth's sake, like blunt, resolute,
loving Stephen, kneel down, and pray that the sin of your mistaken
opposers may not be laid to their charge. O for the Protestant spirit
which animated confessors of old, carried martyrs singing to the stake,
and there helped them to clap their hands in the flames kindled by the
implacable abettors of error ! O for a Shadrach's resolution ! The rich,
glittering image towers toward heaven, and vies with the meridian sun.
Nebuchadnezzar, the monarch of the kings of the earth, points at the
burning fiery furnace. The princes, governors, captains, judges, coun-
sellers, sheriffs, and rulers of provinces, in all their dazzling magnifi
cence, increase the glory of his terror. The sound of the cornet, flute.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 17
harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, recommends
the pompous delusion : the enthusiastic multitudes are fired into univer
sal applause. In Nebuchadnezzar's sense of the word, they are all
orthodox ; they all believe the Gospel oftJie day, " Great is the Diana of
the Babylonians." "All people, nations, and languages, fall down"
before her. But the day is not lost : Shadrach has not yet bowed the
knee to Baal : nor have his two friends yet deserted him. " What '
three !" Yes, three only. Nor are they unequally matched ; one Sha
drach against cdl people ! One Meshach against all nations ! One Abed-
nego against all languages! One Luther, one Protestant against all the
world ! O ye iron pillars of truth — ye true Protestants of the day, my
exulting soul meets you in the plain of Dura. Next to Him who wit
nessed alone a good confession before Pontius Pilate, of you I learn to
protest against triumphant error. Truth and a furnace for us ! The
truth — the whole truth as it is in Jesus, and a burning fiery furnace for
true Protestants !
And shall we forget thee, O thou " man greatly beloved," — thou
pattern of undaunted Protestants ? Shall we silently pass over thy bold
protest against the foolish, absolute, irreversible decree of the day?' No,
Daniel : we come to pay our tribute of admiration to thy blessed memory,
and to learn of thee also a lesson of true Protestantism. Consider him,
my brethren. His sworn enemies watch him from the surrounding
palaces : but he believes in " the Lion of the tribe of Judah," and his
fearless soul has already vanquished their common lions. He opens his
window, he looks toward desolate Jerusalem, with bended knees he pre
sents his daily supplication for her prosperity, with uplifted hands hv
enters his Jewish protest against the Persian statute ; and, animated by
his example, I enter my Christian protest against the Calvinian decree
" If Daniel, in sight of the lions, durst testify his contempt of an
absurd and cruel decree, wantonly imposed upon his king ; by which
decree the king hindered his subjects from offering any true prayer for
a month, under pretence of asserting his own absolute sovereignty ; shall
I be ashamed to enter my protest against a worse decree, absurdly im
posed upon the Almighty on the very same absurd pretence ? A decree
which hinders ' the Saviour of the world ' from « praying for the world T
A decree which Calvin himself had the candour to call horribile decre-
turn 1 O how much better is it to impose upon an earthly king a decree
restraining the Persians from praying aright for thirty days, than to im
pose upon the King of kings a decree hindering the majority of men, in all
countries and ages, from praying once aright during their whole lives 1 And
if Darius stained his goodness by enacting that those who disobeyed his
UN-FORCIBLE decree should be cast into the den of lions, and devoured
in a moment ; how do they stain God's goodness, who teach us, as
openly as they dare, that he will cast into the den of devils, and cause
to be devoured by flames unquenchable, all those whom his FORCIBLE
decree binds either not to pray at all, or to offer up only hypocritical pray-
ers ! I PROTEST against doctrines of grace, which cannot stand without
such doctrines of wrath. I PROTEST against an exalting of Christ, which
-so horribly debases God. I PROTEST against a new-fangled Gospel,
which holds forth a robe of finished salvation., lined with such irreversible
and jin-vihed damnation"
VOL. II. 2
18 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
Again : " If Moses had courage enough in a heathen country, and in
the midst of his enemies, to enter his protest against the oppressive
decree by which Pharaoh required of the Israelites their usual tale of
bricks, when he refused them fuel to burn them with : shall I be afraid,
in this PROTESTANT kingdom, and in the midst of my friends, to bear also
my testimony against the error of Honestus 1 An error this, which con
sists in asserting that our gracious God has decreed that we shall work
out our own salvation without having first life and strength to work im
parted to us in a state of initial salvation ? Without being first Jtelped
by his free grace to do whatever he requires of us in order to our eter
nal salvation ? Shall such a supposed decree as this be countenanced by
a silence that gives consent ? No : I must, I do also enter my protest
against it, as being contrary to Divine goodness, derogatory to Christ's
merits, subversive of the penitent's hope, destructive of the believer's
joy. unscriptural, irrational. And agreeably to our tenth article, I
IKOTEST: (1.) In opposition to Pharisaic pride, that we haie no power
io do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God
preventing us that we may Jiave a good will, and working with us when we
have that good will. And (2.) In opposition to Pharisaic bigotry, I PRO
TEST, upon the proofs which follow, that God's saving grace has appeared
in different degrees to all men ; PREVENTING [not FORCING] them, that they
may have a good will, and WORKING WITH [Note, our Church does not
say, DOING ALL FOR] them when they hare that good will. And I hope,
that when my Protestant brethren shall be acquainted with the merits of
the cause, they will equally approve of my anti-Solifidian and of rny
anti-Pharisaic protest."
But shall a blind zeal for truth carry me beyond the bounds of love ?
Shall I hate Zelotes and Honestus, because I think it my duty to bear
"my full testimony against their errors ? God forbid ! I have entered two
protests as a divine, and now permit me, my Protestant brethren, to enter
a third as a plain Christian. Before the Searcher of hearts I once more
protest, that I make a great difference between the persons of good men,
und their opinions, be these ever so pernicious. The God who loves me,
— the God whom I love, — the God of love and truth teaches me to give
error no quarter, and to confirm my love toward the good men who pro
pagate it ; not knowing what they do, or believing that they do God
service. And I humbly hope that their good intentions will, hi some
degree, excuse the mischief done by their bad tenets. But, in the mean
time, mischief, unspeakable mischief is done, and the spreading plague
must be stopped. If in trying to do it as soon and as effectually as
possible, I press hard upon Zelotes arid Honestus, and without ceremony
drive them to a comer, I protest, it is only to disarm them, that I may
make them submit to Christ's easy yoke of evangelical moderation and
brotherly kindness.
A polemical writer ought to be a champion for the truth ; and a cham
pion for the truth who draws only a wooden sword, or is afraid lovingly
to use a steel one, should, I think, be hissed out of the field of controversy,
as well as the disputant who goes to Billingsgate for dust, mud, and a
dirty knife, >and the wretch who purposely misses his opponent's argu
ments that he may basely stab his character. I beg, therefore, that the
reader would not imoute to a " bad spirit," the keenness which I indulge
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 19
for conscience' sake ; assuring him that, severe as I am sometimes upon
the errors of my antagonists, I not only love, but also truly esteem them :
Zelotes, on account of his zeal for Christ ; Honestus, on account of his
attachment to sincere obedience ; and both, on account of their genuine,
though mistaken piety.
Do not think, however, that I would purchase their friendship by giv
ing up one of my scales, that is one half of the Bible. Far be the mean
compliance from a true Protestant. I hope that I shall cease to breathe,
before 'I cease to enter protests against Antinomian faith and Pharisaic
works, and against the mistakes of good men, who, for want of Scrip
ture scales, honestly weigh the truth in a false balance, by which they
are deceived first, and with which they afterward inadvertently deceive
others.
But, although I would no more yield to their bare assertions or incon
clusive arguments, than to hard names or soft speeches, I hope, my
honoured brethren, that they and you will always find me open to, and
thankful for, every reproof, admonition, and direction which is properly
supported by the two pillars of Protestantism — sound reason* and plain
Scripture : for, if I may depend upon the settled sentiments of my mind,
and the warm feelings of my heart, I am determined, as well as you, to
live and die a consistent Bible Christian. And so long as I shall con
tinue in that resolution, I hope you will permit me to claim the honour of
ranking with you, and of subscribing myself, brethren and fathers, your
affectionate brother, and obedient son in the WHOLE Gospel of Christ,
A TRUE PROTESTANT.
POSTSCRIPT.
CONTAINING SOME STRICTURES UPON A NEW PUBLICATION OF
RICHARD HILL, ESQ..
SOME time after I had sent this epistle to the press, one of my neigh
bours favoured me with the sight of a pamphlet, which had been hawked
about my parish by the newsman. It is entitled, Three Letters written
by Richard Hill, Esq., to the Rev. John Fletcher, &c. It is a second
Finishing Stroke, in which that gentleman gives his " reasons for declin
ing any farther controversy relative to Mr. Wesley's principles." He
quits the field ; but it is like a brave Parthian. He not only shoots his
own arrows as he retires, but borrows those of two persons whom he
calls "a very eminent minister in the Church of England," and "a lay
gentleman of great learning and abilities." As I see neither argument
nor Scripture in the performances of these two new auxiliaries, I shall take
no notice of their ingrafted productions.
With respect to Mr. Hill's arguments, they are the same which he
advanced in his Finishing Stroke : nor need we wonder at his not scru
pling to produce them over again, just as if they had been overlooked
by his opponent ; for, in the first page of his book, he says, " I have not
* By " sound reason" I mean the light of the world,— the true light which en
lightens every man that comes into the world.
20 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
read a single page, which treats on the subject, since I wrote my Finish-
ing Stroke." But, if Mr. Hill has not read my answer to that piece,
some of our readers have ; and they will remember that the crambe re-
petita—l mean his supposition that St. Paul and St. John held Dr. Crisp's
doctrinal peculiarities, is answered in part first of the Fifth Check,
[toward the close of the first volume.] As for his common plea, taken
from the objection, Who hath resisted his u-ill ? it is answered in this
book.
^As Mr. Hill's arguments are the same, so are also his personal charges.
After passing some compliments upon me as an " able defender" of Mr.
Wesley's principles, he continues to represent me as " prostituting noble
endowments to the advancing of a party." He affirms, but still without
shadow of proof, that he has « detected many misrepresentations of facts
throughout my publications." He accuses me of using " unbecoming
artifices, much declamation, chicanery, and evasion ;" and says, " Upon
these accounts I really cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, &c,
read the works of one who, I am in continual suspicion, is endeavouring
to mislead me by false glosses and pious frauds." If I were permitted to put
this argument in plain English, it would run thus : — I bespatter my oppo
nent's character, therefore his arguments are dangerous and not worth
my notice. I do not find it easy to overthrow one of the many scrip,
tures which he has produced against Antinomianism, but I can set them
all aside at a finishing stroke ; for I can say, " The shocking misrepre
sentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will for the future pre
vent me from looking into any of your books if you should write a thou
sand volumes. So here the controversy must end." (Finishing Stroke,
p. 40.) When Mr. Hill had explained himself so clearly about his rea
son for declining the controversy, is it riot surprising that he should suffer
uuie.->» liiyswu me vniuicaior.
But another author vindicates those principles also. It is Mr. Olivers,
whom Mr. Hill calls " one Thomas Oliver, alias Olivers." This author
was twenty five years ago a mechanic, and like " one" Peter, " alias"
Simon, a fisherman, and « one" Saul. « alias" Paul, a tent maker, has had
the honour of being promoted to the dignity of a preacher of the Gospel ;
and his talents as a writer, a logician, a poet, and a composer of sacred
music, are known to those who have looked into his publications. Mr.
Hill informs the public why he takes as little notice of this able opponent's
arguments as he does of mine ; and the " reason" he " sets forth" is worthy
of the cause which he defends. En argumentum palmarium ! " I shall not,"
says he, "take the least notice of him, or read a line of his composition,
any more than if I was travelling on the road, I would stop to lash, or
even order my footman to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a
village, that should come out and bark at me ; but would willingly let
the contemptible animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven
me out of sight." How lordly is this speech ! How surprising in the
mouth of a good man, who says to the carpenter, My Lord and my God !
When the author of " Goliah Slain" dropped it from his victorious pen,
had he forgotten the voluntary humility for which his doctrines of grace
1'REFATORY EPISTLE. 21
are so conspicuous ? Or did he come oft* in triumph from the slaughter of
the gigantic Philistine 1 O ye English Protestants, shall such lordly argu
ments as these make you submit to Geneva sovereignty 1 Will you be
" lashed," by such stalely logic as this, to the foot of the great image,
upon whose back you see absolute preteritwn written in such large cha
racters? Will you suffer reason and Scripture to be whipped out of the
field of controversy in this despotic manner ? Shall such imperial cords
as these bind you to the horns of an altar, where myriads of men are
intentionally slain before they are bom, and around which injudicious
worshippers so sing their unscriptural songs about finisJied salvation, as
to drown the dismal cries of insured destruction and finished dam
nation.
Mr. Hill's performance is closed by " a shocking, not to say blas
phemous confession of faith," in ten articles, which he supposes " must
inevitably be adopted, if not in express words, yet in substance, by every
Arminian whatsoever," especially by Mr. Wesley, Mr. Sellon, and my
self. As we desire to let true Protestants see the depth of our doctrine,
that they may side with us, if we are right, or point out our errors, if
we are wrong, I publish that creed, (see the close of vol. i,) frankly
adopting what is agreeable to our principles, and returning to Mr. Hill
the errors which his inattention makes him consider as necessary con
sequences of our doctrines of grace.
With respect to the three letters, which that gentleman has published
to set forth his reasons for declining the controversy with me, what are
they to the purpose? Does not the first of them bear date "July 31,
1773 ?" Now I beg any unprejudiced person to decide if a private let
ter, written on July 31, 1773, can contain a reasonable overture for
DECLINING THE CONTROVERSY, when the Finishing Stroke, which was
given me publicly, and bears date January 1, 1773, contains (page 40)
this explicit and final declining of it : " So here the controversy must end,
at least it shall end for me. You may misquote and misrepresent whom
soever and whatsoever you please, and you may do it with impunity ;
I assure you, I shall give myself no trouble to detect you." The contro
versy, therefore, was " declined" in January, on the above-mentioned
bitter reason. Mr. Hill cannot then reasonably pretend to have offered
to decline it in July, six or seven months after this, from sweet reasons
of brotherly kindness, and love for peace. "But in July Mr. Hill wrote
to his bookseller to sell no more of any of his pamphlets which relate to the
Minutes." True : but this was not declining the controversy ; and here
is the proof. Mr. Hill still professes " declining any farther controversy
about the Minutes," and yet in this his last publication, (page 11,) he
advertises the sale of all the books which he has written against them,
from the Paris Conversation to the Finishing Stroke. Therefore, Mr,
Hill himself being judge, declining the controversy, and stopping the sale
of his books, are different things.
Concerning the three letters I shall only add, that I could wish Mr.
Hill had published my answers to them, that his readers might have
seen I have not been less ready to return his private civilities, than to
ward off his public strokes. In one of them in particular, I offered to
send him my answer to his Finishing Slroke before it went to press, that
lie might let me know if in any thing I had misunderstood or misrepre-
PREFATORY EPISTLE.
sented him ; promising to alter my manuscript upon any just animad
version that he might make upon it ; because, after his Finishing Stroke,
he could not make a public reply without breaking his word. And it is
to this proposal that he replies thus in his second letter : " As you in-
tend to introduce my worthless name into your next publication, I must
beg to decline the obliging offer you make of my perusing your manu
script."
With respect to that gentleman's character, this after clap does not
alter my thoughts of it. I cannot but still love and honour him on
many — very many accounts. Though his warm attachment to what he
calls « the doctrines of grace," and what we call " the doctrines of limited
grace and free wrath" robs him, from time to time, of part of the mode
ration, patience, and meekness of wisdom, which adorn the complete
Christian character ; I cannot but consider him as a very valuable per
son. I do not doubt but when the paroxysm of his Calvinistic zeal shall
be over, he will be as great an ornament to the Church of England in
the capacity of a gentleman, as he is to civil society in the capacity of
a magistrate. And justice, as well as love, obliges me to say, that, in
the meantime, he is in several respects a pattern for all gentlemen of
fortune ; few equalling him in devoting a large fortune to the relief of
the poor, and their leisure hours to the support of what they esteem the
truth. Happy would it be for him, and for the peace of the Church, if,
to all his good qualities, he always added " the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit ;" and if he so far suspected his orthodoxy, as to conde
scend to weigh himself in the Scripture Scales.
EQUAL CHECK,
PART SECOND.
BEING THE FIKST PART OF
THE SCRIPTURE SCALES.
SECTION I.
The cause of the misunderstandings of pious Protestants — The contrary
mistakes of Zelotes and Honestus, who are invited to try their doctrines
by the Scripture Scales — The manner of using them, and the need of
them in our days.
FIRST and second causes, leading and subordinate motives, may per
fectly agree together. The hinder wheels of a chariot need not be
taken off because they are not the fore wheels. It would be absurd to
pull down the left wing of a palace, merely because it is opposed to the
right. And a man makes himself ridiculous who destroys one of his
scales because it accidentally outweighs the other : for both scales may
recover their equilibrium, and answer the best of purposes.
Such, if I mistake not, is the necessary distinction, and such the nice
union, that subsist between those two opposite and yet harmonizing,
exploded and yet capital doctrines of the Gospel, which we call free
grace and free will. To demonstrate that their due conjunction in our
hearts forms the spiritual marriage of faith, and gives birth to all good
works, I have ventured upon the construction of " the Scales," which
the reader will find in these pages. If their composition is human, their
materials are Divine ; for they consist of plain scriptures, chiefly placed
under two heads of doctrine, which, for their justness and importance,
may be called the weights of the sanctuary. (1.) Our salvation is of
God. (2.) Our damnation is of ourselves. The first of these proposi
tions is inseparably connected with the doctrine of free grace ; nor can
the second stand but upon the doctrine of free will : two doctrines these
which the moralists and the Solifidians have hitherto thought incom
patible ; and about which some of them have contended with the utmost
acrimony of temper and language.
Even men of piety have rashly entered the lists, some against free
grace, others against free will ; warmly opposing what they should have
mutually defended. The cause of their misunderstanding is very singu
lar. They are good men upon the whole, therefore they can never
oppose truth as truth : and as they are not destitute of charity, they
cannot quarrel merely for quarreling's sake. Whence then springs their
continual contest ? Is it not from gross partiality, excessive jealousy,
wilful inattention, and glaring prejudice ? They will not look Gospel
truth full in the face : they are determined to stand on either side of
her, and by that means seldom see above the half of her beauty.
But all the Protestants are not so partial : for while the Solifidians
EQUAL CHECK. ]PART
gaze upon the side face of Christianity on the right hand, and the moral-
ists on the left; her unprejudiced lovers, humbly sitting at her feet, and
beholding her in full, admire the exquisite proportion of all her features ;
an advantage this which the opposite rivals can, never have in their pre
sent unfavourable position. Therefore, while a mere moralist considers
as " enthusiastic rant," the doctrine of free grace extolled by the Soli-
fidians ; and while a bound-wilier brands as " dreadful heresy," the
doctrine of free will espoused by the moralists ; an unprejudiced Chris
tian equally embraces the pretended « enthusiasm" of the one, and the
imaginary " heresy" of the other ; being persuaded, that the different
sentiments of those partial contenders for free grace and free will are
only the opposite truths which form the complete beauty of genuine
Protestantism.
This contrary mistake of the moralists, and of the Solifidians, is
attended with the most fatal consequences ; for, as they receive only one
part of the truth, they think to do God service by attacking the other,
which they rashly take for a dangerous error ; and, so far as the influ
ence of their contrary misconception reaches, the whole truth is destroyed.
Primitive Christianity, in their busy hands, seems to be in as much danger
of losing her capital doctrines, as the elderly man in the fable was of
losing his hair between his two wives : one was young, and could not
bear his partly silvered locks ; the other, who was old, wanted him to
be altogether as gray as herself. Both accordingly fell to work ; and
in a little time the young wife had so plucked out his white hairs, and
the old woman his black ones, that he remained absolutely bald.
Will you see their ridiculous conduct exemplified in" the religious
world ? Consider Hosicstus, the sedate moralist ; and Zelotes, the warm
Solifidian. HONESTUS, who values the ten commandments far above the
three creeds, seldom dwells upon Christ's redeeming love and atoning
blood. Out of the church he rarely mentions the inspiration of God's
Spirit, or the comforts of the Holy Ghost ; and it is well if he does not
think that our addresses to the Mediator are remains of Papistical idol
atry. He piques himself much upon his honesty; and hoping that his
free will, best endeavours, and good works, are almost sufficient to save
him, he leaves the doctrine of a sinner's justification by faith to Zelotes
and Paul. ZELOTES flies to the other extreme. His creed is all ; and,
so far as decency permits, he insinuates that believers may break the
first and second commandment with Solomon, the third with Peter, the
fifth with Absalom, the sixth and seventh with David, the eighth with
Onesimus, and the two last with Ananias and Sapphira ; in short, that
they may go any length in sin without endangering in the least their title
to a crown of glory. He thinks that the contrary doctrine is rank
popery. Some of his favourite topics are : (1.) God's unconditio?ial
election of some to finished salvation ; an election this which necessarily
includes God's unconditional appointment of the rest of mankind to finished
damnation! (2.) An unchangeable fondness of God, and a partial atone-
ment of Christ, for a comparatively small number of the children of men ;
a fondness and an atonement these, which include also an unchangeable
nrath against, and an absolute reprobation of all the world beside. And.
(3.) A zealous decrying of free will and sincere obedience, under the
specious oretence of exalting Christ and free grace. As for the justifica-
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 25
tionofa BELIEVER by works and not by faith only, he leaves it to Honestus,
Bellarmine, and St. James.
If the sum of Christ's religion is, Cordially believe, and sincerely obey ;
and if Honestus makes almost nothing of saving faith, while Zelotes
makes next to nothing of sincere obedience, is it not evident that between
them both genuine Protestantism is almost destroyed 1 If I may compare
Christianity to the woman that St. John saw in one of his visions ; how
barbarously is she used by those two partial lovers ! Both pretend to
have the greatest regard for her : both have publicly espoused her : both
perhaps equally recommend her from the pulpit : but, alas ! both, though
without any bad design, use her with the greatest unkindness ; for while
Honestus divests her of her peculiar doctrines and mysteries, Zelotes robs
her of her peculiar precepts and sanctions. Thus the one (if I may
carry the allegory so far) puts out her right, and the other her left eye :
the one stabs her in the right side, and the other in the left : and this
they do upon a supposition that as soon as all their dreadful operations
shall be performed, Christianity will shine in the perfection of her native
beauty.
While the heavenly woman, mutilated by those partial lovers, lies
thus bleeding and deformed in the midst of spiritual Egypt, LORENZO
casts his eyes upon her ; and starting back at the sight, he wisely pro
tests that lie cannot embrace so deformed a religion : and it is well if,
in this critical moment, a painted Jezebel, who courts his affections, does
not ensnare his unwary soul. She calls herself Natural Religion, but
her right name is Skepticism in infancy, Infidelity in youth, Fatalism in
ripe years, and Abaddon in old age. Guilty, thrice guilty will Honestus
and Zelotes prove, if they continue to drive the hesitating youth into the
arms of that syren, by continuing to render Christianity monstrous in
his eyes !
O mistaken men of God, before you have caused Lorenzo's ruin, be
persuaded to review your doctrine ; nor refuse to weigh it in the balance
of the sanctuary. If fine gold loses nothing in the fiercest fire, what
can your sentiments lose in my Scripture Scales ? Let cheats dread to
have their weights tried by the royal standard ; but do not you start from
the trial. I acknowledge your honesty beforehand. If your weights
should prove false, your reputation is safe. My readers will do you
justice ; they will perceive that, far from having had any intention to
deceive others, you yourselves have been the dupes of your own preju
dice ; thus will your mistakes be found out to your profit, and not to
your shame.
The error of Honestus and that of Zelotes being opposite, so must be
their method of using the Scripture Scales. Honestus, who inclines to
the neglect of Christ, and to the contempt of free grace, must weigh
himself against the scriptures which follow No. I, and batter down
Pharisaic dotages ; that is, he must read those scriptures over with
attention, asking his conscience if he honestly insists upon them as the
primary truths of Christianity ; and if he may not rank with modern
Pharisees, so far as he opposes or despises those scriptures. On the
other hand, Zelotes, who keans to the disregard of sincere obedience,
good works, and free will, must weigh himself against No. II, under
which he will find the scriptures that oppose the Antinomian delusion
26 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
confessing that, so far as he sets them aside, he clips away the secondary
truths of the Gospel, mangles Bible Christianity, and strengthens the
hands of immoral gospellers and flagitious Antinomians.
If Zelotes and Honestus will not weigh their doctrine in the Scripture
Scales, Candidas will do it for them. Prejudice has not yet captivated
him, nor is he unacquainted with Church history. He believes that the
pope himself is not infallible. He knows all that glitters as Gospel, is
not Gospel gold. He remembers, that for several hundred years the
worship of a consecrated wafer was esteemed a capital part of " ortho
doxy" all England over ; and he has observed, that the cautions of my
motto are particularly given with respect to those who say, I am Christ,
that is, " I represent him as his Gospel minister, his faithful ambassador ;
I thank God that I am not like that Methodist ranter, or that dreadful
heretic." In a word, Candidus is modest enough not to think any part
of Scripture beneath his notice ; and he is not such a bigot as to sup-
pose it a crime to compare spiritual things with spiritual ; and to make
the candle of truth burn brighter, by snuffing away the black excrescence
of error.
To you, therefore, Candidus, I particularly dedicate my Scripture
Scales. Despise them not at a time when the Gospel gold, the coin
current in the Church, is far lighter in proportion than the material gold
was last year in these kingdoms ; — at a time when the Antinomians
have so filed away the arms of the King of kings, that it is hard to dis
tinguish whether they are quartered with a dove, a goose, or a hawk ;
a lamb, a lion, or a goat ; — at a time when the Solifidians have so clip
ped the royal motto, that many, instead of " holiness," inadvertently read
" filthiness unto the Lord ;" — at a time when, on the other hand, Phari
saic moralists make it their business so to deface the head of the King
of saints on the Gospel coin, that you might take it for the head of
Seneca, or that of M. Antonine ; — at a time when dealers in orthodoxy
publicly present you with one half of the golden truth, wrhich they want
to pass for the whole , — at a time when some openly assert, that dung
is gold — that impure doctrines are the pure Gospel ; and that gold is
"dung" — that good works are "dross;" — at such a time, I say, stand
upon your guard, Candidus. Beware of men ; beware of me ; nor use
my Scales till you have tried them by the Old and New Testament,
those balances of the sanctuary, which you have at home. But if, upon
close examination, you find that they differ chiefly in cheapness, size,
and conveniency, adopt the invention ; and when you are going to read
a religious book, or to hear a sermon, imitate the prudent trader, who
goes to receive money ; take your scales, and use them according to
the following directions : —
1. Keep them even. Let not the strings of your entangled affections
for this or that preacher, or your attachment to one or another party,
give a hasty preponderance to either scale. Fairly suspend your judg
ment, till it honestly turn by the full weight of truth and evidence. Con
sider that the Lord is a God of knowledge, by whom actions are weighed ;
and call upon him for impartiality ; remembering that with what measure
ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
2. Please to observe, that preaching the doctrines which follow No. I.
does not prove that a minister is an Antmomian, any more than preach
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 27
ing the doctrines which follow No. II, proves that he is a Pharisee ; but
preaching them in such a manner as directly or indirectly attacks, op
poses, or explains away the doctrines in the other scale ; in open defiance
of one half of the scriptures, which represent free grace and holy free
will as the flux and reflux of Divine grace, by which alone the city of
God flourishes, and through which only her commerce with heaven can
be profitably carried on. If, therefore, you hear a man say, " I was by
nature a child of wrath, and by practice the chief of sinners : not by
works of righteousness which I have done, but by grace I am saved,"
&c, set him not down for a son of voluntary humility. And if he cries
out, " I have lived in all good conscience unto this day, — touching the
righteousness which is in the law, I am blameless : be followers of me :
work out your own salvation : in so doing you shall save yourself," &c,
do not rank him with the barefaced sons of pride : but look into both
scales ; and if you find that he honestly uses ALL the weights of the
sanctuary, and does the two Gospel axioms justice, as St. Paul, acknow
ledge him a workman wlio needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing tJie
word of ti^uth.
3. Consider times, persons, places, circumstances, and subjects ; nor
imitate the unreasonable scrupulosity of the man who will make no more
allowance for the fair wear of a good old guinea, than for the felonious
diminishing of the coin that was delivered last week at the mint. Do
riot make a man an offender for a word, or a phrase ; no, not for such
unscriptural phrases as " the imputed righteousness of Christ," and
"sinless perfection." Nor forget, that, although error is never to be
propagated, yet all the branches of truth can never be displayed at once ;
and grant a man time to unfold his sentiments before you accuse him of
countenancing Pharisaic or Antinomian dotages : otherwise you might
charge St. Paul with Solifidianism, and Christ himself with Pharisaical
errors.
4. Above all, remember that, although you have all orthodoxy and all
faith, you are nothing without humility and love : therefore, when you
weigh a preacher's doctrine, throw into his scale two or three grains of
the charity that is not puffed up, thinketh no evil, and hopeth all things
consistently with Scripture and reason. If you neglect this caution, you
will slide into the severity of a lordly inquisitor ; or at least into the im
plicit faith of a tame Papist : and the moment this is the case, throwing
one scale away, and casting all your weights into the other, you will be
come a blind follower of the first warm preacher that shall hit your fancy,
work upon your passions, foment your prejudices, tickle your itching
ears, or encourage your party spirit ; whether he be Honestus or Gallio,
Elymas or Zelotes.
SECTION II.
Containing some general observations upon God's free grace and our per
sonal free will, which are represented, as the wiginal causes of salvation
and damnation.
CICERO, heathen as he was, asserted " that there is no great," and
consequently no good " man," (sine aliquo ajflatu divino,) " without some
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
influence from the Deity." This influence our Church calls inspiration :
(" Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy
Spirit:") and St. Paul calls it grace, giving that name sometimes to the
fountain of Divine goodness, and sometimes to the innumerable streams
which flow from that eternal fountain. A man must then be darker than
a thoughtful heathen, and as blind as an Atheist, if he absolutely denies
the existence of Divine grace. And, on the other hand, if we deny that
there is in man a power to will or to choose, the words / will, I choose, I
will not, I refuse, which are in every body's mouth, will prove us per-
verse. Now, if there is such a thing as grace in God, and witt or power
of choosing in man ; both that grace and that will are free. The nature
of the thing, and the well known meaning of the words, imply as much ;
a bounty, which we are obliged to bestow, hardly deserving the name of
grace or favour ; and a choice, to which we are forced, — a choice,
which is not accompanied with an alternative, — deserving the name of
necessity or compulsion better than that of will, choice, or liberty.
Again : are not God's grace and man's will perpetually mentioned, or
alluded to by the sacred writers ? Nay, does not Honestus himself
sometimes indirectly set his seal to the doctrine of free grace, when he
implores Divine mercy at the foot of the throne of grace 1 And warmly
as Zelotes exclaims against the doctrine of free will, does he not fre
quently grant that there is such a thing as choice, liberty, or free will, in
the world 1 And if there be, is not this choice, liberty, or free will, the
reverse of necessity, as well as of unwillingness 1 If I freely choose to
blow my brains out, is it not evident that I have a liberty not to commit
that crime, as well as a willingness to do it ? Would not Zelotes expose
his good sense by seriously asserting that if he were in prison, a wil
lingness to continue there would make him free ; unless, together with
that willingness, he had a power to go out if he pleased? And is it right
in him to impose the doctrine of necessity upon the simple, by playing
upon the double meaning of the word/ree? I beg leave to explain .&is
a little more.
According to the full meaning of the word free, can it be said with
any propriety that Judas went freely to hell, if he never had power to
go to heaven ? Or that David went freely to heaven, if he was always
hindered by an absolute, irresistible decree from going to hell ? And, allud
ing to mechanical freedom, I ask, Was the motion of those scales ever
free, which never were as free to ascend as to descend ? Does not ex
perience convince us, that, when one scale is kept from freely descend
ing, the opposite scale is by the same means kept from ascending freely ?
Is it not evident, from the same rational principles, that no sinner can
freely » choose death in the error of his ways," who has not power to
" choose life ;" a free choice of death necessarily implying a free refu
sal of life, and a free choice of life necessarily supposing a free refusal
of death, in a state of temptation and probation ? And is not this doc
trine perfectly agreeable to such scriptures as these : " He shall know
to refuse the evil and choose the good. Choose whom you will serve.
Because ye refused, &c, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, &c ;
therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their
own devices ?"
Upon the preceding observations, seconded by the arguments which
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 29
shall follow ; — upon the consent of all judicious and good men, who,
sooner or later, grant that there are such things as God's grace and
man's unnecessitated choice ; and consequently such things as free
grace and free will in the moral world ; — upon the repeated testimonies
of the most pious Christians of all denominations, who agree that we
ought to " give God the glory" of our salvation, and to keep to ourselves the
blame of our damnation ; and upon almost numberless declarations of
the Scriptures, I rest these two propositions, which, if I mistake not,
deserve the name of GOSPEL AXIOMS: (1.) Our salvation is ORIGINALLY
of God's FREE GRACE. (2.) Our damnation is ORIGINALLY of our own
FREE WILL.
HONESTUS, who believes in general that the Bible is true, cannot
decently oppose the first axiom ; • for according to the Scriptures, God's
free grace gave Christ freely for us, and to us : for us, that he might " be a
propitiation lor the sins of the whole world :" and to us, that by " the
light which enlightens every man that comes into the world," the strong
propensity to evil which we had contracted by the fall of Adam might
be counterbalanced ; and that, by " the saving grace of God, which has
appeared to all men," we might, while the day of salvation lasts, be
blessed with a gentle bias to good, to counteract our native bias to evil ;
and be excited by internal helps, external calls, and gracious opportuni
ties, to resist our evil inclinations, to follow the bias of Divine grace, and
to " work out our own salvation with fear and trembling," in due subordi
nation to the Saviour and his grace.
Nor can ZELOTES, who professes a peculiar regard for God's glory,
reject the second Gospel axiom with any decency : for if our own free
will makes us freely and unnecessarily " neglect, so great salvation" as
Christ initialli/ imparts to us, and offers eternally to bestow upon us on
the gracious terms of the Gospel ; is it not ridiculous to exculpate us,
by charging either God or Adam, or both together, with our damnation 1
And do we not cast the most horrible reflection upon " the Judge of all the
earth, and the Father of mercies," if we suppose that he " has appointed
a day to judge the world in righteousness," and sentence to the gnaw-
ings of a worm that dieth not, and to the preyings of a fire that is not
quenched, numberless myriads of his poor creatures, merely for want
ing a faith which he determined they should never have ; or for doing
what they could no more help to do, than a pound can help weighing
sixteen ounces ?
Impartially read any one book in the Bible, and you will find that it
establishes the truth of the two following propositions : —
I. II.
God hath freely done great things He wisely looks for some return
for man ; and the still greater things from man ; and the little things
which he freely does for believers, which obstinate unbelievers refuse
and the mercy with which he daily to do, and which God's preventing
crowns them, justly entitle him to grace gives them ability to perform,
all the honour of their salvation ; justly entitle them to all the shame
so far as that honour is worthy of of their damnation. Therefore, al-
the PRIMITIVE Parent of good, and though their temporal misery is ori-
FIRST CAUSE of all our blessings. ginally from Adam, yet their eternal
ruin is originally from themselves.
on
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
The first of these propositions extols God's mercy, and the second clears
us justice ; while both together display his ***& and Ao&iew. Accord
ing to the doctrine of free grace, Christ is a compassionate Saviour-
according to that of free will, he is a righteous Judge. By the first his
rewards are gracious ; by the second his punishments are just. By the
first he mouths of the blessed in heaven are opened to sing deserved
hallelujahs to God and the Lamb ; and by the second the mouths of the
damned m hell are kept from uttering deserved* blasphemies against God
and his Christ. According to the first, God remains the genuine Parent
of good ; and according to the second, devils and apostate men are still
he genuine authors of evil. If you explode the first of those proposi-
tions, you admit Pharisaic dotages and self-exalting pride ; if you reject
the second, you set up Antinomian delusions, and voluntary humility •
nt if you receive them both, you avoid the contrary mistakes of Honestus
and Zelotes, and consistently hold the Scriptural doctrines of faith and
works,— free grace and free will,— Divine mercy and Divine justice.—
a sinner s impotence and a saint's faithfulness.
Read the Scriptures in the light which beams forth from those two
capltal truths ; and that precious book will in some places appear to you
almost new. You will at least see a beautiful agreement between a variety
of texts that are irreconcilable upon the narrow, partial schemes of the
Pharisees and of the Antinomies. Permit me to give you a specimen
of it by presenting you with my Scales ; that is, by placing in One point
of view a number of opposite truths which make one beautiful whole
according to the doctrine of the two Gospel axioms. And mav the
father ot lights so bless the primary truths to Honestus, that he" may
receive the doctrine of free grace ; and the secondary ones to Zelotes,
that he may espouse the doctrine of free will ! So shall those inveterate
itenders be happily reconciled to moderation, to the whole Gospel
and to one another.
*I do not mean that any blasphemy against God is deserved; but that, accord-
to all our ideas of justice, this would be the case, if the doctrine of free will
were false *or supposing men and angels are not endued with free agency, is it
not evident that they are mere instruments in the hand of a superior, irresistible
Agent who works wickedness in and by them, agreeable to this unguarded proposi
tion of Elisha Coles : » All things were present with God from eternity ; and his
decree the cause of their after existence ?» And does not reason cry aloud! that such
an almighty Agent is more culpable than his overpowered, or passive tools ? Can
s himself say that a highwayman does not deserve hanging more than the
pisto which he fires and the horse which he rides when hermits murder?
What an immense field does the doctrine of bound will open in hell for the most
execrable blasphemies ! The Lord forgive its supporters, for they know not what
Ihe Gospel leaves even heathen unbelievers without excuse, Rom. i, 20-
the modern "doctrines of grace" funish all sorts of infidels with the best
excuses m the world. "God's predestination caused Adam's sin and his own;
and God s decree kept Christ from dying for, and his Spirit from sincerely striv-
!"!rW1{?i :" -S tlhese necessary consequences of Calvinism encourage
Mr Fulsome" to sm here ; so (if his doctrines of grace were true) they would
comfort him m hell hereafter.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES,
31
SECTION III.
Containing, (1.) The golden beam of the Scripture Scales. (2.) The
chains by which they are suspended. And, (3.) A rational account of
the origin of evil.
SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES,
MAKING THE BEAM OF THE SCRIPTURAL SCALES.
I.
There is a God, that is, a wise,
good, and just Governor of his crea
tures.
It was a design highly worthy of
a wise Creator to place mankind
in a state of earthly bliss, and to
put their loyalty to the trial, that he
might graciously reward the obe
dient, and justly punish the rebel
lious.
The Lord is LOVING to every
man, and his mercy is over all his
works, Psalm cxlv, 9.
Grace supcrabounded, when God,
in the midst of wrath remembering
mercy, promised a SAVIOUR to
Adam personally, and to us semi-
nally, Rom. v, 20 ; Gen. iii, 15.
Not as the offence, so also is the
free gift. For if through the of
fence of one many be dead ; much
more the grace of God and the gift
by grace, which is by Jesus Christ,
hath abounded unto MANY, Rom.
v, 15.
By man came the resurrection of
the dead — for in Christ shall all be
made alive.
By the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous, Rom. v, 1$.
* That grace might reign, through
righteousness, unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. v, 21.
Therefore, &c, by the righteous
ness of one, the free gift came upon
all men to justification of life, Rom.
v, 21.
The Lord is long suffering to us-
ward, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to
repentance, 2 Pet. iii, 9.
II.
There are men, that is, rational
creatures, capable of being morally
governed.
Our wise Creator has actually
executed that design. To have
done otherwise would have been
inconsistent with his distributive jus
tice, an attribute as essential to him
as goodness, knowledge, or power.
The Lord is RIGHTEOUS to every
man, and his justice is over all his
works.
Sin abounded, when the first man
personally fell by the wrong use of
his free will, and caused us to FALL
in him seminally, Rom. v, 20 ;
Gen. iii, 6.
Death reigned from Adam. By
one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin ; and so death
passed upon ALL MEN, for that ALL
have sinned, Rom. v, 12, 14.
By man came death — for in Ad
am all die, 1 Cor. xv, 21, 22.
By one man's disobedience many
were made sinners, Rom. v, 19.
As sin hath reigned [through
righteousness] unto death, [by Ad
am,] Rom. v, 21.
Even so, by the offence of one,
judgment came upon all men to
condemnation. (Ibid.}
Why will ye die, O house of
Israel 1 For I have no pleasure in
the death of him that dicth ; where
fore turn yourselves, and live ye,
Ezek. xviii, 31, 32.
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
Hence it follows, that,
1. God's free grace gave Christ
to a.tone for man, and initially gives
the Spirit of grace to sanctify man.
To guard the doctrine of grace,
Divine justice appointed that a cer
tain sin, called " a doing despite to
the Spirit of grace," and " a sinning
against the Holy Ghost," or a wilful
persisting in disobedient unbelief to
the end of the day of salvation,
should be emphatically the sin unto
eternal death ; and that those who
commit it, should be the sons of
perdition : see Matt, xii, 32 ; Mark
iii, 29 ; Luke xii, 10 ; 1 John v,
10 ; John xvii, 12.
II.
Hence it follows, that,
2. Man's free will, helped by the
Spirit of grace, may receive Christ
implicitly as " the light of men," or
explicitly as « the Saviour of the
world."
Some men commit that sin. For
some men " tread under foot the
Son of God, count the blood of the
covenant, wherewith they were
sanctified, an unholy thing, do de
spite to the Spirit of grace, — and
draw back unto perdition" Heb. x,
29, 39. « Falling from their own
steadfastness, and even denying the
Lord that bought them, they bring
upon themselves swift destruction,
(2 Pet. ii, 1,) and perish in the
gainsaying of Core," Jude 11
THREE PAIR OF GOSPEL AXIOMS,
Which may be considered as GOLDEX CHAINS, by which the Scripture
Scales hang on their beam.
I. Every obedient believer's sal
vation is originally of God's free
grace.
II. God's free grace is always
the first cause of what is good.
III. When God's free grace has
begun to work moral GOOD, man
may faithfully follow him by be
lieving, ceasing to do evil, and
working righteousness, according
to his light arid talent.
Thus is God the WISE rewarder
of them that diligently seek him,
according to these words of the
apostle :— » God, at the revelation
of his righteous judgment, will ren
der to every man according to his
deeds ; eternal life to them who by
patient continuance in wrell doincr
seek for glory. Seeing it is a
righteous thing with God to recom
pense rest to them who are troubled"
for his sake, to give theip " a crown
II.
I. Every unbeliever's damnation
is originally of his own personal
free will.
II. Man's free will is always the
first cause of what is evil.
III. When man's free will has
begun to work moral EVIL, God
may justly follow him by withdraw
ing his slighted grace, revealing his
deserved wrath, and working natu
ral evil.
Thus is God the KIGHTEOUS
punishcr of them that obstinately
neglect him, according to such
scriptures as these : " Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right ?
Ye say, The way of the Lord is not
equal: hear now/O ye house of
Israel, Is not my way equal? I
will judge you every one after his
way. Is God unrighteous, who
taketh vengeance ? God forbid !
How then shall God judge the
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 33
I. II.
of righteousness" as a righteous world? Thou art righteous, O L<ird,
Judge, and to make them "walk &c, because thou hast judged thus,
with Christ in white, because they Thou hast given them blood to
are worthy" (in a gracious and drink, for they are ivorthy" (in a
evangelical sense.) strict and legal sense.)
Hence it appears, that God's design in the three grand economies of
man's creation, redemption, and sanctilication, is to display the richer
of his FREE GRACE AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE, by showing himself the
bounteous Author of every good gift, and by graciously rewarding the
worthy : while he justly punishes the unworthy according to their works,
agreeably to these awful words of Christ and his prophets : " For judg
ment I am come into this world. The Lord hath made all things for
himself; yea, even the [men who to the last will remain] wicked, for
the day of evil. Because he hath appointed a day in which he will
judge the world in righteousness ;" and to all the wicked that day will
be evil, and terrible: "For behold, the day cometh," says the Lord,
" that shall burn as an oven ; and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble ;
and the day that cometh shall burn them up, says the Lord of host*.
But the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance : so that a.
man shall say, Verily there is a REWARD for the righteous ! Doubtless
there is a God that JUDGETH THE EARTH !"
Upon this rational and Scriptural plan, may we not solve a difficulty
that has perplexed all the philosophers in the world ? " How can you,'*
say they, " reasonably account for the origin of evil, without bearing
hard upon God's infinite goodness, power, or knowledge ? How can
you make appear, not only that a good God co-dd create a world, where
evil now exists in ten thousand forms ; but also, that it was highly expe
dient he should create such a world rather than any other ?"
ANSWER. — When it pleased God to create a world, his wisdom
obliged him to create upon the plan that was most worthy of him. Such
a plan was undoubtedly that which agreed best with all the Divine per
fections taken together. Wisdom and power absolutely required that it
should be a world of rational, as well as of irrational creatures ; of free,
as well as of necessary agents ; such a world displaying far better what
St. Paul calls woXutfoixiXo^ o"ocr,ja, " the multifarious, variegated wisdom
of God," as well as his infinite power in making, ruling, and overruling
various orders of beings.
It could not be expected that myriads of free agents, who necessarily
fell short of absolute perfection, would all behave alike. Here God's
goodness demanded that those who behaved well should be rewarded;
his sovereignty insisted that those who behaved ill should be punished ;
and his distributive justice and equity required that those who made the
best use of their talents should be entitled to the highest rewards ; while
those who abused Divine favours most should have the severest punish
ments ; mercy reserving to itself the right of raising rewards and of alle
viating punishments, in a way suited to the honour of all the other Divine
attributes.
This being granted, (and I do riot see how any man of reason and
piety can deny it,) it evidently follows, (1.) That a world, in which vu-
rious orders of free, as well as of necessary agents are admitted, is most
VOL. II. 3
34 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
perfect. (2.) That this world, having been formed upon such a wise
plan, was the most perfect that could possibly be created. (3.) That,
in the very nature of things, evil may, although there is no necessity it
should, enter into such a world ; else it could not be a world of free
agents who are candidates for rewards offered by distributive justice.
(4.) That the blemishes and disorders of the natural world are only penal
consequences of the disobedience of free agents. And (o.) That, from
such penal disorders we may indeed conclude that man has abused free
will, but not that God deals in free wrath. Only admit, therefore, the
free will of rationals, and you cannot but fall in love with our Creator's
plan ; dark and horrid as it appears when it is viewed through the
smoked glass of the fatalist, the Manichee, or the rigid Predestinarian.
SECTION IV.
Containing, (1.) An observation upon the terms of the covenants ; and, (2.)
A balanced specimen of the anti-Pharisaic Gospel, displaying Chrisfs
glory in the first scale ; and of the anti-Solifidian Gospel, setting forth
the glory of evangelical obedience in the second scale.
To reconcile the opposite parts of the Scriptures, let us remember
that God has made two covenants with man ; the covenant of justice, and
the covenant of grace. The first requires uninterrupted obedience to the
law of paradisiacal innocence. The second enjoins repentance, faith,
and humble obedience to all those Gospel precepts, which form what
David calls the law of the Lord ; St. Paul, the law of Christ ; St. James,
the laic of liberty ; and what our Lord calls my sayings, — my command
ments, &c.
Being conceived in sin since the fall, and having all our powers en-
feebled, we cannot personally keep the first covenant : therefore as the
iirst Adam broke it for us, Christ, " the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven," graciously came to make the law of innocence honourable, by
keeping it for us, and to give us " power" to keep his own " law of li
berty," that is, to repent, believe, and obey for ourselves. Therefore,
with respect to the law of the first covenant, Christ alone is, and must
be, our foundation, our righteousness, our way, our door, our glory, and
all our salvation.
But with respect to the second covenant, the case is very different :
for this covenant, and its law of liberty, requiring of us personal repent-
ance and its fruits, — personal faith and its works, — all which together
make up evangelical obedience, or "the obedience of faith;" it is evi
dent, that, according to the requirements of the covenant of grace, our
" obedience of faith" is (in due subordination to Christ) our righteous
ness, our narrow way, our strait gate, our glory, and our salvation : just
as a farmer's care, labour, and industry are, in due subordination to
the blessings of Divine Providence, the causes of his plentiful crops.
If you do not lose sight of this distinction ; — if you consider that our
salvation or damnation have each two causes, the second of which never
operates but in subordination to the first ; — if you observe, that the FIRST
cause of our eternal salvation is God's free grace in making, mid faith-
SECOND.l
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
35
fulness in keeping through Christ his Gospel promises to all sinners,
who freely submit to the terms of the Gospel ; and that consequently
the SECOND cause of tfyat salvation is our own prevented free will, sub
mitting to the obedience of faith, through the helps that Christ affords us ;
— if, on the other hand, you take notice, that the FIRST cause of our
eternal damnation is always our own free will, doing despite to the
Spirit of grace ; and that the SECOND cause of it is God's justice in de
nouncing, and his faithfulness in executing, by Christ, his awful threat-
enings against all that persist in unbelief to the end of their day of
initial salvation, generally called " the day of grace ;" — if you consider
these things, I say, you will see, that all the scriptures which compose
my Scales, and some hundreds more, which I omit for brevity's sake,
agree as perfectly as the different parts of a good piece of music.
We now and then find, it is true, a solo in the Bible ; I mean a pas
sage that displays only the powerful voice of free grace, or of free will.
Hence Zelotes and Honestus conclude that there is no harmony, but in
the single part of the truth which they admire ; supposing that the ac
cents of free grace and free will, justly mixed together, form an enthu-
siastical or heretical noise, and not an evangelical, Divine concert.
Thus much by way of introduction.
FIRST SCALE.
Scriptures that display the glory
SECOND SCALE.
Scriptures that display the glory
of CHRIST, the importance of pri- of OBEDIENCE, the importance of
mary causes, the excellence oforigi- secondary causes, the excellence of
nal merit, and the power of free derived worthiness, and the power
grace.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the
of free will.
Christ, in his sermon upon the
way, &c ; no man cometh to the mount, strongly recommends the obe-
Father, but by me. I am the door; dience of faith, as the strait gate,
by me if any man enter in he shall and the narrow way, which lead
be saved, John xiv, 6 ; x, 9.
Other foundation can no man
unto life, Matt, vii, 13.
Not laying again the foundation
lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus of repentance. Charge the rich
Christ. I lay in Sion a chief cor- that they do good, &c, laying up in
ner stone, &c. He that believeth store for themselves a good founda-
on him shall not be confounded, 1 tion against the time to come, Heb.
Cor. iii, 11; 2 Pet. ii, 6.
God forbid that I should glory.
save in the cross of CHRIST. He
that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord, Gal. vi, 14; 1 Cor. i, 31.
My soul shall be joyful in MY
vi, 1; 1 Tim. vi, 17.
Let every man prove his own
work, and then shall he have xau-
X1M^> guying in HIMSELF alone,
and not in another, Gal. vi, 4. [It
is the same word in the original.]
This is our rejoicing, the testi-
GOD, for he hath clothed me with mony of our conscience, that in sim-
the garments of salvation, Isa. Ixi, plicity and GODLY SINCERITY, &c,
we have had our conversation in
the world, and to youward, 2 Cor.
i, 12.
I caused the widow's heart i<»
10. My spirit hath rejoiced in God
my Saviour, Luke i, 47.
Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
He hath covered me with the robe sing for joy. I put on rightux
of righteousness, as a bride adorn- ness and it covered me ; my ju
36
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
etli herself with her jewels, Rom.
xiii, 14 ; Isa. Ixi, 10.
Christ is made unto us of God
righteousness, 1 Cor. i, 30.
Neither is there salvation in any
other ; for there is none other wne
[or person] under heaven whereby
we must be saved, Acts iv, 12.
Christ was once offered to bear
the sins of many, Heb. ix, 28.
Behold the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world,
John i, 29.
Look unto me, Isa. xlv, 22.
Consider the High Priest of our
profession, Jesus Christ, Heb. iii, 1.
Jesus was made a surety of a
better testament, Heb. vii, 22.
[Note : it is not said that Jesus is
the surety of disobedient believers ;
but of that testament which cuts off
the entail of their heavenly inherit-
once. See Eph. v, 5.]
Who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the tree.
God has made him [Christ] to be
sin for us, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteous,
ness of God in him, 2 Cor. v, 21.
By his knowledge shall my right
eous servant [Christ] justify many,
Isa. liii, 11.
Preach the GOSPEL to every
creature — mid forgiveness of sins in
[my] name, Mark xvi ; Luke xxiv,
47.
Saul preached CHRIST in the
synagogues ; we preach not our-
selves, but CHRIST JESUS the Lord,
Acts ix, 20 ; 2 Cor. iv, 5.
We preach Christ crucified, unto
the Jews a stumbling block, and
unto the Greeks foolishness ; but
unto them that are called [and obey
II.
ment was a. robe and a diadem. I
was eyes to the blind, &c, Job
xxix, 14, 15.
The righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon him, arid the wicked,
ness of the wicked shall be upon
him, Ezek. xviii, 20.
Take heed to thyself and to thy
doctrine, &c, for in doing this thou
shalt both save thyself and them
that hear thee, 1 Tim. iv, 16.
Let every man prove his own
work, for every man shall bear his
own burden, Gal. iv, 4, 5.
Put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes, Isa. i, 16.
Look to yourselves, John 8.
Consider thyself — let us consider
one another, Gal. vi, 1 ; Heb. x, 24.
The Lord is our Judge, the Lord
is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our
King ; he will save us ; [consist
ently with those glorious titles,] Isa.
xxxiii, 22.
That we being dead- to sin should
live unto righteousness, 1 Pet. ii, 24.
Be not deceived : God is not
mocked : for whatsoever a man sow-
eth, that shall he also reap. For he
that soweth to his flesh, shall, &c,
reap destruction, Gal. vi, 7, 8.
He judged the cause of the poor
and needy, then it was well with
him. Was not this to know me?
saith the Lord, Jer. xii, 16.
Teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded
you, Matt, xxviii, 20.
As he reasoned of righteousness,j|
[or JUSTICE,] TEMPERANCE, and the
JUDGMENT to come, Felix trembled,
Acts xxiv, 25.
And yet when the apostle exhorts
these very Corinthians to lelierc the
poor, he uses a variety of motives
beside that of Christ's cross. Other
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
37
I.
the call] Christ the power of God,
and the wisdom of God. For I
determined not to know any thing
among you [Corinthians] save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified, 1 Cor. i,
23, 24 ; ii, 2.
Preaching peace by Jesus Christ,
he is Lord of all — the Prince of
Peace, Acts x, 36 ; Isa. ix, 6.
He that hath the Son hath life ;
and he that hath not the Son of
God, hath not life, I John v, 12.
He that acknowledged the Son,
hath the Father also, 1 John ii,23.
Christ is our life, Col. iii, 4.
JESUS CHRIST, who is our hope,
1 Tim. i, 1.
I have laid help upon one that is
mighty. Without me ye can do
nothing, Psa. Ixxxix, 19 ; John xv, 5.
Neither is he that planteth any
thing, [comparatively,] &c, but God
that giveth the increase, 1 Cor.
iii, 7.
Yet not I [alone, not I first,'] but
the grace of God which was with
me, 1 Cor. xv, 10.
Call ?io man your father upon
earth ; for one is your Father, who
is in heaven, Matt, xxiii, 9.
Christ is made unto us of God
wisdom, 1 Cor. i, 30.
God only wise, Jude 25.
Why callest thou me good 1
There is none good but one, that is
GOD, Matt, ix, 17.
THOU ART WORTHY, O Lord, to
receive glory and honour, Rev.
iv, 11.
I am the light of the world, John
viii, 12.
If God be for us, who can be
against us ? Who is he that con-
demneth? It is Christ that died,
II.
churches had abundantly given.
He had boasted of their forward,
ness. Their charity would make
others praise God, and pray for
them. He that soweth bountifully
shall reap bountifully, &c, 2 Cor.
viii, 2; ix, 3, 6, 12/14.
There is no peace to the wicked ;
he that will love life, &c, let him
do good, seek peace, and pursue it,
Isa. Ivii, 21 ; Psa. xxxiv, 14.
Beloved, &c, he that doeth good
is of God : he that doeth evil hath
not seen God, 3 John 11.
Whosoever transgresseth hath
not God, 2 John 9.
To be spiritually minded is life,
Rom. viii, 6.
What is our hope 1 &c. Are not
even YE [Thessalonians ?] 1 Thess.
ii, 19.
I [Paul] can do all things through
Christ, who strengthened me, Phil,
iv, 13.
We are labourers together with
God. As a wise master builder I
have laid the foundation, 1 Cor. iii,
9, 10.
I [Paul] laboured more abundant
ly than they all [the apostles,] 1
Cor. xv, 10.
Ye have not mtmy fathers, for in
Christ Jesus / have begotten you
through the Gospel, 1 Cor. iv, 15.
Whoso keepeth the law is a wise
son, Prov. xxviii, 7.
Five virgins were wise, Matt.
xxv, 2.
A good MAX, out of the good trea
sure of the heart, [an honest and
good heart] bringeth forth good
things, Matt, xii, 35 ; Luke viii, 15.
They shall walk with me in white,
for [or rather an because] THEY ARE
WORTHY, Rev. iii, 4.
Ye are the light of the world,
Matt, v, 14.
Hearken unto me, ye men of
understanding : far be it from God
that he should do wickedness, &c.
38
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
yea, rather that is risen again, who For the work of a man shall he ren-
is even at the right hand of God, der unto him, and cause every man
who also maketh intercession for to find according to his ways. Yea,
us, Rom. viii, 31, 34. surely God will not do wickedly,
neither will the Almighty pervert
judgment, Job xxxiv, 10, 11, 12.
If any man sin, we have an If ANY MAN see his brother sin,
Advocate with the Father, JESUS &c, he shall ask, and he [God]
CHRIST the righteous, 1 John ii, 1. will give him life for them that
sin not unto death, 1 John v, 16.
I will that intercessions be made
for all men. The effectual fer
vent prayer of A RIGHTEOUS MAN
availeth much, 1 Timothy ii, 1 ;
James v, 16.
Whosesoever sins ye remit, they
CHRIST ever liveth to make in
tercession, for them that come unto
God by him, Heb. vii, 25.
The Son of man hath power on
earth to forgive sins, Mark ii, 10. are
remitted to them, John xx,
23.
CHRIST, by whom we have now
received the atonement, Rom. v, 11.
There is one Mediator between
God and men, the man
JESUS, 1 Tim. ii, 5.
O God, shine on thy sanctuary,
PHINEHAS was zealous for God,
and made an atonement for the
children of Israel, Num. xxv, 13.
MOSES his chosen stood before
CHRIST him in the breach to turn away his
wrath, lest he should destroy them,
Psalm cvi, 23.
I will not do it [i. e. I will not
for the Lord's sake. For my name's rain fire and brimstone from the
sake will I defer mine anger, Dan. Lord upon Sodom] for ten right-
ix, 17 ; Isa. xlviii, 9. eons' sake, Gen. xviii, 32.
The Son of man is come to — He became the author of eter
nal SALVATION to all them that
obey him, Heb. v, 9.
Is Christ the minister of sin ?
&c, SAVE that which was lost, Luke
xix, 10.
Christ is ALL and in all, — it
pleased the Father that IN HIM God forbid ! By their FRUITS ye
should all fulness dwell — and ye shall know them. We labour that
are complete IN HIM, Col. iii, 1 1 ; we may be accepted of him, for we
i, 19; ii, 10. To him that hath must all appear before the judg-
loved us, and washed us from our ment seat of Christ, that every one
sins in his own blood, and hath may receive the things done in his
made us kings and priests, &c, to body, according to that he hath
him be glory and dominion for ever done, whether it be good or bad,
and ever, Rev. i, 5, 6. Gal. ii, 17 ; Matt, vii, 20 ; 2 Cor.
v, 9, 10.
Is it not evident from the balance of these, and the like scriptures
that Honestus and Zelotes are both under a capital, though contrary mis-
take ? and that to do the Gospel justice, we must Scripturally join toge
ther what they rashly put asunder ?
SECOND.]
SCRIPTUKE SCALES.
39
SECTION V.
Setting forth the glory of faith and the honour of works.
FIRST SCALE.
Whosoever believeth on him
[Christ] shall not be ashamed,
Rom. x, 11.
This is the work of GOD, that ye
believe on him whom he hath sent,
John vi, 29.
Abraham believed God, &c, and
he was called the friend of God,
James ii, 23.
To him that worketh riot, but be
lieveth, &c, his faith is counted for
righteousness, Rom. iv, 5.
If ye believe not that I am he, ye
shall die in your sins, John viii,
24.
Only believe : [I particularly re
quire a strong exertion of thy faith
at this time,] Luke viii, 50.
He that believeth on him that
sent me, hath everlasting life, and
shall not come into condemnation ;
but is passed from death unto life,
John v, 24.
Thy faith hath SAVED thee, Luke
vii, 50.
Through faith they wrought
righteousness, obtained promises,
&c, Heb. xi, 33.
With the heart man believeth to
righteousness, Rom. x, 10.
Received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by the hearing
of faith? Gal. iii, 2.
Through his name, whosoever
believeth on him shall receive re
mission of sins, Acts x, 43.
If Abraham were justified by
WORKS, he hath whereof to glory,
Rom. iv, 2.
Without FAITH it is impossible
to please God, Heb. xi, 6.
SECOND SCALE.
Then shall I not be ashamed,
when / have respect unto all thy
commandments, Psa. cxix, 6.
What does the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God,
Micah vi, 8.
Ye are my friends, if ye do what
soever I command you, John xv,
14.
Faith, if it hath not works, is
dead, being alone, James ii, 17.
Brethren, &c, if ye live after the
flesh, ye shall die, Rom. viii, 13.
The devils believe, [therefore
faith is not sufficient without its
works,] James ii, 19.
With the merciful thou [O God]
wilt show thyself merciful : and
with the froward thou wilt show
thyself unsavoury, 2 Sam. xxii, 26,
27.
We are SAVED by hope, Rom.
viii, 24.
Remembering, &c, your labour
of love — let patience have her per
fect work, 1 Thess. i, 3 ; James i,
4.
And with the mouth confession is
made to salvation. (Ibid.)
I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot, &c, so then,
&c, I will spue thee out of my
mouth, Rev. iii, 15, 16.
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
If we confess our sins, he is faith
ful and just to forgive us, Luke vi,
37 ; 1 John i, 9.
Was not Abraham our father
justified by WORKS? James ii, 21.
O vain man, faith without WORKS
is dead, James ii, 20.
40
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
They that are of faith are bless-
ed with faithful Abraham, Gal. iii, 9.
To them that are unbelieving is
NOTHING PURE, Tit. i, 15.
Believe in the Lord, &c, so shall
you be established, 2 Chron. xx, 20.
To the praise of the glory of his
grace, &c, he hath made us accept
ed in the beloved, Eph. i, 6.
/ live by FAITH in the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave him
self for me, Gal. ii, 20.
For me to live is CHRIST, Phil, i,
21.
THIS [Christ] is the true God,
and eternal life, 1 John v, 20.
This is eternal life, to know thee,
&c, and Jesus Christ, John xvii, 3.
He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, John iii, 36.
Israel, which followed after the
law of righteousness, hath not at
tained to the law of righteousness.
Wherefore? Because they sought
it not by faith, but as it were by
the works of the law [opposed to
Christ ;] for they stumbled at that
stumbling stone, Rom. ix, 31, 32.
Abraham believed God, and it
was imputed [or counted] to him
for righteousness, Rom. iv, 3.
Trust [i. e. believe] ye in the
Lord for ever ; for in the Lord
Jehovah is everlasting strength,
Isa. xxvi, 4.
He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not
is condemned already, John iii, 18.
Be it known unto you that through
this man is preached unto you the
forgiveness of sins ; and by him all
that believe are JUSTIFIED, Acts xiii,
38, 39.
If ye were Abraham's children,
ye would do the works of Abraham,
John viii, 39.
Give alms, &c, and behold ALL
THINGS are CLEAN unto you, Luke
xi, 41.
If thou doest well, shalt not thou
be accepted ? Gen. iv, 7.
In every nation he that feareth
God and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with him, Acts x, 35.
If ye, through the Spirit, MOR
TIFY the deeds of the body, ye
shall live, Rom. viii, 13.
KEEP my commandments and
live, Prov. iv, 4.
His [my Father's] COMMAND
MENT is life everlasting, John xii,
50.
Though I have all knowledge,
&c, and have not charity, I am no
thing, 1 Cor. xiii, 2.
And he that [H-TTSJ^SJ] disobeyeth
the Son, shall not see life. (Ibid.)
If any man among you, &c,
bridleth not his tongue, &c, this
man's religion is vain. Pure reli
gion and undented before God is
this : to visit the fatherless and wi
dows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world,
James i, 26, 27.
Phinehas executed judgment, and
that was counted [or imputed] unto
him for righteousness for evermore,
Psa. cvi, 30, 31.
If I regard iniquity in my heart,
the Lord will riot hear me. If our
heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God, Psa. Ixvi,
18; 1 John iii, 21.
He that humbleth himself shall
be exalted, and every one that ex-
alleth himself shall be abased, Luke
xiv, 11.
The doers of the law [of faith]
shall be JUSTIFIED, — in the day
when God shall judge the secrets
of men, &c, according to my Gos
pel, Rorn. ii, 13, 16.
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 41
I. II.
We have believed in Jesus Christ, In the day of judgment — by thy
that we might be JUSTIFIED [as sin- words thou shalt be JUSTIFIED, and
ners] by the faith of Christ, Gal. by thy words thou shalt be condemn,
ii, 16. ed, Matt, xii, 36, 37.
The balance of the preceding scriptures shows that FAITH, and the
works of faith, are equally necessary to the salvation of adults. Faith,
for their justification as sinners, in the day of CONVERSION ; and the
works of faith, for their justification as believers, both in the day of TRIAL
and of JUDGMENT. Hence it follows, that when Zelotes preaches mere
Solijidianism, and when Honestus enforces mere morality, they both
grossly mangle Bible Christianity, which every real Protestant is bound
to defend against all Aritinomiari and Pharisaic innovators.
SECTION VI.
THE MORAL LAW OF CHRIST WEIGHED AGAINST THE MORAL LAW OF MOSES.
Our translation makes St. Paul .speak unguardedly, where it says that " the
law is not made for a righteous man" — The absurdity of making be-
lievers afraid of the decalogue — The moral law of Christ, and the moral
law of Moses are one and tJic same — The moral law is rescued from
under the feet of the Antinomians — Christians are not less under the
moral law to Christ as a rule of judgment, than the Jews were under it to
Moses — The Sinai covenant is proved to be an edition of the covenant
of grace — The most judicious Calvin-ists maintain this doctrine — Wherein
consists the difference between the Jewish and the Christian dispensation.
As the latter is most glorious in its promises, so it is most terrible in its
threatenings — Two capital objections arc answered.
WHEN justice has used her scales, she is sometimes obliged to wield
her sword. In imitation of her, I lay by my Scales to rescue a capital
scripture, which, I fear, our translators have inadvertently delivered into
the hands of the Antinomians.
1 Tim. i, 8, 9, the apostle is represented as saying, " We know that the
law is good, if a man use it lawfully ; knowing this, that the law is not
made for a RIGHTEOUS MAN." " Now," say some Antinomians, " all be
lievers, being complete in Christ's imputed righteousness, are and shall
for ever be perfectly righteous in him ; therefore * the law is not made
for them :' they can no more be condemned for breaking the moral, than
for transgressing the ceremonial law." A horrible inference this, which,
I fear, is countenanced by these words of our translation : " The law is
not made for the righteous." Is this strictly true ? Were not angels
and our first parents righteous, when God " made for them" the (then)
easy yoke of the law of innocence 1 And is not the law " made for" the
absolution of " the righteous," as well as for the condemnation of the
wicked ? Happily St. Paul does not speak the unguarded words, which
we impute to him ; for he says, dixouu uojuiog1 ou Xsiraj, literally, " The law
lieth not at, or is not levelled against a righteous man, but against the law
less and disobedient," that is, against those who break it. This literal
sense perfectly agrees with the apostle's doctrine, where he s lys, " Rulers
42 EQUAI CHECK. [PART
are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be
afraid of the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have [abso
lution and] praise of the same."
This mistake of our translators seems to be countenanced by Gal. v,
28. "Against such [the righteous] there is no law." Just as if the
apostle had said s£i VO/AO£ ou^tjc:, whereas his words are xara <rwv <ro»au<rwv
*x ezi vofAojr, literally, " The law is not against such !" Whence it appears :
(1.) That believers are under the law of Christ, not only as a rule of
life, but also as a rule of judgment. (2.) That when they "bear one
another's burdens and so fulfil that law," it is " not against them," it does
not condemn them. (3.) That as there is no medium between the con-
demnation and the absolution of the law ; the moment the law does not
condemn a believer, it acquits him. And (4.) That consequently every
penitent, obedient believer is actually justified by the law of Christ,
agreeably to Rom. ii, 12, and Matt, xii, 37 : for, says the apostle, " the
law is not AGAINST such," plainly intimating that it is FOR them.
It had been well for us if some of our divines had been satisfied with
insinuating, that we need not keep the commandments to obtain eternal
salvation through Jesus Christ : but some of them even endeavour to
make us as much afraid of the decalogue, as of a battery of cannon.
With such design it is that pious J. Bunyan says, in one of his unguarded
moments, " Have a care of these great guns, the ten commandments ;"
just as if it were as desperate an attempt to look into the law of God, in
order to one's salvation, as to look into the mouths of ten loaded pieces of
cannon, in order to one's preservation. What liberty is here taken with
the Gospel ! Christ says, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the com
mandments ;" the obedience of faith being " the narrow way," that
through him "leads to life." "No," say some of our Gospel ministers,
" sincere obedience is a jack o'lantern : and what you recommend as
a way to life, is a tenfold way to death." O ye that fear God, do
not so rashly contradict our Lord. Who among you regard yet his
sayings? Who stand to their baptismal vow? Who will not only
"believe all the articles of the Christian faith," but also "keep God's
holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of their
life ?" Let no Solifidian make you afraid of the commandments. Me-
thinks I see the bleeding " Captain of our salvation" lifting up the standard
of the cross, and giving thus the word of command : " Dread not my
precepts. * If you love me, keep my commandments. Blessed are they,'
who < keep God's commandments, that they may enter into the city by
the gate,' and May hold on eternal life.'" If this is the language of
inspiration, far from dreading " the ten great guns," love them next to the
wounds of Jesus. Stand behind the cross; ply there the heavenly
ordnance, and you shall be invincible : yea, one of you shall chase a
thousand. It is the command broken in unbelief, and not the command
kept in faith, that slays : for that very ordnance which is loaded with a
fearful curse, levelled « unto the third or fourth generation of them that
hate God," is loaded with mere " mercy to a thousand generations of
them that love him and keep his commandments."
Zelotes probably wonders at the legality of the preceding lines, and is
ready to exclaim against my " blindness," for not seeing that Moses'
moral law, delivered on Mount Sinai, is a mere covenant of works,
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 43
diametrically opposed to the covenant of grace. As his opinion is one
of the strongest ramparts of Antinomianism, I beg leave to erect a bat-
tery against it. If I am so happy as to demolish it, I shall not only be
able to recover the decalogue — the " ten great guns," but a considerable
part of the Old Testament, such as most of the lessons which our Church
has selected out of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, and which the Soli-
iidians consider as Jewish trumpery, akin to the* Arminian heresy;
merely because they contain powerful incentives to sincere, evangelical
obedience, according to the doctrine of the second Gospel axiom.
I humbly conceive then : (1.) That the moral law delivered to Moses
on Mount Sinai was a particular edition of that gracious and holy law
which St. James calls " the law of liberty," St. Paul " the law of Christ."
(2.) That our Lord solemnly adopted the moral part of the decalogue,
in his sermon upon the mount, where he rescued the moral precepts from
the false glosses of the scribes ; representing those precepts as the evan
gelical law, according to which we must live, if ever " our righteousness
exceeds that of the Pharisees ;" and by which we must be "justified in
the day of judgment," (agreeable to his own doctrine, Matt, xii, 37,) if
ever we escape the curse which will fall on the ungodly. And (3.) That
although we are not bound to obey the decalogue, as delivered to Moses
literally written in stone, (in which St. Paul observes that it is " done
away," 2 Cor. iii, 7, 11,) yet we are obliged to obey it. so far as it is a
transcript of the moral law, that eternally binds all rational agents, and
so far as Christ has made it his own by spiritualizing and enforcing its
moral precepts on the mount ; — I say its moral precepts, because the
fourth commandment, which is rather of the ceremonial than of the moral
kind, does not bind us so strictly as the others do. Hence it is that St.
Paul says, " Let no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath days,"
Col. ii, 16, and even finds fault with the Galatians for " observing days,"
with a Jewish scrupulosity.
That the moral law of Sinai was a peculiar edition of God's evangelical
law adapted to the Jewish commonwealth, and not an edition of the Adamic
law of innocence, I prove by the following arguments : —
1. Rom. x, 5, St. Paul produces Moses as describing the righteous
ness which is of the law of Sinai : " That the man who does these things
shall live by them." And Rom. viii, 33, he himself describes the right
eousness which is of " the law of liberty" thus : " If ye live after the
flesh ye shall die ; but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live." Now are not those people excessively prejudiced,
who deny either that in both these descriptions the promise, shall live, is
the same ; or that it is suspended on sincere obedience ? And therefore
is it not evident that St. Paul never blamed the Jews for seeking salva
tion by an humble obedience to the moral precepts of the Mosaic cove
nant, in due subordination to faith in the Divine mercy and in the pro-
inised Messiah ; but only for opposing their opus operatum, their formal,
partial, ceremonious, Pharisaic obedience, to that very faith which should
have animated all their works ?
2. The truth of this observation will appear in a still stronger light, if
you consider, that when the evangelical apostle asks, " What says the
righteousness of faith ?" he answers almost in the very words in which
the legal prophet asserts the practicableness of his own law For St
44 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Paul writes, " The u'ord is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart ;
that is, the word of faith which we preach," Rom. x, 8. And Moses
says, Deut. xxx, 11, « The word is very nigh unto thee, even in thy
mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it ;" which undoubtedly
implies a believing of that word, in order to the doing of it ; agreeably
to the doctrine of our Church, which asks, in her catechism, " What dost
thou learn in the commandments?" and answers, " I learn my duty toward
God, &c, which is to believe in him," &c. Thus we see, that as the Mosaic
law was not without Gospel and faith, so the Christian Gospel is not
without law and obedience ; and consequently that those divines who
represent Moses as promiscuously cursing, and Christ as indiscriminately
blessing all the people under their respective dispensations, are greatly-
mistaken.
3. Whatever liberty the apostle takes with the superannuated cere
monies of the Jews, which he sometimes calls " carnal ordinances," and
sometimes " beggarly elements," it is remarkable that he never speaks
disrespectfully of the moral law, and that he exactly treads in the steps
of Moses' evangelical legality : for if Moses comes down from Mount
Sinai, saying, " Honour thy father and mother," &c, St. Paul writes
from Mount Sion, " Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first
commandment of the second table with promise,) that it may be well with
thee," Ephesians vi, 2, 3. As for Christ, we have already seen, that
when he informs us how well it will be with us if we keep his command
ments, he says, " This do, and thou shalt live ;" i. e. thou shalt " inherit
eternal life" in glory.
4. As Christ freely conversed with Moses on the mount, so St. Paul
is freely conversant with Moses' legality in his most evangelical epistles.
Take another instance of it. " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy
self," says the Jewish lawgiver, Lev. xix, 28. "Love one another,"
says the Christian apostle, " for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law, for, &c, love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii, 8, 10. And
that he spoke this of the moral law of Sinai, as adopted by Christ, is
evident from his quoting in the 9th verse the very words of that law,
" Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not
steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and — any
other commandment," &c.
5. St. James forms a threefold cord, with Moses and St. Paul, to
draw us out of the ditch of Antinomianism, into which pious divines
have inadvertently led us. " If you fulfil the royal law," says he, " ye
do well ; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, &c. So
speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,"
James ii, 8, 9, 13. « True," says Zelotes ; " but "that law of liberty is
the free Gospel preached by Dr. Crisp." Not so ; for St. James imme
diately produces part of that very law of liberty, by which fallen believ
ers, " that have showed no mercy, will have judgment without mercy :"
and he does it in the very words of Moses and St. Paul, " Do not commit
adultery, do not kill," James ii, 11. Any one who can set aside the
testimony which those apostles bear in favour of the moral law of Moses,
may, by the same art, press the most glaring truths of the Bible into the
service of any new-fangled dotages.
0. Because the Mosaic dispensation, considered with respect to its
SECOND.] SCRIPTUKE SCALES. 45
superannuated types and ceremonies, is an old covenant with regard to
the Christian dispensation, Zelotes rashly concludes that Moses' moral
law is the covenant of unsprinkled works, and of perfect innocence, which
God made with Adam in paradise. Hence he constantly opposes the
ten commandments of God to the Gospel of Christ, although he has no
more ground for doing it, than for constantly opposing Rom. ii, to Rom.
viii ; Gal. vi, to Gal. ii ; and Matt, xxv, to John x. Setting therefore
aside the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses, the difference between him
and St. Paul consists principally in two particulars: (1.) The books of
Moses are chiefly historical ; and the epistles of St. Paul chiefly doc
trinal. (2.) The great prophet chiefly insists upon obedience, the fruit
of faith ; and the great apostle chiefly insists upon faith, the root of
obedience. Hence it appears, that those eminent servants of God cannot
be opposed to each other with any more propriety, than Mr. B. has
opposed a Jewish if to a Christian if.
7. The Sinai covenant does not then differ from the Christian dispen
sation essentially, as darkness and light, but only in degree, as the morn
ing light and the blaze of noon. Judaism deals in types and veiled truths ;
Christianity in antitypes and naked truths. Judaism sets forth the second
Gospel axiom, without destroying the first ; and Christianity holds out
the first, without obscuring the second. The Jews waited for the first
coming of.Christ "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself:" and the
Christians look for his " appearing a second time without sin," i. e.
without that humiliation and those sufferings which constituted him " a
sacrifice for sin." I see, therefore, no more reason to believe that Mount
Sinai flames only with Divine wrath, than to think that Mount Sion burns
only with Divine love ; for if a beast was to be thrust through with a
dart for rushing upon Mount Sinai ; Ananias and Sapphira were thrust
through with a word for rushing upon Mount Sion. Arid if I read that
Moses himself " trembled exceedingly" at the Divine vengeance displayed
in Arabia, I read also that " great fear came upon all the Church," on
account of the judgment inflicted upon the first backsliders in the good
land of Canaan. In a word, as Christ is " the Lion of the tribe of Judah,"
as well as " the Lamb of God ;" so Moses was " the meekest man upon
earth," as well as the severest of all the prophets.
8. To prove that the decalogue is a Gospel " law of liberty," and not
the Adamic law of innocence, one would think it is enough to observe
that the law of innocence was given without a mediator, whereas the
law of Sinai was given by one. For St. Paul informs us, that " it was
ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator," Moses, a mighty inter
cessor, and a most illustrious type of Christ, to whom he pointed the
Israelites. This makes the apostle propose a question, which contains
the knot of the difficulty raised by the Antinomians : " Is the law then
against the promises of God ?" Is the Sinai covenant against the Gos
pel of Christ ? And he answers it by crying out, " God forbid !" Nay,
as a " school master" it "brings us to Christ" that we may be "justified
by faith" as sinners ; and afterward it makes us keep close to him for
power to obey it, that we may be justified by works as believers ; " for,"
says he in another place, "the doers of the law, [and none but they,]
shall be justified, &c, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of
anon by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel" A plain proof this, that
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
the moral law, with all its sanctions and precepts, is a capital part of
the Christian, as well as of the Jewish dispensation.
9. Again: the Adamic moral law was given without a sacrificing
priest : hut not so the Mosaic moral law. For while Moses was ready
to act his part as an interceding prophet ; Aaron was ready to second
him by offering up typical incense and propitiatory sacrifices ; and God
graciously invested him with power to give a sacerdotal blessing to pen-
itent transgressors ; appointing him the representative of Christ, whom
St. Paul calls "the high priest of our dispensation."
Once more : the preface of (he decalogue is altogether evangelical ;
and the second commandment speaks of "punishing" only "unto the
third generation," while it mentions " showing mercy unto a thousand
generations," which, if I mistake not, intimates that the decalogue
breathes mercy as well as justice ; and therefore that it is an edition of
Christ's evangelical, and not of Adam's anti-evangelical law.
These observations make me wonder that pious divines should set
aside the moral part of Moses' law as being the impracticable law of
innocence. But when I reflect that Aaron himself helped to set up the
golden calf, and that Moses, in a fit of intemperate zeal for God, dashed
the material tables of his own law to pieces, I no more wonder that
pious Solifidians should help the practical Antinomians to set up their
great Diana ; and that warm men should break the Almighty's laws to
the diminutive, insignificant pieces which they are pleased to 'call " rules
of life."
And let nobody say that these arguments are only " novel chimeras ;"
for the most judicious Calvinists have been of this sentiment. Flavel,
after mentioning several, such as Bolton, Charnock, and Burgess, adds,
" Mr. Greenhill on Ezek. xvi, gives us demonstration from that context,
that since it (the Mosaic la,w) was a marriage covenant, as it appears to
be, verse 8, it cannot possibly be a distinct covenant from the covenant
of grace. The incomparable Turretine " (one of Calvin's most famous
successors at Geneva) " learnedly and judiciously states this controversy,
and both positively asserts, and by many arguments fully proves, that the
Sinai law cannot be a pure covenant of works, or a covenant specifically
distinct from the covenant of grace." (See Flavel's Works, folio edi
tion p. 423.)
The same candid author helps me to some of the following supernu
merary arguments: (1.) Nothing can be more unreasonable than to
suppose that God brought his chosen people out of the Egyptian bond
age, to put them under the more intolerable bondage of the law of inno
cence. (2.) If God had done this, instead of bettering their condition,
he would have made it worse : nay, he would have brought them from
the blessing to the curse : for in Egypt they were nationally under the
covenant made with Abraham: a gracious covenant this,* into which
they were all admitted by the sacrament of circumcision. Nor could
they be put under the Adamic covenant of works, without being first cut
off from the covenant of grace made with Adam after the fall, renewed
with all mankind in Noah, and peculiarly confirmed to the Jews in their
ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; it being evident that no man can
be at the same time under two covenants absolutely different. Nay,
(3.) If the law given to the Israelites upon Mount Sinai was not ar
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 4?
evangelical law ; if it was the law of paradisiacal innocence ; God
treated his peculiar people with greater severity than he did the Egyp
tians, who were all under the gracious dispensation which St. Peter
describes in these words : " In every nation he that feareth God and
worketh righteousness is accepted of him." (4.) If, because St. Paul
decries the obsolete ceremonies of Moses' law, it follows that the moral
law delivered to Moses was not a Gospel law, it will also follow that the
covenant of circumcision made with Abraham was not a Gospel cove,
nant : for the apostle expressly decries circumcision, the great external
work of that covenant. But as Abraham's covenant was undoubtedly a
Gospel covenant, although circumcision is now abolished ; so was Moses7
law a Gospel law, although the ceremonial part is now abrogated.
Lastly: St. Paul, Rom. ix, 4, placed "the giving of the law" among
the greatest privileges of the Jews, but if by the law he meant the
Adamic covenant, he should have called it the greatest curse which
could be entailed' upon a fallen creature : for what can be more terrible
than for a whole nation of sinners to be put under a law that absolutely
curses its violaters, and admits of neither repentance nor pardon ?
Flavel, in the page which I have already quoted, makes the following
just observation : " The law is considered two ways in Scripture. (1.)
Largely, for the whole* Mosaical economy, comprehensive of the cere
monial as well as moral precepts ; and that law is of faith, as the learned
Turretine has proved by four Scripture arguments, (i.) Because it
contained Christ, the object of faith, (ii.) Because it impelled men to
seek Christ by faith, (iii.) Because it required that God should be wor
shipped, which cannot rightly be without faith. Arid (iv.) because Paul
describes the righteousness of faith in those very words whereby Moses
had declared the precepts of the law. Again : (2.) The law in Scripture
is taken strictly for the moral law only, considered abstractedly from the
promises of grace. These are two different senses and acceptations of
the law.
Apply this excellent distinction of the refinements, with which the
doctrine of the law has been perplexed, and you will easily answer the
objections of those who, availing themselves of St. Paul's laconic style,
lay their own farrago at his door. For instance, when he says, « As
many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is writ
ten, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, &c," he
means, (to use Flavel's words,) the law " considered abstractedly from
the promises of grace ;" for, in that case, the law immediately becomes
the Adamic covenant of works, which knows nothing of justification by
faith in a merciful God, through an atoning Mediator; and, in this point
of view, the apostle says with great truth, " The law is not of faith, but
the man that doth these things shall live in them," without being under
any obligation to a Saviour. From the curse of this Adamic, merciless
law, as well as from the curse of the ceremonial burthensorne law of
Moses, " Christ has delivered us ;" but he never intended to deliver us
*Thus when St. John says the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ, he does not mean that the law of Moses is a graceless and lying
law : he only declares, that whereas the Jewish dispensation, which is frequently
called the law, came by Moses, with all its shadowy types, the Christian dispen
sation, which is frequently called grace, came by Jesus Christ, in whom the sha
dows of the ceremonial law have their truth and reality.
48 EQUAL CHECK. [I'AIiT
from the curse of his own " royal law," without our personal, sincere,
penitential, and faithful obedience to it ; for he says himself, " Why call
ye me Lord ! and do not the things which I say ?" " Those mine ene
mies," who put honour upon my cross, while they pour contempt upon
my crown, — « those mine enemies" who would not that I should reign
over them, bring hither and slay them before me.
From the preceding arguments I conclude that what St. James calls
"the royal law," and the "law of liberty," and what St. Paul calls "the
law of Christ," is nothing but the moral law of Moses, which Christ
adopted, and explained in his sermon upon the mount ; a law this, which
is held forth to public view duly connected with the apostles' creed in
our Churches, to indicate that Solifidianism is the abomination of desola
tion, and that the commandments ought no more to be separated from
the articles of our faith in our pulpits and hearts, than they are in our
chancels and Bibles.
And that we shall stand or fall by the moral part of the decalogue in
the great day is evident, not only from the tenor of the New Testament,
but even from St. Paul's express declarations to those very Galatians to
whom he says, " Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law :"
for he charges them to " fulfil the law of Christ ;" adding, " God is not
mocked ; whatsoever a man soweth, that, shall he also reap : for he that
soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap destruction. I have told you,
that they who do such things [adultery, fornication, uncleanness, murders,
drunkenness, and such like] shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But
Antinomians — " We are not without law to God, but under the law to
Christ."
Among the many objections which Zelotes will raise against this
doctrine, two deserve a particular answer : —
"I. If the Mosaic dispensation is an edition of the everlasting Gospel,
why does St. Paul decry it when he writes to the Galatians and Corinth
ians ? And why does he say to the Hebrews, « Now hath Christ obtained
a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the Mediator of a
better covenant, which was established upon better promises,' &c, Heb.
viii, 6, &c. For of these two dispensations the apostle evidently speaks
in that chapter, under the name of an old and a new covenant."
1. Although Christ is the one procurer of grace under all the Gospel
dispensations, yet his own peculiar dispensation has the advantage of the
superannuated dispensation of Moses on many accounts, chiefly these :
Christ is the Son, and Moses was the servant of God : Christ is a sinless,
eternal priest, " after the" royal " order of Melchisedec ;" and Aaron
was a sinful, transitory, Lemtical high priest : Christ is a living, spiritual
temple : and Moses' tabernacle was a lifeless, material building : Christ
writes the decalogue internally, upon the table of the believer's heart ;
and Moses brings it written externally, upon tables of stone : Christ by
"one offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified;" but the
Mosaic sacrifices were daily renewed : Christ shed his own precious
blood, the blood of "the Lamb of God;" but Aaron shed only the vile
blood of bulls and common lambs : Christ's dispensation remaineth, but
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE; SCALES. 49
that of Moses " is done away," 2 Cor. iii, 1 1 : Christ's dispensation is
" the ministration of the Spirit;" but that of Moses is "the ministration
of the letter,— -of condemnation, — of death," not only because it eventually
killed the carnal Jews, who absurdly opposed the letter of their dispensa
tion to 1?he spirit of it ; but also because Moses condemned to instant.
death blasphemers, adulterers, and rebels ; destroying them with volleys
of stones, earthquakes, fire from heaven, waters of jealousy, &c. All
these strange executions were acts of severity, which our mild Redeemer
not only never did himself, but never permitted his apostles to do while
he was upon earth; kindly delaying the execution of his woes, and
chiefly delighting to proclaim peace to penitent rebels. Hence it is that
St. Paul says, "If the" Mosaic "ministration," [which, in the preceding
respect, was comparatively a " ministration of righteous condemnation,]
be glory, much more does the ministration of" Christ [which, in the
sense above mentioned, is comparatively a ministration of righteous
mercy] " exceed in glory !" 2 Cor. iii, 9.
2. With regard to the better promises, on which the apostle founds
his doctrine of the superior excellence of the Christian over the Jewish
dispensation, they are chiefly these : (1.) "The Lord whom ye seek,
even the Messenger of the better covenant, shall suddenly come to his
temple." (2.) " To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness
arise with healing ki his wings." (3.) "I will be merciful to your
unrighteousness, arid your sins I will remember no more : giving you the
knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins ;" a privilege this which
is enjoyed by all Christian believers. (4.) "All shall know me from
the least to the greatest : they shall all be taught of God ; for I will
pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and my servants and my handmaids
shall prophesy, i. e. spsak the wonderful works of God." This blessing,
which under the Jewish dispensation was the prerogative of prophets
and prophetesses only, is common to all true Christians. The four
evangelists and St. Peter, our Lord and his forerunner, agree to name it
" the baptism of the Holy Ghost." St. Peter calls it " the Spirit of pro
mise." Christ terms it also "power from on high, and the promise of
the Father." The fulfilment of this great promise is the peculiar glory
of Christianity in its state of perfection, as appears from John vii, 39,
and 1 Peter i, 12 ; and it is chiefly on account of it that the Christian
dispensation is said to be founded on better promises ; but to infer from
it that the Jewish dispensation was founded on a curse, is a palpa,ble
mistake.
3. Therefore, all that you can make of Heb. viii, 2 Cor. iii, and Gal.
iv, 1, is, (1.) That the Jewish dispensation puts a heavy yoke of cere
monies upon those who are under it, and by that means " geridereth to
bondage ;" whereas the Gospel of Christ begets glorious liberty ; not
only by breaking the yoke of Mosaic rites, but also by revealing more
clearly, and sealing more powerfully, the glorious promise of the Spirit.
And, (2.) That the " Gospel of Moses," if I may use that expression
after St. Paul, Heb. iv, 2, was good in its time and place, and was
founded upon good promises ; but that the Gospel of Christ is better,
and is established upon better prom ises, the latter dispensations illustrating,
improving, and ripening the former ; and altogether forming the various
steps by which the mvstery of God hastens to its glorious accomplishment.
VOL. II. 4
50 EQUAL ciiECic. [PART
" II. If the Mosaic dispensation is so nearly allied to the Gospel ot
Christ, why does the apostle, Hcb. xii, 18-21, give us so dreadful a
description of Mount Sinai ? And why does he add, « So terrible was the
sight [of that mount burning with fire] that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake V "
ANSWER. The apostle in that chapter exalts, with great reason, Mount
Sion above Mount Sinai ; or the Christian above the Jewish dispensation ;
and herein we endeavour to tread in his steps. But the argument taken
from the dreadful burning of Mount Sinai, &c, does by no means prove
that the Sinai covenant was essentially different from the covenant of
grace. Weigh with impartiality the following observations, and they
will, I hope, remove your prejudices, as they have done mine : —
1. If the dispensation of Moses is famous for the past terrors of Mount
Sinai ; so is that of Christ for the future terrors of the day of judgment.
" His voice," says the apostle, " then shook the earth ; biit now he hath
promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also
heaven. We too look for the shout of the archangel, and the Hast of
the trump of God ;" and are persuaded, that the flames which ascended
from Mount Sinai to the midst of heaven were only typical of those
flames that shall crown the Christian dispensation, when our " Lord shall
be revealed in flaming fire, to take a more dreadful vengeance on them
that obey not the Gospel," than ever Moses did on those who disobeyed
his dispensation. " Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved,
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation ; looking
for and hasting unto the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire
shall bo dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat!" How
inconsiderable do the Mosaic terrors of a burning bush and a Jlaming
hill appear, when they are compared with the Christian terrors of melting
elements, and of a world, whose inveterate curse is pursued from the
tiircumference to the centre, by a pervading fire ; and devoured by rapidly
spreading flames !
'2. How erroneous must the preaching of Zelotes appear to those
who believe all the Scriptures ! " I do not preach to you duties and
sincere obedience, like Mr. Legality on Mount Sinai ; but privileges and
faith, like St. Paul on Mount Sion." How unscriptural, I had almost
said how deceitful is this modish effeminate divinity ! Does not the very
apostle, who is supposed to patronize it most, speak directly against it,
where he says, " We labour that we may be accepted of Him, (the
Lord :) for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, &c.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord [in that great day of retribu
tion,] we persuade men?" Nay, does not he conclude his dreadful
description of Mount Sinai, and its terrors, by threatening Christian
believers, who " are come to Mount Sion," with more dreadful displays
of Divine justice than Arabia ever beheld, if they do not- obey "Him
that speaks from heaven ?" Heb. xii, 25. And does he not sum up his
doctrine, with respect to Mount Sinai and Mount Sion, in these awful
words ? " Wherefore, we receiving [by faith] a kingdom which cannot
be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably,
with reverence and GODLY FEAR : for OUR God" is not the God of the
Antinomians, but " A CONSUMING FIRE :" i. e. the God who delivered
the moral law upon Mount Sinai in the midst of devouring flames, and
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 51
gave a fuller edition of it in his sermon upon the mount, solemnly adopt
ing that law into his own peculiar dispensation, as " the law of liberty,"
or his own evangelical law — this very " God is a consuming fire." He
will come in the great day, " revealed in flaming fire, to consume the
man of sin by the breath of his mouth, and to take vengeance on all
that obey not the Gospel," whether they despise its gracious offers, or
trample under foot its righteous precepts. If Zelotes would attentively
read Heb. xii, 14-29, and compare that awful passage with Heb. ii, 2,
3, he would see that this is the apostle's anti-Solifidian doctrine : but,
alas, while the great Pharisaic whore forbids some Papists to read the
Bible, will the great Antinomian Diana permit some Protestants to
mind it ?
Should not the preceding observations have the desired effect upon
• he reader, I appeal to witnesses. Moses is the first. He comes down
from Mount Sinai with an angelic appearance. Beams of glory dart
from his seraphic face. His looks bespeak the man that had conversed
forty days with the God of glory, and was saturated with Divine mercy
and love. But I forget that Christianized Jews will see no glory in
Moses, and have a veil of prejudice ready to cast over his radiant face :
I therefore point at a more illustrious witness : it is the Lord Jesus.
" Behold ! he cometh with ten thousand of his saints," says St. Jude,
" to execute judgment upon all ;" and particularly upon those that " sin
wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth. There
remaineth no more sacrifice for their sins," says my third witness, " but
a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall de
vour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy ;
of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath"
despised the Christian dispensation, and " done despite to the Spirit of
grace ? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto
me— the Lord shall judge HIS people. It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God," Heb. x, 20-31.
Thus speaks the champion of free grace. Such is the account which
lie gives of Christ's severity toward those who despise his dispensation,
— a severity this, which will display itself by the infliction of a punish-
ment much sorer than that inflicted on the rebels destroyed by Moses.
And are we not come to the height of inattention, if we can read such
terrible declarations as these, and maintain that nothing but vinegar and
gall flows from Mount Sinai, and nothing but milk and honey from Mount
Sion 1 How long shall we have " eyes that do not see, and hearts that
do not understand ]" Lord, rend the veil of our prejudices. Let us
see "the truth as it is in" Moses, that we may more clearly see "the
truth as it is in Jesus."
The balance of the preceding arguments shows that the Mosaic and
the Christian covenants equally set before us blessing and cursing ; and
that, according to both those dispensations, the obedience of faith shall
be crowned with gracious rewards ; while disobedience, the sure fruit
of unbelief, shall be punished with the threatened curse. I throw this
conclusion into my Scales, and weigh it before my readers, thus : —
52
EUUAL CHECH.
[PART
BLESSINGS OF THE MOSAIC COVE- CURSES OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPEN-
NANT,
Being the words of Moses.
Moses said, Consecrate your-
selves to-day to the Lord, &c, that
he may bestow upon you a blessing
this day, Exod. xxxii, 29. Behold,
1 set before you this day a Messing,
&c, if ye obey the commandments
of the Lord. And it shall come to
pass, that thou shalt put the bles? -
ing upon Mount Gerizirn, &c, Deut.
xi, 20, 29. And it shall come to
pass, if thou shalt hearken diligent
ly, &c, that the Lord thy God will
bless thee. All these blessings
shall overtake thee, &c. Blessed
shalt thou be in the city and bless
ed in the field, &c. Blessed shalt
thou be when thou comest in, and
blessed when thou goest out, &c.
The Lord shall command the bless
ing upon thee, &c. The Lord shall
establish thee a holy people to him
self, if thou shalt walk in his ways.
And, &c, he shall open to thee his
good treasure, Deut. xxviii, 1-12.
This is the blessing wherewith
Moses, the man of God, blessed the
children of Israel. And he said,
The Lord came from Sinai, &c,
with ten thousands of saints, from
his right hand went a fiery law ;
yea, he loved the people. Let Reu
ben live, and not die. And of Levi
he said, Let thy Thummim and thy
Urim [thy perfections and thy
lights] be with thy holy one. Ana1
of Napthali he said, O Napthali,
satisfied with favour, and full with
the blessing of the Lord, possess
thou the west. Happy art thou, O
Israel; who is like unto thee, O
people saved by the Lord, the shield
of thy help ? Thine enemies shall
be found liars, and thou shalt tread
upon their high places, Deut. xxxiii,
1 to 29.
The Lord passed by before Mo-
s ATI ox,
Being the words of Christ.
II.
Jesus began to upbraid the cities,
wherein most of his mighty works
were done, because they repented
not. Wo unto thee, Chorazin : —
AVO unto thee, Bethsaida : — I say
unto you, It shall be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon, at the day of
judgment, than for you. And thou
Capernaum, which art exalted unto
heaven, shalt be brought down to
hell, &c. I say unto you, It shall
be more tolerable for the land of
Sodom in the day of judgment, than
for thee, Matt, xi, 20, 25. I tell
you, Nay ; but except ye repent, ye
shall all likewise perish. Cut it
down, [the barren fig tree :] why
cumbereth it the ground ? Let it
alone this year also ; — if it bear
fruit, well ; and if not, then, after
that, thou shalt cut it down, Luke
xiii, 5, 9.
The Lord of that [once blessed
but now backsliding] servant will
come in a day when he looketh not
for him, and will cut him asunder,
and will appoint him his portion
with the unbelievers. Arid that ser
vant, who knew his Lord's will, and
prepared not himself, neither did
according to his will, shall be beaten
with many stripes, Luke xii, 46.
Wo unto you, hypocrites : — ye shall
receive the greater damnation : —
ye make a proselyte twofold more
a child of hell than yourselves.
Wo unto you, ye blind guides — ye
fools, and blind — ye pay tithe of
mint, and have omitted judgment,
mercy, and faith, &c. Fill ye up
then the measure of your fathers ;
ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation
of hell? Matt, xxiii, 13 to 33.
Wo to that man by whom the
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 53
I. II.
ses, and proclaimed, The Lord, offence cometh ; wherefore it' thy
the Lord God, merciful and gra- hand or thy foot offend thee, cut
clous, long suffering and abundant them off. It is better to enter into
in goodness and truth, keeping life maimed, rather than be cast
mercy for thousands, forgiving mi- into everlasting Jire, Matt, xviii, 7,
quity, transgression, and sin, &c. 8. Wo unto you that are rich,
And Moses made haste, &c, and &c. Wo unto you that are full,
said, If now I have found grace in &c. Wo unto you that laugh now,
thy sight, O Lord, &c, pardon our &c. Wo unto you, when all men
iniquity, and our sin, and take us for shall speak well of you, Luke vi,
thine inheritance. And he (the 24. Depart from me, ye cursed,
Lord) said, I make a (or the) cove- into everlasting fire, prepared for the
nant, Exodus xxxiv, 6-10. devil — for I was hungry, and ye gave
me no meat, &c, Matt, xxv, 42.
I flatter myself, that if Zelotes and Honestus candidly weigh the pre
ceding arguments and scriptures, they will reap from thence a double
advantage : (1.) They will no more tread the honour of Christ's moral
law in the dust — no more rob it of its chief glory, that of being a strict
rule of judgment. (2.) Honestus will be again benefited by a consider,
able part of the New Testament ; and Zelotes by a considerable part
of the law and the prophets, which (as our Lord himself informs us
" hang on" those very " commandments" that the Antinomians divest o
their sanction, and the Pharisees of their spirituality.
SECTION VII.
The doctrine of the preceding section is weighed in the Scripture
Scales — According to Christ's Gospel, keeping the moral law in
faith is a SUBORDINATE way to eternal life, and some Protestants are
grossly mistaken when they make believers afraid sincerely to observe
the commandments, in order to obtain through Christ a more abun
dant life of grace here, and an eternal life of glory hereafter.
IF I have spent so much time in attempting to remove the difficulties
with which the doctrine of the law is clogged, it has not been without
reason ; for the success of my Checks in a great degree depends upon
clearing up this part of my subject. If I fail here, Pharisaism will not
be checked, and gross Antiiiomianism will still pass for the pure Gospel ;
fundamental errors about the law being the muddy springs whence the
broken cisterns, both of the Pharisees and of the Antinomians, have
their constant supplies. Honestus will have an anti-evangelical, Christ-
less law, or at least a law without spirituality and strictness ; the law he
frames to himself being an insignificant twig, and not the Spirit's two-
edged piercing sword. And Zelotes contrives a Gospel without law ;
or, if he admits of a law for Christ's subjects, it is such a one as has
only the shadow of a law — " a rule of life,'" as he calls it, and NOT a
rule of judgment. That at first sight Honestus may perceive the spiritu
ality of the law, and the need of Christ's Gospel ; and that Zelotes may
discover the need of Christ's law, and see its awful impartiality. I beg
54 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
leave to recapitulate the contents of the last section ; presenting them to
the reader, in my Scales, as the just weights of the sanctuary exactly
balancing each other.
WEIGHTS OF FAITH AND FREE WEIGHTS OF WORKS AND FREE
GRACE. WILL.
.I- II.
When the Philippian jailer cried When the young ruler, and the
out, Sirs, what must I do to be pious lawyer, asked our Lord
saved? Paul and Silas said, [accord. What shall I do to inherit eternal
ing to the first Gospel axiom,] life ? He answered them, [accord-
BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus Christ, ing to the second axiom,] If thou
and thou shalt be saved, Acts xvi, wilt enter into life, KEEP THE COM-
31« MANDMENTS. This do, and thou
shalt live, Matt, xix, 17; Luke
xviii, 19 ; x, 28.
Here Zelotes, as if he were determined to set aside the left Gospel scale,
cries out, « There is no entering into life by doing and 'keeping the com
mandments. The young ruler and the lawyer were both as great legal-
ists as yourself, and Christ answered them according to their error ; the
wise man having observed, that we must sometimes « answer a fool
according to his folly.' " I understand you, Zelotes ; you suppose that
one Pharisaic fiend had driven the poisoned nail of legality into their
breasts, and that Christ was so officious as to clinch it for him. « Not
so," replies Zelotes, "but I think Christ's answer was ironical, like that
of the Prophet Micaiah, who said one thing to King Ahab, and meant
another." What ! ZeloteS, two men, at different times and in the most
solemn manner, propose to our Lord the most important question in the
world. He shows a particular regard for them; and returns them
similar answers. When one of them had described the way of obedi
ence, an evangelist observes, that " Jesus saw he had answered discreetly,
Mark xii, 34. St. Luke informs us that Christ commended him and
said, « Thou hast answered right," Luke x, 28 ; and yet you intimate,
that not only our Lord's answers, but his commendations were ironical.
In what an unfavourable light do you put our Saviour's kindness to poor
sinners, who prostrate themselves at his feet, and there ask the way to
heaven ! If "cursed is he that maketh the blind to wander out of their
earthly way ;" how can you, upon your principles, exculpate our Lord
for doing this with respect to the blind seekers, who inquire the way that
leads to eternal life and heaven ?
But this is not all. It is evident, that although from the taunting tone
of Micaiah's voice, Ahab directly understood that the answer given
him was ironical ; yet, lest there should be deception in the case, the pro
phet dropped the mask of irony, and told the king the naked truth before
they parted. Not so Jesus Christ, if Solifidianism is the Gospel: for
although neither the ruler nor the lawyer suspected that his direction
and approbation were ironical, he let them both depart without giving
them, or his disciples who were present, the least hint that he was send
ing them upon a fool's errand. Therefore, if setting sinners upon Keep
ing the commandments in faith to go to heaven be only showing them
the cleaner way to hell, as Zelotes sometimes intimates, nobody ever
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
55
pointed sinners more clearly to hell than our blessed Lord. This mis
take of Zelotes is so much the more glaring, as the passages which he
supposes to be ironical agree perfectly with the sermon on the mount,
and with Matt, xxv ; two awful portions of the Gospel, which I am glad
the Solifidians have not yet set aside as evangelical ironies.
Once more : if our Lord's direction was not true with regard to the
covenant of grace, it was absolutely false with respect to the covenant
of works ; for as the ruler and the lawyer had undoubtedly broken the
Adamic law of perfect innocence, they never could obtain life by keeping
that law, should they have done it to the highest perfection for the time
to come. Therefore, which way soever Zelotes turns himself, upon his
scheme our Lord spoke either a deceitful irony, or o.Jtat untruth: —
I resume the Scales.
I.
I am the Lord* thy God, who
brought thee out of the house of
bondage.
The righteousness of faith speak-
eth on this wise : — Say not in thine
heart,Who shall ascend into heaven ?
&c, or, Who shall descend into the
deep 1 &c. But what saith it ? The
word is nigh thee, Rom. x, 5, &c.
Christ hath redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, Gal. iii, 13.
If they that are of the [anti-evan
gelical] law be heirs, faith is made
void, and the promise of none effect,
Rom. iv, 14.
I do not frustrate the grace of
God : for if righteousness came by
the [anti-evangelical] law ; [or if it
came originally by any] law ; then
CHRIST is dead in vain, Gal. ii, 21 .
I, through the law, am dead to
the law. Ye are not under the law.
Now we are delivered from the
law, [both as a cumbrous burden of
carnal commandments ; as a heavy
load of typical ceremonies ; and as
II.
Thou shalt have no other god
before me, fyc, [to the end of the
decalogue.]
This commandment, which I com
mand thee this day, is not, &c, far
off. It is not in heaven, that thou
shouldst say, Who shall go up for
us to heaven? &c. Neither is it
beyond the sea, that thou shouldst
say, Who shall go over the sea for
us ? &c. But the word is very nigh
unto thee, Deut. xxx, 11, &c.
So speak ye, and so do, as they
that shall be judged by the law of
liberty, James ii, 12.
If ye fulfil the royal law, &c,
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself," ye do well: for he shall
have judgment without mercy, that
hath showed no mercy, James ii,
8, 13.
God sending his own Son, &c,
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,
that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in [or by] us who
walk not after the flesh, &c, Rom.
viii, 3, 4.
Do we make void the law through
faith 1 God forbid : yea, we establish
the law. Whosoever shall keep the
whole law, and yet offend in one
point, he is guilty of all, James ii,
10. Think not that I am come to
* Here observe, that God prefaces the decalogue by evangelically giving him
self to the Jews as their God — a gracious God, who had already " saved them out.
of the land of Egypt," Jude 5, and who had a peculiar right to their faith and
grateful evangelical obedience.
EQUAL CHECK.
rPART
I.
an anti-evangelical, Christless cove-
nant of works,] Gal. ii, 19; Rom.
vi. 14 ; vii, 6.
CHRIST is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that be-
lievelh, Rom. x, 4.
O foolish Galatiaris, who hath
bewitched you, that you should not
obey the truth, before whose eyes
CHRIST has been evidently set forth,
crucified among you, &c ? Received
ye the Spirit by the works of the
law, or by the hearing Of faith ?
Gal. iii, 1, 2.
Stand fast in the liberty where
with CHRIST hath made us free,
and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage ; [i. e. with the
curse of a Christless law, or with
the galling yoke of Mosaic rites,]
Gal. v, 1.
If there had been a law given,
which could have given life, verily
righteousness should have been by
the law, Gal. iii, 21. [Note. JVo
law of works can justify a sinner :
he must be justified by grace, or not
at all. If he is not crushed into an
atom for his native sinfulness, or
sent instantly to hell for his first
sin ; or if he has an opportunity to
repent and turn, all is of grace,
and springs from « the free gift,"
which « is come upon all men unto
justification of life," Rom. v, 11.]
II.
destroy the law, &c. Verily I say
unto you, &c, one jot or tittle shall
in no wise pass from the [moral]
law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, &c, shall be
called the* least in the kingdom of
heaven, Matt, v, 17.
Ye are his servants whom ye
obey ; whether of sin unto death, or
of obedience unto righteousness,
Rom. vi, 16.
We are not without law to God,
but under the law to Christ, 1 Cor.
ix, 21. Let brotherly love continue.
He that loveth another hath fulfilled
the law. Love is the fulfilling of
the law. Fulfil the law of Christ,
Heb. xiii, 1 ; Rom. xiii, JO; Gal.
vi, 2.
Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and
do not do the things which I say ?
Those mine enemies, who would
not that I should reign over them,
[or who would not receive and keep
my law,] bring hither and slay them
before me, Luke vi, 46 ; xix, 27.
Awake to righteousness, and sin
not, 1 Cor. xv, 34. Except your
righteousness shall exceed the right-
eousness of the scribes, &c, ye shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven, Matt, v, 20. As it is writ
ten, He hath dispersed abroad ; he
hath given to the poor. His right.
eousness remaineth for ever. Now
he that ministereth seed to the
sower, multiply your seed sown,
and increase the fruits of your right.
eousness, 2 Cor. ix, 9, 10. And it
shall be f our righteousness, • if we
observe to do all these command-
ments, Deut. vi, 25.
* Thus apostates (by breaking one of the ten commandments, and not repent.
ing according to the privilege, which "the law of liberty" allows in the day of
«dvat,on) are to, though they were once >,*. I say apostates ; because our Lord,
M. Paul and St. James, evidently speak of believers, i. e. of persons already in
the kingdom of heaven, or in the Christian dispensation.
re '' WiH b^g!ad t0 S6e W,hat ^dicious Calvinists make of this pas
one of Calvin's most famous successors, comments thus upon it •
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
57
I.
II.
By the works of the law [when In the day of judgment — by thy
it is opposed to Christ, or abstracted words thou shalt be justified. The
from the promise] shall no flesh doers of the law [of liberty — the
living be justified [at any time,] law
Gal. ii, 16.
connected with the Gospel
When you have done all that is
promises] shall be justified, Matt,
xii, 37 ; Rom. ii, 10.
Cast the unprofitable servant into
commanded you, say, We are un- outer darkness ; there shall be weep.
profitable servants, Luke xvii, 10. ing and gnashing of teeth, Matt.
xxv, 30.
If I am not mistaken, the balance of these scriptures shows, that,
although we are not under the moral law without Christ, yet we are under
it to Christ, both as a rule of life and a rule of judgment : or, to speak
more plainly, although we shall not be judged by the law of innocence,
i. e. the moral law abstracted from Gospel promises, yet we shall be
judged by the " law of liberty," i. e. the moral law connected with the
"promise of the Gospel : an evangelical law this, under which the merci
ful God for Christ's sake put mankind in our first parents, when he gra
ciously promised them " the seed of the woman," the atoning Mediator,
.the royal "Priest, after the order of Melchisedec."
SECTION VIII.
Showing what is God's work, and wJiat is our own ; how Christ saves
us, and how we work out our own salvation.
FIRST SCALE. SECOND SCALE.
Containing the weights of FREE Containing the weights of FREE
GRACE. WILL.
The hour is coining and now is, Awake, thou that sleepest, arise
when the dead shall hear the voice from the dead, and Christ shall
of the Son of God ; and they that give thee light, Eph. v, 14.
hear shall live, John v, 25.
I am come, that they might have
LIFE, and that they might have it
more abundantly, John x, 10.
You hath he quickened, who
Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man, &c, ye have no LIFE
in you, John vi, 53.
Ye will not come unto me, that
, 40.
were dead in trespasses and sins, ye might have life, John v
Eph. ii, 1.
•' God, out of his fatherly benignity and clemency, shall accept from us, his
children, this endeavour and study to keep his lav/, instead of a perfect righteous.
ness, &c. All this discourse ought to be referred to the new obedience, &c,
which is the plainer, because most of these statutes were concessions, remedies,
and expiations for sin." (Dioo. in loc.) Mr. Henry is exactly of the same senti
ment. " Could we perfectly fulfil but that one command of loving God with all
our heart, &c, and could we say we had never done otherwise, that would be so
our righteousness as to entitle us to the benefits of the covenant of innocency, &c.
But that we cannot pretend to ; therefore our sincere obedience shall be accepted
through a Mediator, to denominate us (as Noah was) 'righteous before God.'"
(HENRY in loc.)
58
EQUAL CHECK.
I PART
I.
You being dead in your sins, &c,
hath he quickened together with
Col. ii, 13.
Except a man be born again, he
II.
Thou hast a name that thou liv.
est, and art dead, &c. Strengthen
the things that remain, and are
ready to die, Rev. iii, 1, 2.
Every one that loveth — every one
cannot see the kingdom of God, that does righteousness, is born of
John iii, 3. ^ 7 - T '•-•• —
The wind bloweth where it list-
eth, &c, so is every one that is born
of the Spirit, John iii, 8.
Being born again, not of corrupti
ble seed, but, &c, by* the word of
God ; and this is the word, which
by the Gospel is preached unto you,
1 Pet, i, 23, 25. Of his own will
begat he us with the word of truth,
James i, 18.
God, 1 John iv, 7 ; ii, 29.
Humble yourselves under the
mighty hand of God, that he may
exalt you. For God resisteth the
proud and giveth grace to the hum
ble, 1 Pet. v, 6, 5.
Wherefore, &c, lay apart all
filthiness, &c, and receive* &c, the
ingrafted word, James i, 19, 21.
Whosoever believeth, &c, is born
of God [according to his dispensa
tion,] 1 John v, 1. As many as
received him, to them [of his own
gracious will] gave he power to be
come the sons of God, even to them"
that believe on his name, John i, 12.
For ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus. Faith
Cometh by hearing [which is our
work,] Gal. iii, 26 ; Rom. x, 17.
They [the Bereans] received the
word with all readiness of mind,
and searched the Scriptures daily,
whether those things were so ;
therefore many of them believed :
[i. e. received " the ingrafted word,"
and by that means were "born
again" according to the Christian
dispensation;] Acts xvii, 11, 12.
Purge out the old leaven [of
wickedness] that ye may be a new
lump. (Ibid.)
* How mistaken were the divines that composed the synod ot' Dort, when
speaking of regeneration, they said, without any distinction. (Illam Deus in no-
bis sine nobis operatur,) "God works it in us, without us!" Just as if God be.
lieved in us without us ! Just as if we received the word without our receiving
of it ! Just as if the sower and the sun produced corn without the field that bears
it! What led them into this mistake was, no doubt, a commendable desire to
maintain the honour of free grace. However, if by regeneration they meant the
first communication of that fructifying, " saving grace, which has appeared to
all men"— the first visit, or the first implanting of " that light of life, which en
lightens every man that cometh into the world," they spoke a precious truth :
for God bestows this free gift upon us, absolutely " without us !" Nor could we
ever do what he requires of us in the scale of free will, if he had not first given
us a talent of grace, and if he did not continually help us to use it aright when
we have a good will.
Christ our passover is sacrificed
for us, 1 Cor. vi, 7.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
59
T.
II.
The blood of Christ cleanseth us
from all sin, 1 John i, 7.
By one offering he hath perfect
ed for ever [in atoning merits] them
that are sanctified, Heb. x, 14.
He by himself purged our sins.
Of the people there was none with
him, Heb. i, 3 ; Isa. Ixiii, 3. [Here
the incommunicable glory of mak
ing a proper atonement for sin is
secured to our Lord.]
He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself, Heb. ix, 26.
Ye are sanctified, &c, in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God, 1 Cor. vi, 1 1 .
Surely one shall say, In [or
through] the Lord have I right
eousness and strength, Isa. xlv, 24.
I will make mention of thy right
eousness, even of thine only, &c.
My mouth shall show forth thy
righteousness, and thy salvation all
the day, Psa. Ixxi, 15, 16.
My righteousness is near, my
salvation is gone forth, Isa. li, 5.
I bring near my righteousness,
it shall not be far off; and my sal
vation shall not tarry, Isa. xlvi, 13.
God sent his Son Jesus to bless
you, in turning, &c, you from your
iniquities, Acts iii, 26.
Him [Christ] hath God exalted
to give repentance to Israel, and
forgiveness of sins, Acts v, 31.
Be it known unto you, that
through this man [Christ] is preach,
ed unto you the forgiveness of sins,
Acts xxxi, 38.
Not by works of righteousness
which we have done ; but of his
mercy he saved us, Tit. iii, 5.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ;
and purify your hearts, ye double
minded, James iv, 8.
Let us go on unto perfection.
This one thing I do, &c. I press
toward the mark, Heb. vi, 1 ; Phil,
iii, 13.
Ye have purified your souls in
obeying the truth. Verily I have
cleansed my heart in vain, and
washed my hands in innocency.
[The word in vain refers only to a
temptation of David when he " saw
the prosperity of the wicked,"] 1
Pet. i, 22; Psa. Ixxiii, 13.
Put away the evil of your doing
from before mine eyes, Isa. i, 16.
If a man purge himself from
these, he shall be a vessel unto ho
nour, sanctijied, and meet for the
Master's use, 2 Tim. ii, 21.
In every nation he that worketh
righteousness is accepted of Him,
Acts x, 35.
Then [when thou dealest thy
bread to the hungry, bringest the
poor to thy house, &c,] tken shall
thy righteousness go before thee,
and the glory of the Lord shall be
thy rereward, Isa. Iviii, 8.
Whosoever does not righteous
ness is not of God, 1 John iii, 10.
The Lord rewarded me [David]
according to my righteousness, ac
cording to the cleanness of my
hands, 2 Sam. xxii, 21.
I thought on my ways, and turned
my feet unto thy testimonies. I made
haste, and delayed not to keep thy
commandments, Psa. cxix, 59, 60.
Repent ye, therefore, and be con
verted, that your sins may be blot
ted out, Acts iii, 19.
Arise: why tarriest thou ? Wash
away thy sins; calling upon the
name of the Lord, Acts xxii, 16.
Except your righteousness ex
ceed the righteousness of the
scribes, ye shall in no case enter
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
And this is the name whereby he
shall be called the Lord our right
eousness, Jer. xxiii, 6.
Them that have obtained like
precious faith with us, through the
righteousness of God and our Sa
viour Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. i, 1.
CHRIST is made unto us of God,
&c, righteousness, I Cor. i, 30.
Even for mine own sake will I
do it, Isa. xlviii, 11.
No man can say that Jesus is the
Lord, but by the Holy Ghost — the
Spirit of faith, 1 Cor. xii, 3 ; 2 Cor.
iv, 13.
I will put my Spirit within you,
Ezek. xxxvi, 27. I will pour out
of my Spirit upon all flesh, Acts
ii, 17.
Hear me, O Lord, that this peo
ple may know, &c, that thou hast
turned their heart back again, 1
Kings xviii, 37.
A new heart will I give you, &c.
I will take, away the stony heart,
&c, and I will give you a heart of
flesh, Ezek. xxxvi, 26.
The preparation of the heart in
man is from the Lord. Thou wilt
prepare their heart, [the heart of the
humble,] Prov. xvi, 1 ; Psa. x, 17.
The Lord will give grace and
glory, Psa. Ixxxiv, 11.
Exceeding great and precious
promises are given us ; that by these
you might be partakers of the Di
vine nature, 2 Pet. i, 4.
Come, for all things are now
ready, Luke xiv, 17.
The Lord will wait to be gra
cious, Isa. xxx, 18.
Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God; I will strengthen thee, Isa.
xli. 10.
II.
into the kingdom of heaven, Matt.
v, 20.
He that does righteousness is
righteous, even as he [Christ] is
righteous, 1 John iii, 7.
Though Noah, Daniel, and Job
were in it [the place about to be
destroyed] they should deliver but
their own souls by their righteous
ness, Ezek. xiv, 14.
The righteousness of the RIGHT
EOUS shall be upon him, Ezek.
xviii, 20.
/ will for this be inquired of, &c,
to do it for them, Ezek. xxxvi, 37.
Your heavenly Father will give
his Holy Spirit to them that ask
him — to them that obey him, Luke
xi, 13; Actsx, 32.
Repent and be baptized, &c, [or
stand to your baptismal vow,] and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost, Acts ii, 38.
Take with you words, and turn
to the Lord. Turn ye even to me
with all your heart, Hos. xiv, 2 ;
Joel ii, 12.
Harden not your heart : rend
your heart : make you a new heart,
for why will ye die ? Psa. xcv, 8 ;
Joel ii, 13 ; Ezek. xviii, 31.
Nevertheless, there are good
things found in thee, in that, &c,
thou hast prepared thine heart to
seek God, 2 Chron. xix, 3.
No good thing will he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. (Ib.)
Having therefore these promises,
let us cleanse ourselves from all
filthiriess of the flesh and spirit, 2
Cor. vii, 1.
The Lamb's wife hath made her
self ready. Be ye also ready, Rev.
xix, 7 ; Matt, xxiv, 44.
Wait on the Lord, &c : wait, I
say, on the Lord, Psa. xxvii, 14.
David encouraged himself in his
God, 1 Sam. xxx, 6. They that
wait on the Lord shall renew their
sirength, Isa. xl, 31.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
61
I.
II.
Yea, I will uphold thee with the
right hand of my righteousness,
Isa. xli, 10.
I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean: from
all your nlthiness, and from all your
idols will I cleanse you, Ezek. xxxvi,
25.
I the Lord do keep it [the spirit-
ual vineyard] lest any hurt it. I
will keep it night and day, Isaiah
xxvii, 3.
I will give them a heart of flesh,
that they may walk in my statutes,
Ezek. xi, 20.
David my servant shall be king
over them ; and, &c, they shall
walk in my judgments, Ezekiel
xxxvii, 24.
For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto the
good works which God [by his word
of command, by providential occur
rences, and by secret intimations
of his will, ^po^ro^aao's] hath before
prepared, that we should walk in
them, Eph. ii, 10.
God hath saved us, and called us
with a holy CALLING ; not according
to our works, but according to his
own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ before the world
began, 2 Tim. i, 9.
1 will give them a heart to know
me, that I am the Lord, Jer. xxiv, 7.
Cursed is the man that maketh
flesh his arm, Jer. xvii, 5. Cast
thy burden upon the Lord, and he
will sustain thee, Psa. Iv, 22.
Wash ye, make you clean, Isa.
i, 16. O Jerusalem, wash thy
heart from wickedness, that thou
mayest be saved, Jer. iv, 14.
Keep thyself pure, 1 Tim. v, 22.
Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life,
Prov. iv, 23.
What does the Lord require of
thee but, &c, to walk humbly with
thy God? Micah vi, 8. And
Enoch* set himself to walk with
God, Gen. v, 24.
He that saith he abideth in him,
[God manifested in the flesh,] ought
himself also so to walk, even as he
walked, 1 John ii, 6.
And as many as walk according
to this rule, peace be on them and
mercy, Gal. vi, 16. That they
might set their hope in God, &c,
and not be as their fathers, a stub
born generation, &c, that set not
their heart aright, &c, and refused
to walk in his law. But as for me,
1 will walk in mine integrity, Psa. •
Ixxviii, 7, 10 ; xxvi, 11.
The grace of God, that briugeth
salvation, hath appeared unto all
men, teaching us that we should
live soberly, &c. Give diligence
to make your CALLING sure. How
shall we escape if we neglect so
great salvation? Titus ii, 11, 12;
2 Pet. i, 10 ; Heb. ii, 3.
Then shall we know, if we folloio
on to know the Lord, Hos. vi, 3.
* The word in the original is in the conjugation Hithpahel, which signifies to
cause one's self to do a thing. Our translation does not do it justice. Nor can
Zelotes reasonably object to the meaning of the word used by Moses, unless he
can prove that Enoch had no hand, and no foot, in his walking with God; and
that God dragged him as if he had been a passive cart, or a recoiling cannon.
However, I readily grant that Enoch did not set himself to walk with God without
the help of that " saving grace, which has appeared to all wen," and which so
many " receive in vain."
52
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
I will put my fear in their hearts,
Jer. xxxii, 40.
The Lord thy God will circumcise
thine heart, Deut. xxx, 6.
/ will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts,
Jer. xxxi, 33.
We love him, because he first
loved us, 1 John iv, 1 9.
By grace ye are SAVED, through
faith ; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, Eph. ii, 8.
It is of faith, that it might be by
grace, Rom. iv, 16.
Not for thy righteousness, &c,
dost thou go and possess their land,
Deut. ix, 5.
Not of works, lest any man should
boast, Eph. ii, 9.
Thou hast hid those things from
the wise and prudent, [in their own
eyes,] and revealed them unto babes,
Luke x, 21.
II.
They shall not find me, &c, for
that they did not choose the fear of
the Lord, Prov. i, 29.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin
of your heart, Deut. x, 16.
Let every man be swift to hear,
&c. Receive with meekness the
ingrafted word, which is able to
save your souls, James i, 19, 21.
Thy word have I hid in my heart,
Psa. cxix, 11.
The Father loveth you, because
ye have believed, John xvi, 27.
Believe, &c, and thou shalt be
SAVED, Acts xvi, 31. Receive not
the grace of God in vain, 2 Cor.
vi, 1. Looking diligently lest any
man fail of [or be wanting to] the
grace of God, Heb. xii, 15.
Inherit the kingdom, &c, for I
was hungry, and ye gave me meat,
&c, Matt, xxv, 34.
Charge them, &c, to do good,
&c, that they may lay hold on
eternal life, 1 Tim. vi, 17, &c.
Who is wise, and he shall under
stand these things 1 prudent, and he
shall know them ? Hos. xiv, 9.
None of the wicked shall under-
stand, but the wise shall understand,
Dan. xii, 10.
If I am not mistaken, the balance of the preceding scriptures shows
that Pharisaism and Antinomianism are equally unscriptural ; the bar-
monious opposition of those passages evincing, (1.) That our free will
is subordinately a worker with God's free grace in every thing but a
proper atonement for sin, and the first implanting of the light which
enlightens every man that comes into the world : such an atonement
having been fully completed by Christ's blood, and such an implanting
being entirely performed by his Spirit. (2.) That Honestus is most
dreadfully mistaken, when he makes next to nothing of free grace and
her works. (3.) That Zelotes obtrudes a most dangerous paradox upon
the simple, when he preaches finished salvation in the Chrispian sense
of the word. And (4.) That St. Paul speaks as the oracles of God,
when he says, " God worketh in you, &c, therefore work ye out your
own salvation."
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 63
SECTION IX.
Displaying the most wonderful work of free grace, the general redemp
tion of the lost world of the ungodly by Jesus Christ : and the most
astonishing work of free will, the obstinate neglect of that redemp
tion, by those who do despite to the Spirit of grace.
HOXESTUS has such high thoughts of his uprightness and good works,
that he sometimes doubts if he is a lost sinner by nature, and if the vir
tue of Christ's blood is absolutely necessary to his justification. And
the mind of Zelotes is so full of absolute election and reprobating par
tiality, that he thinks the sacrifice of Christ was confined to the little
part of mankind which he calls "the Church, the pleasant children,
Israel, Jacob, Ephraim, God's people, the elect, the little flock," &c.
Those happy souls, if you believe him, are loved with an everlasting
love, and all the rest of mankind are hated with an everlasting hate.
Christ never bled, never died for these. God purposely let them fall in
the first Adam, and absolutely denied them all interest in Christ the
second Adam, that they might necessarily be wicked and infallibly be
damned, " to illustrate his glory by their destruction."
To rectify those mistakes ; to show Honestus that all men, without
exception, are so wicked by nature as to stand in need of Christ's atoning
blood ; and to convince Zelotes that Christ was so good as to shed it for
all men, without exception ; I throw into my Scales some of the weights
stamped with general redemption : I say some, because others have
already been produced in the third section.
How ALL men are temporally re- Why some men are not eternally
deemed by Christ's blood. redeemed by Christ's Spirit.
THE WEIGHTS OF FREE GRACE. THE WEIGHTS OF FREE WILL.
NOTE. General redemption by price NOTE. General redemption by
and free grace cannot fail, be- power and free will can and
cause it is entirely the work of does fail, because many refuse
CHRIST, who does all things well. to the last, subordinately " to
work out their own salvation."
We see Jesus, who was made a As I live, saith the Lord God, I
little lower than the angels [i. e. have no pleasure in the death of
was made man] for the suffering the wicked ; but that the wicked
of death, &c, that he, by the grace turn from his way and live ; — turn
of God, should taste death for every ye, turn ye, from your evil ways ;
man, Heb. ii, 9. for why will ye die, O house of
Israel? Ezek. xviii, 23 ; xxxiii, 11.
When we were yet without And now, &c, judge, I pray you,
strength, Christ died for the ungod- between me and my vineyard.
ly, Rom. v, 6. The Son of man is What could have been done more
come to save tliat which is lost, to my vineyard, that I have not
Luke xix, 10. Behold the Lamb done in it? Wherefore, when I
of God, that taketh away the sin looked that it should bring forth
of the world, John i, 29. God so grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ?
loved the world, that he gave his And now I will, &c, lay it waste,
only begotten Son, &c, that the &c, I will also command the clouds
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
world through him might be saved
[upon Gospel terms,] John iii, 16,
17. This is indeed the Christ, the
Saviour of the world, John iv, 42.
We have seen and do testify, that
the Father sent the Son to be the
Saviour of the world, 1 John iv,
14. Behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which shall be
to all people ; for unto you is born,
&c, a Saviour, who is Christ the
Lord, Luke ii, 10, 11.
Christ is our peace, who hath
made both [Jews and Gentiles]
one, &c, that he might [on his
part] reconcile both unto God by
the -cross, Eph. ii, 14, 16. [Now
Jews and Gentiles are equivalent to
the world.] God was in Christ re-
conciimg the world unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them,
[when they believe,] 2 Cor. v, 10.
It pleased the Father, &LV, having
made peace by the blood of his
cross, by him to reconcile all things
unto himself, by him, I say, whether
they be things in earth, or things
in heaven. And you, &c, hath he
reconciled, &c, through death, to
present you holy, &c, if ye con
tinue in the faith, &c, and be not
moved away from the hope of the
Gospel, &c, which is preached to
every creature that is under heaven,
Col. i, 19, 23.
We trust in the living God, who
is the Saviour of all men, especially
of those that believe : [because such
obediently submit to the terms of
eternal salvation ; for initkJ salva
tion depends on no terms on our
part,] 1 Tim. iv, 10.
The philanthropy [or] kindness
of God our Saviour toward man
appeared, Tit. iii, 4. The bread
of God giveth life unto the world :
the bread that I will give for the life
of the world, John vi, 33, 51.
that they rain no rain upon it. For
the vineyard of the Lord is the
house of Israel, and the men of
Judah are his pleasant plant; and
he looked for judgment, but behold
oppression; for righteousness, but
behold a cry, Isa. v, 3, 7. They
have turned unto me the back, and
not the face ; though I taught them,
rising early, Jer. xxxii, 33.
And now, because ye have done
all these works, saith the Lord, and
I spake unto you, rising up early,
and speaking, but ye heard not;
and I called you, but ye answered
not ; therefore, &c, I will cast you
out of my sight, &c ; therefore pray
not for this people, &c, for I will
not hear thee, Jer. vii, 13, 15, 16.
Wilt thou not from this time cry
unto me, my Father, &c ? Hast
thou seen that which backsliding
Israel hath done ? &c. And I
said, after she had done all these
things, Turn thou unto me ; [ return
unto me, for I have redeemed thee,
Isa. xliv, 72,] but she returned not.
And, &c, when for all the causes
whereby backsliding Israel commit
ted adultery, I had put her away,
and given her a bill of divorce, yet
her treacherous sister Judali feared
not, but went and played the har
lot also, Jer. iii, 4-8.
If thou wilt receive my words,
&c, so that thou incline thine ear to
wisdom, and apply thine heart to
understanding, &c, then sha.lt thou
understand the fear of the Lord ;
and find the knowledge of God,
Prov. ii, 1, &c.
As the girdle cleaveth to the
loins of a man, so have I caused to
cleave to me the whole house of
Israel, saith the Lord; that they
might be unto me for a people, &c.
but they would not hear. Therefore
3ECOND.J
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
65
I.
Jesus said, I am the light of the
world. I came, &c, to save the
world, John viii, 12 ; xii, 47. That
the world may believe thou hast
sent me, John xvii, 21. This is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, [or, of all men to be
received] that Christ came into the
world to save* sinners, of whom I
am chief, 1 Tim. i, 15.
I exhort, that first of all supplica
tions, &c, and giving of thanks be
made for all men, &c, for this is
good and acceptable, [not in the
sight of Zelotes,] but in the sight of
God our Saviour, who will have all
men to be saved, and come to the
knowledge of the truth. For there
is, &c, one Mediator between God
and men, the man Christ, who
gave himself a ransom for all, &c.
1 will, therefore, that men pray
every where, &c, without doubting,
1 Tim. ii, 1, &c.
Mine eyes have seen [Christ]
thy salvation, which thou hast pre
pared before the face of all people,
a light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of thy people Israel,
[i. e. the Jews.] Luke ii, &c. It
is a light thing that thou shouldst
be my servant, to raise up the
tribes of Jacob, [2. e. the Jews,]
&c. I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be
my salvation unto the end of the
earth, Isa. xlix, 6. God, &c,
preached before the Gospel to
Abraham, saying, In thee, [i. e. thy
II.
&c, I will not pity, rior spare, nor
have mercy, but destroy them, Jer.
xiii, 11, 12, 14.
This is the condemnation, that
light is come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than
light, because their d$eds were evil.
For every one that [actually] does
evil, hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that does
truth, cometh to the light, John iii,
19, &c.
Jeshurun, [i. e. the righteous,]
waxed fat and kicked, &c. He
forsook God, &c, and lightly es
teemed the rock of his salvation,
&c. They sacrificed to devils,
&c. And, when the Lord saw it,
he abhorred them, because of the
provoking of his sons and daugh
ters. And he said, I will hide my
face from them, &c, for a fire
is kindled in mine anger, and shall
burn to the lowest hell, &c. I will
spend mine arrows upon them,
Deut. xxxii, 15, 23.
Because I have called, and ye
refused, I have stretched out my
hand, and no man regarded; but
ye have set at naught all my
counsel, and would none of my
reproof; I also will mock when
your destruction cometh as a whirl
wind. Then shall they call upon
me, but I will not answer, &c ; for
that they haicd knowledge, and did
not choose the fear of the Lord,
&c, Prov. i, 24, &c. If ye walk
contrary to me, &c, I will bring
seven times more plagues upon
you, &c. And if yc will not be
* If Christ camo to save sinners, yea, the chief of sinners, did his goodness,
impartiality, equity, truth, and holiness, permit him unconditionally to reprobate
any sinner less than the chief? And if he came to save sinners, the chief not
excepted, why does Zelotes except all that die in unbelief ? If they do not believe,
and do their part as redeemed souls, is it right to infer that Christ did not die for
them and do his part as the Redeemer or Saviour of all men ? Especially since
the Scriptures testify that eternal salvation is suspended on our works of faith;
and that the reprobates perish, because they " deny in icoi'ks the Lord that
bought them '?"
VOL. II. 5
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
II.
seed, which is Christ] shall all na- reformed by these things, I will
lions [yea] all families of the earth punish you yet seven times, &c.
be blessed, Gal. iii, 8, 16 ; Gen. And if ye will not for all this
xii> 3. hearken to me, &c, I will cast
down your carcasses upon the car
casses of your idols, &c, and my soul
shall abhor you, Lev. xxvi, 21-30.
In him [the Word made flesh] Every branch in me that beareth
was life, and the life was the light not fruit [during the day of salva-
of?nen; and the light shineth [even] tion] he taketh away, &c, and it is
in the darkness, &c, [that] com- withered, and men gather them, and
preheoded it not. John came for cast them into the fire and they
a witness, to bear witness of the are burned, John xv, 2-6. Ye
light, that all men through it [&' shall bow down to the slaughter,
avm cpulos] might believe, &c. because when I called ye did not
That was the true light which answer, Isa. Ixv, 12.
lighteth every man that cometh into
the world, John i, 4, &c.
From the preceding scriptures it appears, that as in a vine some
branches are nearer the root than others ; so among mankind some
men have a stronger and more immediate union with Christ than others ;
but, so long as their day of salvation lasts, all men have some interest
in him ; there being as many ways of being in Christ, as there are dis
pensations of Gospel grace. That infants are interested in him, seems
evident from Rom. v, 18, and Mark x, 14 : and that Cornelius, for ex
ample, was in Christ as a just heathen, before he was in him as a Jew
ish proselyte, much more before he was in him. as a Christian believer,
is not less evident from Matt, xxv, 29 ; Psa. 1, 23 ; Luke xvi, 10, 1 1. But
when the expression, being in Christ, is taken in its most confined sense,
as it is in some of the epistles, it means a being so fully acquainted with,
and so intimately united to Christ, as to enjoy the privileges peculiar to
the Christian dispensation, like Cornelius, when he had believed the
Gospel of Christ, and was baptized with the Holy Ghost. To say that
he was in every respect without Christ before, is to strike a blow at the
root : it is to suppose that a man can be accepted out of the Beloved,
work righteousness without Christ's assistance, and " bring forth fruits
meet for repentance," in a total separation from the vine. Thus it is, how
ever, that the Solifidianism of Zelotes meets with the Pharisaism of
Honestus.
I. II.
All men should honour the Son I have purged thee [I have done
[by believing on him,] John v, 23. the part of a Saviour] and thou
I will draw all men to me, John wast not purged: [thou hast not
xii, 32. The free gift came upon done the part of a penitent sinner,]
all men, Rom. v, 18. The saving Ezek. xxiv, 13. Behold,! stand at
grace of God hath appeared unto the door and knock ; if any jnan
all men, Tit. ii, 11. God giveth hear my voice, and open the door
to all men liberally, and upbraideth [by the' obedience of faith] I will
not, James i, 5. The Lord is good come in to him, and will sup with
to all [or loving to every man] him, and he with me, Rev. iii, 20.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
67
I.
n.
and his tender mercies are over
all his works, Psa. cxlv, 9. If one
died for all, then were all dead.
He died for all, that they which live,
should, &c, live to him who died
for them, 2 Cor. v, 14, 15.
He is despised and rejected of
men, &c. We [men] esteemed
him not, &c. Surely he was
wounded for our transgressions,
&c, and with his stripes we are
\initally, and his seed, persevering
believers, completely] healed. All
we [men] like sheep have gone
astray : we have turned every one
to his own way, and the Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all,
<Scc. He poured out his soul unto
death, &c ; he bore the sin [o^">]
of the'* multitudes, and made inter
cession for the transgressors, Isa.
liii, 3-6, 12. If any man sin, we
have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous : and he
is the propitiation for our sins ; and
not for ours onlyt but also for the
sins of the whole world, 1 John ii,
1,2.
GENERAL REDEMPTION and FKEE
GRACE are the gracious spring
whence Jiow the general, sincere,
and rational missions, Gospel calls,
commands, exhortations, and expos
tulations which follow.
God hath reconciled us to him-
Of a truth I perceive that God is-
no respecter of persons, Acts x, 34.
If ye have respect to persons, ye
commit sin, James ii, 9. It is
written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.
And if ye call on the Father, who,
without respect of persons, judgeth
.according to every man's work,
pass the time of your sojourning
here in fear; forasmuch as ye
know that ye were redeemed, &c,
with the precious blood of Chiist,
1 Pet. i, 17, 18. [How different
is this Gospel from the Gospel of
the day ! And if to elect and to
reprobate is to judge that myriads
of unborn people shall be eternally
loved or hated without any respect
to their tempers and actions, what
can we say of doctrines, which fix
upon God the spot that Solomon
describes in the following words?]
It is not good to have respect of
persons in judgment. He that
says to the wicked, Thou art right
eous, [or he that says to what is
not, Thou art wicked, and I uncon
ditionally appoint thee for eternal
destruction^ him shall the people
curse : nations shall abhor him,
Prov. xxiv, 23, 24.
Through the LIBERTY OF OUR
WILL we may IMPROVE or NEGLECT
so great redemption ; we may make,
or refuse to make our sincere elec
tion and rational calling sure ; as
appears from the following scrip
tures : —
We pray you, in Christ's stead, be
* The first signification of the Hebrew word na (B R) is a multitude ; and as
Isaiah uses it in the plural number, I hope Zelotes will not think that I take
an undue liberty, when I render it the multitudes : namely, the multitudes of
"transgressors" mentioned in the same verse; or the multitudes of men that
" have turned eyery one to his own ways." See verses 3, 6.
EQUAL CHECK.
IPART
1.
II.
self by Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. v,
18.
Him [Christ] God hath exalted
to give repentance to Israel — [and]
to the Gentiles, [i. e. to all man
kind, who are made up of Jews
and Gentiles,] Acts v, 31 ; xi, 18.
[Hence it is that] God now com-
mandeth all men every where to re-
pent; because he will judge the
world in righteousness, Acts xvii,
30, 31.
Thou [Paul] shalt be his [Christ's]
witness unto all men. To make all
men see what is the fellowship of
the mystery [of redeeming and sanc
tifying love,] Acts xxii, 15 ; Eph.
iii, 9.
Look unto me, and be ye saved,,
all tlie ends of the earth, Isa. xlv,
22. Come unto me, all ye that tra
vel [with sin] and are heavy laden
[with troubles] and / will give you
rest, Matt, xi, 28.
Jesus spake unto them, saying,
All power is given unto me in hea
ven, and in earth : go ye therefore
and teach [proselyte] all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. [A sure proof this that
the Son has redeemed all nations,
and purchased for them the influ
ences of the Holy Ghost, Matt,
xxviii, 18, 19.]
Go into all the world, and preach
the Gospel to every creature, &c,
and they went forth preaching every
where, Mark xvi, 15, 20. Whoso,
ever will, let him take of the water
of life freely, Rev. xxii, 17. The
Lord is not idlling that any should
perish, but that all should come to
repentance, 2 Pet. iii, 9.
Come now [ye rulers of Sodom,
ye people of Gomorrah] and let us
reason together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow, &c. Ye
shall eat the good of the land, Isa.
* 10, 18, 19.
ye reconciled to God, 2 Cor. v,
20.
And they all, with one consent,
began to make excuse, &c. I have
married a wife, and therefore I can
not come, dec. Then the master
of the house being angry said, &c,
None of those men, who were bid-
den [or called, and refused to make
their calling and election sure] shall
taste of my supper, Luke xvii, 18.
How long, ye simple ones, will ye
love simplicity ? and the scorners
delight in scorning ? and fools hate
knowledge ? Turn you at my re
proof : behold, I will pour out my
Spirit unto you, Prov. i, 22, 23.
I am the Lord thy God, dec, open
thy mouth wide, and I will Jill it.
But my people would not hearken to
my voice, and Israel would none
of me, Psa. Ixxxi, 10, 11.
I call heaven and earth to record
this day against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing
and cursing : therefore choose life,
that thou mayest live, Deut. xxx,
19. Mary hath chosen the good
part, Luke x, 42. Choose you this
day whom ye will serve, &c, but as
for me, and my house, [we have
made our choice] we will serve the
Lord, Josh, xxiv, 15.
He that rejectcth me, dec, hath
one that judgeth him. The word
[oi the Gospel] that I have spoken,
the same shall judge him in the last
day, John xii, 48. We will not have
this man to reign over us. Those,
dec, who would not that I should
reign over them, slay them beforeV
me, Luke xix, 14, 27. •
If ye be willing and obedient, &c.
But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall
be devoured with the sword ; for the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,
verses 19, 20.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
I.
II.
Ho, every one that thirsteth [for Thus spake the Lord of hosts,
life and happiness] come ye to the &c. But they refused to hearken,
waters, and he that hath no money ; and pulled away the shoulder and
come ye, buy wine and milk, with- stopped their ears, that they should
out money and without price. In- not hear. Yea, they made their
dine* your ear, hear, and your soul hearts as an adamant stone, lest
shall live ; and / will make an ever- they should hear the law, and the
lasting covenant with you, even the words which the Lord of hosts hath
sent in his Spirit, &c. Therefore
it is come to pass, that as he cried,
sure mercies of David, &c. Seek
ye the Lord while he may be found ;
and call upon him while he is near, and they would not hear ; so they
LeU/ie wicked forsake his way, &c, cried, and I would not hear, saitli
and return unto the Lord, for he the Lord of hosts, Zech. vii, 8, 13.
will abundantly pardon, Isa. Iv, 1-7.
Wisdom standeth in the top of I also will choose their delusions,
high places : she crieth at the gates, &c, because when I called, none
at the entry of the city, &c, Unto did answer ; when I spake, they did
you, O men, I call, and my voice is not hear; but they did evil before
to the sons of men, &c. Hear, for mine eyes, and chose that in which
I will speak excellent things, &c. I delighted not, Isa. Ixvi, 4.
Receive my instruction, rather than
choice gold, &c. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me ; for I
am meek arid lowly in heart, and
ye shall find rest unto your souls ;
for my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light, Prov. viii, 2, &c ; Matt, xi,
29, 30.
All the people [of bloody devoted
Jerusalem 1 ran together unto them
The Jews were filled with envy,
spake against those things
and spake against those
[Peter and John :] and when Peter which were spoken by Paul ; con.
saw it, he answered, Ye [all the tradicting and blaspheming. Then
people] are the children of the cove- Paul waxed bold, and said, It was
nant, which God made, saying to necessary that the word of God [the
Abraham, " And in thy seed shall Gospel of Christ] should first have
all the kindreds of the earth be been spoken to you : but, seeing ye
blessed." Unto you [all the people] put it from you, and judge your-
first [as being Jews] God, &c, sent selves unworthy of eternal life, lo,
his Son Jesus to bless you [all the we turn to the Gentiles : for so hath
people] by turning away every one the Lord commanded, Acts xiii, 45,
of you from his iniquities, Acts hi, 46. [Query. How could it b^ neces-
9, 11, 12, 25, 26. sary " that the Gospel should first be
spoken to those Jews," if God had
eternally fixed, that there should be
no Gospel, — no Saviour, for them ?]
* Zelotes represents the " sure mercies of David," and " the everlasting cove-
nant," as absolutely unconditional. But I appeal to Candidus : does not this
passage mention four requisites on our part? Inclining our ear: hearing: seek
ing the Lord: and forsaking our wicked way ? And do not we accordingly find,
Acts xiii, 34, that many of those to whom St. Paul offered those " sure mercies,"
missed them by '' contradicting," instead of «' inclining their ear?"
70
EQUAL CHECK.
fPART
I.
To whom [the Gentiles] I send
thee to open their eyes, and to turn
them from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God ;
II.
Them that perish because they
received not the love of the truth,
that they might be saved. And
for this cause God shall send them
that they may receive forgiveness strong delusions, &c, that they all
of sins, and an inheritance among might be damned, who believed not
^1 i , • /•» i i f* • i •-
faith
them who are sanctified by
that is in me, Acts xxvi, 17, 18.
Behold, NOW is the accepted
the truth, but had pleasure in un
righteousness, 2 Thess. ii, 10, &c
O Jerusalem, &c, how often
time ! behold, NOW is the day of would I have gathered together thy
salvation, 2 Cor. vi, 2. Where- children [among whom were the
fore, beloved, account that the long chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees]
suffering of the Lord is salvation ; as a hen doth gather her brood un
even as our beloved brother Paul der her wings, and ye would not ?
also hath written to you [in the next Luke xiii, 34. Thus saith the
passage,] 2 Pet. iii, 9, 15. De- Lord of hosts, Behold, I will bring
spisest thou the riches of God's upon this city, &c, all the evil that
goodness, and forbearance, and I have pronounced against it ; fee-
long suffering; not knowing that cause they have hardened their
the goodness of God leadeth thee necks that they might not hear my
to repentance, and of consequence words, Jer. xix, 15. The Lord is
to eternal salvation ? Rom. ii, 4. our God, and we are the people of
his pasture and the sheep of his
hand. To-day, if ye will hear his
voice, harden not your hearts as in
the provocation, &c, when your
fathers saw my works. Forty
years long I was grieved with that
generation, and said, It is a people
, that do err in their hearts, &c. —
To whom I sware in my wraih,
that they should not enter into my
rest, Psa. xlv, 7, &c.
This is one of the " clouds of Scripture witnesses," which we produce
m favour of redeeming free grace and electing free will. To some peo
ple this cloud appears so big with evidence, and so luminous, that they
think Horiestus and Zelotes, with all the admirers of Socinus and Calvin,
can never raise dust enough to involve it in darkness, at least before
those who have not yet permitted prejudice to put out both their eyes.
It is worth notice, that Honestus has not one Scripture to prove that
any man can be saved without the Redeemer's atonement. On the
contrary, we read that there is salvation " in no other ;" that there is
" no other name," or person, " whereby we must be saved ;" and that
" no man cometh to the Father but by him — the light of tne world, and
the light of men." And it is remarkable, that although the peculiar
gospel of Zelotes is founded upon the doctrine of a partial atonement,
there is not in all the Bible one passage that represents " the world" as
being made up of the elect only ; not one text which asserts that Christ
made an atonement for one part of the world exclusively of the other ;
no, nor one word which, being candidly understood according to the con-
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 71
text, cuts off either man, woman, or child from the benefit of Christ's
redemption ; at least so long as the day of grace and initial salvation
lasteth. Nay, the very reverse is directly or indirectly asserted : for
our Lord threatened his very apostles with a hell, " where the worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," if they did not "pluck out the
offending eye." St. Peter speaks of those who " bring swift destruc
tion upon themselves by denying the Lord that bought them." And St.
Paul mentions " destruction of a brother for whom Christ died ;" yea,
and the " much sorer punishment of him who had trodden under foot
the Son of God, had counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he
was sanctified, [and consequently redeemed,] an unholy thing, and had
done despite to the Spirit of grace," by which Spirit he and other apostates
" were once enlightened, and had tasted the heavenly gift — the good
word of God, and the powers of the world to come," Heb. x, 29 ; vi, 4.
Hence it appears, that of all the unscriptural doctrines which preju
diced divines have imposed upon the simple, none is more directly con
trary to Scripture than the doctrine of Christ's particular atonement. —
An Arian can produce, " My Father is greater than I ;" and a Papist,
" This is my body," 'in support of their error ; but a Calvinist cannot
produce one word that excludes even Cain and Judas from the tem
porary interest in Christ's atonement, whereby they had " the day of
initial salvation," which they once enjoyed and abused.
The tide of Scripture evidence in favour of general redemption is so
strong, that at times it carries away both St. Augustine and Calvin, not
withstanding their particular resistance. The former says, JEgrotat
humanum genus, non morbis corporis, sed peccatis. Jacct toto orbe ter-
rarum ab oriente usque ad occidentem grandis (Bgrotus. Ad sanandum
grandem cegrotum descendit omnipotens Medicus. (Auo. De Vcrbis
Domini, Sermon 59.) " MANKIND is sick, not with bodily diseases, but
with sins. The HUGE PATIENT lies ALL THE WORLD over, stretched
from east to west. To heal the huge patient, the omnipotent Physician
descends from heaven." As for Calvin, in a happy moment, he does
not scruple to say : Se TOTI MUNDO propitium ostendit, cum sine excep-
tione omnes ad Christi fidem vocat, qua nihil aliud est quam ingressus
in mtam. (CAL. in Job, iii, 15, 16.) "God shows himself propitious
to ALL THE WORLD, when he, willioul exception, invites ALL MEN to be
lieve in Christ ; faith being the entrance into life." Agreeable to this,
when he comments upon these words of St. Paul, " There is one Me
diator between God and men, the man Christ," he says with great truth :
Cum itaque COMMUNE mortis SIKB beneficium OMNIBUS esse velit, injuriam
illi faciunt, qui opinione sua quempiam arcent a spe salulis* (CALV. in
1 Tim. ii, 5.) "Since therefore Christ is willing that the benefit of his
death should be COMMON TO ALL MEN ; they do him an injury, who, by
their opinion, debar any one from the hope of salvation." If, Calvin
himself being judge, " they do Christ an injury, who by their opinion
debar ANY ONE from the hope of salvation," how great, how multiplied
an injury does Zelotes plo to the Redeemer, by his opinion of particular
redemption ; an opinion this, which effectually debars all the unre
deemed from the least well grounded hope of ever escaping the dam
nation of hell, be their endeavours after salvation ever so strong and
ever so many.
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
As I set my seal with fuller confidence to the doctrine of our Lord's
Divine carriage upon the cross, when I hear the centurion who headed
his executioners cry out, « Truly this was the Son of God :" so I em-
brace the doctrine of general redemption with a fuller persuasion of its
truth, when I hear Calvin himself say, " Forasmuch as the upshot of
a happy life consists in the knowledge of God, lest the door of hap.
pmcss should be shut against any man, God has not only implanted in
the minds of men, that which we call THE SEED OF RELIGION ; but he
has likewise so manifested himself in all the fabric of the world, and
presents himself daily to them in so plain a manner, that they cannot
open their eyes, but they must needs discover him." His own words
are : Quia iiltwuis beata mice, fnis in Dei cognitione positus est, ne cui
praclusus esset ad felicitatem aditvs, non solum homimtm mentibvs in.
didit illud, quod dicimus RELIGIONIS SEMEN; sed ita se patefecit in toto
mundi opijicio, ac se quotidie palam offert, ut aperire oculos nequeant quin
eum aspicere cogantur. (Inst. lib. i, cap. 5, sec. 1.) Happy would it
have been for us, if Calvin the Calvinist had been of one mind with
Calvin the reformer. Had this been the case, he would never have
encouraged those who are called by his name to despise " THE SEED OF
RELIGION which God has implanted in the minds of men, lest the door
of happiness should be shut against any one." Nor would he incon
sistently have taught his admirers to do Christ, and desponding souls,
that very " injury," against which he justly bears his testimony in one
of the preceding quotations.
Although Zelotes has a peculiar veneration for Austin and Calvin,
yet when they speak of redemption as the oracles of God, he be°-s
leave to dissent from them both.
To maintain, therefore, even against them, his favourite doctrine of
absolute election and preterition, he advances some objections, three or
four of which deserve our attention, not so much indeed on account of
their weight, as on account of the great stress which he lays upon
them.
OBJECTION FIRST. "You assert," says he, "that the doctrine of
general redemption is Scriptural, and that no man is absolutely repro
bated : but I can produce a text strong enough to convince voi/of your
error. If the majority of mankind were not unconditionally 'reprobated,
our Lord would at least have prayed for them : but this he expressly
refused to do in these words, « I pray for them [my disciples :] I pray
not for the world^ John xvii, 9. Here the world is evidently excluded
from all interest in our Lord's praying breath ; and how much more
from all interest in his atoning blood ?"
^ ANSWER. I have already touched upon this objection, (Third
Check, vol. first.) To what I have said there, I now add the following
fuller reply : — Our Lord never excluded « the world" from all share in
his intercession. When he said, " I pray for them, I pray not for the
world ;" it is just as if he had said, " The blessing which I now ask for
my believing disciples, I do not ask « for the world ;' not because 1
have absolutely reprobated the world, but because the world is not in
a capacity of receiving this peculiar blessing." Therefore, to take
occasion from that expression to traduce Christ as a reprobating re
specter of persons, is as ungenerous as to affirm that the master of a
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 73
grammar school is a partial, capricious man, who pays no attention to
the greatest part of his scholars, because, when he made critical re
marks upon Homer, he once said, " My lecture is for the Greek class,
and not the Latin."
That this is the easy, natural sense of our Lord's words, will appear
by the following observations. (1.) Does he not just after (verse 11)
mention the favour which he did not ask for the world ? « Holy Fa-
ther, keep, through thy name, those whom thou hast given me, [by the
decree of faith,] that they may be one as we are." (2.) Would it not
have been absurd in Christ to pray the Father to keep " a world" of
unbelievers, and to make them one ? (3.) Though our Lord prayed at
first for his disciples alone, did he riot, before he concluded his prayer,
(verse 2,) pray for future believers ? And then giving the utmost lati
tude to his charitable wishes, did he not pray (verse 21) "that the
world might believe" — and (verse 23) " that the world might knoiv that
God had sent him ?" (4.) Was not this praying that the world might
be made partakers of the very blessing which his disciples then enjoyed :
witness these words, (ver. 24, 25,) " O righteous Father, the world has
not known thee : but I have known thee, and these [believers] have
known that thou hast sent me ?" (5.) « The world hateth me," said
our Lord. Now if he « never prayed for the world" how could he be
said to have loved and prayed for his enemies ? How badly will Ze-
lotes be off, if he stands only in the imputed righteousness of a man,
who would never pray for the bulk of his enemies or neighbours ? But
this is not all; for (6.) If our Lord "never prayed for the world," he
acted the part of those wicked Pharisees who " laid upon other people's
shoulders heavy burthens which they took care not to touch with one of
their fingers ;" for he said to his followers, " Pray for them who despite -
fully use you and persecute you," [that is, pray for the world,] Matt, v,
44. But if we believe Zelotes, " he said and did not :" like some im
placable preachers who recommend a forgiving temper, he gave good
precepts and set a bad example.
I ask Candidas' pardon for detaining him so long about so frivolous
an argument : but as it is that which Zelotes most frequently produces
in favour of particular redemption, and the absolute reprobation of the
world, I thought it my duty to expose his well meant mistake, and to
wipe off the blot which his opinion (not he) fixes upon our Lord's cha
racter; — an opinion this, which represents Christ's prayer, "Father,
forgive them/' to be all of a piece with Judas' kiss. For, if Christ
prayed with his lips, that his worldly murderers might be forgiven, while
in his heart he absolutely excluded them from all interest in his inter
cession, and in the blood, by which alone they could be forgiven ; might
he not as well have said, My praying lips salute, but my reprobating
heart betrays you : hail reprobates and be damned ?
OBJECTION SECOND. « All your carnal reasonings and logical sub
tleties can never overthrow the plain word of God. The Scriptures
cannot be broken, and they expressly mention particular redemption.
Rev. v, 8, 9, we read that « four-and-twenty elders having harps, sung
a new song, saying. &c, Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood,
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' Again, Rev.
xiv, 1, &c, we read of one hundred and forty-four thousand 'harpers
74 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
that stood with the Lamb on Mount Sion, having his Father's name
written in their foreheads, &c, singing as it were a new song which no
man could learn but the one hundred and forty -four thousand who were
redeemed from the earth, &c ; these were redeemed from among men.'
Now if all men were redeemed, would not St. John speak nonsense if
he said that the elect were redeemed from among men? But as he
positively says so, it follows that the generality of men are passed by,
or left in a reprobate state absolutely unredeemed."
ANSWER. There is a redemption by power distinct from, though
connected with our redemption by price. That redemption is in many
things particular ; consisting chiefly in the actual bestowing of the tern
poral, spiritual, or eternal deliverances and blessings which the atoning
blood has peculiarly merited for believers ; " Christ being the Saviour
of all men, but especially of them that believe." Various degrees of
that redemption are pointed out in the following scriptures, as well as
in the passages which you quote out of the book of Revelation. " The
angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads. The Lord hath
redeemed you from the hand of Pharaoh. When these things begin
to come to pass, then look up, for your redemption draweth nigh. Ye
are sealed, &c, until the redemption of the purchased possession.
We ourselves groan, waiting for the redemption of our body." When
therefore some eminent saints sing, " Thou hast redeemed us to God by
thy blood [sprinkled upon our consciences through faith] out of every
kindred," &c, it is not because Christ shed more blood upon the cross
for them than for other people ; but because, through the faithful im
provement of the Jive talents, which sovereign, distinguishing grace had
entrusted them with, they excelled in virtue, and " overcame the accuser
of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb," more gloriously than the
generality of their fellow believers do.
One or two arguments will, I hope, convince the reader that Zelotes
has no right to press into the service of free wrath the texts produced
in his objection ; as he certainly does, when he applies them to a parti
cular redemption by price. (1.) God promised to Abraham, that "all
the nations, yea, all the kindreds of the earth should be blessed in his
seed, that is, in Christ, the propitiation for the sins of the whole world."
And our Lord commands, accordingly, that his redeeming work be
preached to " every creature among all nations :" but if there be no
redemption but that of those elders and saints mentioned Rev. v, 8, 9,
and said to be " redeemed to God, out of every kindred, and tongue,
and people, and nation, it follows, that every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation," is left unredeemed in flat contradiction to God's
promise, as well as to the general tenor of the Scriptures. (2.) The
number of the saved is greater than that of the redeemed. For St.
John, Rev. vii, 9, describes the saved as " a great multitude which no
man could number." But the persons " redeemed from the earth and
redeemed from among men," are said to be just one hundred and forty-
four thousand : whence it follows, either that an " innumerable multi
tude" of men will sing " salvation to the Lamb," without having been
redeemed ; or that one hundred and forty-four thousand s- <uls are " a
multitude which no man can number ;" and that as the number of these
''redeemed from the earth and from among men," is already completed*
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 75
all the rest of mankind are consigned over to inevitable, finished dam.
nation. Thus, according to the objection which I answer, Zelotes him-
self is passed by, as well as " every kindred, and tongue, and people,
and nation." O ye kindreds and tongues, ye people and nations, — ye
English and Welsh, ye Scotch and Irish, awake to your native good
sense ; nor dignify any longer with the name of " doctrines of grace"
inconsistent tenets imported from Geneva, — barbarous tenets that rob
you nationally of the inestimable jewel of redemption, and leave you
nationally in the lurch with Cain and Judas — with wretches whose re-
probation (if we believe Zelotes) was absolutely insured before youi
happy islands emerged out of the sea, and the sea out of the chaos.
OBJECTION THIRD. But we are pressed with rational, as well as
Scriptural arguments. To show that Christ, who was lavish of his
tears over justly reprobated Jerusalem, was so sparing of his blood, that
he would not shed one drop of it for the world, and for the reprobated
nations therein, much less for the arch reprobate, Judas : to show this,
I say, Zelotes asks, " How could Christ redeem Judas 1 Was not Judas'
soul actually in hell, beyond the reach of redemption, when Christ bled
upon the cross ?"
ANSWER. The fallacy of this argument will be sufficiently pointed out
by retorting it thus : — " How could Christ redeem David ? Was not
David's soul actually in heaven, beyond the need of redemption, when
Christ bled upon the ignominious tree ?" The truth is, from the foundation
of the world Christ intentionally shed his blood, to procure a temporary
salvation for all men, and an " eternal salvation for them that obey him,
and work out their salvation with fear and trembling." With respect to
David and Judas, " in the day of their visitation," through Christ's
intended sacrifice, they had both an "accepted time;" and, while the
one by penitential faith secured eternal salvation, the other by obstinate
unbelief totally fell from initial salvation, and by his own sin " went to
his own," and not to Adam's " place."
OBJECTION FOURTH. As to the difficulty which Zelotes raises from a
supposed " defect in Divine wisdom, if Christ offered for all a sacrifice
which he foresaw many would not be benefited by :" I once more observe
that all men universally are benefited by the sacrifice of the Lamb of
God. For all men enjoy a day of initial and temporary salvation, in
consequence of Christ's mediation : and if many do not improve their
redemption so as to be eternally benefited thereby, their madness is no
more a reflection upon God's wisdom, than the folly of those angels who
did not improve their creation. Again : this objection, taken from Divine
wisdom, and levelled at our doctrine, is so much the more extraordinary,
as, upon the plan of particular redemption, Divine wisdom ('o say nothing
of Divine veracity, impartiality, and mercy) receives an eternal blot.
For how can " God judge the world in wisdom according to the Gospel?"
Rom. ii, 16. How can he wisely upbraid men with their impenitency,
and condemn, them because " they have not believed in the name of his
only begotten Son," John iii, 18, if there never was for them a Gospel
to embrace, repentance to exercise, and an only begotten Son of God
to believe in 1
And now, reader, sum up the evidence arising from the scriptures
balanced, the arguments proposed, and the objections answered in this
76
EQIAL CHECK.
[PART
section ; and say whether the doctrines of bound will and curtailed
redemption, or, which is all one, the doctrines of necessary sin, and
absolute, personal, yea, national reprobation, can, with any propriety,
be called either sweet " doctrines of grace" or Scriptural doctrines of
wisdom.
SECTION X.
The doctrine of free grace is farther maintained against Honeslus ;
and that of free will and just wrath against Zelotes.
The scale of FREE GRACE and JUST
wrath in God.
Resistible FREE GRACE is the spring
of all our graces and mercies.
The Father, as Creator, gives to
the Son, as Redeemer, the souls
that yield to his paternal draw
ings ; and they who resist those
drawings, cannot come to the Son
for rest and liberty.
IT is GOD, who worJceth in you
both to will and to do of his good
pleasure. [That is, God, as Crea
tor, has wrought in you the power
to will and to do what is right :
God, as Redeemer, has restored
you that noble power which was
lost by the fall : and God, as Sanc-
tifier, excites and helps you to make
a proper use of it. Therefore
" grieve him not :" for, as it is his
good pleasure to help you now, so,
if you " do despite to the Spirit of
his grace," it may be his good
pleasure " to give you up to a re
probate mind," and to " swear in
his anger that his Spirit shall strive
with you" no more. That this is
the apostle's meaning, appears from
his own words to those very Phi-
lippians, in the opposite scale.]
Phil, ii, 13.
Thy people [shall, or will be]
willing in the day of thy power :
or, as we have it in the reading
Psalms, In the day of thy power
shall the people offer free will offer
ings, Psa. ex, 3.
The scale of FREE WILL in man,
without FREE wrath in God.
Perverse FREE WILL is the spring
of all our sins and curses.
The Son, as Redeemer, brings to
the Father, for the promise of the
Holy Ghost, the souls that yield
to his filial drawings ; and they
who resist those drawings, can
not come to the Father for the
Spirit of adoption.
WHEREFORE work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling.
Arise and be doing, and the Lord
be with you, 1 Chron. xxii, 16. Do
all things without disputing, &c,
that I rnay rejoice, that I have not
run in vain, neither laboured in
vain. I follow after, if that I may
apprehend that for which I am ap
prehended of Christ. This one
thing I do, &c, I press toward the
mark, &c. Be followers of me,
for many walk — enemies of the
cross of Christ, whose end is de
struction. Those things, which ye
have seen in me, do : and the God
of peace shall be with you, Phil, ii,
12, &c ; iii, 12, &c ; iv, 9, &c.
I am not [personally] sent but to
the ]ost sheep of the house of Is
rael. But my people, &c, would
none of me, Matt, xv, 24 ; Psa.
Ixxxi, 11. He came to his own,
and his own received him not,
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
77
John i, 11. The power of the Lord was present to heal them, but the
Pharisees murmured. They rejected the counsel of God against them
selves, Luke v, 17, 30 ; vii, 30. If I by the finger [i. e. the power] of
God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God [the day of God's
power] is come upon you, Luke xi, 15, &c. He did not many mighty
works [i. e. he did not mightily exert his power] there, because of their
unbelief. He could do there no mighty work, [consistently with his
wise plan,] and he marvelled because of their unbelief, [which was the
source of their unwillingness,] Matt, xiii, 58 ; Mark vi, 5, 6. Now the
things which belong unto thy peace, &c, are hid from thine eyes, be
cause thou knewest not the day of [my power, and of] thy visitation,
Luke xix, 42, &c. How often would I have gathered thy children, as
a hen does gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not, Luke
xiii,' 34. [Any one of those scriptures snows, that free grace does not
necessitate free will ; and all of them together make a good measure,
running over into Zelotes' bosom.]
God is willing that all should
come to repentance, 2 Pet. iii, 9.
God's goodness leadeth thee to re
pentance, Rom. ii, 4. And the rest
of men, which were not killed by
these plagues, yet repented not,
Rev. ix, 20. Then began he to
upbraid the cities, &c, because they
repented not, Matt, ix, 20. I gave
her space to repent, and she re
pented not, Rev. ii, 21.
Faith cometh by hearing [the
work of man,] Rom. x, 17. Lord,
I believe, [not thou believest for
is the gift of God, Eph. ii, 8. They me,~\ help thou my unbelief, Mark
ix, 24. He upbraided them with
their unbelief, Mark xiv, 14. How
is it ye have no faith? Markiv, 40.
How can you believe, who receive
honour one of another ? John v, 44.
The publicans believed, &c. And
ye, when ye had seen it, repented
not afterward, that ye might be
lieve, Matt, xxi, 30. Thomas said,
I will not believe, John xx, 25.
Having damnation, because they
have cast off their first faith, 1 Tim.
v, 12.
These (the Jews of Berea) were
more noble [or candid] than those
God hath exalted him [Christ]
to give repentance, Acts v, 31.
God peradventure [i. e. if they are
not judicially given up to a repro
bate mind, and they do not obsti
nately harden themselves] will give
them [that oppose themselves] re
pentance to the acknowledging of
the truth, 2 Tim. ii, 25.
Every good gift, &c, is from
above, and corneth down from the
Father of lights, James i, 17. Faith
rehearsed how God had opened the
door of faith [in Christ] to the Gen
tiles, Acts xiv, 27. To you it is
given, on the be-half of Christ, to
believe in him, Phil, i, 29.
When the Gentiles heard this
they were glad, and as many as
were [rsTa^svoi] disposed* for, of Thessalonica, in that they re-
* The Rev. Mr. Madan, in his " Scriptural Comment upon the Thirty-nine
Articles," second edition, p. 71, says, " This method of construction is attended
with the disadvantage of giving the Greek language a sense which it disowns,
and therefore to be rejected ;" and in support of this assertion, and of Calvinism,
<« EQUAL CHECK. [PART
I. II.
[our translators say ordained to] ceived the word with all readiness
eternal life believed, Acts xiii, 48. of mind and searched the Scriptures
ho quotes Mr. Leigh's " Critica Sacra." But I think, most unfortunately, since
in the very next page we have it under Mr. Leigh's, and of course under Mr. Ma
dan's own hand, that the learned scholiast " Syrus renders it [the controverted
word] ' dispositi,' [DISPOSED,] for he knew not that the heretics of our day would
dream of understanding Terayptvoi, &c, to signify INWARDLY DISPOSED." Now as
"the remonstrants" are immediately after by name represented as "the heretics
of our day," I beg leave to vindicate their heresy : though I fear it must be at
the expense of Mr. Madan's and Mr. Leigh's "orthodoxy."
First, then, take notice, reader, that these gentlemen grant us all we contend
for, when they grant that the word which our translators render " ordained,"
means also " disposed, placed, ordered," or " ranged, as soldiers that keep their
ranks in the field of battle," whicli is the ordinary meaning of the expression in
the classics. Now, according to Mr. Madan's scheme, the "disposition" of the
persons that believed was merely "extrinsic, outward." They had no hand in
the matter, God " disposed" them by his necessitating grace, as Bezaleel " dis
posed" the twelve precious stones which adorned Aaron's breastplate. But,
according to our supposed " heresy," the free will of those candid Gentiles (in
subordination to free grace) had a hand in " disposing them to take the kingdom
of heaven by violence." They were like willing soldiers, who obey the orders
of their general, and " range" or " dispose" themselves to storm a fortified town.
(2.) But, says Mr. Madan, " the Greek language disowns this sense." To this
assertion I oppose all the Greek lexicons I am acquainted with, and (for the sake
of my English readers) I produce Johnson's English dictionary, who, under the
word "tactics," which comes from the controverted word " tatto," informs us
that "tactics" is "the art of ' ranging' men in the field of battle;" and every
body knows that before men can be ranged in the field, two things are absolutely
necessary ; an authoritative, directing skill in the general, and an active, obe
dient submission in the soldiers. This was exactly the case with the Gentiles
mentioned in the text ; before they could be " disposed for eternal life," two
tilings were absolutely requisite ; the helpful teaching of God's free grace, and
the submissive yielding of their own free will, touched by that grace which the
"indisposed (at least at that time) received in vain."
(3.) It is remarkable that the word Ttraypcvos occurs but in one other place in
the New Testament, Rom. xiii, 1. " The powers that are, are Tsray/jtvot, or
dained or placed." And I grant that there it signifies a Divine, "extrinsic"
appointment only. But why? Truly because the apostle immediately adds,
vro m Sen, " They are ordained or placed OF GOD." Now, if the word rsTaypcvos
alone necessarily signified " ordained, disposed, or placed OF GOD," as Mr. Ma
dan's scheme requires ; the apostle would have given himself a needless trouble
in adding the words, "OF GOD," when he wrote to the Romans; and as St. Luke
adds them not in our text, it is a proof that he leaves us at liberty to think, ac
cording to the doctrine of the Gospel axioms, that the Gentiles, who believed,
were "disposed" to it by the concurrence of free grace and free will — of GOD
and THEMSELVES. God "worked," to use St. Paul's words, and they "worked
out."
(4.) A similar scripture will throw light upon our text. Rom. ix, 22, we read
that " God enduroth with much long suffering the vessels of wrath KiiTr/pric^tm
FITTED for destruction." The word " fitted," in the original, is exactly in the •
same voice and tense as the word "ordained" or "disposed" in the text. Now
if Mr. Madan's observation about "the Greek language" be just, and if the Gen
tiles who believed were entirely "disposed OF GOD to eternal life," so these "ves
sels of wrath" were entirely " fitted OF GOD for destruction." But if he, and
every good man, shudders at the horrid idea of worshipping a God who abso
lutely " fits" his own creatures " for destruction :" — if the words Arar^pi-Kr/uva ti$
aitu^tiav mean not only " inwardly fitted," but SELF FITTED rather than GOD FITTED
4 for destruction," why should not rtray^voi £tj '^v aiuviov mean SELF DISPOSED
as well as GOD DISPOSED " for eternal life ?"
(5.) St. Luke, who wrote the Acts, is the best explainer of the meaning of his
UCCWD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 79
I. II.
daily, whether those things were
so : therefore many of them be
lieved, Acts xvii, 11, 12.
He that hath an ear to hear, let They have ears to hear, and heai
him hear what the Spirit saith, Rev. not ; for they are a rebellious house,
ii, 7. j^zek. xii, 2.
own expression. Accordingly, Luke ii, 51, we iind that he applies to Christ a
word answering to, and compounded of that of our text. He was, says he, (v-o-
raaaoptvos) " subject or subjected to his parents." Now I appeal to my readers,
and ask whether the remonstrants deserve the name of " dreaming heretics" for
believing, (1.) That our Lord's subjection to his parents was not merely "out
ward" and passive, as that of an undutiful child who is subject to his superiors,
when, rod in hand, they have forced him to submit. And (2.) That it was " in-
ward" and active, or, to speak plainer, that "he subjected himself" of his own
free will to his parents.
(6.) St. Paul informs us that the "veil of Moses is yet upon the heart of the
Jews, when they read" the Old Testament ; and one would be tempted to think
that. Calvia's veil is yet upon the eyes of his admirers, when they read the New
Testament. What else could have hindered such learned men as Mr. Leigh and
Mr. Madan from taking notice, that when the sacred writers use the passive
voice, they do it frequently in a sense which answers to the Hebrew voice " hith-
pahel," which means "to cause oneself to do a thing." I beg leave to produce
some instances. 1 Cor. xiv, 32, " The spirits of the prophets wiroracroerac are sub-
ject [that is, subject themselves] to the prophets." Rom. x, 3, " Ovx vxcrayriaav,
They have not been subjected, or, (as our translators, Calvinists as they were,
have not scrupled to render it,) They have not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God." Acts ii, 40, " ffw&yre, Be ye saved, or save yourselves."
Eph. v, 22, " Wives, vicoraavcaQc, be subject or submit yourselves to your own
husbands." 1 Peter v, 6, " rarravw^re, Be humble, or humble yourselves." James
issive," or, as we have it in our Bibles, "submit
iv, 7, " vrroray^re, Be ye submissive,
yourselves to God," &c, &c. I hope these examples will convince rny readers,
that, if our translators had shown themselves "heretics," and men unacquainted
with " the Greek language," supposing they had rendered our text, " As many
as (through grace) had disposed themselves, or were (inwardly) disposed for eter
nal life, believed," 'they can hardly pass for orthodox or good Grecians now,
since they have so often been guilty of the pretended error, which Mr. Leigh
supposes peculiar to the " dreaming heretics of our day."
(7.) All the Scriptures show that rnan and free will have their part to do in
the work of salvation, as well as Christ and free grace. If this is denied, I appeal
to the multitude of passages which fill my second Scale ; and I ask, Is it not
strange, that a doctrine, supported by a variety of scriptures, should be called
" heresy" by men that, " as real Protestants," profess to admit the Scriptures as
the rule of their faith. I shall conclude this note by an appeal to the context.
(8.) St. Paul having called the Jews to believe in Cb.ri.st, bids them "beware,"
Acts xiii, 40, lest they should be found among the despisers that perish in their
unbelief. Now how absurd would this caution have been, if a forcible decree of
absolute election or reprobation had irreversibly ordained them to eternal life, or
to eternal death ! Would the apostle have betrayed more folly if he had bid them
" beware" lest the sun should rise or set at its appointed time ? Again, verso
4G, we are informed that these unbelievers "judged themselves unworthy of
eternal life," and "put the word" of God's grace " from them." But if Mr. Ma-
dan's scheme were Scriptural, would not the historian have said, that God, from
the foundation of the world, had absolutely "judged them unworthy of eternal
life," and therefore had never " put" or sent to " them" the word of his grace ?
Once more : we are told, verse 45, that indulged envy, which the Jews were
filled with, made them " speak against those things which were spoken by Paul,
that is, made th^m disbelieve, and show their unbelief. Now is it not highly
reasonable to understand the words of the text thus, according to that part of the
context : " As many as" did not obstinately harbour envy, prejudice, love of lion
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
I- . II.
Can the Ethiopian change his [It is very remarkable that the
skin, and the leopard his spots? then Lord, to show his readiness to help
may ye also do good [without my those obstinate offenders, says, just
gracious help] that are accustomed after] O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be
to do evil, Jer. xiii, 23. made clean 1 When shall it once
be?
Neither knoweth any man the God resisteth the proud, but
Father, save, &c, he to whomsoever giveth grace to the humble ; [i. e
the Son will reveal him ; [and he to babes,] &c. Submit therefore
will reveal him unto babes, as yourselves to God, &c, humble
appears from the context,] Matt, yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
xi, 25, 27. Flesh and blood hath and he shall lift you up, James iv,
not revealed this unto thee, [that 6, &c. If any man will do his
Jesus is the Christ, &c,] but my will, he shall know of the doctrine,
Father, Matt, xvi, 17. whether it be of God, John vii, 17.
The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him, Psa. xxv, 14.
To understand aright some passages in St. John's Gospel, we must
remember that, wherever the Gospel of Christ is preached, the Father
particularly draws to the Son as Redeemer, those that believe in him as
Creator. And this he does, sometimes by cords of love, sometimes by
cords of fear, and always by cords of conviction and humiliation. They
that yield to these drawings become " babes, poor in spirit/' and mem-
bers of « the little flock" of humble souls, " to whom it is the Father's
good pleasure to give the kingdom. For he giveth grace to the HUM-
TILE ;" — yea, " he giveth grace and glory, and no good thing will ho
withhold from them that" follow his drawings, and "lead a godly life."
our, or worldly mindedness : — " As many as" did not " put the word from them,
and judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, believed?" Nay, might we not
properly explain the text thus, according to the doctrine of the talents, and the
progressive dispensations of Divine grace, so frequently mentioned in the Scrip,
tares: "As many as believed in God, believed also" in Christ, whom Paul par-
ticularly preached at that time; — as many as were humble and teachable,
received the ingrafted word :" for " God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace
to the humble. His secret is with them that fear him, and he will show them
his covenant."
(9.) But v/hat need is there of appealing to the context ? Does not the text
answer tor itself, while Mr. Madan's sense of it affords a sufficient antidote to all
who dislike absurd consequences, and are afraid of traducing the Holy One of
Israel ? Let reason decide. If "as many as [were in Antioch] were [Galvinisti-
cally] ordained to eternal life," believed under that sermon of St.. Paul, Cfor
almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God,) it follows, that all
who believed not " then," were eternally shut up in unbelief; that all the elect
believed at once ; that they who do not believe at one time shall never believe at
another; and that when Paul returned to Antioch, few souls, if any, could be
converted by his ministry ; God having at once taken " as many as were ordained
to eternal life," and left all the rest to the devil. But,
(10.) The most dreadful consequence is yet behind. If they that believed did
it merely because they " were absolutely ordained of God to eternal life," it fol
lows, by a parity of reason, that those who disbelieved, did it merely because they
were absolutely ordained of God to eternal death: God having bound them by the
help of Adam in everlasting chains of unbelief and sin. Thus, while proud,
wicked, stubborn unbelievers are entirely exculpated, the God of all mercies is
indirectly charged with free wrath, and finished damnation.
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 81
Those convinced, humbled souls, conscious of their lost estate, and
inquiring the way to heaven, as honest Cornelius, and the trembling
jailer — those souls, I say, the Father in a particular manner gives to the
Son, as being prepared for him, and just ready to enter into his dispen
sation. " They believe in God, they must also believe in Christ ;" and
the part of the Gospel that eminently suits them, is that which Paul
preached to the penitent jailer ; and Peter to the devout centurion.
The Jews about Capernaum showed great readiness to follow Jesus :
but it was out of curiosity, and not out of hunger after righteousness.
Their hearts went more after loaves and fishes, than after grace and
glory. In a word, they continued to be grossly unfaithful to their light,
under the dispensation of the Father, or of God as Creator. Hence it
is, that our Lord said to them, " Labour not for the meat which perish-
eth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life." Mind your souls
as well as your bodies : be no more practical Atheists. To vindicate
themselves they pretended to have a great desire to serve God. " What
shall we do," said they, " that we may work the works of God ?" " This
is the work of God," replied our Lord : " this is the thing which God''
peculiarly requires of those who are under HIS dispensation, — " that ye
believe on him whom he hath sent." — i. e. that ye submit to MY dispen
sation. Here the Jews began to cavil and say, " What sign showest
thou, that we may believe thee ?" Our Lord, to give them to under-
stand that they were not so ready to believe upon proper evidence aa
they professed to be, said to them, " Ye have seen me" and my miracles,
" and yet ye believe not." Then comes the verse, on which Zeloles
founds his doctrine of absolute grace to the elect, and of absolute wrath
to all the rest of mankind : " All that the Father [particularly] giveth
me," because they are particularly convinced that they want a mediator
between God and them ; and because they are obedient to his drawings,
and to the light of their dispensation ; — all these, says our Lord, "shall
or will come unto me," and I will be as ready to receive them, as the
Father is to draw them to me, for " him that cometh to me, I will in no
wise cast out :" I will admit him to the privileges of my dispensation ;
and, if he be faithful, I will even introduce him into the dispensation of
the Holy Ghost, — into the kingdom, that does not consist in meat and
drink, nor yet in bare penitential righteousness, but also in " peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost" « And this is the Father's will, that, of all
whom he has given me," that I may bless them with the blessings of my
dispensation, " I should lose nothing" by my negligence as a Saviour, or
as a Shepherd : although some will lose themselves by their own per-
verseness and wilful apostasy. That this is our Lord's meaning, is
evident from his own doctrine about his disciples being " the salt of the
earth," and about some " losing their savour," and " losing their own
soul." But above all, this appears from his express declaration con
cerning one of his apostles. This being premised, I balance the favour
ite text of Zelotes thus : —
I. II.
All that the Father giveth me [by I have manifested thy name [O
the decree of faith, according to the Father] to the men whom thou hast
order of the dispensations] shall [or gizen n. e out of the world. Thine
VOL. II. 6
$2 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
I. II.
will] come to me; and him that they were [they belonged to thy
cometh unto me I will in no wise dispensation, they believed in thee]
cast out. [If he be lost it will not and thou gavest them me, [they en.
be by my losing him, but by his tered my dispensation, and believed
losing his own soul. It will not be in me.] Those that thou gavest me,
by my casting him out, but by his I have kept [according to the rules
casting himself out. Witness the of my dispensation] and none of
young man, who thought our Lord's them is lost BUT [he that has de-
terms too hard ; and " went away stroyed himself, Judas,] the son of
sorrowful:" witness again Judas, perdition, that the Scripture might be
who "went out," and of his own fulfilled, John xvii, 6, 12.
accord " drew back unto perdition."]
John vi, 37.
Inquire we now what scriptures were fulfilled by the perditiyn of
Judas. They are either general or particular: (1.) The general are
such as these : " The turning away of the simple shall slay them," Prov.
i, 32. " When the righteous man turneth from his righteousness, [and
who can be a < righteous man' without true faith ?] he shall die in his
sin." Again : " When I say to the righteous," that " he shall surely
live, if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, he shall die for
it," Ezek. iii, 20; xxxiii, 13. (2.) The particular scriptures fulfilled
by the destruction of Judas are these : Psa. xli, 9, " Mine own familiar
friend in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel
against me." These words are expressly applied to Judas by our Lord
himself, John xii, 18, and they demonstrate that Judas was not always a
cursed hypocrite, unless Zelotes can make appear that our Lord reposed
his trust in a hypocrite ; whom he had chosen for his " own familiar
friend." Again : " Let his days be few, and let another take his office,
or his bishopric." These words are quoted from Psa. cix, and particu
larly applied to Judas by St. Peter, Acts i, 20. Now, to know whether
Judas' perdition was absolute, flowing from the unconditional reproba
tion of God, and not from Judas' foreseen backsliding, we need only
compare the two Psalms where his sin and perdition are described. Tho
one informs us, that before he lifted up his heel against Christ, he was
Christ's oicn familiar friend, and so sincere that the Searcher of hearts
trusted in him : and the other Psalm describes the cause of Judas' per-
»onal reprobation thus : " Let his days be few, and let another take his
office," &c, " because that [though he once knew how to tread in the
steps of the merciful Lord, who honoured him with a share in his fami
liar friendship, yet] he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted
the poor, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved
cursing, so let it come uato him : as he delighted not in blessing, so let
it be far from him : as he clothed himself with cursing like as with a
garment, so let it come into his bowels like water," Psa. cix, 8, 16, &c.
Hence it is evident, that if Judas was lost agreeably to the Scriptural
prediction of his perdition ; and if that very prophecy informs us that
" his davs were few, because he remembered not to show mercy, &c,*'
we horribly wrong God when we suppose that this means, because God
never remembered to show any mercy to Judas, because God was a
graceless God to Iscariot thousands of years before the infant culprit
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 83
drew his first breath. Brethren and fathers, as many as are yet con
cerned for our Creator's honour, and our Saviour's reputation, resolutely
bear your testimony with David and the Holy Ghost, against this doc
trine ; so shall Zelotes blush to charge still the Father of mercies with
the absolute reprobation of Judas, not only in opposition to all good
nature, truth, and equity ; but against as plain a declaration of God, as
any that can be found in all the Scriptures. " Let his days be fevr, and
let another take his office, &c, because he remembered not to show
mercy, but persecuted the poor, that he might [betray innocent blood,
and] even slay the broken in heart."*
* To say that God stood in need of Judas' wickedness to deliver his Son to the
Jews, is not less absurd than impious. "God has no need of the sinful man."
An}' boy that had once heard our Lord preach in the temple, and seen him go to
the garden of Gethsernane, might have given as proper an information to the
high priest, and been as proper a guide to the mob, as Judas : especially as Christ
was not less determined to deliver himself, than the Jews were to apprehend him.
With regard to the notion that Judas was a wicked man — an absolute unbeliever
— a cursed hypocrite when our Lord gave him a place in his familiar friendship,
and raised him to the dignity of an apostle, it is both uriscriptural and scandalous.
(1.) Unsrriptural : for the Scripture informs us, that when the Lord immediately
proceeds to an election of that nature, "he looketh on the heart," 1 Sam. xvi, 7.
Again : when the eleven apostles prayed that God would overrule the lot which
they were about to cast for a proper person to succeed Judas, they said, " Thou,
Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which of these two thou hast
chosen, that he might take part of the ministry, from which Judas by transgres
sion fell," Acts i, 24. Now as Judas fell by transgression, he was undoubtedly
raised by righteousness, unless Zelotes can make appear, that he rose the same
way he fell ; and, that as he fell by a bribe, so he gave some of our Lord's friends
a bribe, to get himself nominated to one of the twelve apostolic bishoprics : but
even then, how does this agree with our Lord's " knowing the heart," and choos
ing accordingly ? (2.) This notion is scandalous : it sets Christ in the most con
temptible light. TIow will he condemn, in the great day, men of power in the
Church, who for by-ends commit the care of souls to the most wicked of men ?
How will he even lind fault with them, if he did set them the example himself, in
passing by all the honest and good men in Judea, to go and set the apostolic mitre
upon the head of a thief — of a "wolf in sheep's clothing ?" In the name of wis
dom I ask, Could Christ do this, and yet remain the "good Shepherd?" How
different is the account that St. Paul gives us of his own election to the apostle-
ship. " The glorious Gospel of God was committed to my charge," says he;
"and I thank Christ, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, put
ting me into the ministry," 1 Tim. i, 11, 12. Now, if we represent Christ as put-
ling Paul into the ministry because he counted him faithful, and Judas because
he counted him unfaithful — a thief — a traitor — a cursed hypocrite, do we not
make Christ a Proteus ? Are his ways equal? Has he not two weights ? God,
I grant, sets sometimes a wicked king over a wicked people, but it is according
t« the ordinary course of human affairs, and in his anger; to chastise n sinful
nation with a royal rod. But what had the unformed Christian Church done to
deserve being scourged with the rod of apostolic wickedness? And what course
of human ari'airs obliged our Lord to fix upon a wicked man in a new election to
a new dignity — and, what is most striking, in an election to which he proceeded
wit!1, out the interposition of any free agent but himself?
O Zelotes, mistake me not: if I plead the cause of Judas' sincerity, \vhen he
" left all to follow Christ," and when our Lord passed by thousands, immediately to
choose him for his " own familiar friend in whom he trusted ;" — for a preacher of his
Gospel, and an apostle of his Church ; I do not do it so much for Judas' sake,' as for
the honour of Christ, and the comfort of his timorous, doubting follower*. Alas : if
Christ could show distinguishing favour and familiar friendship to a man, on whom
he had absolutely set his black seal of unconditional reprobation — to a man \vhov>i,
from the beginning of the world, he had without any provocation marked out for
84
HQUAL CliJJCK.
To conclude : if God has taken such particular care to clear himself
from the charge of absolutely appointing Judas to be a " son of perdition !"
Nay, if CHRIST himself asserts that the FATHER gave Um Judas, as well
as the other apostles :— and if the HOLY GHOST declares, by the mouth
of David, that Judas was once Christ's familiar friend, and as such
honoured with his trust and confidence; is it not evident, that the
doctrine of free wrath, and of any man's (even Judas') absolute, uncon
ditional reprobation is as gross an imposition upon Bible Christians, as it
is a foul blot upon all the Divine perfections 1
I.
II.
Ye believe not, became ye are He that believeth not is condemn-
not of my sheep, as I said unto ed already, because he hath not be-
you,^ [John viii, 37. He that is lieved, &c. And this is the [ground
of God, heareth God's words : ye of unbelief and] condemnation, that
therefore hear them not, because light is come into the world, and
you are not of God — i. e. because men loved darkness rather than
ye are not godly, whatever ye pre. light, because their deeds were evil.
tend.] My sheep [those that really For every one that [buries his ta-
belong to my dispensation, and lent of light, and] docth evil, hateth
compose my little flock] my sheep, the light, neither cometh to the
I say, hear my voice, [they mind, light, lest his deeds should be re-
understand, approve, embrace my proved. But he that doth truth
doctrine,] and they follow me [in [he that occupies till I come with
the narrow way of faith and obe- more light] cometh to the light,
dience :] and [in that way] I give that his deeds may be made mani-
unto them eternal life, and [in that fest, that they are wrought in God,
way] they shall never perish, nei- John iii, 18, &c. [All that our
ther shall any pluck them out of Lord meant, then, when he said to
my hand. [For who shall harm the Pharisees, "Ye believe not, be.
them if they be followers of that cause ye are not of my sheep," is
which^ia good? 1 Peter iii, 13.] explained in such scriptures as
these.] He that is faithful in that
which is least, is faithful also in
My Father who gave them me
[who agreed, that where my dis.
pensation is opened, those who
much, Luke xvi, 10. How can ye
truly believe on him as Creator, believe, who receive honour one of
should be peculiarly given me as another, and seek not the honour
head of the Christian Church, to that cometh from God ? [Had you
make them Christian priests and been faithful to the light of con-
a goat, and for unavoidable damnation : if he could converse, eat, drink, travel
lodge, a.nd pray for years with a man to whom he bore from everlasting, and will
bear to all eternity, a settled ill will, an immortal hatred, where is sincerity ?
where ia the Lamb without blemish ? the Lamb of God in whose mouth no guile
was ever found ? If Christ be such a sly damner of one of his twelve apostles as1
the " doctrines of grace" (so called) represent him to be, who can trust him ?
What professor— what Gospel minister can assure himself that Christ has not
chosen and called him for purposes as sinister as those for which it is supposed
that Judas was chosen, and called to be Christ's familiar friend ? Nay, if Christ,
barely on account of Adam's sin, left Judas in the lurch, and even betrayed him
into a deeper hell by a mock call, may he not have done the same by Zelotes, by
me, and by all the professors in the world ? O ye "doctrines of grace," if you
are as sweet as honey, in the rnouth of Zelotes, as soon as I have eaten you, my
belly is bitter ; poison corrodes my vitals ; I must either part with you, my reason
i*r my peace.
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
85
I.
II.
kings unto him :] my Father, I say,
who gave them me, is greater than
all, and none shall pluck them [that
thus hear my voice and follow me]
out of my Father's hand : for I and
my Father are one [in nature, power,
mid faithfulness, to show that "the
way of the Lord is strength to the
upright ; but destruction shall be to
the workers of iniquity," Prov. x,
29.] John x, 2, 26, &c.
No man can come unto me ex-
science, you would have believed
Moses ; arid] had ye believed Mo
ses, ye would have believed me :
but if ye believe not his writings,
how shall ye believe my words?
John v, 44, &c. [If ye believe not
in God, how shall ye believe in me ?
If you dishonour my Father, how
can you honour me ?]
[FIRST PROPOSITION. The Fa-
cept the Father draw him, [and he tlier draws all to himself, and gives
be faithful to the Father's attrac
tion :] every man, therefore, that
hath heard and learned of [that is,
submitted to] the Father [and to his
to the Son all those who yield to his
drawings. Witness the following
scriptures.] All the day long I have
tretched forth my hand to [draw]
drawings] cometh unto me. There a disobedient people, Rom. x, 21.
are some of you that believe not, Despisest thou the riches of God's
forbearance, not considering that his
goodness leadeth [that is, gently
&c. Therefore said I unto you,
that no man, can come unto me, ex
cept it bs given him of my Father, draweth] thee to repentance, [and
of consequence to faith in a Medi
ator between God and man?] Rom.
ii, 4. Of those whom thou hast
given me none is lost [hitherto] but
[one, Judas, who is already so com
pletely lost, that I may now call
him] a son of perdition, John xvii,
John vi, 44, 45, 64, 65.
The meaning is, that no man can
believe in the Son, who has not first
a degree of true faith in the Father.
"Ye believe in God, believe also
in me," says Christ. "All must
honour the Son, as they honour the
Father." All, therefore, that do
not "learn of," that is, submit to,
12.
SECOND PROPOSITION. The Son
likewise, " who is the light that en-
to
and honour the Father, cannot
come to the Son and pay him horn- lightens every man, draws all
age. He that obstinately refuses
to take the first step in the faith,
cannot take the second. To show,
therefore, that Zelotes cannot with
propriety ground the doctrine of
free wrath upon John vi, any more
than upon John x, I need only prove
the three propositions contained in
the opposite Scale.
himself," and then brings to the Fa
ther those who yield to his attraction,
" that they may receive the adop
tion of sons." Witness the follow
ing scriptures : — " And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men unto me, John xii, 32.
Come unto me, all ye that labour
[and are restless] and I will give
If you come to me, I
you rest.
will plainly reveal to you the Fa
ther : I will enable you by my peaceful Spirit to call him ABBA, FATHER,
with delightful assurance : [for] no man knoweth the Father but the Son,
and he, to whomsoever the Son will reveal him [by the Holy Ghost,]
Matt, xi, 27, 28.
THIRD PROPOSITION. These drawings of the Father, and of the Son,
are not irresistible, as appears from the following scriptures : " Because
86 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
I have stretched out my hands, and no man [comparatively] regarded
[my drawings,] I will mock when your destruction corneth as a whirl-
wind, Prov. i, 24, 27. These things I say unto you [obstinate Phari
sees,] that you might be [drawn unto me, and] saved, &c, and [notwith
standing my drawings] ye will not come unto me, that ye might have
life," John v, 34, 40.
The preceding propositions are founded upon the proportion of faith,
upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and upon the doc
trine of the dispensations explained in the Essay on Truth.
Should Zelotes compare these propositions, he will see that if the
Father does not particularly give all men to the Son, that they may
receive the peculiar blessings of the Christian dispensation ; and if the
Son does not explicitly reveal the Father to all men by the Spirit of
adoption, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; it is not out of free, repro
bating wrath ; but merely for the two following reasons : (1.) As in the
political world all men are not called to be princes and kings ; so in the
religious world all are not blessed with Jive talents ; all are not called to
believe explicitly in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, or to be " made
kings and priests to God" in the Christian Church. (2.) Of the many
that are called to this honour, few (comparatively) are obedient to the
heavenly calling ; and, therefore, " few are chosen" to " receive the
crown of Christian righteousness :" or, as our Lord expresses it, few
" are counted worthy to stand before the Son of man" among them that
have been faithful to their five talents. But, as all men have one talent
till they have buried it, and God has judicially taken it from them : as
all men are at least under the dispensation of the Father, as a gracious
and faithful Creator : as Christ, " the light that lighteth every man that
eometh into the world," draws all men implicitly to this merciful Crea
tor ; while the Spirit, as " the saving grace which has appeared unto all
men, implicitly teaches them to deny ungodliness," and to live soberly,
righteously, and piously in this present world : as this is the case, I say,
what can we think of the absolute election or reprobation of individuals,
which insures saving grace and heaven to some, while (through the
denial of every degree of saving grace) it secures damning sin and ever
lasting burnings to others ?
If it be asked, how it has happened that so many divines have em
braced these tenets ? I reply, It has been chiefly owing to their inat
tention to the doctrine of the dispensations. Being altogether taken up
with the particular dispensations of the Son arid of the Holy Ghost,
they overlooked, as Peter once did, the general dispensation of the
Father, which is the basis of all the superior economies of Divine grace.
They paid no manner of attention to the noble testimony, which that
apostle bore when, parting with his last scrap of Jewish bigotry, he said :
" Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons : but in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted
of him." As if he had said, Though distinguishing grace should never
give two talents to a heathen that fears God and works righteousness ;
though he should never explicitly .hear of the Son, arid of the Holy
Ghost ; yet shall he enter, as a faithful servant, into the joy of his
merciful Lord, when many " children of the kingdom shall be thrust
out :" for it is revealed upon earth, and of consequence it is decreed
SECOXD.J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 87
in heaven, that they who are chosen and called to partake of the Divine
peace, which is essential to the peculiar dispensations of the Son, and
of the unspeakable joy, which is essential to the peculiar dispensation
of the Holy Ghost, shall be reprobated, or " thrust out," if they do not
" make their high calling and election sure :" while they that were
only chosen and called to the righteousness essential to the general
dispensation of the Father, shall " receive the reward of the inherit
ance," if they do but "walk worthy of their inferior election and call
ing."
Methmks that Zelotes, instead of producing solid arguments in favo.ir
of his doctrines, complains that I bring certain strange things to his ears ;
and that the distinction between the Christian dispensation, and the
other economies of grace, by which I have solved his Calvinistic diffi
culties, has absolutely no foundation in the Scripture. That I may
convince him of his mistake in this respect, to what I have said on this
subject in the Essay on Truth, I add the following proof of my deal
ing in old truths, and not in " novel chimeras." St. Paul, 1 Cor. ix,
17, declares that "the dispensation of the Gospel of Christ [which in
its fulness takes in the ministration of the Spirit] was committed unto
him." Eph. i, 10, he calls this dispensation "the dispensation of the
fulness of times, in which God gathers in one all things in Christ.''
Chap, iii, 2, &c, after mentioning " the dispensation of the grace of
God given him," as an apostle of Christ, he calls it " preaching among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," and the " making all
men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which had been hid in
God from the beginning of the world." Col. i, 25, &c, speaking of
the Christian Church, in opposition to the Jewish, he says, " Whereof
I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is
given to me for you, &c, even the mystery which hath been hid from
ages, but now is made manifest to his saints :" and he informs them
that this mystery, now revealed, was " Christ in them, the hope of
glory." Again, what he calls here the mystery hidden before, but now
made manifest to Christians, he calls in another place " the new testa
ment, — the ministration of righteousness, — where the Spirit of the Lord
is" — and where " there is liberty," even the glorious liberty of the chil
dren of God ; observing, that although the Mosaic dispensation or " mi
nistration" was " glorious," yet that of Christ exceeds in glory," 2 Cor.
iii, 6, &c.
To deny the doctrine of the dispensations is to deny that God made
various covenants with the children of men since the tall : it is at least
to confound all those covenants with which the various Gospel dispensa
tions stand or fall. And to do so is not to divide the word of God aright,
but to make a doctrinal farrago, and increase the confusion that reigns
in mystical Babel. From the preceding quotations out of St. Paul's
Epistles, it follows, therefore, either that there was no Gospel in the world,
before the Gospel which was " hid from ages," and " made manifest" in
St. Paul's days " to God's saints," when this mystery, " Christ in them
the hope of glory," was revealed to them by the Holy Ghost : or, (which
to me appears an indubitable truth,) that the evangelical dispensation of
Adarn and Noah was bright ; that of Abraham and Moses brighter ; that
of initial Christianity, or of John the Baptist, explicitly setting forth
88 ^QUAL CHECK. [PART
" the Lamb of God that taAeth away the sins of the world," brighter
still ; and that of perfect Christianity, (or of Christ revealed in us by
the power of the Holy Ghost,) the brightest of all.
SECTION XI.
A rational and Scriptural view of St. Paul's meaning in the ninth
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans — Some of the deepest passages
of that chapter are thrown into the Scripture Scales, and by being
weighed with parallel texts, appear to have nothing to do with free
wrath and Calvinistic reprobation.
IF Zelotes find himself pressed by the weights of my second Scale, he
will probably try to screen his " doctrines of grace," by retreating with
them behind the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. But I am
beforehand with him : and appealing to that chapter, I beg leave to show
that the passages in it, which at first sight seem to favour the doctrine
of free wrath, are subversive of it, when they are candidly explained
according to the context, and the rest of the scriptures. Five couple of
leading propositions open the section.
I.
II.
I. To deny that God out of mere To insinuate that God, out of
distinguishing grace, may and does mere distinguishing wrath, fixes the
grant Church blessings, or the bless- curse of absolute rejection upon a
ings of the covenant of peculiarity,
to some men, making them com
paraf.ivcly vessels to honour ;
making of consequence other men
number of unborn men, for whom
he never had any rnercy, and whom
and he designs to call into being only to
show that he can make and break
comparatively vessels to dishonour, vessels of wrath — to insinuate this,
or vessels less honourable : to deny I say, is to attribute to God a tyran-
this, I say, is to oppose the doctrine nical sovereignty, which he justly
of the dispensations, and to rob God abhors,
of a gracious sovereignty, which
he justly claims.
II. God is too gracious uncondi- God is too holy and too just not
tionally to reprobate, i. e. ordain to to reprobate his obstinately rebel-
eternal death, any of his creatures, lious creatures.
III. In the day of initial salva- In the day of initial salvation,
tion, they who through grace believe they" who unnecessarily do despite
in their light, are conditionally ves- to the Spirit of grace and disbelieve,
sels of mercy, or God's elect, ac- are conditionally vessels of wrath,
cording to one or another dispensa- that " fit themselves for destruction.'
tion of his grace.
Perverse free will in us, and not
IV. God justly gives up tofnal free wrath in God, or necessity from
blindness of mind, and complete Adam, is the cause of our avoidable
hardness of heart, them that reso- unbelief: and our personal avoidable
lutely shut their eyes, and harden unbelief is the cause of our complete
their hearts to the end of their day personal reprobation, both at the end
of initial salvation. of the day of grace, and in the day
of judgment.
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 89
I. II.
V. There can be no sovereign, There can never be sovereign,
distinguishing free grace in a good distinguishing free wrath in a just
God ; because goodness can bestow God ; because justice cannot inflict
free, undeserved gifts. free, undeserved punishments.
Reason and conscience should alone, one would think, convince us
that St. Paul, in Rom. ix, does not plead for a right in God so to liaie
any of his unformed creatures as to intend, make, and fit them for
destruction, merely to show his absolute sovereignty and irresistible
power. The apostle knew too well the God of love, to represent him as
a mighty potter, who takes an unaccountable pleasure to form rational
vessels, and to endue them with keen sensibility, only to have the glory
of absolutely filling them, by the help of Adam, with sin and wickedness
on earth, and then with fire and brimstone in hell. This is the conceit
of the consistent admirers of unconditional election and rejection, who
build it chiefly upon Rom. ix. Should you ask, why they fix so dread-
ful a meaning on that portion of Scripture ; I answer, that through in-
attention and prejudice, they overlook the two keys which the apostle
gives us to opeTi his meaning, one of which we find in the three first,
and the other in the three last verses of that perverted chapter.
In the three first verses St. Paul expresses the "continual sor
row," which he " had in his heart," for the obstinacy of his country,
men, the Jews, who so depended upon their national prerogatives, as
Jews ; their Church privileges, as children of Abraham ; and their
Pharisaic righteousness of the law, as observers of the Mosaic ceremo
nies, that they detested the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, if the apostle had believed that God, by a wise decree of preteri-
tion, had irreversibly ordained them to eternal death " to illustrate his
glory by their damnation," as Calvin says ; how ridiculous would it
have been in him to sorrow night and day about the execution of
God's wise design ! If God, from the beginning of the world, had
absolutely determined to make the unbelieving Jews personally and
absolutely vessels of wTath, to the praise of the glory of his sovereign
free wrath ; how wicked would it have been in St. Paul to begin the
next chapter by saying, "My heart's desire and prayer to God foi
unbelieving Israel — -for the obstinate Jews, is that they might be saved !"
Would he not rather have meekly submitted to the will of God, and said,
like Eli, " It is the Lord : let him do what seemeth him good ?" Did
it become him — nay, was it not next to rebellion in him, so passionately
to set his heart against a decree made (as we are told) on purpose to
display the absoluteness of Divine sovereignty? And would not the
Jews have retorted his own words ! " Who art thou, O vain man, that
repliest against God" by wishing night and day the salvation of " vessels
of wrath :" of men whom he hath absolutely set apart for destruction ?
" But if the apostle did not intend to establish the absolute, personal
preterition of the rejected Jews and their fellow reprobates, what could
he mean by that mysterious chapter ?" I reply : He meant in general
to vindicate God's conduct in casting off the Jews, and adopting the
Gentiles. This deserves some explanation. When St. Paul insinuated
to the Jews that they were rejected as a Church and people, and that
the uncircumcised Gentiles (even as many as believed on Jesu-« of
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Nazareth) were now the chosen nation, "the peculiar people," am?
Church of God, his countrymen were greatly offended : and yet, as
" the apostle of the Gentiles," to « provoke the Jews to jealousy," h«
was obliged peculiarly to enforce this doctrine among them. They
generally gave him audience till he touched upon it. But when h<?
" waxed bold," and told them plainly that Christ had bid him « depart
from Jerusalem," as from an accursed city ; and had « sent him far thence
unto the Gentiles," they could contain themselves no longer ; and " lift,
ing up their voices, they said, Away with such a fellow from the earth,"
Acts xiii, 46 ; xxii, 21.*
When St. Paul wrote to Rome, the metropolis of the Gentile world,
where there were a great many Jews, the Holy Ghost directed him to
clear up the question concerning the general election of the Gentiles,
and the general rejection of the Jews. And this he did, both for the
comfort of the humble, Gentile believers, and for the humiliation of his
proud, self-elected countrymen ; that being provoked to jealousy, they,
or at least some of them, might with the Gentiles make their personal
calling and election sure by believing in Christ. As the Jews were gene-
rally incensed against him, and he had a most disagreeable truth to write,
he dips his pen in the oil of brotherly love, and begins the chapter by a
most awful protestation of his tender attachment to them, and sorrowful
concern for their salvation, hoping that this would soften them, and
reconcile their prejudiced minds. But if he had represented them as
absolute reprobates, and vessels of wrath irreversibly ordained of God
to destruction, he would absurdly have defeated his own design, and
exasperated them more than ever against his doctrine and his person.
To suppose that he told them with one breath, he wished to be accursed
from Christ for them, and with the next breath insinuated that God had
absolutely accursed them with unconditional, personal reprobation, is a
notion so excessively big with absurdity, that at times Zelotes himself can
scarcely swallow it down. Who indeed can believe that St. Paul made
himself so ridiculous as to weep tears of the most ardent love over the
free wrath of his reprobating Creator ? Who can imagine that the pious
apostle painted out "the God of all grace," as a God full of immortal
hatred to most of his countrymen : while he represented himself as a
person continually racked with the tenderest feelings of a matchless
affection for them all ; thus impiously raising his own reputation, as a
benevolent man, upon the ruins of the reputation of his malevolent
God?
Come we now to the middle part of the chapter. St. Paul, having
* It is remarkable that Jewish, rage first broke out against our Lord, when
he touched their great Diana— the doctrine of their absolute election. You
think, said he, to be saved, merely because you are Abraham's children, and
God's chosen, peculiar people. " But I tell you of a truth," God is not so partial
to Israel as you suppose. " Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, but
to none of them was Elias sent, but to a Zidonian [heathen] widow. And many
lepers were in Israel in the days Elisha, yet none of them was cleansed save
Naaman the Syrian," Luke iv, 25, &c. The Jews never forgave our Lord that
levelling saying. If lie narrowly escaped their fury at Nazareth, it was only to
meet it increased sevenfold in the holy city. So fierce and implacable are
the tempers to which some professors work up themselves, bv drinking into un-
scriptural notions of election !
SECOND.] SCIilPTUiU: SCALES. 91
prepared the Jews for the disagreeable message which he was about to
deliver, begins to attack their Pharisaic prejudices concerning their
absolute right, as children of Abraham, to be God's Church arid people,
exclusively of the rest of the world whom they looked upon as reprobated
dogs of the Gentiles. To drive the unbelieving Jews out of this shelter
ing place, he indirectly advances two doctrines : (1.) That God, as the
Creator and supreme Benefactor of men, may do what he pleases with
his peculiar favours ; and that as he had now as indubitable a right
freely to give five talents oF Church privileges to the Gentiles, as he
had once to bestow three talents of Church privileges upon the Jews.
And, (2.) That God had as much right to set the seal of his wrath upon them,
as upon Pharaoh himself, if they continued to imitate the inflexibleness
of that proud unbeliever ; inexorable unbelief being the sin that fits men
for destruction, and pulls down the wrath of God upon the children of
disobedience.
The first of those doctrines he proves by a reasonable appeal to con
science : (1.) Concerning the absurdity of replying against God, i. e.
against a being of infinite wisdom, goodness, justice, and power. And
(2.) Concerning a right which a potter has of the same "lump of clay"
to make one vessel for* honourable, and another for comparatively dis
honourable uses. The argument carries conviction along with it.
Were utensils capable of thought, the basin, in which our Lord washed
his disciples' feet, (a comparatively dishonourable use,) could never rea
sonably complain that the potter had not made it the cup in whicli
Christ consecrated the sacramental wine. By a parity of reason, the
king's soldiers and servants cannot justly be dissatisfied because he has
not made them all generals and prime ministers. And what reason
had the Jews to complain, that God put the Gentiles on a level with,
or even above them 1 May he not, without being arraigned at the bar
of slothful servants, who have buried their talents, give a peculiar,
extraordinary blessing when he pleases, and to whom he pleases?
" Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made
me thus ?" Shail the foot say, Why am I not the head ? and the knee,
Why am I not the shoulder ? Or, to allude to the parable of the labour
ers, " if God chooses to hire the Gentiles, and send them into his
favourite vineyard, blessing them with Church privileges as he did the
Jews; shall the eye of the Jews "be evil because God is good" to
these newly hired labourers ? " May he not do what he pleases with
his own ?"
* I have lived these fifteen years in a part of England where a multitude of
potters make all manner of iron and earthen vessels. Some of these mechanics
are by no means conspicuous for good sense, and others arc at times besotted
through excessive drinking; but I never yet saw or heard of one so excessively
foolish as to make, even in a drunken fit, a vessel on purpose to break it, to show
that he had power over the work of his own hands. Such, however, is the folly
that Zelotcs' scheme imputes to God. Nay, if a potter makes vessels on pur.
pose to break them, he is only a fool ; but if lie could make sensible vessels like
dogs, and formed them on purpose to roast them alive, and that he might show
his sovereign power, would you not execrate his cruelty as much as you would
pity his madness ? But, what would you think of the man if he made five or ten
.such vessels for absolute destruction, while he made one for absolute salvation,
and then assumed the title of gracious and merciful potter, and called his potting
schemes " schemes of grace?"
W EQUAL CHECK. [PART
To this rational argument St. Paul adds another (ad kominem)
peculiarly adapted to the Jews, who supposed it a kind of sacrilege to
deny that, as children of Abraham, they were absolutely " the chosen
nation," and " the temple of the Lord." To convince them that God
was not so partial to the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as
they imagined, the apostle reminds them that God had excluded the
first born of those favoured patriarchs from the peculiar blessings which
by birthright belonged to them : doing it sometimes on account of the
sin of those first born, and sometimes previously to any personal demerit
of theirs, that he might show that his purpose, according to election to
peculiar privileges and Church prerogatives, does " not stand of works,
but of him that" chooseth, and " calleth" of his sovereign, distinguish,
ing grace. St. Paul confirms this part of his doctrine by the instance
of Ishmael and Isaac, who were both sons of Abraham : God having
preferred Isaac to Ishmael, because Isaac was the child of his own pro-
mise, and of Abraham's faith by Sarah, a free woman, who was a type
of grace arid the Gospel of Christ : whereas Ishmael was only the child
of Abraham's natural strength by A gar, an Egyptian bondswoman,
who was a type of nature and the Mosaic dispensation.
With peculiar wisdom the apostle dwells upon the still more striking
instance of Isaac's sons, Esau and Jacob, who had not only the same
godly father, but the same free and pious mother ; the younger of
whom was nevertheless preferred to the elder without any apparent
reason. He leaves the Jews to think how much more this might be
the case, when there is an apparent cause, as in the case of Reuben,
Simeon, and Levi, Jacob's three eldest sons, who, through incest,
treachery, and murder, forfeited the blessing of the first born ; a bless-
ing this which by that forfeiture devolved on Judah, Jacob's fourth
son, whose tribe became the first and most powerful of all the tribes
of Israel, and had of consequence the honour of producing the Mes
siah, " the Lion of the tribe of Judah." St. Paul's argument is mas
terly, and runs thus : — If God has again and again excluded some of
Abraham's posterity from the blessing of the peculiar covenant, which
he made with that patriarch concerning the " promised seed :" — if he
said, " In Isaac," Jacob, and Judah, " shall thy seed [the Messiah] be
called," and not in Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben, the first born sons of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; how absurd is it in the Jews to suppose
that merely because they are descended from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, they shall absolutely share the blessings of the Messiah's
kingdom ? " If God excluded from the birthright Ishmael the scoffer,
Esau the seller of his birthright, and Reuben the defiler of Bilhah,
his father's wife ; why might riot Israel (his son called out of Egypt)
his first born among nations, forfeit his birthright through unbelief?
And why should not the Gentile world, God's prodigal son, inherit the
blessing of the first born, if they submitted to the obedience of faith,
and with the younger son in the parable, returned from " the far
country" to their father's house ; while the elder son insolently quar
reled with God, reproached his brother, absolutely refused to come in,
and thus made his calling void, and his reprobation sure ?
The apostle's argument is like a two-edged sword. With one edge
he cuts down the bigotry of the Jews, by the above-mentioned appeals
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 93
to the history of their forefathers ; and with the other edge he strikes
at their unbelief, by an appeal to the destruction of Pharaoh ; insinu
ating that God as Maker, Preserver, and Governor of men, has an
undoubted right to fix the gracious or righteous terms, on which he
will finally bestow salvation ; or inflict damnation on his rational crea
tures.
With the greatest propriety St. Paul brings in Pharaoh, to illustrate
the odious nature, fatal consequences, and dreadful punishment of
unbelief. No example was better known, or could be more striking to
the Jews. They had been taught from their infancy, with how
" much long suffering" God had " endured" that notorious unbeliever ;
" raising him up," supporting him, and bearing with his insolence day
after day, even after he had fitted himself for destruction. They had
been informed, that the Lord had often reprieved that father of the
faithless, that, in case he again and again hardened himself, (as
Omniscience saw he would do,) he might be again and again scourged,
till the madness of his infidelity should drive him into the very jaws of
destruction ; God having on purpose spared him, yea,* " raised him
up" after every plague, that if he refused to yield, he might be made a
more conspicuous monument of Divine vengeance, and be more glori
ously overthrown by matchless power. So should " God's name," i. e.
his adorable perfections, and righteous proceedings, " be declared
throughout all the earth." And so should unbelief appear to all the
world in its own odious and infernal colours.
St. Paul having thus indirectly, and with his usual prudence and
brevity, given a double stab to the bigotry of the unbelieving Jews, who
fancied themselves unconditionally elected, and whom he had repre
sented as conditionally reprobated ; lest they should mistake his mean
ing as Zelotes does, he concludes the chapter thus : " What shall we
say then?" What is the inference which I draw from the preceding
arguments ? One which is obvious, namely, this : " That the Gentiles,
[typified by Jacob the younger brother,] who followed not professedly
after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the Christian
righteousness which is of faith. But Israel," or the Jews, who profes
sedly " followed after the law of Mosaic righteousness, [as the sports
man Esau did after his game,] have not attained to the law of Mosaic
or Christian righteousness :" they are neither justified as Jev, s, nor
sanctified as Christians. " True ; and the reason is, because God had
absolutely passed them by from all eternity, that he might in time
make them vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." So insinuates
Zelotes. But happily for the honour of the Gospel, St. Paul declares
just the reverse. " Wherefore," says he, did not the reprobated Jews
*Is it not strange that Zelotes should infer, from this expression, that God had
originally "raised up," that is, created Pharaoh, on purpose to damn him? Is it
not evident that Pharaoh justly looked upon every plague as a death ? Witness
his own words, " Iritreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me
this death only," Exod. x, 17. And if every plague was a death to Pharaoh, was
not every removal of a plague a kind of resurrection, a raising him up, together
with his kingdom, from a state of destruction, according to these words of the
Egyptians, " Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed ?" How reasonable
and Scriptural is this sense ! How dreadful, I had almost said, how cliaKolical is
that of Zelotes !
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
attain to righteousness? To open the eyes of Zelotes, if any thin*
will he answers his own question thus: "Because they sought it not
by Jaith, but as it were by the external works of the Mosaic law"
opposed to Christian faith. "For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone, Christ, who is "a rock of offence" to unbelievers, and "the
rock of ages" to believers. "As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a
rock that some shall, through their obstinate unbelief, make "a rock
And others, through their humble faith, a rocky founda
tion, according to the decrees of conditional reprobation and election •
He that believeth not shall be damned,— and whosoever believeth oa
him shall not be ashamed," Rom. ix, 1-33; Mark xvi, 16.
That Zelotes should mistake the apostle's meaning when it is «o
clearly fixed in the latter part of the chapter is unaccountable : bat that
lie should support by it his peculiar notion of absolute reprobation is
really astonishing. The unbelieving Jews are undoubtedly the persons
whom the apostle had first in view when he asserted God's right of
appointing that obstinate unbelievers shall be "vessels of wrath." But
hear what he said of those REPEOBATED JEWS to the ELECTED Gentiles,
in the very next chapter but one. "I speak to von G entiles, &c, if by
any means I may provoke to emulation them that are my flesh [the
Jews] and might save some of them. If some of the branches [the
unbelieving Jews] be broken off, &c, because of unbelief they were
broken off, and thou [believing Gentile] standest by faith. Be riot hio-h
minded but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take
heed lest he also spare not thee, &c. Continue in his goodness, other
wise thou also shalt be cut off," and treated as a vessel of wrath. ^ And
they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in," 'and
treated as vessels of mercy, Rom. xi, 13, &c.
But what need is there of going to Rorn. xi to show the inconsistency
of the Calvmistic doctrines of free grace in Christ and free wrath in
Adam ? Of everlasting love to some and everlasting hate to others ?
Does not Rom. ix itself afford us another powerful antidote ? If the
elect were from eternity God's beloved people, while the non-elect were
the devil's people, hated of their Maker : and if God's love and hatred
are equally unchangeable, whether free agents change from holiness to
sin, or from sin to holiness ; what shall we make of these words ? " ]
will call them my people which were not my people ; and her beloved
which was riot beloved. And where it was said unto them, Ye are not
my people : there [upon their believing] shall they be called the children
of God," Rom. ix, 25, 26. What a golden key is here to open our
doctrine of conditional election, arid to shut Zelotes' doctrine of absolute
reprobation !
Having thus given a general view of what appears to me from con.
science, reason, Scripture, and the context, to be St. Paul's meaning in
that deep chapter ; I present the reader with a particular and Scriptural
explanation of some passages in it which do not puzzle Honestus a little,
and by which Zelotes supports the doctrines of bound will and free
wrath with some plausibility.
I- II.
It is not [primarily] of him that Ye will not come to me that you
mlleth, [in God's way,] nor is it might have life, John v. 40. Who
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
I.
[at all] of him that willeth [in oppo
sition to God's will, as the self-
righteous Jews did,] Romans ix, 16.
It is not [primarily] of him that
runneth, but* of God that showeth
mercy, Romans ix, 16.
w] I will have mercy on
whom I will [or rather sXsw I should]
have mercy, Romans ix, 15.
II.
soever will, let. him come, Revela
tion xxii, 17. I have set before
you life and death, &c, choose,
Deut. xxx, 19. I would, &c, and
ye would not, Luke xiii, 34.
I went, &c, lest by any means I
should run or had run in vain,
Gal. ii, 2. So run that [through
mercy] you may obtain, 1 Corinth
ians ix, 24.
Whoso forsaketh his sin shall
have mercy, Proverbs xxviii, 13.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
and, &c, the Lord will have mercy
upon him, Isaiah Iv, 7. He shall
have judgment without mere}' , that
hath showed no mercy, James ii,
13. All the paths of the Lord are
mercy to such as keep his covenant.
Psalm xxv, 10.
[Oixrcjpvjfl'w] I will have com- As the heaven is high above the
passion on whom I will [or rather earth; so great is his mere y toward
oixTfipw I should] have compassion, them that fear him, Psalm ciii, 11.
Romans ix, 15. The things that belong unto thy
peace are hid from thine eyes, &c,
became thou Jcnewest not the time of thy visitation, Luke xix, 44. How
is it that ye do not discern this time, yea, and why even of yourselves
judge ye not what is right? Luke xii, 56, 57. Hear, O heavens, &c,
I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox
knoweth his owner, &c, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not
consider. It is a people of no understanding : therefore he that formed
them will show them no favour, Isa. i, 3 ; xxvii, 11. And God said to
Solomon, Because thou hast asked for thyself understanding, &c, Jo, I
have given thee a wise and understanding heart, 1 Kings iii, 11, 12.
Because he considereth, &c, he shall not die, — he shall surely live,
Ezek. xviii, 28. [Who can help seeing through this cloud of scriptures,
that " God has mercy on whom he should have mercy," according to
his Divine attributes ; extending initial mercy to all, according to his
long suffering and impartiality; and showing eternal mercy, according
* In familiar and Scripture language the effect is frequently ascribed to the
chief cause ; while, for brevity's sake, inferior causes or agents are passed over
in silence. Thus David says, " Except the Lord build the house, their labour
is but vain that build it." St. Paul says, " I laboured, yet not I, but the grace
of God." And we say, "Admiral Hawke has beat the French fleet." Would it
not be absurd in Zelotes to strain these expressions so as to make absolutely
nothing of the mason's work in the building of a house ; of the apostle's preach
ing in the conversion of those Gentiles ; and of the bravery of the officers and
sailors in the victory got over the French by the English admiral ? It is never
theless upon such frivolous conclusions as these that Zelotes generally rests the
enormous weight of Ms peculiar doctrine*.
EQUAL CHECK. [PAST
to his holiness and truth, to them that use and improve their talent of
understanding, so as to love him and keep his commandments ?1
I- II.
The children being not yet born, Thus saith the Lord,— Did I
neither having done any good or plainly appear to the house of thy
evil, that the purpose of God ac- father, &c, and did I choose him
cording to election might stand not out of all the tribes of Israel to be
of works, but of him that calleth my priest, &c. Why kick ye at
[i. e. that God might show, he may my sacrifice ? Wherefore the Lord
and will choose some of Abraham's God saith, / said indeed that thy
posterity to some peculiar privi- house should walk before me for
leges which he does not confer upon ever. But now the Lord saith, Be
others : and likewise to teach us it far from me ; for them that
that grace and the new man raysti- honour me I will honour ; and they
cally typified by Jacob, shall have that despise me shall be lightfy
the reward of the inheritance, — a esteemed, 1 Samuel ii, 27, "&c.
reward this, which fallen nature and Again : the Lord said to Samuel
the old man, mystically typified by [I have not chosen,] I have refused
Esau, shall never receive : to teach him [Eliab] for the Lord seeth not
us this] it was said to Rebecca, as man seeth : the Lord looketh at
The elder shall serve the younger the heart [and chooseth in conse-
[m his posterity* though not in his quence : accordingly, when] "Jes.se
* Mr. Henry says with great truth, " All this choosing" of Jacob and refusing
of Esau « was typical, and intended to shadow forth some other election and
rejection." And although he was a Calvinist, he does, in many respects, justice
to St. Paul's meaning. •« This difference," says he, " that was put between Jacob
and Esau, he [the apostle] farther illustrates by a quotation from Mai. i, 2, where
it is said, not of Jacob and Esau the persons, but the Edomites and Israelites
their posterity: 'Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.' The people of
Israel were taken into the covenant of peculiarity, had the land of Canaan given
them, were blessed with the more signal appearances of God for them in special
protection, supplies, and deliverances, while the Edomites were rejected [from
the covenant of peculiarity,] had no temple, altars, priests, prophets; no such
particular care of them, &c. Others understand it of the election and rejection
of particular persons ; some loved and others hated from eternity. But the a postle
speaks of Jacob and Esau, not in their own persons, but as ancestors: Jacob the
people and Esau the people : nor doth God damn any, or decree so to do, merely
because he will do it, without any reason taken from their own deserts, &c. The
choosing of Jacob the younger was to intimate that the Jews, though the natural
seed of Abraham, and the first horn of the Church, should be laid aside- and the
Gentiles, who were as the younger brother, should be taken in in their stead, and
have the birthright and blessing." He concludes his comment upon the whole
chapter by these words, which exactly answer to the double key I have given to the
reader : Upon the whole matter the unbelieving Jews have no reason to quarrel
with God for rejecting them: they had a fair offer of righteousness and life
and salvation, made upon Gospel terms, which they did not like, and would not
come up to ; and therefore if they perish they may thank themselves. Their blood
is upon their own heads."
What precedes is pure truth, and strongly confirms my doctrine. But what fol
lows is pure Calvinism, and shows the inconsistency of the most judicious writers
in that scheme. "Were the Jews hardened? It was because it was his own
(fcrod's) pleasure to deny them softening grace, &c. Two sorts of vessels God
forms out of the great lump of fallen mankind: (1.) 'Vessels of wrath:' vessels
filled with wrath, as a vessel of wine is a vessel filled with wine, < full of the fury
of the Lord,' &c. (8.) « Vessels of mercy,' filled with mercy." And again : " he
(the apostle) answers by resolving all into the Divine sovereignty. We are the
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
97
I.
person :] that is, the younger shall
have the blessing of the first born.
And it was accordingly conferred
upon Jacob in these words, Be
lord over thy brethren. Gen. xxvii,
29. To conclude, therefore, from
Jacob's superior blessing, that Esau
was absolutely cursed and repro
bated of God, is as absurd as to
suppose that Manasseh, Joseph's
eldest son, was also an absolute
reprobate, because Ephraim, his
younger brother, had Jacob's chief
blessing : for the old patriarch re
fusing to put his right hand upon
the head of Manasseh, said, " Truly
his younger brother shall be greater
than he," Genesis xlviii, 19. But
would Zclotes himself infer from
such words that Manasseh was
personally appointed from all eter
nity to disbelieve and be damned,
and Ephraim to believe and be
saved ; that the purpose of God
according to absolute reprobation
and election might stand " not of
works* but of him that capriciously
and irresistibly calleth" some to fin
ished salvation in Christ, and others
II.
made seven of his sons to pass be
fore the Lord, Samuel said, T/te
Lord hath not chosen these, 1 Sam.
xvi, 7, 10. The Lord hath sought
him a man after his own heart,
[David,] because thou [Saul] hast
not kept that which the Lord com
manded thee. Once more : the
Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel
from thee this day, and hath given
it to a neighbour of thine that is
better than thou," chap, xiii, 14;
xv, 28.
The kingdom of Israel was an
unpromised gift to Saul and to
David, and yet God's election to
and reprobation from that dignity
were according to dispositions and
works. How much more may this
be said of God's election to or re
probation from a crown of glory !
a crown this, which God hath pro
mised by way of reward to them
that love him ; refusing it by way
of punishment to them that hate
him ; whom he clothes in hell with
shame and with a vengeful curse,
according to their works and his*
own declaration which follows : —
thing formed, and he is the former, and it does not become us to challenge or
arraign his wisdom in ordering and disposing of us into this or that shape or
figure." That is, in plain English, free wrath, or, to speak smoothly as a Calvin-
ist, Divine sovereignty may order and dispose us into the shape of vessels of
wrath before we have done either good or evil. How could Mr. Henry thus con-
tradict himself, and write for and against truth ? Why, he was a moderate Calvin-
ist: as moderate, he wrote glorious truths; and, as a Calvinist, horrid insinua
tions.
* This phrase : " That the purpose of God according to election might stand
not of works but of him that calleth," is to be understood merely of those blessings
which distinguishing grace bestows upon some men and not upon others, ami
which do not necessarily affect their eternal salvation or their eternal damnation,
In this sense it was that God, for the above-mentioned reasons, preferred Jacob
to Esau. In this sense he still prefers a Jew to a Hottentot, and a Christian to
a Jew ; giving a Christian the Old and New Testament, while the Jew has onlv
the Old, and the Hottentot has neither. Far from denying the reality of thi>-
sovereign, distinguishing grace, which is independent on all works, and flow*
entirely from the superabounding kindness of " him that calleth," I have parti
cularly maintained it, vol. i, p. 505. This is St. Paul's edifying meaning, tt
which I have not the least objection. But when Zelotes stretches the phrase so
far as to make it mean that God ordains people to eternal life or eternal death^,
"not of works but of him that" without reason forcibly "calleth some to believe
and be saved, leaving others necessarily to disbelieve and be damned: when
Zelotes does this, I say, rny reason and conscience are equally frighted, and I beg
leave to dissent from him for the reasons mentioned in this section.
VOL. II. 7
98
EQUAL CHECK.
IT ART
I.
to finished damnation in Adam ?
That God abhors such a proceed.
II.
"Yet saith the [Predestinarian]
house of Israel, The way of the
ing is evident from the scriptures Lord is not equal. O house of
which (ill my left scale, and in par
ticular from the opposite texts.
It is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated, Rom. ix,
13.
Zelotes, who catches at whatever
seems to countenance his doctrine
•of free wrath, thinks that this scrip
ture demonstrates the electing and
Israel, are not my ways equal?
Are not your ways unequal ?
Therefore I will judge you every
one according to his ways. Re
pent and turn, &c, so iniquity shall
not be your ruin," Ezekiel xviii,
29, &c. " I will do unto them
according to their way; and ac
cording to their deserts [secundum
merita] will I judge them, and they
shall know that I am the Lord,"
Ezekiel vii, 27. To these scrip
tures you may add all the multi
tude of texts where God declares
that he will judge, i. e. justify or
condemn, reward or punish, finally
elect or finally reprobate men for,
by, according to, or because of their
works.
God is love. God is loving to
every man, and his tender mercies
[in the accepted time] are over all
his works. Yet the children of thy
people say, The way of the Lord
is not equal : but as for them, their
way is not equal, &c, 1 John iv, 8.
Psa. cxlv, in the common prayers,
Ezek. xxxiii, 17.
reprobating partiality, on which his
favourite doctrines are founded. To
see his mistake, we need only consider, that in the Scripture language a
love of preference is emphatically called love ; and an inferior degree
of love is comparatively called hatred. Pious Jacob was not such a
churlish man as positively to hate any body, much less Leah — his cousin
and his wife : nevertheless, we read, " The Lord saw that Leah was
hated : the Lord hath heard that I was hated : now, therefore, my hus
band will love me :" i. e. Jacob will prefer me to Rachel, his barren
wife. Gen. xxix, 31, 32. Again: Moses makes a law concerning " a
man that hath two wives, one beloved and another hated," without inti
mating that it is wrong in the husband to hate, that is, to be less fond of
oae of his wives than of the other, Deut. xxi, 15. Once more : our
Lord was not the chaplain of the old murderer, that he should command
us positively to hate our fathers, mothers, and wives : for he, who thus
" hateth another, is a murderer." Nevertheless, he not only says, " He
that hateth his life [that invaluable gift of God] shall keep it unto life
eternal ; and he that loveth his life shall lose it :" but he declares, " If
any man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, he cannot be my disciple," Luke xiv, 26. Now,
Christ evidently means, that whosoever does not love his father. &c,
SECOITD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
99
and his own life less than him, cannot be his sincere disciple. By a
similar idiom it is said, " Esau have I hated :" an expression this, which
no more means that God had absolutely rejected Esau, and appointed
him to the pit of destruction, than Christ meant that we should abso
lutely throw away our lives, reject our fathers, wives, arid children, and
abandon them to destruction.
II.
I.
* Whom he will he hardeneth, The god of this world [not the
Rom. ix, 18.
Almighty] hath, [by their own free
That is, God judicially gives up consent] blinded the minds of them
to a reprobate mind whom he will, that believe not. Now is the day
not according to Calvinistic caprice, of salvation. Despisest thou the
but according to the rectitude of his riches of God's goodness, forbear,
own nature : and according to this ance, and long suffering ? not know-
rectitude displayed in the Gospel, ing that the goodness of God lead-
he will give up all those who, by eth thee to repentance ? But after
obstinately hardening their hearts thy hardness, and impenitent heart,
to the last, turn the day of salvation treasurest up unto thyself wrath,
into a day of final provocation, see 2 Cor. iv, 4 ; vi, 2 ; Rom. ii, 4, 5.
Psalm xcv, 8, &c.
He hath blinded their eyes, and In them is fulfilled the prophecy
hardeued their hearts, that they of Esaias, who says, By hearing ye
should not see with their eyes, nor shall hear, and shall not understand ;
understand with their heart, and be and, seeing, ye shall see, and shali
converted, and I should heal them, not perceive. For this people's
John xii, 40.
That is, he hath judicially given
heart is waxed gross [through their
obstinately resisting the light ;] and
them up to their own blindness and their ears are dull of hearing, and
their eyes they have closed, lest at
any time they should see with their
hardness. They had said so long,
We will not see, that he said at last
in his just anger, They shall not eyes, and hear with their ears, and
see ; determined to withdraw the should understand with their heart,
abused, forfeited light of his grace ; and should be converted,
and so they were blinded.
should heal them, Matt, xiii, 14, 15.
The Lord [in the above -mention. Pharaoh hardened his heart, and
ed sense] hardened Pharaoh's heart, hearkened not, Exod. viii, 15. Ze
[for his unparalleled cruelty to Is- dekiah stiffened his neck, and har-
rael,] Exod. i, 10, 22; vii, 13. See dcned his heart from turning unto
the next note. the Lord, 2 Chron. xxxvi, 13. Take
heed lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin, Heb. iii, 18. Happy is the man that
feareth alway ; but he that hardeneth his heart [as Pharaoh did] shall
fall into mischief, [God will give him up,] Prov. xxviii, 14. They are
* The reader is desired to take notice, that in this and the following para.
graphs, where I produce scriptures expressive of God's just wrath, I have shift-
ed the numbers that mark to which axiom the passage belongs. And this I have
done: (1.) Because there is no free wrath in God. (2.) Because, when there is
wrath in him, man's perverseness is the just cause of it. And (3.) Because in
point of evil, man has the wretched diabolical'honour of being first cause; and
therefore, No. I. is his shameful prerogative, according to the principles laid
down Sec. III.
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
without excuse : because, when they knew God, they glorified him nof
as God, &c. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, &c.
For this cause God gave them up to vile affections, &c. And even as
they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over
to a reprobate mind, Rom. i, 20, 28
"• I.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Shall not the Judge of all the
Why does he yet find fault ? For earth do right? Gen. xviii, 25. That
who hath resisted his will ? Rom. thou mightest be justified in thy
lX'ri?* sayin& and clear 'when thou art
Ihe rigid Calvmists triumph judged, Psa. li, 4. Com. Prayer,
greatly m this objection started by Who but Zelotes could justify an
ot. PauL They suppose that it imaginary being that should, bv the
can be reasonably levelled at no channel of irresistible decrees "pour
doctrine but their own, which teach- sin and wrath into vessels made on
cs, that God by irresistible decrees purpose to hold both ; and should
has unconditionally ordained some call himself the God of love the
men to eternal life, and others to Holy One of Israel, and a God of
eternal death; and therefore their judgment? Nay, who would not
doctrine is that of the apostle. To detest a king, who should absolutely
show the absurdity of this conclu- contrive the contracted wickedness
sion, 1 need only remind the reader and crimes of his subjects that he
once more that in this chapter St. might justly sentence them to eter-
I aul establishes two doctrines : (1.) nal torments, to show his sovereign.
I hat God may admit whom he will ty and power?
into the covenant of peculiarity, out
of pure, distinguishing, sovereign
grace: and (2.) That he had an absolute right of hardening whom he
mil upon Gospel terms, i. e. of taking the talent of *sqfteninff grace
trom all that imitate the obstinate unbelief of Pharaoh; such inflexible
unbelievers being the only people whom God will harden or give up to
a reprobate mind. Now in both those respects the objection proposed
i* pertinent, as the apostle's answers plainly show. With regard to the
'nrst doctrine, that is, the doctrine of that distinguishing grace, which
puts more honour upon one vessel than upon another ; calling Abraham
to be the Lord's "pleasant vessel," while Lot or Moab is onlv his
wasii pot ; the apostle answers : « Nay, but, O man, who art thou who
rephest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it,
Why hast thou made me thus ?" Why am I a « wash pot," and not a
-pleasant vessel?" "Hath not the potter power over the clay," &c
b'eside, is it not a blessing to be comparatively a « vessel to dishonour?"
lad not Ishmael and Esau a blessing, though it was inferior to that of
Isaac and Jacob ? Is not a wash pot as good in its place as a drinking i
cup ? Is not a righteous Gentile— a Melchisedec, or a Job, &c, as
acceptable to God, according to his dispensation, as a devout Jew and a
* . Mr. Henry comments thus upon these words, « I will harden his heart » that
is, ™thdraw softemng grace- which God undoubtedly did upon just provoca
tion. Whence it follows that, inconsistent Calvinists being judges, Pharaoh
himse.f had once softening grace ; 'it being impossible for God to withdraw from
Pharaoh 8 heart what never was there. Query. Was this softening grace which
God withdrew from Pharaoh, of the reprobating or of the electing kind ?
SECOND.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
101
sincere Christian according to theirs ? With respect to the second doc-
trine, that of hardening obstinate unbelievers, and " making his wrathful
power known" upon them : after tacitly granting that it is impossible to
resist God's absolute will, the apostle intimates in his laconic, and yet
comprehensive way of writing, that God has a right to find fault with,
and display his wrathful power upon hardened sinners, because " he liar-
dens" none, but such as have personally made themselves " vessels of
wrath," and " fitted themselves for destruction" by doing despite to the
Spirit of his grace, instead of improving their day of initial salvation :
and he insinuates, that even then, God, instead of presently dealing with
them according to their deserts, " endures them with much long suffer,
ing," which, according to St. Peter's doctrine, is to be accounted a de
gree of salvation. Therefore in both senses the objection is pertinently
proposed, and justly answered by the apostle, without the help of sove
reign free wrath, and Calvinistic reprobation.
I.
Hath not the potter power over
the clay, of the same lump to make
one vessel unto honour, and another
unto dishonour? Rom. ix, 21.
I have observed again and again
that the apostle with his two-edged
sword defends two doctrines : (1.)
The right which God, our sovereign
benefactor, has to give five talents,
or one talent to whom he pleases,
that is, to admit some people to the
covenant of peculiarity, while he
leaves others under a more general
dispensation of grace and favour.
Thus a Jew was once a vessel to
honour, a person honoured far
above a Gentile, and a Gentile, in
comparison to a Jew, might be
called " a vessel to dishonour."
Moab, to use again the psalmist's
expression, was once only God's
" wash pot," Psa. Ix, 8, while Israel
was his " pleasant vessel." But
now the case is altered : the Jews
are nationally become the " vessel
wherein there is no pleasure," and
the Gentiles are the " pleasant ves
sel." And where is the injustice
of this proceeding 1 If a potter may
make of the same lump of clay what
vessel he pleases, some for the
dining room, and others for the
meanest apartment, all good and
iseful in their respective places ;
why should not God have the same
II.
The vessel that he [the potter]
made of clay, was marred in the
hand of the potter ; so he made it
again into another vessel, as seemed
good to the potter, &c. O house
of Israel, cannot I do with you as
this potter, says the Lord, &c. At
what instant I shall speak concern
ing a nation, &c, to destroy [for its
wickedness :] i/^that nation, against
whom I have pronounced, turn from
their evil, J will repent of the evil
that I thought to do unto them.
And at what instant I shall speak
concerning a nation, &c, to build
it, if it do evil in my sight, that it
obey not my voice, then I will repent
of the good wherewith I said I
would benefit them, Jer. xviii, 4.
When St. Paul wrote Rom. ix,
21, he had probably an eye to the
preceding passage of Jeremiah,
which is alone sufficient to rectify
the mistakes of Zelotes ; there be
ing scarce a stronger text to prove
that God's decrees respecting our
salvation and destruction are condi
tional. Never did
guard the genuine doctrines
grace more valiantly, or give Cal
vinism a more desperate thrust than
he does in the potter's house by the
pen of Jeremiah. However, lest
that prophet's testimony should not
appear sufficiently weighty to Ze-
" Sergeant IF"
of
*02 EQUAL CHECK. (PART
I- II.
liberty ? Why should he not, if he lotes, I strengthen it by an express
chooses it, place some moral vessels declaration of God himself: —
above others, and raise the Gentiles « Have I any pleasure at all that
to the honour of being his peculiar the wicked should die, saith the
people ? An unspeakable honour Lord ; and not that he should return
this, which was before granted to from his ways and live ? Yet ye say,
the Jews only. ^ The way of the Lord is net equal
The apostle's second doctrine [in point of election to eternal life,
respects " vessels of mercy and and appointment to eternal death.]
vessels of wrath," which in the Hear now, O house of Israel, Is not
present case must be carefully my way equal ? When a righteous
distinguished from the « vessels to man turneth away from his right-
honour," or to nobler uses, and eousness, &c, for his iniquity shall
" the vessels to dishonour," or to he die. Again : when a wicked
less noble uses : and, if I mistake man turneth from his wickedness,
not, this distinction is one of those &c, he shall save his soul alive,
things which, as St. Peter observes, Ezek. xviii, 23, &c.
are "hard to be understood in
Paul's epistles." The importance of it appears from this consideration :
God may, as a just and gracious sovereign, absolutely make a moral
vessel for a more or less honourable use, as he pleases ; such a pre
ference of one vessel to another being no more inconsistent with Divine
goodness, than the king's appointing one of his subjects lord of the bed
chamber, and another only groom of the stable, is inconsistent with royal
good nature. But this is not the case with respect to " vessels of mercy"
and " vessels of wrath." If you insinuate, with Zelotes, that an absolute
God, to show his absolute love and wrath, absolutely made some men
to fill them unconditionally and eternally with love and mercy, and others
to fill them unconditionally and eternally with hatred and wrath, by way
of reward and punishment, you " change the truth of God into a lie,"
and serve the great Diana of the Calvmists more than the righteous
Judge of all the earth. Whatever Zelotes may think of it, God never
made an adult a vessel of eternal mercy that did not first submit to the
obedience of faith ; nor did he ever absolutely look upon any man as a
vessel of wrath, that had not by personal, obstinate unbelief first fitted
himself for destruction. Considering then the comparison of the potter
as referring in a secondary sense to the " vessels of mercy," and to the
"vessels of wrath," it conveys the following rational and Scriptural
ideas : — May not God, as the righteous maker of moral vessels, fill with
mercy or with wrath whom he will, according to his essential wisdom
and rectitude ? May he not shed abroad his pardoning mercy and love
m the heart of a believing Gentile, as well as in the breast of a believing
Jew ? And may he riot give up to a reprobate mind, yea, fill with the
sense of his just wrath a stubborn Jew, a Caiaphas, as well as a refractory
Gentile, a Pharaoh?1 Have not Jews and Gentiles a common original"?
And may not the Author of their common existence, as their impartial
la\\ giver, detcrmirje to save or damn individuals, upon the gracious and
equitable terms of the Gospel dispensations ? Is he bound absolutely to
give all the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom to Abraham's posterity,
and absolutely to reprobate the rest of the world ? Has a Jew more right
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 103
to " reply against God" than a Gentile ? When God propounds his terms
of salvation, does it become any man to " say to him that formed him,
Why hast thou made me thus" subject to thy government? Why must
I submit to thy terms 1 If God without injustice could appoint that Christ
should descend from Isaac, and not from Ishmael ; if, before Esau and
Jacob had done any good or evil, he could fix that the blood of Jacob,
and not that of Esau, should run in his Son's veins ; though Esau was
Isaac's child as well as Jacob : how much more may he, without break
ing the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fix that the free-
willing believer, whether Jew or Gentile, shall be a " vessel of mercy
prepared for glory," chiefly by free grace ; and that the free-willing
unbeliever shall be a " vessel of wrath, fitted," chiefly by free will, " for
just destruction ?" Is not this doctrine agreeable to our Lord's expostula
tion, With "the light of life, which lightens every man, you will not
come unto me that you might have life — more abundant life — yea, life
evermore ?" Does it not perfectly tally with the great, irrespective decrees
of conditional election and reprobation, " He that believeth, and is bap
tized," that is, he that shows his faith by correspondent works, when his
Lord comes to reckon with him, " shall be saved : and he that believeth
not," though he were baptized, " shall be damned ?" And is it not
astonishing, that when St. Paul's meaning in Rom ix, can be so easily
opened by the silver and golden key, which God himself has sent us
from heaven, I mean reason and Scripture, so many pious divines should
go to Geneva, and humbly borrow Calvin's wooden and iron key, I mean
his election and reprobation ? Two keys these, which are in as great
repute among injudicious Protestants, as the keys of his holiness are
among simple Papists. Nor do I see what great difference there is
between the Romish and the Geneva keys : if the former open and shut
a fool's paradise, or a knave's purgatory, do not the latter shut us all up
in finished salvation or finished damnation ?
Zelotes indeed does not often use the power of the keys ; one key
does generally for him. He is at times so ashamed of the iron key,
which is black and heavy ; and so pleased with the wooden key, which
is light and finely gilt ; that instead of holding them out fairly and jointly
as St. Peter's pictures do the keys of hell and heaven, he makes the
shining key alone glitter in the sight of his charmed hearers. Now and
then, however, when he is driven to a corner by a judicious opponent,
he pulls out his iron key, and holding it forth in triumph, he asks, " Who
has resisted his will ?" To these wrested words of St. Paul he probably
adds two or three perverted scriptures —
Which I beg leave to weigh next in my Scales.
Shall [natural evil] be in the city, They have [done moral evil] —
and the Lord hath not done it [for they have built the high places of
the punishment of the ungodly, and Baal to burn their sons with fire,
for the greater good of the godly T\ &c, which I commanded not, nor
Amos iii, 6. spake it, neither came it into my
mind — neither came it into my
heart, Jer. xix, 5; vii, 31. The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right
sceptre : thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, Psa. xlv, 6.
Abhor that which is evil, Rom. xii, 9. Thus saith the Lord, I will
bring [natural] evil upon this city, &c, because they have hardened"
104 EQUAL CHECK. [TART
their necks, that they might not hear my words, Jer. xix, 15. There-
fore, when David says, that « the Lord does whatsoever pleaseth him,"
he does not speak of either man's sin or duty, but only of God's own
work, which HE absolutely intends to perform. (1.) Not of man's sin:
for " God is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness," Psa. v, 4.
Nor (2.) Of man's duty: for though a master may do his servant's
work, yet he can never do his servant's duty. It can never be a mas-
ter's duty to obey his own commands : the servant must do it himself,
or his duty (as duty) must remain for ever undone.
II. I.
There are certain men, &c, who* Ungodly men, turning the grace
were before of old ordained to this of our God into lasciviousness, and
condemnation, &c, [namely, the con- denying, &c, our Lord Jesus Christ,
demnation of] the angels who kept [as lawgiver, judge, and king,] &c.
not their first estate, but left their These be they who separate them-
own habitation, [whom] he [God] selves [from their self-denying
hath reserved in everlasting chains brethren] sensual, riot having the
unto the judgment of the great day, Spirit [i. e. having quenched the
Jude, verses 4, 6. Spirit] — walking after their own
lusts ; and their mouth speaketh
great swelling words [whereby they
creep in unawares into rich wi
dows' houses ; seducing the fattest
of the flock, and] having men's
persons in admiration because of
advantage, verses 4, 16, 19.
To them that are disobedient, Ye will not come to me that ye
&c, he is a rock of offence, even might have life, John v, 40. Ye
to them who stumble at the word, put the word of God from you, and
being disobedient, whereunto also judge yourselves unworthy of eter
they were appointed : [or rather] nal life, Acts xiii, 46.
whereunto [namely, to be disobe
dient] theyf have even disposed [or
settled] themselves, 1 Peter ii, 7, 8.
* The words ira\at itpoytypapiiMoi rendered " before of old ordained," literally
mean " formerly fore written, foretypified, or foredescribed." The condemnation
of these backsliders, or apostates, was of old forewritten by David, Psa. cxxv,
5 ; and by Ezekiel, chap, xviii, 24. Their lusts were of old foretypified by those
of Sodom ; their apostasy by that of the fallen angels ; and their perdition by
that of the Israelites, whom the Lord " saved out of the land of Egypt," and
"afterward destroyed" for their unbelief; three typical descriptions these, which
St. Jude himself immediately produces, verses 5, 6, 7 ; together with Enoch's
prophecy of the Lord's coming " to convince them of all their ungodly deeds
and hard speeches," verses 15, 17. Is it not strange then that Zelotes should
build his notions of absolute reprobation upon a little mistake of our translators,
which is contrary both to the Greek and to the context? " Beloved," says St.
Jude, verse 17, "remember ye the words [tspwfjp^vwv, ' forespoken,' answering
to rpoyeypa^tj/oi, ' forewritten,' and not ' foreappointed,'] which were spoken
before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." For the apostles, no doubt,
often enlarged upon these words of their Master : " Because iniquity shall abound
the love of many shall wax cold [and they will fall away ;] but he that shall
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
> A beautiful face may have some freckles. Our translation is good, but it has
its blemishes ; nor is it one of tho least to represent God as appointing roen to bo
KECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 105
I shall close the preceding scriptures by some arguments which show
the absurdity of supposing that there can be any free wrath in a just
and good God. (1.) When Adam, \\ilh all his posterity in his loins,
came forth out of the hands of his Maker, he was pronounced very good,
disobedient. To vindicate all the Divine perfections, which such a doctrine in
jures, of the two meanings that the word fairly bears in the original, I need only
choose that which is not repugnant to reason and Scripture. If charity, which
" thinketh no evil and hopeth all things" consistently with reason, — if charity, 1
say, obliges us to put the best construction upon the words of our neighbour,
how much more should decency oblige us to do it with respect to the word of
God? When a modest person drops a word, that bears either a chaste or an un
chaste meaning, is it not cruel absolutely to fix an " unchaste" meaning upon it?
To show that St. Peter's words bear the meaning which I fix to them, I need only
prove two things. (1.) That the original word cn^aav, which is translated "ap
pointed," means also-" settled" or " disposed." And (2.) That a passive word in
the Greek tongue frequently bears the meaning of the Hebrew voice called " hith-
pahel," which signifies the making oneself to do a thing, or the being caused
by oneself to do it : a voice this, which in some degree answers to the middle
voice of the Greeks, some tenses of which equally bear an active or a passive
sense. To prove the first point, I appeal only to two texts, where the word
ri$»7/» undoubtedly bears the meaning which I contend for. Luke xxi, 14, StaSs
" SETTLE it in your hearts ;" and Luke ix, 62, cvZeros " fit," or more literally " well
DISPOSED for the kingdom of God." And to prove my second proposition, (beside
what I have already said upon that head, in my note upon Mr. Madan's mistake,
p. 77,) I present the critical reader with indubitable instances of it, even in our
translation. Jude, verse 10, <f>3eipovrai, they are corrupted, or, "they corrupt
THEMSELVES." 2 Cor. xi, 13, t*ETaax>]pari£oi.Moi, being transformed, or, " transform-
ing themselves." Acts xviii, 6, ut/rwv avTiraaaopsvuv, literally, they being opposed,
or, as we have it in our Bibles, " when they opposed themselves." John xx, 14,
earpafr), she (Mary) was turned, or "she turned herself." Matt, xvi, 23, Jesus
arpa^aff, being turned, or, " turning himself." Matt, xxvii, 3, Judas /xeru/jeA^?,
havmg been penitent, or, " having repented himself," &c, &c. In such cases
M these the sacred writers use indifferently the active and passive voice, because
K3.an acts, and is acted upon : he is worked upon, and he works. Thus we read
Acts iii, 19, cntffrpe^aTc, "convert," namely, yourselves, "actively;" though our
translators render it passively, "be converted:" and Luke xxii, 32, our Lord,
speaking to Peter, does not say, ETTKTT^C^ " when thou art converted," passively ;
but actively, c^rpc^a?, " when thou hast converted," namely, " thyself." Now,
if in so many cases our translators have justly rendered passive words, by words
expressing " a being acted upon by ourselves," I desire Zelotes to show, by any
one good argument, taken from criticism, Scripture, reason, conscience, or de
cency, that we must render the word of our text "they were appointed," namely,
by God, "to be disobedient," when the word cre^a* may with as much propriety
as in all the preceding cases, be rendered they disposed, set, or " settled them
selves unto disobedience." What has the Holy One of Israel done to us, that wo
should dishonour him by charging our disobedience upon " his appointment ?"
Are we so fond of the doctrines of grace, finished salvation, and finished damna
tion, that, in order to maintain the latter, we must represent God as appointing,
out of sovereign, distinguishing free wrath, the disobedience of the reprobates,
that by securing the " means" — their unbelief and sin, he may also secure the
" end" — their everlasting burnings ?
Zelotes makes too much of some figurative expressions in the sacred writings.
He forgets, that what is said of God, must always be understood in such a man
ner as becomes God. If it would be absurd to take literally what the Scriptures
say of God's " plucking his right hand out of his bosom ;» of " his awakening as
one out of sleep ;" of " his riding upon the heavens;" of his " smelling a sweet
savour from a burnt offering ;" of his " lending an ear," &c, is it not much more
absurd to take the three following texts in a literal sense 1 (1.) 2 Sam. xvi, 10,
' The Lord said unto him, [Shirnei,] Curse David." Is it not evident that pavuiv
meaning in these words is only this? " The Lord, by bringing me 10 the de
plorable circumstances in which I now find myself, has justly given an oppor-
EQUAL CHECK. U'ART
as being " made in the likeness of God," and « after the image of him,"
who is a perfect compound of every possible perfection. God spake
those words in time ; but if we believe Zelotes, the supposed decree of
absolute, personal rejection, was made before time ; God having fixed,
from all eternity, that Esau should be absolutely hated. Now, as Esau
stood in and with Adam, before he fell in and with him ; and as God
could not but consider him as standing and righteous, before he consi
dered him fallen and sinful ; it necessarily follows, either that Calvinism
tunity to Shimei to insult me with impunity, and to upbraid me publicly with my
crimes. This opportunity I call « a bidding,' to humble myself under the hand
ot God, who lashes my guilty soul by this afflictive providence ; but I would not
insinuate that God literally said to Shimei, « Curse David,' any more than I would
affirm that he said to me, Murder Uriah."
(2.) God is represented, 2 Sam. xii, 11, as saying to David, " I will take thy
wives before thine eyes, and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with
them in the sight of this sun, for thou didst it secretly, but I will do it before all
Israel." And accordingly God took the bridle of his restraining power out of
Absalom's heart, who had already murdered his own brother, and was, it seems,
by that time a vessel of wrath self fitted for destruction. The Divine restraint
being thus removed, the corrupted youth rushes upon the "outward" commission
of those crimes which he had perhaps a hundred times committed in " intention,"
and from which the Lord had hitherto kept him, out of regard for his pious father
—a regard this, which David had now forfeited t>y his atrocious crimes. The
meaning of the whole passage seems then to be this : " Thou shalt be treated
as thou hast served Uriah. Thy wild son Absalom has already robbed thee of
thy crown, and defiled thy wives in his ambitious, libidinous heart. When thou
wast a good man— a man after my own heart, I hindered him from going such
lengths in wickedness, but now I will hinder him no more: he shall be thy
scourge ; thou sinnedst secretly against Uriah, but I will stand in the way of
thy wicked son no longer, and he shall retaliate before the sun." This implies
only a passive permission, and a providential opportunity to commit a crime
" outwardly," nor could wicked men ever proceed to the " external execution"
of their designs without such opportunities.
(3.) By a like figure of speCch we read, Psa. cv, 25, that " God turned the
heart of the Egyptians to hate his people, and to deal subtilly with his servants."
But how did he do this ? Was it by doing the devil's work ? by infusing hatred
into the hearts of the Egyptians ? No : it was merely by blessing and multiply,
ing the Israelites, as the preceding words demonstrate : " He increased his people
greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies." Hence it was that fear
envy, jealousy, and hatred, were naturally stirred up in the breasts of the Egyp!
tians. I repeat it ; not to explain such scriptures in the manner becoming the
God of holiness is far more detestable than to assert, that " the Ancient of Days"
literally wears a robe, and his own white hair, because Daniel, after having seen
an emblematic vision of his nmjesty and purity, said, " His garment was white
as snow, and the hair of his head was like the pure wool." For every body must
allow, that it is far less indecent " literally" to hold forth God as a venerable
Jacob, than to represent him " literally" as a mischievous, sin-infosing Belial.
(4.) With regard to Jer. xx, 7, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was de
ceived," Mr. Sellon justly observes : (1.) That the Hebrew word here translated
"deceive," signifies also to "entice" or " persuade," as the margin shows. And
(2.) That the context requires the last sense ; the prophet expressing his natural
backwardness to preach, and saying, "O Lord, thou hast persuaded me" to do it,
" and I was persuaded." It is a pity, that when a word has two meanings, the
one honourable, and the other injurious to God, the worst should once be prefer
red to the better. If Zelotes take these hints, he will no more avail himself of
some figurative expressions, and of some mistakes of our translators, to represent
God as the author of sin and the deceiver of men. When wicked men have long
resisted the truth, God may indeed, and frequently does, judicially " give them up
to believe a destructive lie ;" but he is no more the author of the lie, than he is
Beelzebub, "the father of lies."
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 107
is a system of false doctrine ; or, that the God of love, holiness, and
equity, once hated his righteous creature, once reprobated the innocent,
and said by his decree, " Cain, Esau, Saul and Judas are very good, for
they are seminal parts of Adam my son, whom I pronounce very good,
Gen. i, 31. But I actually hate those parts of my unsullied workman,
ship : without any actual cause, I detest mine own perfect image. Yea,
I turn my eyes from their present complete goodness, that I may hate
them for their future pre-ordained iniquity." Suppose the God of love
had transformed himself into the evil principle of the Manichees, what
could he have done worse than thus to hate with immortal hatred, and
absolutely to reprobate his innocent, his pure, his spotless offspring, at
the very time in which he pronounced it very good 1 If Zelotes shud
ders at his own doctrine, and finds himself obliged to grant, that so long,
at least, as Adam stood, Cain, Esau, Saul, and Judas stood with him, and
in him were actually loved, conditionally chosen, and wonderfully blessed
of God in paradise ; it follows that the doctrine of God's everlasting-
hate, and of the eternal, absolute rejection of those whom Zelotes consi
ders as the four great reprobates^ is founded on the grossest contradic
tion imaginable.
2. But Zelotes possibly complains that I am unfair, because I point
out the deformity of his " doctrine of grace," without saying one word
of its beauty. " Why do you not," says he, " speak of God's absolute
everlasting love to Jacob, as well as of his absolute, everlasting hate to
Esau, Pharaoh, and Judas ? Is it right to make always the worst of
things ?" Indeed, Zelotes, if I am not mistaken, your absolute election
is full as subversive of Christ's Gospel, as your absolute reprobation.
The Scripture informs us, that when Adam fell he lost the favour, as
well as the image of God ; and that he became " a vessel of wrath"
from head to foot : but if everlasting, changeless love still embraced
innumerable parts of his seed, his fall was by no means so grievous
and universal as the Scriptures represent it : for " a multitude, which
no man can number," ever stood, and shall ever stand on the Rock of
ages : a rock this which, if we believe Zelotes, is made of unchangeable,
absolute, sovereign, everlasting love for the elect, and of unchangeable,
absolute, sovereign, everlasting wrath for the reprobates.
3. But this is only part of the mischief that necessarily flows from
the fictitious doctrines of grace. They make the cup of trembling,
which our Lord drank in Gethsemane, and the sacrifice which he
offered on Calvary, in a great degree insignificant. Christ's office as
high priest was to sprinkle the burning throne with his precious blood,
and to "turn away wrath" by the sacrifice of himself: but if there
never was either a burning throne, or any wrath flaming against the
elect ; if unchangeable love ever embraced them, how greatly is the
oblation of Christ's blood depreciated? Might he not almost have
saved himself the trouble of coming down from heaven to " turn away
a wrath" which never flamed against the elect, and which shall never
cease to flame against the reprobates?
4. From God's preaching the Gospel to our first parents it appears
that they were of the number of the elect, and Zelotes himself is of
opinion that they belonged to the little flock. If this was the case,
according to the doctrine of free, sovereign, unchangeable, everlasting
108 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
love to the elect, it necessarily follows, that Adam himself was never a
child of wrath. Nor does it require more faith to believe that our first
parents were God's pleasant children, when they sated themselves
with forbidden fruit, than to believe that David and Bathsheba were
persons after God's own heart, when they defiled Uriah's bed. Hence
it follows that the doctrine of God's everlasting love, in the Crispian
sense of the word, is absolutely false, or that Adam himself was a
child of changeless, everlasting love, when he made his wife, the ser
pent, and his own belly, his trinity under the fatal tree : while Cain
was a child of everlasting wrath, when God said of him, in his father's
loins, that he was very good. Thus we still find ourselves at the
shrine of the great Diana of the Calvinists, singing the new song of
salvation and damnation finished from everlasting to everlasting,
according to the doctrine laid down by the Westminster divines in
their catechism : " God from all eternity did, by the most wise and
holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatever
comes to pass."
5. This leads me to a third argument. If God from all eternity did
"unchangeably ordain" all events, and, in particular, that the man
Christ should absolutely die to save a certain, fixed number of men,
who (by the by) never were children of wrath, and therefore never
were in the least danger of perishing : if he unalterably appointed that
the devil should tempt, and absolutely prevail over a certain fixed
number of men who were children of wrath, before temptation and
sin made them so : if this is the case, I say, how idle was Christ's
redeeming work ! How foolish the tempter's restless labour ! How
absurd Zelotes' preaching ! How full of inconsistency his law messa
ges of wrath to the elect, and his Gospel messages of free grace to
the reprobates ! And how true the doctrine, which has lately appeared
in print, and sums up the Crispian gospel in these sentences : — Ye,
elect, shall be saved do what ye will ; and ye, reprobates, shall be
damned, do what ye can ; for in the day of his power the Almighty
will make you all absolutely willing to go to the place which he has
unconditionally ordained you for, be it heaven or hell ; God, if we
believe the Westminster divines, in their catechism, " having unchange
ably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time, especially concern
ing angels and men." An unscriptural doctrine this, which charges all
sin and damnation upon God, and perfectly agrees with the doctrine
of the consistent Calvinists, I mean the doctrine of finished salvation
and finished damnation, thus summed up by Bishop Burnet in his
exposition of the seventeenth article : " They think, &c, that he,"
God, " decreed Adam's sin, the lapse of his posterity, and Christ's
death, together with the salvation and damnation of such men as
should be most for his own glory : that to those that were to be saved
he decreed to give such efficacious assistances as should certainly put
them in the way of salvation ; and to those whom he rejected, he
decreed to give such assistances and means only as should render
them inexcusable." Just as if those people could ever be inexcusable
who only do what their almighty Creator has "unchangeably foreor
dained !"
SECOND.J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 109
SECTION XII.
Directions to understand the Scripture doctrine of election and reproba
tion — What election and reprobation are UNCONDITIONAL, and what
CONDITIONAL — There is an unconditional election of sovereign, dis
tinguishing grace, and a conditional election of impartial, rewarding
goodness — The difficulties which attend the doctrines of election and
reprobation are solved by means of the Gospel dispensations; and.
those doctrines are illustrated by the parable of the talents — A.
Scriptural view of our election in Christ.
WHEN good men, like Zelotes and Honestus, warmly contend about
a doctrine ; charging one another with heresy in their controversial
heats, each has certainly a part of the truth on his side. Would
you have the whole, Candidus ? Only act the part of an attentive
moderator between them : embrace their extremes at once, and you
will embrace truth in her seamless garment, — the complete " truth as
it is in Jesus." This is demonstrable by their opposite sentiments
about the doctrine of election. Zelotes will hear only of an uncondi
tional, and Honestus only of a conditional election : but the word of
God is for both ; and our wisdom consists in neither separating nor
confounding what the Holy Ghost has joined, and yet distinguished.
To understand the Scripture doctrine of election, take the following
directions: 1. God is a God of truth. His righteous ways are as far
above our hypocritical ways, as heaven is above hell : every calling,
therefore, implies an election on his part. Who can believe that God
ever demeans his majestic veracity so far as to call people, whom he
does not choose should obey his call ? Who can think that the Most
High plays boyish tricks ? And if he chooses that those whom he
calls should come, a sincere election has undoubtedly preceded his
calling. Nor are the well-known words of our Lord, Matt, xxii, 44,
" Many are called, but few are chosen," at all contrary to this asser
tion : for the content evidently shows that the meaning of this compen
dious elliptic saying is, " Many are called" to faith and holiness, " but
few are chosen" to the rewards of faith and holiness. " Many are
called" to be God's servants, and to receive his talents, "but few,"
comparatively, " are chosen" to enjoy the blessing of " good and faith
ful" servants. " Many are called to run the race but few are chosen
to receive the prize" Not because God has absolutely reprobated
any, in the Calvinian sense of the words, but because few are willing
to "deny themselves;" few care to "labour;" few are faithful, few
" so run that they may obtain ;" few " make their initial calling and
election sure" to the end ; and of the many that are caUed to enter
into the kingdom of God, few strive so to do ; and therefore few " shall
be able," see Luke xiii, 24.
2. According to the dispensation of "the saving grace of God,
which hath appeared to all men ;" so long as the " day of salva
tion" lasts, all men are sincerely called, and therefore sincerely
chosen to believe in their light, to fear God, and to work right
eousness. This general election and calling may be illustrated by
the general benevolence of a good king toward all his subjects.
HO EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Whether they are peasants or courtiers, he elects them all to loy
alty, that is, he chooses that they should all be loyal; and in con
sequence of this choice, by his royal statutes, he calls them all to
be so. But when a rebellion breaks out, many do not " make their
calling and election sure ;" that is, many join the rebels, and in so
doing forfeit their titles, estates, and lives. However, as many as
oppose the rebels become hereby peculiarly entitled to the privileges
of loyal subjects, which are greater or less according to their rank,
and according to the boroughs or cities of which they have the free
dom. Upon this general plan, as many of Adam's sons as, in any
one part of the earth, make God's general calling and election sure,
by actually fearing God, &c, are rewardable elect, according to the
FATHER'S dispensation : that is, God actually approves of them, con
sidered as obedient persons, and he designs eternally to reward their
sincere obedience, if they " continue faithful unto death," Col. i, 23 ;
Rev. ii, 10. .
3. Distinguishing, or particular grace, chooses, and, of consequence,
x calls some men to believe explicitly in the Messiah to come, or in the
Messiah already come ; and as many as sincerely do so, are rewardable
elect according to the SON'S dispensation, when it is distinguished from
that of the SPIRIT, as in John vii, 38, 39 ; for in general Christ's dis
pensation takes in that of the Holy Ghost, especially since " Christ is
glorified," and when he is "known after the flesh no more." Compare
John xvi, 7, with 2 Cor. v, 16.
4. A still higher degree of distinguishing grace elects, and of conse
quence calls, believers in Christ to take by force the kingdom which
consists in "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost ;" and as
many as make this calling and election sure, are God's rewardable elect,
according to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.
5. All true worshippers belong to one or another of these three
classes of elect. The first class is made up of devout heathens, who
worship in the court of the Gentiles. The second class is formed of
devout Jews, or of such babes in Christ as are yet comparatively carnal,
like John's disciples, or those of our Lord before the day of pentecost.
These worship in the holy place. And the third class is composed of
those holy souls who, by being fully possessed of Christ's Spirit, deserve
to be called Christians in the full sense of the word. These (which, in
our Laodicean days, I fear, are a little flock indeed) are all perfected in
one, and, having "entered within the veil," worship now "in the holy
of holies."
6. In order to eternal salvation, those three classes of elect must
not only "make their calling and election sure," by continuing to-day
in the faith of their dispensation ; but also by going on " from faith to
faith;" by rising from one dispensation to another, if they are called to
it ; and, above all, by " patiently continuing in well doing," or by " being
faithful unto death ;" none but such " having the promise of a crown
of life that fadeth not away."
7. Distinguishing grace not only chooses some persons to see the
felicity of God's chosen in the two great covenants of peculiarity, called
the law of Moses, and the Gospel of Christ ; but it elects them also to
peculiar dignities, or uncommon services in those dispensations. Thus
OXD.J SCRIPTURE SCALES. Ill
Moses was elected to be the great prophet and lawgiver of the Jews :
Aaron to be the first high priest of the Jewish dispensation : Saul,
David, and Solomon, to be the three first kings of God's chosen nation.
Thus again the seventy were chosen above the multitude of the other
disciples, the twelve above the severity ; Peter, James, and John, above
the twelve ; and St. Paul, it seems, above Peter, James, and John.
The following scriptures refer to this kind of extraordinary choice — to
this election of peculiar grace : — " Moses his chosen stood in the gap.
The man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom. The man whom the
Lord shall choose, he shall be holy," that is, he shall be set apart for the
priesthood. " He chose David his servant, and took him from the sheep
fold. Before I formed thee," Jeremiah, " in the belly, I knew thee ; and
before thou earnest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee," or, I set
thee apart, " and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Of his
disciples he chose twelve apostles. " He," Paul, " is a chosen vessel
unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles." Agreeably to the
doctrine of these peculiar elections to singular services, it is even said
of Cyrus, a heathen king, by whose means the Jews were to be delivered
from the Babylonish captivity : " Cyrus is my shepherd, and shall" or
will " perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built,
and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid, &c. For Jacob my
servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy
name, though thou hast not known me." Once more : David, speaking
of God's choosing the tribe of Judah before all the other tribes, says :
" Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and" reprobated, or
" chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose" or elected " the tribe of
Judah, the Mount Sion, which he" peculiarly " loved." But what have
all those civil or ecclesiastical elections of persons and places to do with
our election to a crown of glory 1 Will Zelotes affirm that Saul and Jehu
are certainly in heaven, because they were as remarkably chosen to the
crown as David himself? And though St. Paul knew that he was "a
chosen vessel, set apart from his mother's womb" for great services in
the Church, does he not inform us that he " so ran as to obtain the
crown :" and that he " kept his body under lest, after he had preached to,"
and saved " others, he himself should become a castaway — a reprobate ?"
8. Do not forget that frequently the word chosen, or elect, means
principal, choice, having a peculiar degree of superiority, or excellence.
This is evident from the following texts : " The wrath of God smote
down the chosen of Israel," Psa. Ixxviii, 31. " I lay in Sion a- chief
corner stone, elect, and precious," 1 Peter ii, 6. " The elder to the
elect lady," 2 John 1. And it would be the height of Calvinian ortho
doxy to suppose that the prophet's words, " Thy choicest," or, as the
original properly means, " thy elect valleys shall be full of chariots," are
to be understood of Calvinian election. To render Zelotes less confi
dent in that election, one would think it sufficient to throw into the
Scripture Scales, and weigh before him, the following passages, which
are literally translated from the original : —
I. II.
For Israel, mine elect, I have He [Kish] had a son whose
called thee, Isa. xiv, 4 name was Saul, an elect, I Sam.
ix, 2.
112 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
I- II.
Query. Is Saul also among the
elect as well as among the prophets ?
The election hath obtained it, Set on a pot: fill it with the
Rom. xi, 7. bones of the election, Ezek. xxiv, 4.
I have made a covenant with my She committed her whoredoms
chosen [or elect.] I have exalted with the elect of Assyria, Ezek.
cue chosen out of the people. Mine xxiii, 7. The tongue of the just is
elect shall inherit it, Psa. Ixxxix, 3, as chosen silver. Receive know-
19 ; Isa. Ixv, 9. ledge rather than elect gold, Prov.
x, 20 ; viii, 10.
The children of thy elect sister They shall cut down thine elect
greet thee, 2 John 13. cedars, Jer. xii, 7.
His elect, whom he hath chosen, He [Jacob] chose all the elect of
Mark xiii, 20. Israel, 2 Sam. x, 9.
I endure all things for the elect's Moab is spoiled, his elect young-
sake, 2 Tim. ii, 10. O ye children men are gone down to the slaugh-
of Jacob, his chosen ones, 1 Chron. ter, Jer. xlviii, 1 5. His [Pha-
xyi» 13. raoh's] elect captains also are
drowned, Exod. xv, 4.
I charge thee before the* elect Amaziah gathered Judah toge-
angels, 1 Tim. v, 21. And shall ther, &c, and found them three
not God avenge his own elect 1 hundred thousand elect, able to go
Luke xviii, 7. forth to war, 2 Chron. xxv, 5.
I grant that our translators, in some of the preceding passages, have
used the word choice, and not the word elect. They say, for example,
'; choice cedars," and not " elect cedars ;" but if they were afraid to make
us suspect the dignity of Calvinian election, I am not. And as the
original is on my side, the candid reader will not expect such scrupu
lousness of me, who wish to act the part of a reconciler, and not that
of a Calvinist.
9. God's choosing and calling us to " come up higher" on the lad-
der of the dispensations of his grace, is called election and vocation.
Thus the doctrine which St. Paul insists much upon in his Epistles to the
Romans and Ephesians, is, that now Jews and Gentiles are equally elected
and called to the privileges of the Christian dispensation. Nor does St.
Peter dissent from him in this respect. Once indeed he took it for granted
that the Gentiles were all reprobates ; see Acts x. But when he was
divested of his Jewish prejudices, and wrote to the believers who were
" scattered throughout Pontus," &c, he said "the Church that is at Baby.
Ion, elected together with you, saluteth you," 1 Peter v, 13. Just as
* If the expression " elect angel" is taken in a vague sense, which is most pro-
bable, it means holy, Idoved angels, who are elected to the rewards of faithful
obedience. If it ba taken in a particular sense, it means those angels who, like
Gabriel, are selected from the multitude of the heavenly host, and sent forth to
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation, and especially to guard such
eminent preachers as Timothy and St. Paul were. In either sense, therefore, the
words elect angels, which Zel >tes greedily catches at to prop up his scheme,
have nothing to do with Calvinian election. That the word elect sometimes means
darling
sages :
my 6e2fl«wf A*n m whom I am well pleased," Matt, iii, 17.
g or beloved, will appear evident to those who compare the following pas.
sages : "Behold mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth." Isa. xlii, 1. <;This is
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 113
if he had said, Think not that the election to the obedience of faith in
Christ is confined to Judea, Pontus, or Galatia. No : God calls both
Jews and Gentiles, even in Babylon, to believe in his Son. And as a
proof that this calling and election are sincere, with pleasure I inform
you that several have already believed, and formed themselves into a
Christian Church, which saluteth you, not only as being elected with
you to hear the Christian Gospel ; but as making their " election to so
great salvation sure" through actual belief of " the truth as it is in
Jesus." Therefore I do not scruple, in every sense of the word, to
say that they are " elected together with you," and you may boldly con-
sider them already as holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling."
A glorious proof this that Christ has broken down the middle wall of
partition between Jews and Gentiles ; Babylon, in this respect, being as
much elected as Jerusalem. But more of this in the next section.
10. To conclude: of all the directions which can be given to clear
up the doctrine of election with respect to our eternal concerns, none
appears to me so important as the following. Carefully distinguish be-
tween our election to run the race of faith and holiness, according to one
or other of the Divine dispensations ; and between our election to
receive the prize — a crown of glory. St. Paul, speaking to Christians
of the first of these elections, says, " God has chosen us that we should
be holy." And our Lord, describing the second election, says, " Many
are called, but few chosen. Well done, good and faithful servant, enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord." The former of these elections is always
unconditional; but the latter is always suspended upon the reasonable
condition of persevering in the obedience of faith.
To show the propriety and importance of the preceding directions,
I need only apply them to the parable of the talents, which displays
every branch of the doctrine of election. " The kingdom of heaven,"
says Christ [if it be considered with respect to God's gracious and
righteous dispensations toward the various classes of his moral vessels
or servants] " is as a man who called, [and, 01 consequence, first freely
chose] his own servants."
Observe here that every man is unconditionally chosen and called to
serve God in his universal temple. Some may be compared to earthen
vessels, made, chosen, and called to be useful in the court of the Gen-
tiles, like humble Gibeonites : some to silver vessels, made, chosen, and
called to be useful in the holy place, like pious Jews : and others to
golden, i. e. most precious and honourable vessels, made, chosen, and
called to be useful in the holiest of all, like true Christians. Hence it
appears that God has assigned to all his moral vessels their proper
place and use in his great temple, the universe. If they are unprofit
able and unfit for the Master's use, it is not because he makes them so ;
but because they received a bad taint from their parents upon the wheel
of generation, and afterward refuse to purge themselves by means of
the talent of light, grace, and power, which is bestowed upon them as
the seed of regeneration, according to their respective dispensations.
The difference that sovereign grace makes between God's servants, or,
if you please, between his moral vessels, is evidently asserted by St.
Paul, 2 Tim. ii, 19, &c. "The Lord," says he, "knoweth them that
are his :" that is, he approves the godly, the vessels of mercy, the clean
VOL. II. 8
114 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
vessels under every dispensation. " Let then every one that nameth the
name of Christ," and who is, of consequence, under the strictest of all the
dispensations, " depart from iniquity : for in a great house there are not
only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth ; and some to
honour,* and some to dishonour. If a man purge himself from these"
[that are to dishonour] whether he be a vessel of gold, silver, wood, or
earth, " he shall," according to his dispensation, "be a vessel unto honour,
sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good
work ;" though it should be only the work of a Gibeonite, hewing wood
and drawing water. And if a Christianized Saul seeks to slay these
spiritual Gibeonites in his zeal for the children of Israel, God himself
will plead their cause : for he honours, in every dispensation, vessels that
are clean and sanctified, according to his own decree, " Them that
honour me, I will peculiarly honour, and they that despise me shall be
lightly esteemed." That is, although those that honour me should be
only tit to be compared to wooden or earthen vessels, like the devout
soldiers of Cornelius, I will honour them with a place in my heavenly
house. Arid were those that despise me compared to silver vessels,
like the sons of EH ; or to a golden vessel, like Judas ; if repentance
do not interpose, they shall be broken with a rod of iron like vessels of
wrath ; and after " sleeping in the dust, they shall awake to the ever
lasting contempt" due to their sins ; it being written among the decrees
of Heaven, " If any man defile" the vessel, or " temple of God, him shall
God destroy." Such will be the fearful end of those, who, by their wilful
unbelief, make themselves positively unclean vessels. "For to them
that are unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and con-
science are defiled." And these vessels of just wrath and positive dis
honour must be carefully distinguished from those whom God compara
tively makes vessels of dishonour, by giving them fewer talents than he
does to his upper servants.
Return we now to the parable of the talents and to the several classes
of servants, which St. Paul compares to several classes of vessels,
in God's great house below. " To one of them" says our Lord, (to the
Christian, I suppose,) according to the election of most particular,
distinguishing grace, "he gave five talents." To another, suppose the
Jew, still according to the election of particular grace, " he gave two
talents." " And to another," suppose the heathen, according to the decree
of general grace, " he gave one talent." Hence it appears that God
reprobates no man absolutely, and is no Calvinistical respecter of pev-
sons ; for, adds our Lord in the parable, " he gave to every one
according to his several ability," or circumstances, Matt, xxv, 15.
This first distribution of grace and privileges is previous to all works,
and to it belong (as I have shown by parallel scriptures) those words of
* St. Paul having guarded the doctrine of sovereign, distinguishing grace, by
the different matter, earth, wood, silver, &c, of which the vessels are formed :
and not making any distinction between "vessels of dishonour" and "vessels
of wrath," as he does in Rom. ix, it necessarily follows, according to the
doctrine of rewarding grace, that the expression " vessels to honour," and
" vessels to dishonour," should not be taken here in a comparative sense,
as in Rom. ix ; but in a positive sense ; and then they answer to " vessels
sanctified," and to " vessels not purged;" expressions which occur in the context^
and fix the apostle's meaning.
SECOND.] SCHIPTURE SCALES. 115
the apostle, " The children being riot yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to" sovereign, dis
tinguishing election to certain remarkable favours, " might stand, not of
works, but of him that calleth, it was said, The elder shall serve the
younger — Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated," i. e. I have pre
ferred Jacob to Esau, in point of family honour ; and the Israelites to
the Edomites with respect to the covenant of peculiarity. And with as
much propriety it might be said, in point of super-angelical dignity,
Michael the archangel have I loved, and Gabriel the angel have I hated :
i. e. I have reprobated the latter from a degree of dignity and favour to
which I have elected the former.
Thus far the parable illustrates the doctrine of sovereign free grace,
and of an unconditional election to receive and use different measures
of grace ; and thus far I walk hand in hand with Zelotes, because thus
far he speaks as the oracles of God, except when he hints at his doctrine
of absolute reprobation : for at such times he makes it his business to
insinuate that there are some men to whom God never gave so much
as one talent of saving grace, in flat opposition to that clause of the
parable, " he gave to every one" one or two true talents at least : I say
true, because whatever dreadful hints Zelotes may throw out to the
contrary, I dare not allow the thought that the true God deals in false
coin ; or that, because he is the God of all grace, he deals also in damning
grace : — damning grace I call it ; for in the very nature of things, all
grace bestowed upon an absolute reprobate — upon a man hated of God
with an everlasting hate, and given up from his mother's womb unavoid-
ablv to sin and be damned : all grace, I say, flowing from such a repro
bating God to such a reprobated man is no better than a serpent, whose
head is Calvin's absolute reprobation and its tail Zelotes' finished damnation.
Zelotes, I fear, objects to the sovereign, free, distinguishing grace
which I contend for, chiefiV because it has no connection with the bound
will, and distinguishing free wrath which characterize his opinions.
Accordingly he soon takes his leave of me and the parable of the talents,
the middle part of which illustrates what he calls my heresy, that is,
the doctrine of free will. (1.) The doctrine of obedient free will, which
our Lord secures thus : — " Then he that had received five talents went
and traded with the same, and made them other five talents," &c. And,
(2.) The doctrine of perverse free will, which Christ lays down in these
words : — " But he that had received one talent went and digged in the
earth, and hid his Lord's money." -Here Christ, for brevity's sake,
points out unfaithful free will in the lowest dispensation only : sloth and
unfaithfulness being by no means necessary consequences of the least
number of talents. For while some Christians bury their five, and some
Jews their two talents, some heathens so improve their one talent as to
verify our Lord's doctrine, " The last shall be first."
The third part of the parable illustrates the doctrine of rewarding
grace, or of conditional election to, and reprobation from the rewards
with which Divine grace crowns human faithfulness. I call this election
and this reprobation conditional, because they are entirely suspended
upon the good or bad use which our faithful, or unfaithful free will makes
of the talent or talents bestowed upon us by free grace ; as appears by
the rest of the parable : " After a long time the Lord of those servants
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
cometh, and reckoneth with them," proceeding first to the election of
rewarding grace. « He that had received five talents came and brought
other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents:
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more." Here you see
in an exemplifying glass the doctrine which Zelotes abhors, and which
St. John recommends thus : " Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
then have we confidence toward God. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment," 1 John iii, 21 ; iv,
17. His Lord [instead of driving him to hell as a poor, blind, unawakened
creature, who never knew himself; or as a proud, self-righteous Pharisee,
who was never convinced of sin] said unto him, " Well done, thou good
and faithful servant, [thou vessel of mercy,] thou hast been faithful over a
few things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" through my merciful Gospel
charter, and the passport of thy sincere, blood -besprinkled obedience.
The servant, who through free grace and faithfulness had gained two
talents, beside the two which distinguishing grace had given him, came
next ; and when he had been elected into the joy of his Lord in the same
gracious manner, the trial of the faithless heathen came on. His plea
would almost make one think that Zelotes had instilled into him his hard
doctrine of reprobation. He is not ashamed to preach it to Christ him-
self. " Lord," says he, « I knew thee, that thou art a hard man," who
didst contrive my reprobation from the beginning of the world, and
gavest me only one talent of common grace, twenty of which would not
amount to one dram of saving grace. « I knew thee," I say, « that thou
art an austere" master, " reaping," or wanting to reap where thou hast
not sowed the seed of effectual grace ; " and gathering," or wanting to
gather "where thou hast not strewed" one grain of true grace ; « and I
was afraid, and went and hid thy talent," thy ineffectual, false, common
grace "in the earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine. His Lord
answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, &c, thou
oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers," who sometimes
exchange to^such advantage for the poor, that their "little one becomes
a thousand." Hadst thou made this proper use of my " common grace,"
as thou callest it, « at my coming I should have received mine own with
usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath
ten talents : for every one that hath" to purpose, « shall have abundance :
but from him that hath not" to purpose, « shall be taken away even that
which h.e hath"— his unimproved, hidden talent : « and cast 'ye the un
profitable servant into outer darkness ;" i. e. into hell : « there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matt, xxv, 15, 31. Hence it appears
that a man may be freely elected to receive one, two, or Jive talents—
freely chosen to trade with them, 'and afterward be justly reprobated, or
cast away into outer darkness for not improving his talent, that is, for
not " making his calling and election sure."
Zclotes, indeed, as if he were conscious that the parable of the talents
overthrows all his doctrinal peculiarities, endeavours to explain it away
by saying that it does not represent God's conduct toward his people
with respect to grace and salvation, but only with regard to parts and
natural gifts. To this I answer, (1.) The Scriptures no where mention
a day of account, m which God will reward and punish his servants
according to their natural parts, exclusively of their moral actions.
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 117
(2.) The servants had all the same master. Luke xix, 13, the) are all
represented as receiving " one pound" each, to " occupy," or trade till
their master came, lie that did not improve his pound, or talent, is
called " wicked" on that account. Now the non-improvement of a
natural talent, suppose for poetry or husbandry, can never constitute a
man " wicked ;" nothing can do this but the non-improvement of a talent
of grace. (3.) We have as much reason to affirm that the oil of the
virgins, mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, and the good works
of the godly, mentioned at the end of it, were " not of a gracious nature,"
as to assert it of the improvement of the pound, which constituted some
of the servants "good and faithful." (4.) It is absurd to suppose that
Christ will ever take some men into his joy, and will command others to
be cast into outer darkness, for improving or not improving the natural
talent of speaking, writing, or singing in a masterly manner. (5.) The
description of the day of judgment, that closes the chapter, is a key to
the two preceding parables. On the one hand the door is shut against
the foolish virgins merely for their apostasy — for having burned out all
their oil of faith working by love, so that their "lamps went out." The
slothful servant is cast into outer darkness merely for not improving his
talent of opportunity and power to believe, and to work righteousness
according to the light of his dispensation. And the goats are sent into
hell merely for not having done the works of faith. On the other hand,
(considering salvation according to its second causes,) the wise virgins
go in with the bridegroom, because their lamps are not gone out, and
they have oil in their vessels ; the faithful servants enter into the joy of
the Lord, because they have improved their talents ; and the sheep go
into life eternal, because they have done the works of faith. The three
parts of that plain chapter make a threefold cord, which; I apprehend,
Zelotes cannot break, without breaking all the rules of morality, criticism,
and common sense.
I shall close my parabolic illustration of the Scripture doctrine of un
conditional and conditional election, by presenting Zelotes and Honestus
with a short view of our election in Christ ; that is, of our election to
receive freely, and to use faithfully, the five talents of the Christian dis
pensation, that we may reap all the benefits annexed to " making that
high calling and election sure."
I. II.
Blessed be the God and Father Hearken, my beloved brethren,
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath hath not God chosen the poor of
blessed us with all spiritual bless- this world ? [Yes, but not absolute-
ings in heavenly things in [the per- Zy, for Zelotes knows that all the
son and dispensation of] Christ : poor are not elected in his way :
according as he hath* chosen us [to and St. James insinuates that their
believe] in him, before the founda- election to " the kingdom of hea-
tion of the world : that [in making ven" is suspended on faith and love ;
our high calling and election sure] for he adds that] God hath chosen
* This passage will be explained in the next section. In the me mtime I desire
the reader to take notice that the election of which St. Paul writes is not of the
Antinomian kind ; I mean, it is not Calvinian election, which insures eternal
salvation to all fallen believers. That the apostle was an utter stranger to such
a doctrine, appears from his own words to those elect Ephesians : " Putting awav
118
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
we should be holy and without blame
before him in love, Eph. i, 3, 4.
[If Zelotes be offended at my in-
sinuating that St. Paul's phrase " in
Christ" is sometimes an ellipsis —
a short way of speaking which con
veys the idea of our Lord's Gospel
and dispensation ; I appeal to the
reader's candour, and to the mean
ing of the following texts : — " Babes
in Christ. Urbane, our helper in
Christ. The Churches of Judea,
which were in Christ. Baptized
into Christ. The Mosaic veil is
done away in Christ. In Christ
Jesus circumcision availeth no
thing," &c. Again : when St. Paul
tells us that "his bonds in Christ
are manifest in all the palace," does
he not mean the chain with which
he was personally bound, as a
preacher of the Christian faith?
And would not Zelotes make him
self ridiculous, if he asserted that
St. Paul's "bonds in Christ" were
those with which he was bound in
the person of Christ in the garden
of Gethsemane ?]
There is a remnant [of Jews,
who believe] according to the elec
tion of grace [who, through sancti-
fication of the Spirit to obedience,
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ, make their calling and elec
tion sure according to the Christian
dispensation, 1 Pet. i, 2.] The elec
tion [those Jews who make their
election to the blessings of the
Christian dispensation sure by faith
in Christ] hath obtained it [right
eousness] and the rest were blinded :
the poor, rich in faith, and [of con
sequence] heirs of the kingdom,
which he hath promised to them
that love him, [i. e. to them that
are rich in the " faith which works
by love,"] James ii, 5. Know this
also, that the Lord hath chosen to
himself [i. e. to his rewards of
grace and glory, not this or that
man out of mere caprice, but] the
man that is godly: [that is] the
man after his own heart. (Com.
Prayers, Psa. iv, 3 ; 1 Sam. xiii,
14.) God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation [yea, out
of mere distinguishing grace, he
has chosen you to partake of the
great salvation of Christians ; not
indeed absolutely, but] through
sanctification of the Spirit, and be
lief of the truth, [as it is in Jesus —
the truth as it is revealed under the
Christian dispensation,] 2 Thess. ii,
13.
Many are called [to repentance .
yea, many are " chosen, that they
should be holy," Eph. i, 4,] but few
are chosen [to receive the reward
of perfected holiness — the reward
of the inheritance,] Matt, xx, 16.
Wherefore, brethren, give diligence
to make your calling and election
SURE : for if ye do these things, ye
shall never fall, 2 Pet. i, 10. Put
on, therefore, as the elect of God,
bowels of mercies. For he shall
have judgment without mercy, that
lying, speak truth : let him that stole steal no more : be not drunk : let not for-
nication or uncleanness be once named among you, &c, for this ye know, that no
unclean person, &c, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. Let no
man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God
cometh upon the children of disobedience," that is, upon the disobedient children,
who, by their bad works, lose their inheritance in the kingdom of God. Is it not
surprising, that when St. Paul has thus warned the Ephesians against Antino-
mian deceptions, he should be represented as deceiving those very Ephesians first,
by teaching them a doctrine which implies that no crimes, be they ever so atrocious,
can deprive fallen believers of their "inheritance in the kingdom of Christ?"
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 119
I. II.
[that is, the unbelieving Jews have hath showed no mercy, Col. iii, 12 •
not obtained righteousness, because James ii, 13.
they sought it not by faith, but by
blindly opposing their Pharisaic
works of the law to Christ and the
humble obedience of faith,] Rom. xi,
5, 7 ; ix, 32.
If I am not mistaken, the balance of the preceding scriptures shows
that Honestus and Zelotes are equally in the wrong : Honestus, for not
rejoicing in free grace, in the election of grace, and in God's power,
love, and faithfulness, which are engaged to keep believers while they
keep in the way of duty : and Zelotes, for corrupting the genuine doc
trines of grace by his doctrines of Calvinian election, necessity, and
unconditional reprobation from eternal life.
SECTION XIII.
A view of St. Paul's doctrine of election, laid down in Eph. i — That
election consists in God's choosing, from the beginning of the world,
that the Gentiles should NOW share, through faith, the blessings of
the Gospel of Christ, together with the believing Jews, who BEFORE
were alone the chosen nation and peculiar people of God — It is an
election from the obscure dispensation of the heathens to the luminous
dispensation of the Christians ; and not an election from a state of
absolute ruin, to a state of finished salvation — It is as absurd to main-
tain Calvinian election from Eph. i, as to support Calvinian repro
bation by Rom. ix — What we are to understand by the " book of life,'1''
and by the " names" written therein from the foundation of the world
— A conclusion to thefrst part of this work.
WHEN Zelotes is made ashamed of what Calvin calls " the horrible
decree" he seems to give it up ; — I have nothing to do with reprobation,
says he, my business is with election. Thus he is no sooner beaten out
of Rom. ix, than he retires behind Eph. i, where he thinks he can make
a more honourable defence. It may not be amiss, therefore, to follow
him there also, and to show him that he entirely mistakes the " predes
tination/' " purpose," and " election," mentioned in that chapter.
The design of the apostle in his Epistle to the Ephesians is twofold.
In the three first chapters he extols their gracious election, their free
vocation, and the unspeakable privileges of both ; and in the three last,
he exhorts them to walk worthy of their election and calling ; warning
them against Antinomian deceivers ; and threatening them with the loss
of their heavenly inheritance if they followed their filthy tenets and im
moral example. This epistle therefore is a compendium of the New
Testament : the former part contains a strong check to Pharisaism, or
the doctrine of self-righteous boasters ; and the latter part a severe check
to Antinomianism, or to the doctrine and deeds of the Nicolaitans ; see
Eph. v, 5, 6 ; Rev. ii, 6, 15, 20.
To be a little more explicit : in the three first chapters St. Paul en
deavours to impress the hearts of the Ephesians with a deep sense of
120 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
God's free grace in Christ Jesus, whereby he had compassionately called,
and of consequence mercifully elected them, ignorant and miserable sin-
ners of the Gentiles as they were, to partake of all the blessings of the
Christian dispensation. The apostle tries to inflame them with grateful
love to Christ, for setting them on a level with his " peculiar people, the
Jews, to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,
and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the [explicit]
promises ; whose were the fathers, and of whom Christ came, as con-
cerning the flesh."
To prove that this is St. Paul's design, I produce his own words, with
short illustrations in brackets : « Remember, [says he,] that ye were in
time past GENTILES in the flesh, called uncircumcision by the circum
cision [dec, abhorred by the circumcised Jews, because you were uncir-
cumcised heathens. Remember] that at that time ye were without [the
knowledge of] Christ [not having so much as heard of the Messiah,]
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, [hating the Jews, and
hated of them,] strangers to the covenants of promise [which God had
made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,] having no [covenant] hope, and
without [a covenant] God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus [who
has sent us into all the world to preach the Gospel to ever}- creature.]
Ye [Gentiles,] who were sometimes afar off, are made nigh by the blood
of Christ : for he is our peace, who hath made BOTH [Jews and Gentiles]
one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, &c,
that he might reconcile both [Jews and Gentiles] to God, &c, by. the
cross ; having slain the enmity thereby : and came and preached peace
to you [Gentiles] who were afar off, and to them that were nigh, [that
is, to the Jews.] For through him we BOTH [Jews and Gentiles] have
an access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye [Gentiles]
are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the [Jewish]
saints, and of the household [or peculiar people] of God: and are built
upon the foundation of the [Christian] apostles, and [Jewish] prophets •
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone [which unites the
Jews and Gentiles who believe, as a corner stone joins the two walls
which meet upon it, dec.] In whom you also [Gentiles of Ephesus] are
builded together [with us believing Jews] for a habitation of God through
the Spirit," Eph. ii, 11, dec.
The apostle explains his meaning still more clearly in the next chap,
ter. < For this cause," [namely, that you might be quickened together
with us (see Eph. ii, 5, 6, in the original,) unto Christ, that you might
be raised up together, and placed together with us in heavenly* privileges
in or by Jesus Christ.] « For this cause, I Paul am the prisoner of Christ
for ygu Gentiles; if ye have heard of the DISPENSATION of the grace
of God, which is given me to YOU WARD : how he made known to me
[once a Jewish bigot] the mystery, dec, that the Gentiles should be fellow
heirs,^ and of the same body, and partakers of the promise of Christ by
the Gospel, whereof I am made a minister, dec, that I should preach
among the Gentiles [as Peter does among the Jews] the unsearchable
riches of Christ, dec. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribu
lations for you [Gentiles] which is your glory," Eph. iii, 1-13.
The two preceding paragraphs are two keys, which St. Paul gives to
open his meaning with, and to make us understand « God's eternal pur-
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 121
pose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, of gathering all
tilings in Christ," by calling the Gentiles to be partakers of the Gospel
of Christ, as well as the Jews : a " mystery" this, which had been hid
in God from the beginning of the world, Eph. iii, 9 ; God having then
purposed to take the Gentiles into the covenant of peculiarity : although,
for particular reasons, he did it only in St. Paul's days, and chiefly by
his instrumentality. What pity is it then that Zelotes should cast the
veil of his prejudices over so glaring a truth ; and should avail himself
of the apostle's laconic style, and of our inattention to impose Calvin's
predestination upon us ! Does not the context demonstrate that St. Paul
speaks only of God's predestinating and electing THE GENTILES IN
GENERAL (and among them the Ephesians) to share the prerogatives of
the Christian dispensation ? Is it not evident, that as the unbelieving
Jews boasted much of their being saved by the work of circumcision,
through Abraham, St. Paul keeps the believing Gentiles humble, by re
minding them that " by grace they were saved — [that is, made partakers
of the great salvation of Christians] through faith : and that not of them
selves, [nor of their forefathers,] it was the gift of God, not of works,"
not of circumcision or Mosaic ceremonies, " lest any of them should
boast" like the Jews, who, by their fatal glorying in Abraham and in
themselves, had hardened their hearts against Christ's Gospel, and
brought God's curse upon their Church and nation ? In a word, is it not
clear that St. Paul no more speaks of God's having predestinated this
Englishman, or that man of Ephesus to be absolutely saved ; and this
Scotch woman, or that Ephesian widow to be absolutely damned, than he
has absolutely predestinated Honestus to be mufti, and Zelotes to be pope ?
This being premised, I present the reader with what appears to me to
be the genuine sense of the chapter, upon which Zelotes founds his doc
trine of an absolute, particular, and personal election of some men to
eternal life and glory. " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us," Jews and Gentiles, who do not put
the word of his grace from us, and reject his gracious counsel against
ourselves " with all spiritual blessings and heavenly" things " in Christ :
according as he hath chosen us," Jews and Gentiles, " in him before the
foundation of the world, that we," Jews and Gentiles, " should be holy,
and without blame before him in love," as all Christians ought to be :
" having predestinated us," Jews and Gentiles, " unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of
his will, — by which he hath made both" Jews and Gentiles " ONE, and
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ; making in
himself of twain," i. e. Jews and Gentiles, " one new man," i. e. one new
ecclesiastical body, which is at unity in itself, though it be composed of
Jews and Gentiles, who were before supposed to be absolutely irrecon
cilable, Eph. iii, 14. And this he hath done " to the praise of the glory
of his grace, wherein he hath made us," Jews and Gentiles, equally ac
cepted in the Beloved ; in whom we," Jews and Gentiles, " have redemp
tion through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
his grace : wherein he hath abounded to us," Jews and Gentiles, " in
all wisdom and prudence ; having made known unto us," Jews and Gen-
tiles, " the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he
hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times,"
122 * EQUAL CHECK. [PART
i. e. under his last dispensation, which is the Christian, " he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven," i. e.
angels and glorified saints, " and which are on earth," i. e. Jews and
Gentiles, " even in Him," who is the head of all : " in whom also we,"
Jews and Gentiles, " have obtained," through faith, " a common inherit,
ance, being" equally " predestinated" to share the blessings of the Chris-
tian dispensation, " according to the purpose of Him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own" gracious " will : that we," Jews,
" who FIRST trusted in Christ," (for the FIRST Gospel offer was always
made to the Jews, and the FIRST Christian Church was entirely composed
of Jews, compare Acts ii, 5, with Acts iii, 26, and Acts xiii, 46,) — " that
we," Jews, I say, " should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted
in Christ ; in whom ye," Gentiles, " also trusted, after that ye heard the
word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation ; in whom also, tfKfrsvtfwrss,
having believed, YE were sealed" as well as WE " with that Holy Spirit
of promise, which is the earnest of our" common " inheritance, &c.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, &c, cease
not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers ; that,
dec, ye may know what is the hope of his calling" of you Gentiles, " and
what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints :" i. e. in them
that "obey the heavenly calling," whether they be Jews or Gentiles,
Eph. i, 3-18.
This easy exposition is likewise confirmed by the beginning of the
next chapter. "And you," Gentiles, "who were dead in trespasses
and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to, &c, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom we
all," Jews and Gentiles, " had our conversation in time past," &c, see
Rom. i, ii. " You," I say, and us, " God, who is rich in mercy"
toward all, " for his great love wherewith he loved us," Jews and
Gentiles, "hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye
are saved" through faith as well as we : that is, ye are saved by
the free grace of God in Christ, as the first cause ; and by your
believing the Gospel of Christ, which is GRACE AND TRUTH, John i, 17,
as the second cause. " For, through him, WE BOTH," Jews and Gen-
tiles, "have access by one Spirit unto the Father," Eph. ii, 1-5, 18.
If Zelotes doubts yet whether the apostle treats in this epistle of the
predestination and election of the Gentiles, to partake of the blessings of
Christianity, together with the Jews ; let him consider what the com
mentators of his own party have candidly said of the design of the epis
tle ; and his good sense will soon make him see the scope of the parts
which I have produced.
I appeal first to Diodati, one of Calvin's successors, who opens his
exposition by these words : " The summary of it [the Epistle to the
Ephesians] is that he [the apostle] gives God thanks for the infinite ben
efit of eternal salvation and redemption in Christ, communicated out of
mere grace and election through faith in the Gospel, to the apostle first,
and his companions of the Jewish nation ; then afterward to the Ephe
sians, who were Gentiles, &c, by the ministry of St. Paul appointed by
God to preach to the Gentiles the mystery of their calling m grace,
which was before unknown to the world." Burkitt says the, same
thing in fewer words : " This excellent epistle Divinely sets forth, &r
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 123
the marvellous dispensation of God to the Gentiles in revealing Christ
to THEM." Mr. Henry touches thus upon the truth which I endeavour
to clear up : " In the former part [of the epistle] he [St. Paul] repre
sents the' great privilege of the Ephesians, who, being in time past idol
atrous HEATHENS, were now converted [and of consequence chosen and
called] to Christianity, and received into covenant with God." And
again : " This epistle has much of common concernment to all Chris
tians ; especially to all who, having been Gentiles, &c, were converted
to Christianity." See one more flash of truth breaking out of a Cal-
vinistic cloud. Pool, speaking of the mystery which God had made
known to Paul by revelation, raises this objection after Estius : " But
the mysteiy of the calling [and consequently of the election] of the
Gentiles, of which it is evident the apostle speaks, was not unknown to
the prophets," &c. Why then does he say that it was not made known 1
and Pool answers, That the prophets knew not explicitly, "quod Gen
tiles pares essent Judceis quoad consortium gratia Dei" — " that
the Gentiles should be put on a level with the Jews, with respect to a
COMMON INTEREST in God's grace." (Syn. Grit, on Eph. iii, 5.)
If Zelotes do not regard the preceding testimonies, let him at least
believe St. Paul himself, who, explicitly speaking of the calling and
election of the Gentiles, which he names " the mystery of Christ,"
mentions his having " wrote about it afore in few words ; whereby
(adds he) when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in that mys
tery," Eph. iii, 3. Hence it is evident, that the apostle, in the preced
ing part of the epistle, treats of God's electing the Gentiles to the pre
rogatives of Christianity : an election this by which they are admitted
to share in privileges, which the apostles themselves, for a considerable
time after the day of pentecost, durst not offer to any but their own
countrymen, as appears by Acts x, xi ; — in privileges, which multitudes
of Jewish converts would never allow the believing Gentiles to enjoy ;
tormenting them with Judaism, and saying, "Except ye be circum
cised," i. e. except ye turn Jews as well as Christians, " ye cannot be
saved." Compare Acts xv, with the Epistle to the Galatians. But
what has this election from Gentilism to Christianity — this " abolishing
the enmity" between Jews and Gentiles, " even the law of command
ments, contained in Mosaic ordinances, for to make of twain one new
man," to make of Jews and Gentiles " one new chosen nation, and
peculiar people," called Christians ; — what has such an election, I say,
to do with the election maintained by Zelotes ? Who does not see that
the general election of all the Gentiles from the obscure dispensation of
the heathens, to the luminous dispensation of the Christians, (as the
sound of the Gospel trump shall gradually reach them,) is the very
reverse of Zelotes' particular election? an election by which (if we
believe him) God only tithes (if I may so speak) the damned world of
the Gentiles ; absolutely setting apart for himself a dozen people, if so
many, in an English village ; half a dozen, it may be, in a Scotch dis
trict ; and a less number, perhaps, in an Irish hanilet ; Calvinistically
passing by the rest of their neighbours ; that is, absolutely giving them
up to necessary sin and unavoidable damnation : binding them fast with
the chain of Adam's unatoned sin ; and, to make sure work, sealing
th»m with the seal of his free wrath, even before the fall of Adam : for
124 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
if we may credit Zelotes, this world was made AFTER the decree
by which God secured the commission of Adam's sin, and the damna
tion of his reprobate posterity.
From the preceding observations I draw the following inference :-r-
Seldom did the perverter of truth play a bolder and more artful
game than when he transformed himself into an angel of light, and
produced Rom. ix, and Eph. i, as demonstrations of the truth of
Calvinian reprobation and election. St. Paul maintains, in Rom. ix,
that the Jews, as a circumcised nation, are rejected from the covenant
of peculiarity ; that God has an indubitable right to extend to whom he
pleases the peculiar mercy which he before confined to the circum
cised race ; and that he now, according to the ancient purpose of his
grace, extends that mercy to the Gentiles, i. e. to all other nations,
among which, of consequence, the Gospel of Christ gradually spreads.
Therefore, insinuates Zelotes, God has absolutely given over to neces
sary sin and certain damnation (it may be) the best half of the English,
Scotch, and Irish. These poor reprobates, if we believe his doctrines
of grace, were unconditionally cast away, not only from their mother's
womb, but also from the time that He, who "tasted death for every
man," forbade all his wounds to pour forth one single drop of blood for
them. Nay, they were from all eternity intentionally made to be
necessarily "vessels of wrath" to all eternity. But in the name of
wisdom I ask, what has Zelotes' conclusion to do with St. Paul's
premises 1 Has the one any more agreement with the other, than
kindness with cruelty, Christ with Moloch, and sense with nonsense ?
Again : —
In Eph. i, the apostle " makes known" to the Ephesians " the mys
tery of God's will, who purposed in himself, predestinated, or resolved,
beibre the foundation of the world, that, in the dispensation of the fulness
of times, he would gather together in one all things in Christ," and call
the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, to partake of the "unsearchable
riches of Christ" by faith. But Zelotes, instead of gladdening the hearts
of his countrymen by the Gospel news of this extensive grace, and gene
ral election of the Gentiles, takes occasion from it to confine redemption,
to preach narrow grace, and to insinuate the personal Calvinistic elec
tion of some of his neighbours. Suppose Peter Penitent, Martha For
ward, and Matthew Fulsome : an election this which is inseparable from
the personal, absolute, eternal reprobation of his other neighbours :
suppose John Endeavour, Thomas Doubter, George Honest, and James
Worker, to say nothing of Miss Wanton, Mr. Cheat, Sarah Cannibal,
and Samuel Hottentot. For it is evident that if none of Zelotes' next
neighbours are in " the book of life" but the three first mentioned ; if
those three can never be put out of the book, sin they ever so grievous
ly ; and not one of the others can possibly be put in, live they ever so
righteously — it is evident, I say, upon this footing, that the salvation of
some of Zelotes' neighbours, arid the damnation of all the rest, are ab
solutely necessary ; or, to speak his own language, absolutely "finished."
Thus the gracious election of the Gentiles, which filled St. Paul's soul
with transports of grateful joy, and would be a perpetual spring of con
solation to us, European Gentiles, if it were preached in a Scriptural
manner : — this gracious election, I say, becomes, by Zelotes' mistake,
SECOND.] SCHIl'TUKK SCALES. 125
the source of all the presumptuous comforts which flow from Calvin's
luscious, Antinomian election ; and of all the tormenting fears which
arise from his severe, Pharisaic reprobation.
Having just mentioned " the book of life," so triumphantly produced
by Zelotes, it may not be amiss to hear what he and his antagonist Ho-
nestus think about it. Throw we then their partial sentiments into the
Scripture Scales, and by balancing them according to the method of the
sanctuary, let us see the meaning of that mysterious expression.
Help, &c, my fellow labourers, Another book was opened, which
whose names are written in the book is the book of life : and the dead
of life, Phil, iv, 3. All that dwell were judged out of those things
on the earth, whose names are not which were written in the books
written in the book of life of the according to their works, Rev. xx,
Lamb, shall worship him [the 12. If thou wilt not forgive, blot
beast,] Rev. xvii, 8. Whose names me, I pray thee, out of thy book
were not written in the book of life which thou hast written [from the
from the foundation of the world, foundation of the world.] And the
Rev. xvii, 8. Whosoever worketh Lord said to Moses, Whosoever
abomination, &c, shall in no wise hath sinned against me, him will 1
enter into it, [the city of God,] but Hot out of my book, [a sure proof
they which are written in the this that he was before in the book,]
Lamb's book of life, Rev. xvi, 27. Ezek. xxxii, 32, 33. Let them
And whosoever was not found writ- [persecutors] be blotted out of the
ten in the Lamb's book of life, was book* of life, Psa. Ixix, 5J8. They
cast into the lake of fire, Rev. xx, that feared the Lord spake often
15. At that time thy people shall one to another, and the Lord heard
be delivered, every one that shall it, and a book of remembrance was
be found written in the book, Dan. written before him, for them that
xii, 1. feared the Lord : and they shall be
mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in
that day when 1 make up my jewels, Mai. iii, 16. I will not blot out
his name [the name of him that overcometh] out of the book of life,
Rev. iii, 5. If any man shall take away from the words of, &c, this
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, Rev.
xxii, 19.
The balance of these scriptures evidently shows : (1.) That from the
foundation of the world, God decreed to reward the righteous with eter
nal life. (2.) That, to show us the certainty of this decree, the sacred
writers, by a striking, oriental metaphor, represent it as " written in a
book," which they call "the book of life." (3.) That to carry on the
allegory, the names of the righteous are said to be written in that book,
and the names of the wicked not to be found in it ; while the names of
apostates are said to be "blotted out of it." (4.) That the NAMES writ,
ten in this metaphorical " book of life" (if I may use the expression)
are to be understood of natures, properties, and characters ; in the sense
in which Isaiah says of Christ, " His NAME shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, and Prince of Peace ;" or, in the sense in which God pro-
* I take the liberty to say "the book of life," and not "the book of the liv
ing" because our translators themselves, Gen. ii, 7, have rendered the very same
word "the breath of life," and not " the breath of the living."
126 EQUAL CHECK. [PART SECOND
claimed his name to Moses ; calling himself merciful, gracious, and
bug suffering. Whence it follows, that the " names written in the book
of life from the foundation of the world are not Matthew Fulsome, Sa
rah Forward, or William Fanciful ; but True Penitent, Obedient Be-
liever, Good Servant, or " Faithful unto Death." And lastly, that it is
as absurd to take this metaphor of the " book of life" literally, as to
suppose that all David's hairs shall be glorified, and his tears literally
bottled up in heaven, because it is said, " The very hairs of your head
are numbered. All my members were written in thy book. Put thou
my tears into thy bottle ; are they not written in thy 'book ?"
If Zelotes and Horiestus condescend to weigh the preceding observa
tions, their prejudices will, I hope, gradually subside ; and while the
one sends back to Geneva the false, intoxicating election recommended
by Calvin, the other will bring us over from Ephesus the true, comfort
able election maintained by St. Paul. That in the meantime we may
all be thankful for our evangelical calling, improve our Gospel privileges,
make our Scriptural election sure, and, as the apostle writes to the
Ephesians, " walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called," is
the ardent wish of my soul, which I cannot express in words more pro
per than those which I have just used in " receiving a child into the
congregation of Christ's flock, and incorporating him into God's holy
Church : — Heavenly Father, we give thee humble thanks, that thou
hast vouchsafed to call us [and of consequence to choose us first] to
the knowledge of thy grace and faith in thee. Increase this knowledge,
and confir$n this faith in us evermore ; that we may receive the fulness
of thy grace, live the rest of our life according to this beginning, con
tinue Christ's faithful soldiers to our lives' end, and ever remain in the
number of God's faithful and elect children, through Jesus Christ our
Lord." (Office of Baptism.)
This truly Christian prayer shall conclude this section, and the first
part of the Scripture Scales. Zelotes and Honestus have at this time
tiven one another as much truth as they can well stand under. In a
jw days their strength will be recovered ; they will meet again to fight
it out, each from his scale : and when they shall have spent all their
ammunition, they will, I hope, shake hands and be friends. But if they
should be obstinate, and still jostle, instead of embracing each other, we
will charge the peace. " W7hen we are for a Scriptural peace, if they
still prepare themselves for battle," we will bind them with all the cords
we can borrow from reason, revelation, and experience. And if they
then will not be quiet and agree, by a new kind of a metamorphose we
will change them into scales ; we will tie them to the solid beam of
truth, and expose them in booksellers' shops, where they shall hang in
logical chains, an eye-sore to bigots, — a terror to doctrinal clippers,
who openly diminish the coin of the Church, — a comfort to those who
are persecuted for truth and righteousness' sake, an encouragement to
those who, like their Master, equally hate the doctrine of the Nicolai-
tans, and that of the Pharisees, — a new CHECK to those who spoil all by
overdoing, — and a contrivance useful, I hope, to novices, and to unwary
professors, who, through an excess of simplicity, or for want of scales,
frequently take of masters in Israel a bare half shekel for " the full
shekel of the sanctuary."
ZELOTES AND HONESTUS RECONCILED:
OR,
THE THIRD PART
OP
AN EQUAL CHECK
PHARISAISM AND ANTINOMIANISM
BEING THE SECOND PART
SCRIPTURE SCALES
TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH, TO BALANCE A MULTITUDE OF OPPOSITE
SCRIPTURES, TO PROVE THE GOSPEL MARRIAGE OF FREE GRACE AND FREE
WILL, AND RESTORE PRIMITIVE HARMONY TO THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY.
Si ncn ».st Dei gratis, quomodo salvat mundum 7 Si non est liberum arbilrium, quomod
jtidicat munduml — Aug.
PREFACE
TO THE THIRD PART OF AN EQUAL CHECK.
The reconciler invites the contending parties to end the controversy; and in
order to this he beseeches them not to involve the question in clouds of
evasive cavils or personal refections ; but to come to the point, and break,
if they can, either the one or the other of his Scripture Scales ; and if
they cannot, to admit tJiem both, and by iliat means to give glory to God
and the truth, and be reconciled to all the Gospel, and to one another.
BEING fully persuaded that Christianity suffers greatly by the opposite
mistakes of the mere Solifidians and of the mere moralists, we embrace
the truths and reject the errors which are maintained by these contrary
parties. For by equally admitting the doctrines of grace and the doc-
trines of justice ; — by equally contending for faith and for morality, we
adopt what is truly excellent in each system ; we reconcile Zelotes and
Honestus ; we bear our testimony against their contentious partiality ;
and, to the best of our knowledge, we maintain the whole truth as it is
in Jesus. If we are mistaken, we shall be thankful to those who will
set us right. Plain scriptures, close arguments, and friendly expostula
tions are the weapons we choose. We humbly hope that the unpreju
diced reader will find no other in these pages : and to engage our oppo
nents to use such only, we present to them the following petition : —
For the sake of candour, of truth, of peace, — for the reader's sake ;
and above all, for the sake of Christ, and the honour of Christianity ; —
whoever ye are that shall next enter the lists against us, do not wire
draw the controversy by uncharitably attacking our persons, and
absurdly judging our spirits, instead of weighing our arguments and
considering the scriptures which we produce. Nor pass over fifty solid
reasons, and a hundred plain passages, to cavil about non-essentials, arid
to lay the stress of your answer upon mistakes which do not affect the
strength of the cause, and which we are ready to correct as soon as they
shall be pointed out.
Keep close to the question : do not divert the reader's mind by start
ing from the point in hand upon the most frivolous occasions ; nor raise
dust to obscure what is to be cleared up. An example will illustrate
my meaning : Mr. Sellon, in vindicating the Church of England from
the charge of Calvinism, observes, that her catechism is quite anti-
Calvinistic, and that we ought to judge of her doctrine by her own cate-
YOL. II. 9
130 PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART
chism, and not by Ponet's Calvinian catechism, which poor young King
Edward was prevailed upon to recommend some time after the establish
ment of our Church. Mr. Toplady, in his Historic Proof, instead of
considering the question, which is, Whether it is not fitter to gather the
doctrine of our Church from her own anti-Calvinian catechism than
from Ponet's Calvinian catechism ; Mr. Toplady, I say, in his answer to
Mr. Sellon, fastens upon the phrase poor young King Edward, and
works it to such a degree, that he raises from it clouds of shining dust
and pillars of black smoke ; filling, if I remember right, a whole section
with the praises of King Edward, and with reflections upon Mr. Sellon.
And, in his bright cloud of praise, and dark cloud of dispraise, the ques
tion is so entirely lost, that I doubt if one in a hundred of his readers
has the least idea of it after reading two or three of the many pages
which he has written on this head. By such means as these it is that
he has made a ten or twelve shilling book, in which the Church of
England is condemned to wear the badge of the Church of Geneva.
And the Calvinists conclude Mr. Toplady has proved that she is bound
to wear it ; for they have paid dear for the proof.
That very gentleman, if fame is to be credited, has some thoughts
of attacking the Checks. If he favour me with just remarks upon my
mistakes (for I have probably made more than one ; though I hope none
of a capital nature) he shall have my sincere thanks : but if he involve
the question in clouds of personal reflections and of idle digressions, he
will only give me an opportunity of initiating the public more and more
into the mysteries of Logica Genevensis. I therefore intreat him, if he
think me worthy of his notice, to remember that the capital questions—
the questions on which the fall of the Calvinian, or of the anti-Calvinian
doctrines of grace turn, are not whether I am a fool and a knave ; and
whether I have made some mistakes in attacking Antinomianism ; but
whether those mistakes affect the truth of the anti-Solifidian and anti-
Pharisaic Gospel which we defend : whether the two Gospel axioms are
not equally true : whether our second Scale is not as Scriptural as the
first : whether the doctrines of justice and obedience are not as important
in their places as the doctrines of grace arid mercy : whether the plan
of reconciliation laid down in section iv, and the marriage of free grace
and free will, described in section xi, are not truly evangelical : whether
God can judge the world in righteousness and wisdom, if man be not a
free, uanecessitated agent : whether the justification of obedient believers,
by the WORKS OF FAITH, is not as Scriptural as the justification of sinners
by FAITH itself: whether the eternal salvation of adults is not of remu
nerative justice as well as of free grace : whether that salvation does
not secondarily depend on the evangelical, derived worthiness of obe
dient, persevering believers ; as it primarily depends on the original and
OF AN EQUAL CHECK. 131
proper merits of our atoning and interceding Redeemer : whether man
is in a state of probation ; or, if you please, whether the Calvinian doc
trines of finished salvation and finished damnation are true : whether
there is not a day of initial salvation for all mankind, according to
various dispensations of Divine grace : whether Christ did not taste
death for every man, and purchase a day of initial redemption and
salvation for all sinners, and a day of eternal redemption and salvation
for all persevering believers : whether all the sins of real apostates, or
foully fallen believers, shall so work for their good, that none of them
shall ever be. damned for any crime he shall commit : whether they
shall all sing louder in heaven for their greatest falls on earth : whether
our absolute, personal reprobation from eternal life is of God's free
wrath through the decreed, necessary sin of Adam ; or of God's just
wrath through our own obstinate, avoidable perseverance in sin : whether
our doctrines of non-necessitating grace and of just wrath do not exalt
all the Divine perfections ; and whether the Calvinian doctrines of
necessitating grace and free wrath do not pour contempt upon all the
attributes of God, his sovereignty not excepted.
These are the important questions which I have principally debated
with the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley, Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr.
Hill, the Rev. Mr. Berridge, and the Rev. Mr. Toplady. Some less
essential collateral questions I have touched upon, such as, Whether
Judas was an absolutely graceless hypocrite, when our Lord raised him
to apostolic honours : whether some of the most judicious Calvinists have
not, at times, done justice to the doctrine of free will and co-operation,51
&c. These, and the like questions, I call collateral, because they are
only occasionally brought in; and because the walls which defend our
doctrines of grace stand firm without them. We hope, therefore, that
if Mr. Toplady, and the other divines who defend the ramparts of mys
tical Geneva, should ever attack the Checks, they will direct their main
* The Rev. Mr. Whitefield, in his answer to the bishop of London's Pastoral
Letter, says, " That prayer is not the single work of the Spirit, without any co
operation of our own, I readily confess. Who ever affirmed that there was no co
operation of our own minds, together with the impulse of the Spirit of God ?"
Now, that many rest short of salvation, merely by not co-operating with the
Spirit's impulse, is evident, if we may credit these words of the reverend author:
"There is a great difference between good desires and good habits. Many have
the one who never attain to the other. Many (through the Spirit's impulse) have
good desires to subdue sin ; and yet resting (through want of co-operation) in
those good desires, sin has always the dominion over them." (Whitefield1 s Works,
vol. iv, pages 7, 11.) Mr. Whitefield grants, in these two passages, all that I con
tend for in these pages respecting the doctrine of our concurrence or co-operation
with the Spirit of free grace, that is, respecting our doctrine of free will; and yet
ais warmest admirers will probably be my warmest opposers. But why ? Be
cause I aim at (what Mr. Whitefield sometimes overlooked) consistency.
132 PREFACE TO THE THIKD PAKT
batteries against our towers, and not against some insignificant part oi
the scaffolding, which we could entirely take down, without endangering
our Jerusalem in the least. Should they refuse to grant our reasonable
request ; should they take up the pen to perplex, and not to solve the
question ; to blacken our character, and not to illustrate the obscure parts
of the truth ; they must give us leave to look upon their controversial
attempt as an evasive show of defence, contrived to keep a defenceless,
tottering error upon its legs, before an injudicious, bigoted populace.
If you will do us and the public justice, come to close quarters, and
put an end to the controversy by candidly receiving our Scripture Scales,
or by plainly showing that they are false. Our doctrine entirely depends
upon the two Gospel axioms, and their necessary consequences, which
now hang out to public view in our Gospel balances. Nothing there
fore can be more easy than to point out our error, if our system be
erroneous. But if our Scales be just, if our doctrines of grace and
justice — of free grace and free will be true ; it is evident that the Soli-
fidians and the moralists are both in the wrong, and that we are, upon
the whole, in the right. I say upon the whole, because insignificant mis
takes can no more affect the strength of our cause, than a cracked
slate or a broken pane can affect the solidity of a palace, which is
firmly built upon a rock.
Therefore if you are an admirer of Zelotes, and a Solifidian opposer
of free will, of the law of liberty, and of the remunerative justification
of a believer by the works of faith, raise no dust ; candidly give up
Antinomianism ; break the two pillars on which it stands, — necessitating
free grace and forcible free wrath ; or prove, if you can, that our second
Scale, which is directly contrary to your doctrines of grace, is irrational,
and that we have forged or misquoted the passages which compose it.
But if vou are a follower of Honestus, and a neglecter of free grace and
salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, be a candid and honest disputant.
Come at once to the grand question ; and terminate the controversy/
either by receiving our first Scale, which is directly contrary to your
scheme of doctrine ; or by proving that this Scale is directly contrary
to reason and Scripture, and that we have misquoted or mistaken most
of the passages which enter into its composition. I say most, though I
could say all; for if only two passages, properly taken in connection
with the context, the avowed doctrine of a sacred writer, and the general
drift of the Scriptures ; — if only two such passages, I say, fairly and
truly support each section of our Scripture Scales, they hang firmly,
and can no more, upon the whole, be invalidated than the Scripture
itself, which, as our Lord informs us, " cannot be broken," John x, 35.
I take the Searcher of hearts, and my judicious, unprejudiced readers
to witness, that through the whole of this controversy, far from conceal-
OF AN EQUAL CHECK. 133
ing the most plausible objections, or avoiding the strongest arguments
which are, or may be advanced against our reconciling doctrine, I have
carefully searched them out, and endeavoured to encounter them us
openly as David did Goliah. Had our opponents followed this method,
I doubt not but the controversy would have ended long ago in the*
destruction of our prejudices, and in the rectifying of our mistakes. O,
if we preferred the unspeakable pleasure of finding out the truth to the
pitiful honour of pleasing a party, or of vindicating our own mistakes,
how soon would the useful fan of Scriptural, logical, and brotherly con-
troversy " purge the floor" of the Church ! How soon would the light
of truth and the flame of love " burn the chaff" of error and the thorns
of prejudice " with fire unquenchable !" May the past triumphs of
bigotry suffice ! and instead of sacrificing any more to that detestable
;dol, may we all henceforth do whatever lies in us to hasten a general
reconciliation, that we may all share together in the choicest blessings
which God can bestow upon his peculiar people ; — the Spirit of pure,
evangelical truth, and of fervent, brotherly love.
MADELEY, March 30, 1775,
AN EXPLANATION
OF
SOME TERMS USED IN THESE SHEETS.
THE word Solifdian is defined, and the characters of Zelotes, Hones,
tus, and Lorenzo, are drawn in the advertisement prefixed to the first
part of this work. It is proper to explain here a few more words or cha
racters.
PHARISAISM is the religion of a Pharisee.
A PHARISEE is a loose or strict professor of natural or revealed
religion, who so depends upon the system of religion which he has adopted,
or upon his attachment to the school or Church he belongs to ; (whether
it be the school of Plato, Confucius, or Socinus ; whether it be the
Church of Jerusalem, Rome, England, or Scotland ;) who lays such a
stress on his religious or moral duties, and has so good an opinion of
his present harmlessness and obedience, or of his future reformation and
good works, as to overlook his natural impotence and guilt, and to be in-
sensible of the need and happiness of " being justified freely [as a sinner]
by God's grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ," Rom.
iii, 24. You may know him : (1.) By his contempt of, or coldness for'
the Redeemer and his free grace. (2.) By the antichristian confidence
which he reposes in his best endeavours, and in the self-righteous ex-
ertions of his own freewill. Or, (3.) By the jests he passes upon, or the
indifference he betrays for the convincing, comforting, assisting, and
sanctifying influences of God's Holy Spirit.
ANTINOMIANISM is the religion of an Antinomian.
AN ANTINOMIAN is a professor of Christianity, who is antinomos,
against the law of Christ, as well as against the law of Moses. He
allows Christ's law to be a rule of life, but not a rule of judgment for
believers, and thus he destroys that law at a stroke, as a law ; it being
evident that a rule by the personal observance or non-observance of
which Christ's subjects can never be acquitted or condemned, is not a
law for them. Hence he asserts that Christians shall no more be jus
tified before God by their personal obedience to the law of Christ, than
by their personal obedience to the ceremonial law of Moses. Nay, he
believes that the best Christians perpetually break Christ's law ; that
nobody ever kept it but Christ himself; and that we shall be justified or
condemned before God, in the great day, not as we shall personally be
found to have finally kept or finally broken Christ's law, but as God
shall be found to have, before the foundation of the world, arbitrarily laid,
or not laid to our account, the merit of Christ's keeping his own law.
Thus he hopes to stand in the great day, merely by what he calls
« Christ's imputed righteousness ;" excluding with abhorrence, from our
final justification, the evangelical worthiness of our own personal,
AN EXPLANATION, ETC. 135
sincere obedience of repentance and faith ; — a precious obedience this,
which he calls " dung, dross, and filthy rags :" just as if it were the
insincere obedience of self-righteous pride, and Pharisaic hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, though he thus excludes the evangelical, derived worthi
ness of the works of faith from our eternal justification and salvation, he
does good works, if he is in other respects a good man. Nay, in
this case, he piques himself on doing them ; thinking he is peculiarly
obliged to make people believe that, immoral as his sentiments are,
they draw after them the greatest benevolence and the strictest morality.
But Fulsome shows the contrary.
FULSOME represents a consistent Antinomian — that is, one who is
such in practice as well as in theory. He warmly espouses Zelotes'
doctrine of finished salvation ; believing that, before the foundation of
the world, we were all Calvinistically, i. e. personally ordained to eternal
life in Christ, or eternal death in Adam, without the least respect to
our own works, that is, to our own tempers and conduct. Hence
he draws this just inference : " If Christ never died for me, and I am
Calvinistically reprobated, my best endeavours to be finally justified,
and eternally saved, will never alter the decree of reprobation, which
was made against me from all eternity. On the other hand, if I am
Calvinistically elected, and if Christ absolutely secured, yea, finished
my eternal salvation on the cross, no sins can ever blot my name out of
the book of life. God, in the day of his almighty power, will irresisti
bly convert or reconvert my soul ; and then the greater my crimes shall
have been, the more they will set off Divine mercy and powrer in for
giving and turning such a sinner as me : and I shall only sing in hea
ven louder than less sinners will have cause to do." Thus reasons
Fulsome ; and, like a wise man, he is determined, if lie be an abso
lute REPROBATE, to have what pleasure he can before God pulls him
down to hell in the day of his power ; or, if he be an absolute ELECT,
he thinks it reasonable comfortably to wait for " the day of God's power,"
in which day he shall be irresistibly turned, and absolutely fitted to sing
louder in heaven the praises of Calvinistically distinguishing love : — a
love this, which (if the Antinomian Gospel of the day be true) eternally,
justifies the chief of sinners, without any personal or inherent worthiness.
INITIAL SALVATION is a phrase which sometimes occurs in these
sheets. The plain reader is desired to understand by it, salvation
begun, or, an inferior state of acceptance and present salvation. In
this state sinners are actually saved from hell, admitted to a degree of
favour, and graciously entrusted with one or more talents of grace, that is,
of means, power, and ability " to work out their own [eternal] salvation,"
in due subordination to God, who, consistently with our liberty, " works
in us both to will and to do," according to the dispensation of the hea
thens, Jews, or Christians, " of his good pleasure."
By the ELECTION OF GRACE, understand the free, and merely
gratuitous choice which God (as a wise and sovereign benefactor)
arbitrarily makes of this, that, or the other man, to bestow upon him one,
two, or five talents of free grace.
Opposed to this election, you have an ABSOLUTE REPROBATION which
does not draw damnation after it, but only rejection from a superior
number of talents. In this sense God reprobated Enoch and David ;
136 AN EXPLANATION. ETC.
Enoch with respect to the peculiar blessings of Judaism ; and David
with regard to the still more peculiar blessings of Christianity. But
although neither of them had a share in the election of God's most
peculiar grace ; that is, although neither was chosen and called to the
blessings of Christianity, their lot was never cast with those imaginary
" poor creatures," whom Calvin and his followers affirm to have been
from all eternity reprobated with a reprobation which infallibly draws
eternal damnation after it. For Enoch and David made their election
to the rewards of their dispensations sure by the timely and voluntary
obedience of faith. And so might all those who obstinately bury their
talent or talents to the last.
By FUTURE CONTINGENCIES, understand those things which will or
will not be done ; as the free, unnecessitated will of man shall choose to
do them or not.
By SEMINAL EXISTENCE, understand the existence that we had in
Adam's loins before Eve had conceived ; or the kind of being which
the prince of Wales had in the loins of the king before the queen came
to England.
EQUAL CHECK,
PART THIRD.
BEING THE SECOND PART OF
THE SCRIPTURE SCALES.
SECTION I.
Containing the Scripture doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
I PROMISED the reader that Zelotes and Honestus should soon meet
again, to fight their last battle ; and, that I may be as good as my word,
I bring them a second time upon the stage of controversy. I have no
pleasure in seeing them contend with each other ; but I hope that when
they shall have shot all their arrows, and spent all their strength, they
will quietly sit down and listen to terms of reconciliation. They have
had already many engagements ; but they seem determined that this
shall be the sharpest. Their challenge is about the doctrine of perse
verance. Zelotes asserts that the perseverance of believers depends
entirely upon God's almighty grace, which nothing can frustrate ; and
that, of consequence, no believer can finally fall. Honestus, on the
other hand, maintains that continuing in the faith depends chiejly, if not
entirely upon the believer's free will ; and that of consequence final
perseverance is partly, if not altogether as uncertain as the fluctuations
of the human heart. The reconciling truth lies between those two
extremes, as appears from the following propositions, in which I sum
up the Scripture doctrine of perseverance : —
I. II.
God makes us glorious promises Those promises are neither corn-
to encourage us to persevere. pulsory nor absolute.
God on his part gives us his We must on our part faithfully
gracious help. use the help of God.
Free grace always does its part. Free will does not always do its
part.
Final perseverance depends,y£r$Z, Final perseverance depends, se-
on the final, gracious concurrence condly, on the final, faithful con-
of free grace with free will. currence of free will with free
grace.
As free grace has in all things But to infer from thence that the
the pre-eminence over free will, we tspouse is to be carried by her Be-
must lay much more stress upon loved every step of the way, is
God's faithfulness than upon our unscriptural. He gently draws her,
own. The spouse comes out of the and she runs. He gives her his
wilderness, leaning upon her Be- arm, and she leans. But far from
loved, and not upon herself. dragging her by main force, he bids
her remember Lot's wife.
138
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
The believer stands upon two
legs, (if I may so speak,) God's
faithfulness and his own. The one
is always sound, nor can he rest too
much upon it, if he does but walk
straight, as a wise Christian ; and
does not foolishly hop as an Anti-
nomian, who goes only upon his
right leg; or as a Pharisee, who
moves entirely upon the left.
When Gospel ministers speak of
our faithfulness, they chiefly mean,
(1.) Our faithfulness in repenting,
that is, in renouncing our sins and
Pharisaic righteousness ; and in
improving the talent of light, which
shows us our natural depravity,
daily imperfections, total helpless
ness, and constant need of an
humble recourse to, and dependence
on Divine grace. And, (2.) Our
faithfulness in believing (even in
hope against hope) God's redeeming
love to sinners in Christ ; in humbly
apprehending, as returning prodi
gals, the gratuitous forgiveness of
sins through the blood of the Lamb ;
in cheerfully claiming, as impotent
creatures, the help that is laid on
the Saviour for us ; and in con
stantly coming at his word, to " take
of the water of life freely." And
so far as Zelotes recommends this
evangelical disposition of mind,
without opening a back door to
Antinomianism, by covertly pleading
for sin, and dealing about his ima
ginary decrees of forcible grace
and sovereign wrath, he cannot be
too highly commended.
If Zelotes will do justice to the
doctrine of perseverance, he must
speak of the obedience of faith, that
is, of genuine, sincere obedience, as
the oracles of God do. He must
not blush to display the glorious
rewards with which God hath pro
mised to crown it. He must boldly
The believer's lett leg, (I mean
his own faithfulness,) is subject to
many humours, sores, and bad
accidents ; especially when he does
not use it at all, or when he lays
too much stress upon it, to save his
other leg. If it is broken, he is
already fallen ; and if he is out of
hell, he must lean as much as he
can upon his right leg, till the left
begins to heal, and he can again run
the way of God's commandments.
To aim chiefly at being faithful
in external works, means of grace,
and forms of godliness, is the high
road to Pharisaism, and insincere
obedience. I grant that he who is
humbly faithful in little things, is
faithful also in much ; and that he
who slothfully neglects little helps,
' will soon fall into great sins : but
the professors of Christianity cannot
be too frequently told that if they
are not frst faithful in maintaining
true poverty of spirit, deep self
humiliation before God, and high
thoughts of Christ's blood and right
eousness ; they will soon slide into
Laodicean Pharisaism; and, Jehu
like, they will make more of their
own partial, external, selfish faith
fulness, than of Divine grace, and
the Spirit's power: — a most dan
gerous and common error this, into
which the followers of Honestus
are very prone to run, and so far
as he leads them into it, or encou
rages them in it, he deserves to be
highly blamed ; and Zelotes, in this
respect, hath undoubtedly the ad
vantage over him.
Would Honestus kindly meet
Zelotes half way, he must speak
of free grace, and of Christ's obe
dience unto death, as the Scriptures
do. He must glory in displaying
Divine faithfulness, and placing it
in the most conspicuous and en
gaging light. He must not be
THIRD. |
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
139
I.
II.
declare, that for want of it " the ashamed to point out the great re-
wrath of God cometh upon the wards of the faith which inherits
children of disobedience" — upon promises, gives glory to God, and
fallen believers, " who have no in- out of weakness makes us strong
heritance in the kingdom of Christ to take up our cross, and to run the
and of God," Eph. v, 5. In a word, race of obedience. In a word, he
instead of emasculating " Serjeant must teach his willing hearers to
IF, who valiantly guards the doctrine depend every day more and more
of perseverance," he should show upon Christ ; and to lay as much
him all the respect that Christ him- stress upon his promises, as they
self does in the Gospel. ever did upon his threatenings.
To sum all up in two propositions : —
I.
The infallible perseverance of
obedient believers is a most sweet
II.
The infallible perseverance of
disobedient believers is a most dan.
and evangelical doctrine, which gerous and unscnptural doctrine ;
cannot be pressed with too much and this cannot be pressed with too
earnestness and constancy upon much assiduity and tenderness upon
sincere Christians, for their com- Antinomian professors, for their re-
fort, encouragement, and establish- awakening and sanctification.
ment.
To see the truth of these propositions, we need only throw with can
dour, into the Scripture Scales, the weights which Zelotes and Honestus
unmercifully throw at each other ; taking particular care not to break,
as they do, the golden beam of evangelical harmony, by means of which
the opposite scales and weights exactly balance each other.
I.
The weights of free grace thrown
by Zelotes.
The Lord shall establish thee a
holy people to himself, as he hath
sworn unto thee, Deut. xxviii, 9.
Know therefore the Lord thy
II.
The weights of free will thrown
by Honestus.
If thou shalt keep the command
ments of the Lord thy God, and
walk in his ways. (Ibid.)
But they, &c, have transgressed
God ; he is God, the faithful God, the covenant. They continued not
who keepeth covenant, Deut. vii, 9. in my covenant, and I regarded
them not, Hos. vi, 7 ; Heb. viii, 9.
He hath made with me an ever- They have broken the evcrlast-
lasting covenant, ordered in all ing covenant: therefore hath the
things and sure : for this is all my curse devoured the earth, Isa. xxiv,
salvation and all my desire, 2 Sam. 5. They kept not the covenant of
xxiii, 5. God, and refused to walk in his
law, &c, so a fire was kindled in
Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel ; because they believed
not in God, and trusted not in his salvation, &c. The wrath of God
came upon them, &c, and smote down the chosen of Israel, Psa. Ixxviii,
10, 21, 22, 31.
Hence it appears, that part of the " everlasting covenant ordered in
all things and SURE," is that those who break it presumptuously, and do
not repent (as David did) before it be too late, shall SURELY be smitten
down and destroyed.
140
EQUAL CHE< K
[PART
I.
With him [the Father of lights]
is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning, James i, 17. I am the
II.
The angel of his presence saved
them : in his love and pity he re
membered them. But they re-
Lord, I change not : [I still bear belled and vexed his Holy Spirit ;
with sinners during the day of their therefore he was turned to be their
visitation ;] therefore ye sons of enemy, Isa.
9, 10. The
Lord God of Israel saith, I said
indeed that thy house and the house
of thy father should walk before
Jacob are not consumed, Mai.
iii, 6.
[Observe here, that although
God's essence, and the principles me for ever ; but now be it far from
of his conduct toward man never me ; for, &c, they that despise me
change ; yet, as " he loves right- shall be lightly esteemed, 1 Sam.
eousness and hates iniquity," and ii, 30. And the word of the Lord
as he is the rewarder of the right- came to Jonah, saying, Preach unto
eous and the punisher of the wicked, Nineveh the preaching that / bid
he must show himself pleased or thee. And Jonah cried and said,
displeased, a rewarder or a pun- Yet forty days and Nineveh shall
isher, as moral agents turn from be overthrown. So the people of
sin to righteousness, or from right- Nineveh believed God, &c. For
eousness to sin. Without this kind the king sat in ashes, and caused it
of change, ad extra, he could not to be proclaimed, &c. Cry might-
be holy and just ; — he couiu not be ily to God, yea, let every one turn
the Judge of all the earth ; — he from his evil way, &c. Who can
could not be God.] tell, if God will turn and repent,
that we perish not. And God saw
their rvorks, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of
the evil which he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not,
Jonah iii, 1, &c. [From the preceding remarkable passages it is evident
that, except in a few cases, the promises and the threatenings of God,
so long as the day of grace and trial lasts, are conditional : and that,
even when they wear the most absolute aspect, the condition is generally
implied.]
I.
II.
The gifts and calling of God I gave her time to repent and
are without repentance, Rom, xi, she repented not, Rev. ii, 21. Be-
29. [The apostle evidently speaks cause I have catted and ye refused,
these words of God's gifts to, and &c, I also will mock — when your
calling of the Jewish nation. The destruction cometh as a whirlwind,
Lord is so far from repenting (pro- Prov. i, 24, &c. The Lord [to
perly speaking) of his having once speak figuratively and after the
called the Jews to the Mosaic co- manner of men] repented that he
venant of peculiarity, that he is had made Saul king over Israel,
ready nationally to re-admit them 1 Sam. xv, 35, [that is, when Saul
to his peculiar favour, when they proved unfaithful, the Lord rejected
shall nationally repent, embrace the him in as positive a manner as a
Gospel of Christ, and so make their king would reject a minister, or
sincere calling to the Christian co- break a general, when he repents
venant sure by believing. But does of his having raised them to offices,
this prove that God forces repent- of which they now show themselves
ance upon every Jew, and that "absolutely unworthy.]
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
141
when the Jews will nationally repent, God will absolutely and irresistibly
work out their salvation for them ? If Zelotes thinks so, I desire him to
look into the scale of Honestus.
I.
II.
If that, which ye have heard
from the beginning, shall remain in
you, 1 John ii, 24. If ye continue
perdition ; but of them that believe in the faith, Col. i, 23. If ye con-
to the saving of the soul, Heb. x, tinue in his goodness, Rom. xi, 22.
39. We believe that through the If ye do these things, 2 Peter i, 19.
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we If we hold fast the confidence firm
shall be saved, Acts xv, 11. unto the end, Heb. iii, 6. For he
that shall endure unto the end, the
same shall be saved, Matt, xxiv, 13.
[Should Zelotes endeavour to set
aside these, and the like scriptures, by saying that each contains a
Christian IF and not a Jewish IF, that is, a description, and not a condi
tion; I refer him to the Equal Check, part i, vol. i, p. 49G, where that
trifling objection is answered.]
We (who hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering) are
not of them who draw back unto
I.
II.
If his [David's] children forsake And thou Solomon, my son, know
my law, &c, then will I visit their thou the God of thy father, and
transgression with the rod, &c ; serve him with a perfect heart,
nevertheless, my loving kindness
will I not utterly take from him,
and a willing mind : for the Lord
searcheth all hearts, and under-
[David, by utterly casting off his standeth all the imaginations of the
posterity] nor suffer my truth to thoughts : if thou seek him, he
fail, [as it would do if I appointed will* be found of thee ; but if thou
that the Messiah should come of forsake him, he will cast thee of
another family,] Psa. Ixxxix, 30, for ever. Take heed now, &c,
&c. 1 Chron. xxviii, 9.
Thus saith the Lord, &c, O And the Spirit of God came upon
Israel, fear not ; for I have re- Azariah, and he went out to meet
deemed thee : I have called thee Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye
by thy name, thou art mine. When me, Asa, and all Judah ; the Lord
thou passest through the waters, I is with you while ye be with him ;
will be with thee ; and through the and if ye seek him, he will be found
rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; of you ; but if ye forsake him, he
when thou walkest through the fire,
thou shalt not be burnt, &c, Isa.
xliii, 1, 2.
will forsake you, 2 Chron. xv, 1, 2.
* When Isaiah saith, " I was found of them that sought me not," &c, Rom. x, 23,
he does not contradict his own exhortation, to " seek the Lord while he may be
found." That noble testimony to the doctrine of grace does not militate against
the doctrine of liberty : but it proves, (1.) That free grace is always beforehand
with free will : and (2.) That as God freely called the Jews to the Mosaic co
venant of peculiarity ; so he gratuitously calls the Gentiles to the Christian co
venant of peculiarity; neither Jews nor Gentiles having previously sought that
inestimable favour. But when God has so far revealed himself either to Jew or
Gentile, as to say, " Seek ye my face," wo to him who does not answer in truth
and in lime, " Thy face, Lord, will I seek."
142
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
All the promises of God in him Remember whence thou art fall-
[Christ] are Yea, and in him Amen, en, repent, and do thy first works,
2 Cor. i, 20. [And so are all the or else I will remove thy candle,
menaces, for he is " the faithful stick. I will fight with the sword
Witness," and "the Mediator of of my mouth against them that held
the new covenant," which has its
threatenings, as well as its promises ;
as appears from the opposite words
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. I
will kill her children with death. I
will spue thee out of my mouth.
[Awful threatenings these, which
had their public and national, as
well as private and personal accom
plishment,] Rev. ii, 5, 15, 16, 23 ;
iii, 16.
As truly as I live, saith the Lord,
show to the heirs of promise [i. e. &c, your carcasses shall fall in this
to obedient believers] the immuta- wilderness ; and all that, &c, have
bility of his counsel, confirmed it murmured against me, doubtless ye
by an oath ; that by two immutable shall not come into the land, con-
things [the word and oath of the cerning which / sware to make you
Lord] in which it was impossible dwell therein, save Caleb and Josh-
for God to lie, we might have a ua, &c. Ye shall bear your ini-
strong consolation, who have fled quities, &c, and ye shall know my
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope breach of promise, Numbers xiv,
spoken by Christ himself.]
God willing more abundantly to
set before us, Heb. vi, 17, 18.
And thou shalt call his
name
28-34.
My mother
and my brethren
JESUS, for he shall save his people [that is, my people] are these, who
from their sins, Matt, i, 21 hear the word of God, and keep it,
Matt, xii, 50. I will destroy [my
backsliding] people, since they re-
turn not, Jer. xv, 7.
But if thine heart turn away, so
that thou wilt not hear, &c, I de
nounce unto you this day, that ye
shall surely perish, Deut. xxx, 17, 18. Indeed, the hand of the Lord
was against them [when they disobeyed] to destroy them, &c, until they
were consumed, Deut. ii, 15. Now all these things, &c, are written
for our admonition, 1 Cor. x, 11.
1 will take you to me for a peo
ple, and be to you a God, Exod. vi, 7.
I.
II.
The Lord thy God hath chosen And the Lord spake to Moses,
thee to be a special people unto saying, Get you up from among this
himself. He brought forth his peo- congregation [this special, chosen
pie with joy, and his chosen with people'] that I may consume them
gladness, Deut. xiv, 2 ; Psa. cv, 43. in a moment, Num. xvi, 45.
Thou [my unfaithful people]
hadst a whore's forehead : thou re-
fusedst to be ashamed, Jer. iii, 3.
The work of righteousness shall Every one of the house of Is-
be peace, quietness, and assurance rael, that separateth himself from
for ever ; and my people shall dwell me, saith the Lord, I will cut him
in a peaceable habitation, and in off from the midst of my people.
My [faithful] people shall never
be ashamed, Joel ii, 27.
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
143
I.
sure dwellings, and in quiet resting Ezek. xiv, 7.
places, Isa. xxxii, 17, 18,
The eternal God is thy refuge;
and underneath are the everlasting
arms, &c. Israel shall dwell in
safety alone, &c. Happy art thou,
O Israel ! Who is like unto thee,
O people saved by the Lord, the
II.
There is no peace
to the wicked, Isa. Ivii, 21.
That the house of Israel may go
no more astray from me, &c, but
that they may be my people, Ezek.
xiv, 11. Obey my voice, and ye
shall be my people, Jer. vii, 23.
Wo unto them [Israel and Ephrairn]
shield of thy help ? Deut. xxxiii, for they have fled from me ; de-
27, &c.
The Lord will pity his people,
Joel ii, 18.
struction unto them, because thev
have transgressed against me. They
return not to the Most High, Hos.
vii, 13, 16.
The Lord shall judge his people,
Heb. x, 30. Judgment must begin
at the house of God, 1 Pet. iv, 17.
Ye are a chosen [choice] gene
ration, &c, which in time past were
not a people, but are now the peo-
Hath God [absolutely] cast away
his people [the Jews?] God forbid!
God has not cast away his people,
whom he foreknew [as believing, pie of God ; which had not obtain-
The Jews being as welcome to be- ed mercy, but now have obtained
mercy [by believing,] 1 Pet. ii, 9,
10.
Therefore, the children of Israel
lieve in Christ as the Gentiles,]
Rom. xi, 1, 2.
Zion said, The Lord hath for
saken me, and my Lord hath for
gotten me. Can a woman forget mies, &c, because they were ac-
her sucking child, that she should cursed ; neither will I be with you
not have compassion on the son of any more [said the Lord] except ye
her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet destroy the accursed thing from
will I not forget thee, Isa. xlix, 14,15. among you, Josh, vii, 12.
Jesus having loved his own [dis- I will call her beloved, who was
ciples] he loved them unto the end not beloved. Jesus loved him, [the
[of his stay in this world, except young ruler, who went away sor
him that was once " his own fami
liar friend, in whom he trusted,"
could not stand before their ene-
Judas, whom our Lord himself ex-
cepts, John xvii, 12 ;] John xiii, 1.
I have loved thee with an everlastin,
rowing.] I will love them no more,
Rom. ix, 24; Mark x, 21; Hos.
ix, 15.
love, [or with the love with which
I loved thee of old, when I brought thee out of Egypt,] therefore, with
loving kindness have I drawn thee, Jer. xxxi, 3. [Compare the word
everlasting in the original, with these words, " When Israel was a child,
then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt," Hos. xi, 1.]
1.
II.
Truly God is good to Israel, Psa. Even to such as are of a clean
Ixxiii, 1. This God is our God for heart. (Ibid.) Depart from evil, do
ever and ever ; he will be our guide good, and dwell for evermore. Bind
even unto death, Psa. xlviii, 24. mercy and truth about thy neck,
&c, so shalt thou find favour, &c,
in the sight of God and man, Psa.
xxxviii, 27 ; Prov. iii, 3. 4.
144
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
II.
Who shall lay any thing to the
charge of God's elect ? [them that
** are in Christ, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit."] It
is God that justifieth ; who is he
that condemneth them? Rom. viii,
1, 33, 34.
All things are yours [ye Corinth,
ians] and ye are Christ's and Christ
is God's. Of him are ye in Christ
Jesus, 1 Cor. iii, 21 ; i, 30.
To them that are sanctified by
God the Father, and preserved in
Jesus Christ, and called [to enjoy
the blessings of his Gospel,] Jude 1 .
If we believe not, yet he obi-
deth faithful ; he cannot deny
himself, 2 Tim. ii, 13. [There-
fore]
Except the Lord Jceep the city,
the watchman waketh but in vain,
Psa. cxxvii, 1.
He [the Lord] led him [Jacob]
about, &c, he kept him as the apple
of his eye. As an eagle fluttereth
over her young, taketh them, bear-
eth them on her wings ; so the
Lord alone did lead him, Deut.
xxxii, 10-12.
Holy Father, Jceep through thy
own name those whom thou hast
given me, [that I may impart unto
them the peculiar blessings of my
dispensation,] John xvii, 11.
You who are kept by the power
of God unto salvation, ready to
be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet.
i, 5.
I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, &c, nor angels, &c,
nor any other creature [Note : he
does not say, Nor any iniquity']
shall be able 1o separate us from the
[No righteous judge will :] for to
be spiritually minded is life and
peace ; but to be carnally minded
is death, verse 6. Whosoever hath
sinned against me, said the Lord,
him will I blot out of my book,
Exod. xxxii, 33.
Examine yourselves [ye Corinth-
ians] whether ye be in the faith,
&c. Know ye not, &c, that Christ
is in you, except ye be reprobates ?
2 Cor. xiii, 5.
To them, who by patient contin
uance in well doing, seek for glo
ry, honour, and immortality, [God
will render] eternal life, Rom. ii, 7.
If we deny him, he will also
deny us: [for he abideth faithful
to his threatenings, as well as to
his promises,] ver. 12.
I say unto all, Watch. Watch
thou in all things. He that is
begotten of God Jceepeth himself,
Mark xiii, 37 ; 2 Tim. iv, 5 ; 1
John v, 18.
There was no strange god with
him [Jacob.] But, &c, they for-
sook God, &c, sacrificed to devils,
&c, and when the Lord saw it,
. he abhorred them ; [and said] I
will spend mine arrows upon them,
verses 12, 15, 17, 19, 23.
Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Little children, keep your
selves from idols. Fathers, &c,
love not the world, &c. If any
[of you] love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. [He
is fallen from God in spirit,] Jude
21 ; 1 John v, 21 ; ii, 15.
Through faith [en your part.]
(Ibid.) Holding faith, and a good
conscience, which some having put
away, concerning FAITH, have
made shipwreck, 1 Tim. i, 19.
Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, Isa.
lix, 2. I so run (for an incor
ruptible crown) not as uncertainly :
so fight I, not as one that beateth
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
145
I.
love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord, Rom. viii, 38.
I know whom I have believed,
II.
the air : but I keep my body
under, &c, lest that by any means
I myself should be a castaway, 01
a reprobate, 1 Cor. ix, 26, 27.
There is no respect of persons
and I am persuaded that he is able with God. Thou partakest of the
to keep that which I have commit- root of the olive tree, &c, some of
ted unto him against that day, 2 the branches are broken off, &c.
Tim. i, 12.
Boast not thyself against them,
&c. By unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith, &c,
fear, &c, lest he also spare not thee, Rorn. ii, 11; xi, 17, &c. Give
all diligence to add to your faith virtue, dec, for if ye do these things,
ye shall never fall, 2 Pet. i, 5, 10.
I.
II.
In all these things we are more I have kept the faith ; — for I
than conquerors, through him that have kept the ways of the Lord,
loved us, Rom. viii, 37. and have not wickedly departed
from my God, 2 Tim. iv, 7 ; Psa.
xviii, 21.
Moreover, whom he did predes- Many are called [to believe] but
tinate [that is, appoint to be con- few are chosen [to the rewards of
formed to the image of his Son, faith,] Matt, xxii, 14. O thou
according to the Christian dispen- wicked servant, I forgave thee all
sation] them he also called [to that debt [that is, I justified thee,]
believe in Christ ;] and whom he because -thou desiredst me, &c.
thus called [to believe in Christ,
when they made their calling sure
shouldst thou not also have hail
compassion on thy fellow servant,
by actually believing,] them he also even as I had pity on thee ? And
justified ; and whom he justified
\as sinners bv FAITH, and as
his Lord was wroth, and delivered
him to the tormentors, Matt, xviii,
believers by THE WORKS of faith] 32, &c. He that despised Moses'
them he also glorified, Rom. viii, law, died without mercy, &c, of
30. By one offering he hath
perfected for ever [in atoning
merits] them that are sanctified,
Heb. x, 14. [Here we have a brief
account of the method in which
how much sorer punishment shall he
be thought worthy, who hath count
ed the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an
unholy thing ! Heb. x, 29. Ye
God brings obedient, persevering [believers] shall be hated of all
believers to glory. But what has men, &c, but he [of you] that
this to do with Zelotes' personal endureth to the end, shall be [eter-
and unconditional predestination to nally] saved, Matt, x, 22. (For
will
eternal life, or to eternal death?
To show therefore that the sense
God) will render eternal life to
them, who by patient continuance
which he ^ives to these passages in well doing seek for glory, Rom.
is erroneous, I need only prove ii, 7.
that all those who are called are
not justified : and that all those who are justified, and sanctified, are not
glorified ; but only those who make their calling, election, justification,
sanctification, and glorification sure by the obedience of faith unto the
end. And I prove it by the opposite scriptures.]
VOL. II. 10
146 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Can any unprejudiced person read the preceding passages without
seeing, (1.) That, according to the Scriptures, and the Gospel axioms,
our perseverance is suspended on two grand causes, the first, of
which is merciful free grace, and the second faithful free will.
(2.) That those two causes must finally act in conjunction. And (3.)
That when free grace hath enabled free will to concur, and to work out
its own salvation, if free will obstinately refuse to do it till the night
comes when no man can work, free grace gives up free will to its own
perverseness ; and then perseverance fails, and final apostasy takes
place.
SECTION II.
The important doctrine of perseverance is farther weighed in the Scrip
ture Scales.
THE scriptures produced in the preceding section might convince an
impartial reader that Zelotes and Honestus are both in the wrong with
respect to the doctrine of perseverance, and that a Bible Christian holds
together the doctrines which they keep asunder. But considering that
prejudice is not easily convinced ; and fearing lest Zelotes and Hones
tus should both think they have won the day, the one against free will,
and the other against free grace, merely because they can quote,
behind each other's back, some passages which I have not yet balanced,
and which each will think matchless ; I shall give them leave to fight it
out before Candidus, reminding him that Zelotes produces No. I. against
free v/ill ; that Honestus produces No. II. against free grace ; arid that
I produce both number's to show that our free will must concur with
God's free grace, in order to our persevering in the faith and in the
obedience of faith.
I. II.
A vineyard of red wine. I the I had planted thee a noble vine,
Lord do keep it : I will water it wholly a right seed. How then
every moment : lest any hurt it, I art thou turned into the degenerate
will keep it night and day, Isa. plant of a strange vine unto me?
xxvii, 2, 3. &c. Thou saidst, &c, I have loved
strangers, and after them I will go,
Jer. ii, 21, 25. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that
I have not done in it ? Wherefore, when I looked that" it should bring
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ? And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard, &c ; I will lay it waste, &c, and com-
rnand the clouds that they rain no rain upon it, Isa. v, 4, 5, 6.
I. II.
The Lord God of Israel saith, Backsliding Israel, &c, hath
that he hateth putting away, Mai. played the harlot. And I said, &c,
ii. 16. (And yet he allows it for Turn thou unto me : but she return.
the cause of fornication, Matt, v, ed not ; and her treacherous sister
32.) Judah saw it. And I saw, when,
for — adultery, I had put her away,
and given her a bill of divorcement ;
yet her treacherous sister Judah
feared not, Jer. iii, 6, 7, 8.
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
147
I.
The righteous shall never be
moved, Prov. x, 30.
The mountains shall depart, &c,
but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant
of" my peace be removed, saith the
Lord, Isa. liv, 10.
II.
I marvel that ye are so soon re
moved from him that called you.
Unto the wicked, God saith,
What hast thou to do to declare my
statutes, or that thou shouldst take
my covenant in thy mouth? Psa.
1, 16. O Israel, if thou wilt put
away thy abominations out of my
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned ;
My God will cast them away, be-
sight, thou shalt not remove, Jer. iv, 1
therefore she is removed, Lam. i, 8.
cause they did not hearken unto him, Hos. ix, 17.
I.
They that trust in the Lord shall
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be bernacle ? He that walketh upright.
removed, but abideth for ever. As ly, and u-orketh righteousness, &c.
the mountains are round about Je
rusalem, so the Lord is round about
II.
Lord, who shall abide in thy ta-
his people, from henceforth, even
for ever, Psa. cxxv, 1, 2.
He that does these things shall never
be moved, Psalm xv, 1, 2, 5. Abide
in me, and I [will abide] in you,
John xv, 4. He that dwelleth in
the secret place of the Most High,
[thou, Lord, art my hiding place, Psa. xxxii, 7,] shall abide under the
shadow of the Almighty, Psa. xci, 1. He that does the will of God
abideth for ever, 1 John ii, 17. Draw out thy soul to the hungry, &c,
and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and, &c, thou shalt be like a
spring of water, whose waters fail not, Isa. Iviii, 10, 11.
I.
II.
The Lord will speak peace unto
his people, and to his saints, Psalm
l.vxxv, 8. Peace shall be upon Is
rael, Psa. cxxv, 5. For Christ is
our peace, Eph. ii, 14.
O continue thy loving kindness
unto them that know thee.
Be diligent, that you may be found
of him in peace. If the house be
worthy, let your peace come upon
it. As many as walk according to
this rule, [i. e. as become new crea
tures,] peace be on them, and mercy,
2 Pet. iii, 14; Matt, x, 13 ; Gal.
vi, 15, 16.
And thy righteousness to the up
right in heart, Psa. xxxvi, 10. He
[the apostate] flattereth himself in
his own eyes, &c, he hath left off to be wise, and to do good, &c. He
setteth himself in a way that is not good, he abhorreth not evil, &c.
There are the workers of iniquity fallen, &c, and shall not be able to
rise, verses 2, 3, 4, 12. Whoso continueth in the perfect law of liberty,
he being a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed, James i, 25.
They went out from us, but [in general] they were not of us [lhat con
tinue in the perfect law of liberty.] For had they been of us [that are
still doers of the work] they would no doubt have continued with us : [the
Gnostics, or Antinomians, would not have been able to draw so many
over to their pernicious ways, or tenets, 2 Pet. ii, &c.] But they went
out [they joined the Antinomians] that they might be made manifest, that
they were not all of us, [i. e. that in general their heart had departed
from the Lord, and from us ; they of late being of us, more by profession
148
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
than by possession of the faith which works by obedient love,] 1 John
ii, 19.
St. John says tliey were not all of us, to leave room for some excep
tions. For as we are persuaded that many, who have gone over to the
Solifidians in our days, are still of us that are doers of the work, so St.
John did not doubt but some, who had been seduced by the primitive
Antinomians, see verse 26, continued to obey the perfect law of liberty,
which the Nicolaitans taught them to decry. May we, after his example,
be always ready to make a proper distinction between the Solifidians
that are of us, and those that are not of us ! That is, between those who
still keep Christ's commandments, and those who break them with as
little ceremony as they break a ceremonious " rule of life," or burden-
some rule of civility.
I.
II.
Let them that suffer according to In well doing. (Ibid.) Say ye to
the will of God, commit the keeping the righteous, that it shall be well
of tJieir souls to God, dec, as unto a with them, for they shall eat the fruit
faithful Creator, 1 Pet. iv, 19.
of their doings, Isa. iii, 10.
I will betroth thee unto me for If ye have not been faithful in the
ever, &c. I will even betroth thee unrighteous mammon, (that which
unto me in faithfulness. The Lord is least,) who will commit unto you
is faithful who shall establish you, the true riches ? Luke xvi, 1 1 . He
and keep you from evil. To him made his own people to go forth
that is able to keep you from falling, like sheep, and guided them like a
and to present you faultless before flock. And he led them on safely,
the presence of his glory with ex- so that they feared not, &c. Yet
ceeding joy, Hos. ii, 19, 20 ;
Thess. iii, 3 ; Jude 24.
The earth which beareth thorns,
they kept not his testimonies ; but
turned back and dealt unfaithfully.
&c. When God heard this, he,
&c, greatly abhorred Israel : so that
he forsook the tabernacle, dec, which
he had placed among men, &c, Psa.
Ixxviii, 52, &c.
For, dec, ye have ministered to
is rejected ; and, dec, its end is to the saints, and do minister : [so that,
be burned. But, beloved, we are in the judgment of charity, which
persuaded better things of you, and " hopeth all things," especially
things which accompany salvation, where there are favourable appear-
though we thus speak, Heb. vi, 8, 9. ances, it is right in me to hope the
best of you, nor will I suspect you,
till you give me cause so to do. However, remember that] if we sin
wilfully, &c, there remaineth [for us,] &c, a fearful looking for of judg
ment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries [that is,
apostates,] Heb. vi, 10 ; x, 26, 27.
1.
II.
I arn confident of this very thing, It is meet for me to think this of
that he who has begun a good work you all, because I have you in my
in you, will perform it until the day heart [and charity hopeth all things]
of Jesus Christ, Phil, i, 6. inasmuch as in my bonds, &c, ye
are partakers of my grace, — ye
have always obeyed, Phil, i, 7 ; ii, 12. [Thus spake the apostle to those
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCA.LES.
149
who continued to obey. But to his disobedient converts he wrote in a
different strain :] O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you
should not obey the truth 1 Have ye suffered so many things in vain ?
I desire now to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you, Gal. iii, 1,
4 ; iv, 20.
I.
II.
The Lord is my rock, and my My defence is of God, who
fortress, and my deliverer ; my saveth the upright in heart, Psa. vii,
God, my strength, in whom I will 10. Do good, O Lord, to those
trust, my buckler, and the horn of that are good and upright in their
hearts : as for such as turn asiae
unto their crooked ways, the Lord
shall lead them forth with the work
ers of iniquity, Psa. cxxv, 4, 5.
Thus saith the Lord God, I will
and cause you [so far as is coo- yet for this be inquired of by the
sistent with your moral agency] house of Israel, to do it for them,
to walk in my statutes, and ye Ezek. xxxvi, 37. Ye stiff necked,
shall (or will) keep my judgments &c, ye do always resist the Holy
my salvation, and my high tower,
Psa. xvii, 2.
I will put my Spirit within you,
and do them, Ezek. xxxvi, 27.
Israel shall be saved in the Lord
with an everlasting salvation, Isa. neglect so great salvation ? Heb.
Ghost, as your fathers did, Acts vii,
51.
How shall we escape, if
we
xlv, 17.
O Lord, save me, and I shall be
saved, for thou art my praise, Jer.
ii, 3. Remember Lot's wife, Luke
xvii, 32.
Thy faith hath saved thee, Luke
vii, 50. Ye are saved, if ye keep
xvii, 14. Salvation is of the Lord, [in memory and practice] what I
Jonah ii, 9.
The foundation of God standeth
have preached unto you, 1 Cor.
xv, 2.
And let every one that nameth
sure, having this seal, The Lord the name of Christ, depart from in-
knoweth them that are his, 2 Tim.
ii, 19.
iquity. (Ibid.) Now if any man
have not the Spirit of God, he is
none of his, Rom. viii, 9. His pe
culiar people (being) a holy nation, zealous of good works, 1 Pet. ii, 9 ;
Tit. ii, 14. Be zealous, therefore, and repent ; (or) I will spue thee
out of my mouth, Rev. iii, 19, 16.
I.
II.
Thou wilt perform the truth to I will perform the oath which 1
Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, sware unto Abraham thy father,
which thou hast sworn to our fa- &c, because that Abraham obeyed
thers from the days of old. To my voice, and kept my charge, my
perform the mercy promised to our commandments, my statutes, and
fathers, and to remember his holy my laws, Gen. xxvi, 3, 5. Thus
covenant and the oath which he says the Lord God of Israel, Cursed
be the man that obeycth not the words
of this covenant, which I com
manded your fathers, (in the day
that I brought them forth from the iron furnace,) saying, Obey my
voice and do them, so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God ;
sware to our father Abraham, Mi-
cah vii, 20 ; Luke i, 72.
150
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
that / may perform the oath which I Jiave sworn to your fathers, Jer. xi,
3,4,5.
I.
II.
Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life,
Psa. xxiii, 6.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
and ten thousand at thy right hand :
but it shall not come nigh thee, Psa.
xci, 7.
My sheep [obedient believers]
hear my voice, and I know [ap
prove] them, and they follow me :
and I give unto them eternal life, and
they shall never perish, neither
shall any pluck them out of my Fa
ther's hand, John x, 27, &c.
If thou continue in his goodness.
Holding faith and a good con
science, which some having put
away, concerning faith, have made
shipwreck, Rom. xi, 22 ; 1 Tim. i,
18, 19.
Because thou hast made the
Most High thy habitation. Be
cause he hath set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him, verses
9, 14.
The Lord preserveth the faith-
ful, &c. Be of good courage, and
he shall strengthen your heart, all
ye that hope in the Lord, Psa. xxxi,
23, 24. If ye will fear the Lord,
and obey his voice, and not rebel
against his commandment, then
shall ye continue following the Lord
your God. But if ye will not obey, &c, then shall the hand of the Lord
be against you. Only serve him in truth, with all your heart : for con
sider how great things he has done for you. But if ye shall still do
wickedly, ye shall be consumed, 1 Sam. xii, 14, 15, 24, 25. [Lest
Samuel's testimony should be rejected as unevangelical, I produce that of
Christ himself ; hoping that Zelotes will allow our Lord to understand
his own Gospel.] Bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. As
the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you : continue in my love. If ye
keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have kept my
Father's commandments, and abide in his love, John xv, 8, &c. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away — and they are
burned, John xv, 2, 6.
1.
II.
There shall arise false christs,
and shall show great signs, inso
much that (if it were possible) they
shall deceive tf\avv)ffai [lead into
error] the very elect, Matt, xxiv,
24.
They shall deceive many. Take
heed that no man deceive you,
ver. 4, 5. They, (that cause divi
sions,) by good words deceive the
hearts of the simple, Rom. xvi, 18.
[Query : are all the simple believers
whom party men deceive, very re
probates ?] I have espoused you to Christ, &c. But I fear, lest bv
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, so your minds should be cor
rupted, 2 Cor. xi, 2, 3. They have been deceived, (or have erred) from
the faith (atfStfXavT^tfocv, the very word used by our Lord, and strength
ened by a preposition,) 1 Tim. vi, 10. [When Zelotes supposes that,
the clause (if it were possible) necessarily implies an impossibility,
does he not make himself ridiculous before those who know the Sci%>-
tures ? That expression, if it were 'possible, is used only on four other occa
sions ; and in each of them it notes great difficulty, but by no means an
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 151
impossibility. Take only two instances : " If it were possible, ye would
have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me," Gal. iv,
15. "Paul hasted to be at Jerusalem on the day of pentecost, if it
were possible for him," Acts xx, 16. Now is it not evident, either that
Paul wanted common sense, if he hasted to do what could not absolutely
be done ; or that the expression, if it were possible, implies no impossi
bility ? And is not this a proof that Calvinism can now deceive Zelotes,
as easily as the tempter formerly deceived Aaron, David, Solomon, De-
mas, and Judas in the matter of the golden calf, Uriah, Milcom, and
mammon ?
I. II.
I have prayed for thee, that thy I know thy works, &c, thou hold-
faith fail not, Luke xxii, 49. est fast my name, and hast not de-
That Peter's faith failed for a nied my faith [as Peter did.] Hav-
time is evident from the following ing damnation because they have
observations : (1.) " Faith without cast off their first faith, Rev. ii, 13 ;
works is dead ;" much more faith 1 Tim. v, 12. Which [a good
with lying, cursing, and the repeat- conscience, the believer's most pre-
ed denial of Christ. (2.) Our Sa- cious jewel, next to Christ] some
viour himself said to his disciples, having put away, concerning faith
after a far less grievous fall, " How have made shipwreck, 1 Tim. i, 19.
is it that you have no faith ?" Mark Without faith it is impossible to
iv, 40. (3.) His adding immedi- please God. The just shall live by
ately, " When thou art converted, faith, but if he draw back [i. e. if
strengthen thy brethren," shows he make shipwreck of faith] my
that Peter would stand in need of soul shall have no pleasure in him,
conversion, and consequently of Heb. xi, 6; x, 38. If any [be-
iiving, converting faith ; for as by liever] provide not for his own, &c,
destructive unbelief we depart from he hath denied the faith, and is
God, so by living faith we are con- worse than an infidel, 1 Tim. v, 8.
verted to him. Hence it is evident
that if Christ prayed that Peter's faith might not fail at all, he prayed
conditionally ; and that upon Peter's refusing to watch and pray, which
was the condition particularly mentioned by our Lord, Christ's prayer
was no more answered than that which he soon after put up, about his
not drinking the bitter cup, and about the forgiveness of his revilers and
murderers. But if our Lord prayed (as seems most likely) that Peter's
faith might not fail, or die like that of Judas, i. e. in such a' manner as
never to come to life again, then his prayer was perfectly answered :
for the candle of Peter's faith, which a sudden blast of temptation (and
not the extinguisher of malicious, final obstinacy) had put out — Peter's
faith, I say, like the smoking flax, caught again the flame of truth and
love, and shone to the enlightening of thousands on the day of pentecost,
as well as to the conversion of his own soul that very night. However,
from our Lord's prayer, Zelotes concludes that true faith can never fail,
in opposition to the scriptures which fill the opposite scale ; yea, and to
reason, which pronounces that our Lord was too wise to spend his last
moments in asking that a thing might not happen, which, if we believe
Zelotes, could not possibly happen.
I. II.
God, even our Father, who hath If ye will not believe, ye shall
252
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I.
loved us, and given us everlasting
consolation, dec, stablish you in
every good word and work, 2
Thess. ii, 16, 17. He who esta-
II
not be established, Isa. vii, 9. God
preserveth not the life of the
wicked, dec. He withdraweth not
his eyes from the righteous, dec.
blishes us with you in Christ, &c, He showeth them their work, and
is God, 2 Cor. i, 21. their transgressions, dec. He open-
eth also their ear to discipline, and
commandeth that they return from iniquity. If they obey and serve
him, they will spend their days in prosperity, dec. But if they obey
not, they shall perish, dec, and die without knowledge, Job xxxvi, 6-12.
I.
II.
Christ shall also confirm you un
to the end, that ye may be blame
less, dec. God is faithful, by whom
ye were called unto the fellowship
of his Son, 1 Cor. i, 8, 9.
Know ye not that ye are the
temple of God 1 dec. If any [of
you] defile the temple of God, him
will God destroy, hi, 16, 17. If
thy right eye offend thee, pluck it
out ; for it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body
should be cast into hell, Matt, v, 29. Destroy not him with thy meat,
for whom Christ died. For meat destroy not the work of God [in] thy
brother, who stumbleth, or is offended, Rom. xiv, 15, 20. 21. The
Lord having saved the people, dec, afterward destroyed them that be
lieved not, Jude 5. They did all drink, dec, of that spiritual rock
which followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of
them God was not well pleased ; for they, dec, were destroyed of the
destroyer, 1 Cor. x, 4, 5, 10. They were broken off because of un
belief, and thou standest by faith, dec, continue in his goodness, other
wise thou also shalt be cut off, Rom. ix, 20, 22. Through thy knowledge
shall thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died, dec. Wherefore,
if meat make my brother to stumble [and so to perish] I will eat no
flesh while the world standeth, 1 Cor. viii, 11, 13. There shall be
false teachers among you, dec, who, denying the Lord that bought them,
shall bring upon themselves swift destruction. These shall utterly perish
in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness,
&c. Cursed children, who have forsaken the right way, 2 Pet. ii, 1,
12, 15. See also the scriptures quoted in page 82.
1.
II.
He hath said, I will never leave My people have committed two
thee, nor forsake thee: so that [in evils, they have forsaken me, dec.
the way of duty] we may boldly I will even forsake you, saith the
say, The Lord is my helper, Heb.
xiii, 5, 6. (I add, in the way of
duty, because God made that pro
mise originally to Joshua, who knew
Lord, Jer. ii, 13 ; xxiii, 33. The
destruction of the transgressors and
of the sinners shall be together,
and they that forsake the Lord
God's breach of promise, when shall be consumed, dec, and they
Achan stepped out of the way of
duty. Compare Josh, i, 5, with
Josh, vii, 12, and Num. xiv, 34.)
Then the devil taketh him up
into the holy city, and setteth him
shall both burn together, and none
shall quench them, Isa. i, 28, 31.
Jesus said, It is written again,
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 153
I. II.
on a pinnacle of the temple, and God, Matt, iv, 7. Neitner let us
saith unto him. If thou be the Son tempt Christ, as some of them also
[or child] of God, cast thyself tempted, and were destroyed of
down: for it is written, He shall serpents, 1 Cor. x, 9.
give his angels charge concerning Who can tell how many have
thee, &c, [not only lest thou fall been destroyed by dangerous er-
finally, but also] lest thou dash thy rors, which after insinuating them-
foot against a stone, Matt, iv, 5, 6 : selves into the bosom of the simple,
Psa. xci, 11, 12. by means of their smoothness and
How wisely does the tempter fine colours, drop there a mortal
quote Scripture, when he wants to poison, that too often breaks out in
inculcate the absolute preservation virulent expressions, or in practices
of the saints ! Can Zelotes find a worthy of Mr. Fulsome ?
litter passage to support their un
conditional perseverance ? It is true, however, that he never quotes it
in favour of his doctrine : for who cares to plough with such a heifer ?
(Fcenum hctbet in cornu.) Therefore, though she is as fit for the work
as most of those which he does it with ; he never puts her to his
plough, no, not when he makes the most crooked furrows. Should it
be asked why the devil did not encourage Christ to throw himself down,
by giving him some hints that a grievous fall would humble him, would
make him sympathize with the iallen, would drive him nearer to God,
would give him an opportunity to shout louder the praises of preserving
grace, &c, I reply, that the tempter was too wise to show so openly
the cloven foot of his doctrine ; too decent not to save appearances ,
too judicious to imitate Zelotes.
SECTION III.
What thoughts our Lord, St. John, St. Paul, and St. James entertained
of fallen believers — A parallel between the backsliders delineated by
St. Peter, and those who are described by St. Jude — A horrible de
struction awaits them, for denying the Lord that bought them, and for
turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.
IT is impossible to do the doctrine of perseverance justice, without
considering what Christ and the apostles say of apostates. Even in
their days the number of falling and fallen believers was so great, that
a considerable part of the last epistles seems to be nothing but a charge
against apostates, an attempt to reclaim Pharisaic and Antinomian
backsliders, and a warning to those who yet stood, not to " fall away
after the same example of unbelief and conformity to this present world."
Begin we by an extract from Christ's epistles to the Churches 01
Asia. Though the " Ephesians hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans," yet,
after St. Paul's death, they so far inclined to lukewarmriess, that they
brought upon themselves the following reproof: — " I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, there
fore, whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, or else
I will remove thy candlestick." The Church at Pergamos was not in
154 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
a better condition; witness the severe charge that follows: "Thou
hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a
stumbling block before the children of Israel, &c, to commit fornica
tion. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will fight against thee with the
sword of my mouth." The contagion reached the faithful Church of
Thyatira, as appears from these words :— « Thou sufferest that woman
Jezebel to seduce my servants to commit fornication. But unto, &c, as
many as have not this doctrine, and have not known the depths of Sa
tan, I will put upon you none other burden." In Sardis « a few names
only had not defiled their garments ;" the generality of Christians there
had, it seems, « a name to live and were dead :" but the fall of the
Laodiceans was universal. Before they suspected it, they had all, it
seems, shdden back into the smooth, downward road that leads to hell.
" I know thy works," says Christ, « I would thou wert cold or hot. So
then, because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
Like those who stand complete merely in notions of imputed righteous.
ness, « thou sayest, lam rich, $c, and have need of nothing ; and knowest
not that thou art wretched, and poor, and blind, and naked," Rev. ii, 3.
Can we read this sad account of the declension and falling away of
the saints without asking the following questions: (1.) If backsliding and
apostasy were the bane of the primitive Church, according to our Lord's
doctrine ; and if he did not promise to any of those backsliders that vic
torious, almighty grace would certainly bring them back ; what can we
think of Zelotes' doctrine, which promises infallible perseverance, and
insures finished salvation to every backsliding, apostatizing believer? (2.)
f the primitive Church, newly collected by the Spirit, and sprinkled
by the blood of Christ, guided by apostolic preachers, preserved by the
salt of persecution, and guarded by miraculous powers, through which
apostates could be " given to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,"
(witness the case of Ananias, Sapphira, and the incestuous Corinthian :)
if the primitive Church, I say, with all these advantages, was in such
danger by the falling away of the saints, as to require all those reproofs
and threatenings from Christ himself; is it not astonishing that whole
bodies of Protestant believers should rise in our degenerate days to such
a pitch of unscriptural assurance, as to promise themselves, and one
another, absolute, infallible perseverance in the Divine favour? And (3.)
[f the apostate Nicolas, once " a man of honest report, full of the Hol'y
Ghost and wisdom," but afterward (it seems) the ringleader of the Nico
laitans ;— if Nicolas, I say, went about to « lay a stumbling block before"
Christians, by teaching them that fornication would never endanger
their finished salvation; does Zelotes mend the matter, when he
insinuates withal, that fornication, yea, adultery, and, if need be, mur
der, will do Christians good, and even answer ~the most excellent ends
for them ?
Consider we next what were St. John's thoughts of A ntinomian apos
tates. He had such a sight of the mischief which their doctrine did,
and would do in the Church, that he declares, " This is LOVE, that we
walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, that ye have
heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. For many deceivers
are entered into the world, who confess not [practical! y]* that Jesus
THIRD. J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 135
Christ is come in the flesh," to destroy the works of the devil ; who deny
Christ in his holy doctrine ; and among other dangerous absurdities will
even give you broad hints that you may commit adultery and murder
without ceasing to be God's dear children. But believe them not. "Look
to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought.
Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the [practical] doctrine of
Christ, hath not God, &c. If there come any unto you, and bring
not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God
speed," 2 John, 6-10. Again : " He that saith, I know hitn, and keep-
eth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. These
things have I written unto you, concerning them that seduce you, 1 John
ii, 4, 26. Little children, let no man deceive you : he that does right,
eousness is righteous, &c. He that committeth sin is of the devil, &c.
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil,"
1 John hi, 7, &c.
When, in the text quoted above, St. John says, " They went out from
us, but they were not all of us," what a fine opportunity had he of add
ing, "If they are elect they will INFALLIBLY come back to us." But,
as he believed not the modern " doctrines of grace," he says nothing
either for Calvin's reprobation, or Dr. Crisp's election. Nor does he
drop the least hint about a " day of God's power," in which changeless
love was infallibly to bring back one of all those backsliders, to make
him sing louder the praises of free, sovereign, victorious grace.
Although I have frequently mentioned St. Paul's thoughts concerning
fallen believers, I am persuaded that the reader will not be sorry to see
them balanced with St. James' sentiments on the same subject.
I. II.
St. Paul's account of St. James1 account of
BACKSLIDERS. UNFAITHFUL BELIEVERS.
Alexander the coppersmith (who My brethren, &c, if., there come
was once a zealous Christian, see unto your assembly a man in goodly
Acts xix, 33,) did me much evil ; apparel, and also a poor man in
the Lord reward him according to vile raiment, and ye have respect
his works. No man [i. e. 77,0 be- to him that weareth the gay cloth-
liever] stood with me ; but all for- ing, &c, are ye not partial? &c.
sook me : I pray God that it may But ye have despised the poor, &c.
not be laid to their charge, 2 Tim. If ye have respect to persons ye
iv, 14, 16. I fear lest, when I come, commit sin, &c, for whosoever [of
I shall not find you such as I would you] shall keep the whole law, and
— lest there be debates, envyings, yet offend in one point, he is guilty
wraths, strifes, backbitings, ^his- of all. From whence come wars
perings, swellings, tumults ; and lest among you ? Come they not even
my God humble me among you, of your lusts? &c. Ye adulterers
and that I shall bewail many who and adulteresses, know ye not that,
have sinned already, and have not &c, whosoever will be a friend of
repented of the imcleanness, and the world, is the enemy of God?
tornication, and lasciviousriess which James ii, 1, &c ; iv, 1, 4.
they have committed, 2 Cor. xii, 20, 21. Not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, &c. For if we sin wil
fully [as they do] there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain
fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour
156
ECiUAL CHECK.
[PART
the adversaries, &c, [especially him] who hath trodden under foot the
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he
was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of
grace, Heb. x, 25, &c. Many [fallen believers] walk, of whom I have
told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of
the cross of Christ ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly
— and who mind earthly things. For all [comparatively speaking] seek
their own, and not the things which are Jesus Christ's, Phil, iii, 18 ; ii, 21.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is a treatise against apostasy, and of
consequence against Calvinian perseverance. As a proof of it, I refer
the reader to a convincing discourse on Heb. ii, 3, published by Mr.
Olivers. The whole Epistle of St. Jude, and the second of St. Peter,
were particularly written to prevent the falling away of the saints, and
to stop the rapid progress of apostasy. The Epistle of St. Jude, and 2
Peter ii, agree so perfectly, that one would think the two apostles had
compared notes : witness the following parallel : —
I. II.
St. Peter's description of ANTING- St. Jude's description of ANTINO-
MIAN APOSTATES. MIAN BACKSLIDERS.
They have for&ken the right
way ; following the way of Balaam,
who loved the wages of unrighteous
ness, 2 Pet. ii, 15.
Spots are they and blemishes,
sporting themselves with their own
deceivings, while they feast with
you, ver. 13.
They walk after the flesh in the
lust of uncleanness, ver. 10.
They speak great swelling words
of vanity, they promise them [whom
they allure] liberty, while they them
selves are the servants of corrup
tion, verses 18, 19.
As natural brute beasts, &c, they
speak evil of the things that they
understand not, [especially of the
perfect law of liberty,'] and shall
utterly perish in their own corrup.
tion, ver. 12.
Wells without water, clouds that
are carried with a tempest — beguil
ing unstable souls — to whom the mist
of darkness is reserved for ever,
verses 14, 17. [How far was St.
Peter from soothing any of those
backsliders by the smooth doctrine
of their necessary infallible return !]
[St. Peter indirectly compares
them to] the angels that sinned
[whom] God spared not, but cast
These be they who separate them
selves. They ran greedily after the
error of Balaam for reward, Jude,
verses 19, 11.
These are spots ift your feasts of
charity, when they feast with you ;
feeding themselves without fear,
verse 12.
Filthy dreamers — walking after
their own lusts, verses 8, 16.
Their mouth speaketh great swell
ing words : — creeping in unawares
[i. e. insinuating themselves into
rich widows' houses] having men's
persons in admiration, verses 4, 16.
These speak evil of those things
which they know not [especially of
Christ's law.] But what they know
naturally, as brute beasts, in those
things they corrupt themselves, ver.
10.
Clouds they are without water,
carried about of winds, trees whose
fruit withereth, &c ; wandering stars,
to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness for ever, verses 12, 13.
[How far was St. Jude from rocking
any of those apostates in the cradle
of infallible perseverance!]
[St. Jude compares them to] the
angels who kept not their first estate,
but left their own habitation, &c,
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 157
I. II.
down to hell, and delivered into reserved in everlasting chains undei
chains of darkness, to be reserved darkness unto the judgment of the
unto judgment, ver. 4. great day, ver. 6.
From this remarkable parallel it is evident that the apostates described
by St. Peter, and the backsliders painted by St. Jude, were one and the
same kind of people : and by the following words it appears that all
those backsliders really fell from the grace of God, and denied the Lord
that bought them.
Even denying the Lord thai Ungodly men, turning the grace
bought them, and bring upon them- of our God into lasciviousness, and
selves swift destruction, &c, whose denying [in works at least] the only
&c, damnation slumbereth not, 2 Lord God, and our Lord Jesus
Pet. ii, 1. Christ, [as Lord, Lawgiver, or
Judge,] Jude 4.
St. Peter more or less directly describes these backsliders, in the same
epistle} as people who have " forgotten that they WERE PURGED from
their old sins" — who do not " give all diligence to add to their faith
virtue" — who do not " make their calling and election sure" — who,
" after they have ESCAPED the pollutions of the world through the KNOW-
LEDGE of our Lord Jesus Christ, [i. e. through a true and living faith,]
are again entangled therein, and overcome ; whose latter end is worse
than the beginning — who, after they have KNOWN THE WAY of righteous
ness, turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them," and verify
the proverb, " The sow that WAS WASHED is turned to her wallowing
in the mire."
Here is not the least hint about the certain return of any of those
backsliders, or about the good that their grievous tails will do either to
others or to themselves. On the contrary, he represents them ALL as
people that were in the high road to destruction : and, far from giving
us an Antinomian innuendo about the final perseverance of all blood-
bought souls, i. e. of the whole number of the redeemed, he begins his
epistle by declaring that those self-destroyed backsliders " denied the
Lord that BOUGHT them," and concludes it by this seasonable caution :
" There are in our own beloved brother Paul's epistles things [it seems,
about the election of grace, and about justification without the works of
the law] which they that are unlearned (ajxadeij:, untaught in the Scrip
tures} and unstable, wrest, &c, unto their own destruction. Ye, there
fore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, [being thus fairly
warned] beware lest YE ALSO, being led away with the error of the
wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" which is the best method not to
fall from grace — the only way to inherit the blessing, with which God
will crown the faithfulness and genuine perseverance of the saints.
I read the heart of Zelotes ; and seeing the objection he is going to
start, I oppose to it this quotation from Baxter : " To say that then their
faith (which works by faithful love) does more than CHRIST did, or GOD'S
GRACE, is a putrid cavil. Their faith is no efficient cause at all of their
pardon or justification ; it is but necessary, receptive qualification. He
that shuts the window, causeth darkness ; but it is sottish to say that he
who opens it, does more than the sun to cause light, which he causeth
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
not at all ; but removeth the impediment of reception ; and faith itself
is God's gift," — as all other talents are, whether we improve them or not.
1 should lose time, and offer an insult to the reader's understanding,
were I to comment upon the preceding scriptures ; so great is their per-
spicuity and number. But I hope I shall not insult his candour by pro-
posing to him the following queries : (1.) Can Zelotes and Honestus be
judicious Protestants, I mean consistent defenders of Bible religion, if
the one throw away the weights of the second scale, while the other
overlooks those of the first? (2.) Is it not evident that, according to the
Scriptures, the perseverance of the saints has two causes : THE FIRST
free grace and Divine faithfulness ; and THE SECOND free will and human
faithfulness produced, excited, assisted, and nourished, but not necessitated
by free grace? (3.) With respect to the capital doctrine of perseverance
also, does not the truth lie exactly between the extremes into which
Zelotes and Honestus perpetually run ? And (lastly) is it not clear that
f Candidus will hold "the truth as it is in Jesus," he must stand upon
the line of moderation, call back Zelotes from the east, Honestus from
the west, and make them cordially embrace each other under the Scrip.
ture meridian? There the kind Father falls upon the neck of the return.
ing prodigal, and the heavenly bridegroom meets the wise virgins. There
free grace mercifully embraces free will, while free will humbly stoops
at the footstool of free grace. There "the sun goes down no more by
day, nor the moon by night ;" that is, the two Gospel axioms, which are
the great doctrinal lights of the Church, without eclipsing each other,
snine in perpetual conjunction, and yet in continual opposition. There
their conjugal, mysterious, powerfurinfluence gladdens the New Jerusa
lem fertilizes the garden of the Lord, promotes the spiritual vegetation
of all the trees of righteousness which line the river of God, and gives a
Divine relish to the fruits of the Spirit which they constantly bear. There,
as often as free grace smiles upon free will, it says, " Be faithful unto
death, and I will give thee a crown of life ;" and as often as free will
sees that crown glitter at the end of the race, it shouts, Grace ' free
grace unto it ! a great part of our faithfulness consisting in ascribino- to
grace all the honour that becomes the FIRST CAUSE of all good— the
ORIGINAL of all visible and invisible excellence.
Perseverance must close our race, if ever we receive the prize ; let
then the Scriptural account of it close my Scales. But before I lay them
by, I must throw in two more grains of Scriptural truth ; lest the reader
should think that I have not made good weight. If I thought Zelotes to
be a gross Antmomian, and Honestus an immoral moralist ; and that
they maliciously tear the oracles of God in pieces ; I would make them
full weight by the two following scriptures : —
L II.
The wrath of God is revealed I testify, &c, that if any man
from heaven against all ungodli- shall take away from the words of
ness, and unrighteousness of men, the book of this prophecy [much
who hold the truth [or a part of more if he take away from the
it] in unrighteousness, Rom. i, 18. words of every book in the Old and
New Testament} God shall take
his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the
things which are wiitten in this book, Rev. xxii, 18, 19."
THIRD. J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 159
But considering Zelotes and Honestus as two good men, who sincerely
:lear and serve God in their way, and being persuaded that an injudicious
fear of a Gospel axiom, and not a wilful aversion to the truth, makes
them cast a veil over one half of the body of Bible divinity ; I dare not
admit the thought that those severe strictures are adapted to their case.
I shall therefore only ask, whether they cannot find a suitable reproof in
the following texts : —
I. II.
I am against the prophets, saith Ye have have made the word of
the Lord, that steal my word [con- God [contained No. 1.] of none
tained No. 2.] every one from his effect by your tradition, Matt, xv,
neighbour, Jer. xxiii, 30. 6. [Equally dismembering Chris
tianity, ye still help the adversaries
of the Gospel to put in practice their pernicious maxim, Divide and
conquer. And who requires this at your hands ? Who will give you
thanks for such services as these ?]
SECTION IV.
A Scriptural plan of reconciliation between Zelotes and Honestus ; being
a double declaration to guard equally the two Gospel axioms, or the
doctrines of free grace and free obedience — Bishop Beveridge saw the
need of guarding them both — Gospel ministers ought equally to defend
them — An answer to Zelotes' objections against the declaration which
guards the doctrine of free obedience — An important distinction
between a primary and secondary trust in causes and means — Some
observations upon the importance of the second Gospel axiom — Which
extreme appeared greater to Mr. Baxter, that of Zelotes, or that of
Honestus — The author's thoughts upon that delicate subject.
I HAVE hitherto pointed out the opposite errors of Zelotes and Hones
tus, and shown that they consist in so maintaining one part of the truth
as to reject the other ; in so holding out the glory of one of the Gospel
axioms as to eclipse the other. I now present the reader with what
appears to me a fair, Scriptural, and guarded plan of reconciliation be
tween themselves, and between all good men, who disagree about the
doctrines of faith and works — of free grace and obedience. The declara
tion which the Rev. Mr. Shirley desired the Rev. Mr. Wesley to sign
at the Bristol conference, (in 1770,) gives me the idea of this plan ; nay,
the first part of it is nothing but that declaration itself, guarded and
strengthened by some additions in brackets.
IT is PROPOSED :
I. II.
That the preachers who are sup- That the preachers who are sup
posed to countenance the Pharisaic posed to countenance the Antino-
error of Honestus shall sign the mian error of Zelotes, shall sign the
following anti-Pharisaic declaration, following anti-Solifidian declaration,
which guards the doctrine of faith which guards the doctrine of obe-
and free grace without bearing hard dience and free will, without bear-
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
I. II.
upon the doctrine of obedience and ing hard upon the doctrine of fai*h
free will ; arid asserts the free, gra- and free grace ; and asserts the
tuitous justification of a sinner in gracipus, remunerative justification
the day of conversion and afterward, of a believer in the day of trial, and
without denying the gracious, re- afterward, without denying the free,
munerative justification of a be- gratuitous justification of a sinner
liever, who, in the day of trial, and in the day of conversion, and after-
afterward, keeps the faith that ward,
works by love.
Whereas the doctrinal points Whereas the books published
in the Minutes of a conference, against the said Minutes have been
Held in London, August 7, 1770, understood to favour the present,
have been understood to favour [the inamissible, and eternal justifica-
Pharisaic] justification [of a sinner] tion of all fallen believers before
by works ; now the Rev. John Wes- God, that is, of all those who, hav-
ley, and others assembled in con- ing made shipwreck of the faith
ference, do declare that we had no that works by obedient love, live in
such meaning ; and that we abhor Laodicean ease ; and, if they please,
the doctrine of [a sinner's] justifi- in adultery, murder, or incest ; now
cation by works, as a most perilous the Rev. Mr. **** and others do
and abominable doctrine: and as declare that we renounce such
the said Minutes are not [or do not meaning, and that we abhor the doc-
appear to some people] sufficiently trine of the Solifidians or Antino-
guarded in the way they are ex- mians as a most perilous and abo-
pressed, we hereby solemnly de- minable doctrine : and as the said
clare, in the sight of God, that [as books are riot [or do not appear to
sinners — before God's throne — ac- some people] sufficiently guarded,
cording to the doctrine of first we hereby solemnly declare, in the
causes — and with respect to the sight of God, that [as penitent, obe-
first covenantor the law of innocence, dient and persevering; believers be-
which sentences all sinners to de- fore the Mediator's throne — accord-
struction] we have no trust or con- ing to the doctrine of second causes
fidence but in the [mere mercy of — and with respect to the second co-
God, through the sole righteousness venant, or the law of Christ, which
and] alone merits of our Lord and sentences all his impenitent, disobe-
Saviour Jesus Christ, for juslifica- dient, apostatizing subjects to de-
tiori, or salvation, either in life, death, struction] we have no trust or con-
or the day of judgment: and though fidence,* but in the truth of our
no one is a real Christian— believer, repentance toward God, and in the
(and consequently, though no one sincerity of our faith in Christ for
can be saved [as a believer] who justification or salvation in the day
does riot good works where there of conversion and afterward ; no
is time and opportunity,) yet our trust, or confidence, but in our final
* I beg the reader would pay a peculiar attention to what precedes and follows
this clause. I myself would condemn it, as subversive of the doctrine of orace
and Pharisaical, if I considered it as detached from the context, and not guarded
or explained by the words in Italics, upon which the greatest stress is to "be laid
It Zelotes has patience to read on he will soon see how the secondary trust in
the obedience of faith, which I here contend for, is reconcilable with our primary
trust in Christ.
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES.
161
I.
II.
works have no part in [properly] perseverance in the obedience of
meriting or purchasing our salva- faith, for justification, or salvation
tion from first to last, either in whole in death, and in the day of judg-
or part ; [the best of men, when ment ; because no one is a real be-
they are considered as sinners, liever under any dispensation of
being justified freely by God's Gospel grace, and of consequence
grace, through the redemption that no one can be saved who does not
is in Jesus Christ, Rom. iii, 24.] good works, i. e. who does not truly
repent, believe, and obey, as there is
time, light, and opportunity. Nevertheless, our works, that is, our
repentance, faith, and obedience, have no part in properly meriting or pur-
chasing our salvation from first to last, either in whole or in part ; the
properly meritorious cause of our eternal, as well as intermediate and
initial salvation, being only the merits, or the blood and righteousness
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The preceding declaration, which The preceding declaration, which
defends the doctrine of free grace,
and the gratuitous justification
and salvation of a sinner, is
founded on such scriptures as
these : —
I.
If Abraham were justified by
works, he hath whereof to boast.
To him that worketh not, but be-
lieveth on him that justifieth the
ungodly, his faith is imputed, &c.
God imputeth righteousness without
works. Not by works of righteous
ness which we have done, but of his
mercy he saved us. By grace are ye
defends the doctrine of free obe
dience, and the remunerative
justification and salvation of a
believer, is founded on such scrip
tures as these : —
II.
Was not Abraham our father
justified by works ? Ye see how
by works a man is justified and not
by faith only. We are saved by
hope. In doing tYus thou shalt save
thyself. He that endureth unto the
end, the same shall be saved. He
became the author of eternal sal
vation to them that obey him. This
saved, through faith ; and that not of shall turn to my salvation through
yourselves, it is the gift of God ; not your prayer. With the mouth con-
By
of works, lest any man should boast.
By the deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified, &c.
fession is made to salvation.
thy words thou shalt be justified.
The doers of the law [of Christ]
shall be justified, &c.
And let none say that this doctrine has not the sanction of good men.
Of a hundred, whom Zelotes himself considers as orthodox, I shall only
mention the learned and pious Bishop Beveridge, who, though a rigid
Calvinist in his youth, came, in his riper years, to the line of moderation,
which I recommend, and stood upon it when he wrote what follows, in
his "Thoughts upon our Call and Election." (Third Edition, page 297.)
" What then should be the reason that so many should bs called and
invited to the chiefest good, and the highest happiness their natures are
capable of; yet so few of them should mind and prosecute it so as to be
chosen or admitted to the participation of it ? What shall we ascribe it
to ? The will and pleasure of almighty God, as if he delighted in the
ruin of his creatures, and therefore although he calls them, he would
VOL. II. 11
162 ECiUAL CHECK. [PART
not have them come unto him? No : that cannot be : tbrm his revealed
will, which is the only rule that we are to walk by, he has told us the
contrary in plain terms, and has confirmed it too with an oath, saying,
<• As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he
should turn from his ways and live," Ezek. xxxiii, 11. And elsewhere
he assures us that he " would have all men to be saved, and come to the
knowledge of the truth," 1 Tim. ii, 4. And therefore if we believe
what God says, nay, if we believe what he has sworn, we must needs
acknowledge that it is his will and pleasure that as many as are called
should be all chosen and saved : and indeed if he had no mind we should
come when we are called to him, why should he call us all to come ?
Why has he given us his word, his ministers, his ordinances ; and all to
invite and oblige us to repent and turn to him ; if after all he has
resolved not to accept of us, nor would have us come at all ? Far be it
from us that we should have such hard and unworthy thoughts of the great
Creator and Governor of the world ; especially considering that he has
told us the contrary, as plainly as it was possible to express his mind
unto us."
Then the bishop mentions five reasons why many are called but few
are chosen : and he closes them by these words, (page 310 :) " The last
reason which our Saviour gives in this parable, is because, of those who
are called, and come too at the call, many come not aright, which he
signifies by the man that came without the wedding garment : where,
although he mentions but one man, yet under that one is comprehended
all of the same kind, even all such persons as profess to believe in
Christ, and to expect salvation from him, yet will not come up to the
terms which he propounds in the Gospel to them, even to " walk worthy
of the vocation wherewith they are called," Eph. iv, 1. And indeed
this is the great reason of all, why of so many, who are called, there
are so few chosen, because there are so few who do all things which
the Gospel requires of them. Many, like Herod, will do many things ;
and are almost persuaded to be Christians, as Agrippa was, &c. Some
are all for the duties of the first ta,ble without the second, others for the
second without the first. Some [like heated Honestus] are altogether
for obedience and good works without faith in Christ : others [like heated
Zelotes] are as much for faith in Christ, without obedience and good
works. Some [like mere moralists] would do all themselves, as if
Christ had done nothing for them : others [like mere Solifidians] fancy-
that Christ has so done all for them, that there is nothing left for them
to do : and so between both sorts of people [between the followers of
Honestus, and those of Zelotes] which are the far greater parts of those
who are called, either the merits or else the laws of Christ are slighted
and contemned. But is this the way to be saved? No, surely."
Hence it is evident, that if Bishop Beveridge be right here, the saving
truth lies exactly between the mistake of Zelotes and the error of Honestus.
Now if this be the true state of the question, is it possible to propose a plan
of reconciliation more Scriptural than that which so secures the merits of
Christ as not indirectly to overthrow his laws, and so enforces his laws
as not indirectly to set aside his merits ? And is not this effectually
done in the reconciling declarations ? Do they not equally guard the two
Gospel axioms ? Do they not with impartiality defend free grace and
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 163
free obedience ? And might not peace be restored to the Church upon
such a Scriptural, rational, and moderate plan of doctrine ?
I fear that a lasting reconciliation upon any other plan is impossible :
for the Gospel must stand upon its legs, (the two Gospel axioms,) or it
must fall. And if Satan, by transforming himself into an angel of light,
prevail upon good, mistaken men to cut off one of these legs, as if it
were useless or mortified ; some good men, who are not yet deceived,
will rise up in its defence. So sure, therefore, as " the gates of hell
shall never prevail against the Church of the living God — the pillar and
ground of the truth," there shall always be a succession of judicious,
zealous men, disposed to hazard their life and reputation in the cause of
Gospel truth, and ready to prevent the mystical ark from being overset
on the right hand or on the left. If a pious Crisp, for example, push it
into the Antinomian ditch, for fear of the Pharisaic delusion ; a pious
Baxter will enter his protest against him : and if a Taylor throw it into
the Pharisaic ditch, for fear of the Antinomian error ; God will raise up
a Wesley to counterwork his design. Nay, a Wesley is a match for a
benevolent Taylor, and a seraphic Hervey ; and I hope, that should Mr.
Shirley ever desire him to sign an anti-Pharisaic declaration, he will not
forget to desire Mr. Shirley to sign also an anti-Solifidian protest : every
Gospel minister being an equal debtor to both axioms. Nor can I con-
ceive why Mr. Shirley should have more right* solemnly to secure the
first axiom, than Mr. Wesley has solemnly to guard the second.
But leaving those two divines, I return to Zelotes, who seems very
much offended at my saying, " We have no trust nor confidence that any
thing will stand us instead of repentance, faith, and obedience." An
assertion this which implies, that (with respect to the second causes and
secondary means) we place a secondary trust and confidence in the graces
which compose the Christian character. But I ask, Wherein does the
heresy of this doctrine consist '! Do I renounce orthodoxy when I say
* Mr. Wesley is too judicious a divine to sign a paper that leaves the second
axiom quite unguarded. Accordingly we find that axiom guarded in these words
of Mr. Shirley's declaration : " No one is a believer, (and consequently cannot be
saved,) who doth not good works where there is time and opportunity." Never
theless, this clause does not by far form so solemn a guard as might have been
demanded upon so remarkable an occasion. Mr. Shirley, and the clergy that
accompanied him, might with propriety have been desired to remove the fears of
those who signed the declaration which he had drawn up, by signing at least the
following memorandum: "Forasmuch as Aaron, David, Solomon, Peter, and
the incestuous Corinthian did not do good works when they, or any of them wor
shipped a golden calf, Milcom, and the abomination of the Zidonians, — denied
Christ, or committed adultery, murder, or incest, we hereby solemnly declare, in
the sight of God, that we abhor the doctrine of the Solifidians, who say that the
above-mentioned backsliders had justifying, saving faith, while they committed
the above-mentioned crimes; such a doctrine being perilous and abominable; be
cause it absolutely overturns the twelfth article of our Church, and encourages
all Christians to make Christ the minister of sin, and to believe that they may
commit the most atrocious crimes, without losing their faith, their justification,
and their title to a throne of glory."
If Mr. Shirley and his friends had refused to sign such a memorandum as this,
the world would have had a public demonstration that Calvinism is the doctrine
of Protestant indulgences ; and that it establishes speculative, and consequently
makes way for practical Antinomianism in all its most flagrant immoralities, as
v;ell as in its most winning refinements.
164 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
that with respect to some second means, and some second causes, I
have ??o irust nor confidence but in my EYES to see, in my EARS to hear,
and in rny THROAT to swallow ? Should I riot be fit for Bedlam, if I
trusted to see without eyes, to hear without ears, and to swallow without
a throat I If I had not a trust that my shoes will answer the end of
shoes, and my hat the end of a hat ; may I not wisely put my shoes
upon my head, and my hat on my feet ? And if I have not a confidence
that my horse will carry me better than a broomstick, may I not as well
get upon a broomstick as on horseback? What would Zelotes think of
me, if I did not trust that bread will nourish me sooner than poison, and
that fire will warm me better than ice ? Is it not a branch of wisdom
to trust every thing, just so far as it deserves to be trusted ; and a piece
of madness to do otherwise ?
O ye admirers of Zelotes' gospel, come and I will explain to you all
rny supposed error. I trust only and solely in God as the first and cap
ital cause, and in Christ as the first and capital means of my present
and eternal salvation. But beside this primary trust, I have a thousand
inferior trusts. Take a few instances : I have a sure trust and confi
dence that the Bible will farther me in the way to eternal salvation, more
than the Koran : baptism more than circumcision : the Lord's Supper
more than the Jewish passover : the house of God more than the play
house : praying more than cursing : repentance, faith, hope, charity, and
perseverance more, far more than impenitency, unbelief, despair, uncha-
ritableness, and apostasy.
If I am a heretic for saying that something beside Christ is condu
cive to salvation, and of consequence may, in its place and degree, be
trusted in for salvation ; is St. Paul orthodox when he exhorts the
Philippians to " work out their own salvation," assures them that his afflic
tions shall " turn to his salvation through their prayers,*' and writes to
Titus, that " in DOING the work of an evangelist he shall SAVE himself
and them that hear him ?"
Again : will Christ stand to me instead of repentance ? Has he not
said himself, " Except YE repent, ye shall perish?" Will he be to me
instead of faith ? Did he not assert the contrary when he declared,
that " he who believeth not shall be damned ?" Will he be instead of
an evangelical obedience ? Does he not maintain the opposite doctrine,
where he declares that he will bid them " depart from him, who call
him Lord, Lord, and DO NOT the -.things which he saith ?" Will he stand
me instead of perseverance ? Has he not said himself that he will
•< deny them that deny him ;" that he will finally own us as his " disci
ples, if we continue in his words ;" and that " he who endureih to the
end, the same shall be saved ?" Zelotes finds it easier to raise difficul
ties than to remove those which are thrown in his way. He comes,
therefore, with his mouth full of objections, against my second declara
tion. Let us lend him an ear, and give him an answer.
OBJECTION I. " If, with respect to the doctrine of second causes, and
second means of eternal salvation, you have no trust or confidence to be
saved as a penitent, obedient, and persevering Believer, but by true
repentance, faith, obedience, arid perseverance, you cannot repose your
whole trust upon God alone ; nor can you give Christ all the glory of
your salvation."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 105
ANSWER. To make God a second cause, and Christ a second means
of salvation, is not to give them the glory : it is to pull them out of then
throne, and make them stoop to an office unworthy of their matchless
dignity. If the king gave you a purse of gold, could you not give him
all tlie glory of his generosity, without supposing that he was the lahori-
ous digger of the golden ore, the ingenious coiner of the gold, and the
diligent knitter of the purse ? If you complimented him in all these
respects, lest he should not have all the glory, would you not pour con-
tempt upon his greatness ? And do you not see, that by a parity of rea-
* son, what you call " robbing God and Christ of their glory" is only
refusing to dishonour them, by ascribing to them a dishonourable office ;
I mean the office of a second cause, or of a secondary means of salvation ?
Can 3^011 not conceive, that to give a general the honour of a sergeant,
under pretence of giving him all the honour, is to set him below an
ensign, and rank him with a halberd bearer ? Again : when you say,
that in general, upon a journey, with respect to second causes and means,
you have no trust or confidence but in your money, in the goodness of
your horses and carriage, in the passable state of the roads, in the skill
of your driver, &c, do you betray any mistrust of Divine Providence ?
On the contrary, does not your distinction of second causes and second
means show that you reserve your primary trust or confidence tor God,
who is the first cause of your blessings ; and for his providential care
over you, which is the first means of your preservation? And if a
pretender to orthodoxy charged you with Atheism or heresy for your
assertion, would you not give him your vote to be an officer of the Pro-
testant inquisition, — if the black tribunal, which totters in Spain, should
ever be set up in England ?
OBJECTION II. " Your first declaration indeed exalts Christ ; but the
second uncrowns him, to crown our graces — yea, to crown ourselves as
possessed of such and such graces ; which is the rankest popery, and
the very quintessence of Pharisaism."
ANSWER. How can my crowning repentance, faith, and obedience,
with a Scriptural coronet, rob Christ of his peculiar crown 1 Are we not
indebted to him both for our graces and for the coronet with which he
rewards our acceptance and improvement of his favours ? Would it be
right in you to represent me as an enemy to the crown and king of
England,* for asserting that barons, earls, and dukes have received from
him, or his predecessors, the right of wearing coronets, or secondary
crowns ? Is it not the glory of our sovereign to be at the head of a
crowned peerage 1 And would you really honour him, if, on a coronation
day, you secured the glory of his imperial crown, by kicking the coro
nets off the heads of all the peers who come to pay him homage ?
Would he thank you for that ill-judged proof of your loyalty 1 Would
he not reprove you for your unparalleled rashness? And think you
that Christ will commend the Antinomian zeal, with which you set up
the great image of finished salvation in the plain of mystical Geneva,
upon a heap of the coronets, wherewith he and his apostles have crowned
the graces of believers ? Can you search the sacred records without
finding there the doctrine which you represent as treasonable or here
tical ? Did you never read, " O woman, great is thy faith ! THY FAITH
hath saved *thee?" And what is this but allowing believers to wear
166 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
salvation coronet — a coronet this, which they will justly " cast before
the throne" of the grace that gave it them, and offered it all the day
long to those who obstinately " put it from them ?" Did you never read,
" We are saved by hope : be faithful unto death, and I will give thee
a crown of life : he is the author of eternal salvation to them that obey
him : he will give the crown of life to them that love him," &c ? Is not
this a salvation coronet to the hopeful, faithful, obedient, loving believer 'I
And if -you throw my Scales away, and cry out, " Arminian* Method.
ism turned out rank popery at last !" think you there are no Bibles left
in the kingdom? No people able to read such scriptures as these ?•
" Let no man beguile you of your reward through voluntary humility —
fair speeches — and deceivableness of unrighteousness. Hold fast that
which thou hast, that no man take thy crown," on any pretext whatever,
no, not on the most plausible of all pretexts, " Pray, give me thy crown,
for it is not consistent with that of the Redeemer."' Who could suggest
to good men so artful and dangerous a doctrine ? Who but the deceitful
adversary that can as easily « transform himself into an angel of light,"
to rob us of our " crown of righteousness," as he formerly could trans,
form himself into a serpent, to rob our first parents of their crown of
innocence ?
OBJECTION III. « You may turn and wind as long as you please, but
you will never be able to reconcile your doctrine with the doctrine of
grace ; for if you have the least trust and confidence in your graces, you
do not trust wholly in the Lord ; you trust partly in « an arm of flesh,'
in direct opposition to the scripture, < Cursed is the man who trusteth
in man, and maketh flesh his arm,' Jer. xvii, 5."
ANSWER. I grant that our doctrine can never be reconciled to what
you call " the doctrines of grace," because your partial doctrines of
grace are irreconcilable with the holy, free, and equitable Gospel of
Christ. But we can as easily reconcile the primary trust mentioned in
our first declaration, with the secondary trust mentioned in the second,
as you can reconcile my second Scale with the first. Our secondary
confidence, which arises from the testimony of a good conscience, no
more militates in our breasts against our primary confidence, which
arises from the love of Christ, than our regard for the queen excludes
our respect for the king. In mystic Geneva indeed they teach, to the
honour of the king, that the royal spouse is all filthy ; but in our Jeru
salem we assert that « she is all glorious," and that « the king greatly
desires her beauty." To uncrown her, therefore, and load her with
infamy, can never be the way of honouring and pleasing our Melchisedec.
With respect to the passage which you produce from Jeremiah, the
sense of it is fixed by what immediately follows : — « And whose heart
departeth from the Lord." These words show that the trust forbidden
in that scripture is only such a trust in man and things as makes our
hearts depart from the Lord. Now this can never be the trust and
confidence mentioned in our second declaration : for in both declarations
we secure to God, as the first cause, and to Christ, as the first means,
all the glory which is worthy of the first cause, and of the first means :
and, I repeat it, if you ascribe to the Lord any other glory, you insult
him as much as you would do a prince, if you gave him the glory which
* The title of a Calvinistic pamphlet published against the Fourth Check.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 167
belongs to his consort or his cook ; — I mean the glory of bearing fine
children, and of making good sauces.
Again : there is no medium between some degree of trust, and the
utmost degree of distrust. Now if the scripture which you produce
absolutely forbids every degree of inferior trust in man or things, it
follows that the more full we are of distrust and diabolical suspicions,
the more godly we are. And thus, for fear of putting any degree of
secondary trust in man or in things, we must mistrust all our wives as
adulteresses, all our friends as traitors, all our neighbours as incendiaries,
all our servants as murderers, and all our food as poison. But if this,
fair consequence of your doctrine stand, what becomes of charity, which
" thinketh no evil, but hopeth all things ?" And if the words of Jeremiah
are to be understood in your narrow sense, what becomes of Christ
himself, who reposed a degree of trust in man — yea, in Judas, while he
counted him faithful ? That expression of Job, therefore, " He [the
Lord] putteth no trust [that is, no absolute trust] in his saints," is to be
understood so as not to contradict the words of St. Paul, " He [the Lord]
counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry ;" or the prophetic
words of David concerning Christ and Judas, " Yea, mine own familiar
friend in whom I trusted, who did eat of my [multiplied] bread, hath
lifted up his heel against me."
To conclude : if England smiles yet at the imbecility of the king, who
durst not venture over London bridge, and wondered at those who trusted
that fabric as a solid bridge ; shall we admire Zelotes' wisdom, who
wonders at our having a Scriptural, inferior trust in the graces which
form the Christian character 1 And shall we not count it an honour to
be suspected of heresy, for " having a sure trust and confidence," that
true repentance, and nothing else, will answer for us the end of repent
ance 1 That true faith, and nothing else, will answer for us the end of
faith ? That evangelical obedience, and not an imputed righteousness,
will answer for us the end of evangelical obedience 1 And that final per
severance, and not whims about " finished salvation," will answer for
us the end ofjinal perseverance ?
Having thus answered Zelotes' objections against the declaration
which guards the second Gospel axiom, I shall now present him with
some observations upon the importance of that axiom : —
(1.) The first axiom, or the doctrine of grace, holds forth chiefly what
Christ has done ; and the second axiom, or the doctrine of obedience,
holds forth chiefly what we are to do. Now any unprejudiced person
must own that it is as important for us to know our own work, as to
know the work of another. (2.) In the day of judgment we shall not
be judged according to Christ's works and experiences, but according to
our own. (3,) Thousands of righteous heathens, it is to be hoped, have
been saved without knowing any thing of Christ's external work ; but
none of them were ever saved without knowing and doing their own
work, that is, without working out their salvation with fear and trembling,
according to their light. (4.) Most of the Jews that have been saved
have gone to heaven without any explicit, particular acquaintance with
Christ's merits ; (see Equal Check, vol. i, p. 456 ;) but none of them
was ever saved without " fearing God and working righteousness."
(5.) To this day, those that are saved, three parts of the world over,
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
are in
general saved by the gracious light that directly flows from the
second Gospel axiom, through Christ's merits ; although they never
heard of his name. (6.) England and Scotland, where the redeeming
work of Christ is gloriously preached, swarm nevertheless with practical
Antinom.ons ; that is, with men who practically separate works from
faith, and the decalogue from the creed. Now all these Gnostics follow
the foolish virgins, and the unprofitable servant into hell, crying, Lord !
Lord! and forgetting to do what Christ commands. (7.) We can never
be too thankful for the light of both axioms ; but, were I obliged to
separate them, I had much rather obey with Obadiah, Plato, and Cor-
neliiis, than believe with Simon Magus, Nicolas, and "Mr. Fulsome."
These, and the like observations appeared so weighty to judicious
Mr. Baxter, that, in the preface to his Confession of Faith, p. 29, he
says, « The great objection is, that I ascribe too much to works. I shall
now only say, &c, that I see many well-meaning, zealous men dividing
pur religion, [which is made up of the two Gospel axioms,] and running
into two desperate extremes. One sort [at the head of whom is Zelotes]
by the heat of opposition to popery do seem to have forgotten that faith
and Christ himself are but means, and a way for the revolting soul to
come home to God by ; and thereupon place all the essence of their
religion in bare believing; so making that THE WHOLE, which is but the
door, or MEANS to better, even to a conformity of the soul to the image
and will of God. Others [at the head of whom is Honestus] observing
this error, flee so far from it as to make faith itself, and Christ, to be
scarce necessary. So a man have God's image, say they, upon his soul,
what matter is it which way he comes by it ? Whether by Christ, or by
other means ! And so they take all the history of Christ to be a mere
accident to our necessary belief; and the precepts only of holiness to
>e of absolute necessity. The former contemn God under pretence of
extolling Christ. The latter contemn Christ under pretence of extollino-
God alone. He that pretending to extol Christ or faith, degrades god!
Imess, thereby so far rejects God ; and he that on pretence of extollino-
godliness, degrades faith, so far rejects Christ, &c. I therefore detest
both these extremes— [that of Zelotes and that of Honestus.] But yet
it being the former which I take to be the greater, and which too manv
men of better repute give too much countenance to, in their inconsiderate
disputes against works in justification, I thought I had a call to speak in
so great a cause."
It appears, from this excellent quotation, that judicious Mr. Baxter
gave the preference to the second Gospel axiom, and thought the doc-
trine of Honestus less dangerous than that of Zelotes. For my part,
though Zelotes thinks me partial, I keep my Scales even : and according
to the weights of the sanctuary which I have produced, I find thai
Zelotes and Honestus are equally wanting. I thank them both for em-
bracing one axiom ; I check them both for neglecting the other ; and if
Zelotes deserves superior praise for maintaining the first axiom, I will
cheerfully give him the first place in my esteem. I confess, however,
that 1 am still in doubt about it, for two reasons : (1.) Zelotes preaches
indeed the first Gospel axiom, for he preaches Christ and free grace •
3ut, after all, for whom does he preach them ? For every creature ac
cording to the Gospel charter? No : but only for the little flock of the
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 169
rewardable elect. If you believe his gospel, there never was a single
dram of free, saving grace in the heart of God ; or one single drop of
precious, atoning blood in the veins of Christ, for the immense herd of
the reprobates. Before the beginning of the world they were all per
sonally appointed necessarily to sin and be damned. Thus, according
to Zelotes' doctrine, free grace and the first Gospel axiom are not only
mere chimeras, with respect to a majority of mankind, but free wrath
lords it with sovereign caprice over countless myriads of men, to whom
Christ may, with the greatest propriety, be preached as a reprobating
damner, rather than as a gracious Redeemer. (2.) I could better bear
with Zelotes' inconsistencies, if he only diminished the genuine cordial
of free grace, and adulterated it with his bitter tincture of free wrath.
But alas ! he openly or secretly attacks the doctrine of sincere obe
dience : he calls them " poor creatures," who zealously plead for it :
he unguardedly intimates that they are out of the way of salvation : and
(O ! tell it not among the heathens !) he sometimes gives you deadly
hints about the excellence of disobedience ; sin, he intimates, " works
for our good : it keeps us humble : it makes Christ more precious : it
endears the doctrines of sovereign, rich, distinguishing grace : it will
make us sing louder in heaven."
" You wrong me," says Zelotes, " you are a slanderer of God's people,
and a calumniator of Gospel ministers. I, for one, frequently enforce
the ten commandments upon believers." True, sir ; but how do you
do this ? Is it not by insinuating more or less, sooner or later, as your
moral audience and your pious heart can bear it, that the decalogue is
not now a rule to be judged by, but only " a rule of life," the breach of
which will answer all the above-mentioned excellent ends in believers ?
And what is this but preaching Protestant indulgences, as I said before ?
When you do this, do you not exceed the popish distinction between
venial and mortal sins ? Yea, do you not make all the crimes of fallen
believers venial? Nay, more, do you not indirectly represent their
grievous falls as profitable ? And to seal up the delusion, do you not
persuade the simple, wherever you go, that our works have nothing to
do with our eternal justification before God ? That our everlasting sal
vation is finished by Christ alone ; and that whoever believes fallen be
lievers will be condemned by their bad works, is an enemy to the Gospel,
an Arminian, a Pelagian, a Papist, a heretic ?
If this character of Zelotes be just, and if Honestus be a conscientious
good man, who preaches Christ every sacrament day, and who enforces
spiritual, sincere obedience, (i. e. true repentance, true faith, true hope,
and true love to God and man, in all their branches ;) and who does it
with sincerity, assiduity, and warmth, I cannot but think as favourably
cf him as I do of his antagonist.
I must however do Zelotes the justice to say, that an appearance of
truth betrays him into his favourite error. If he do not lay a Scriptural
stress upon the indispensableness of obedience, it is chiefly for fear of
" legalizing the Gospel," and robbing God's children of their comforts.
See that fond mother, who prides herself in the tenderness she has for
her children. She will not suffer the wind to blow upon them ; the sun
must never shine on their delicate faces ; no downy bed is soft enough
no sweetmeats are sweet enough for them ; lest they should know wean
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
ness, they must always ride in the easiest of carriages ; their tutor must
be turned out of doors, if he venture to give them proper correction ;
all the day long they must be told what an immense estate they are born
to, and how their father has put it out of his own power to cut off the
entail. Above all, nobody must mention to them the duty they owe to
him. Duly— that bad word duty must not abridge their privileges, and
stamp their obedience with legal and servile meanness. In a word, by
her injudicious, though well-meant kindness, she unnerves their constitu-
tions, spoils their tender minds, and brings deadly disorders upon them.
Her fondness for her children is the very picture of Zelotes' tender re.
gard for believers. No duty must be pressed upon them as duty : no
command insisted upon, no self denial ordered, lest the dear people
should lose the sweetness of their Gospel liberty. And if at any time
" Mr. Fulsome's' humours call aloud for physic, it is given with so much
honey, that the remedy sometimes feeds the mortal disease.
Honestus sees, and justly dreads the error of Zelotes : and to avoid
it, he is so sparing of Gospel encouragements, that he deals chiefly (if
not wholly) in severe precepts and hard duties. You may compare him
to a stern father, who, under pretence of making his children hardy, and
keeping them in proper subjection, makes them carry as heavy burdens
as if they were drudging slaves, and threatens to disown them for every
impropriety of behaviour.
Not so a Gospel minister, who reconciles both extremes. He knows
how to use sweets and bitters, promises and threatenings, indulgence
and severity. He is like a wise and kind father, who does not spare
the rod when his children want it ; but nevertheless wins them by love
as much as possible ; — who does not disinherit them for every fault, and
yet does not put it out of his power to do it, if they take to a vicious
course of life, and obstinately trample his paternal love under foot.
Reader, who of the three is in the right, Zelotes, Honestus, or the re-
sonciler ?
SECTION V.
The doctrines of free grace and free will are farther maintained against
Honestus and Zelotes by a variety of Scripture arguments.
I FLATTER myself that the harmonious opposition of the scriptures,
produced in the preceding sections, demonstrates the truth of the Gos
pel axioms. But lest prejudice hinder Honestus and Zelotes from yield
ing to conviction, I present them with some Scriptural arguments, which,
like so many buttresses, will, I hope, support the doctrines of free grace
and free will, and render them as firm as their solid basis, — REASON and
REVELATION. I begin with the doctrine of free grace.
1. How gladly would Honestus stoop to, and triumph in free grace,
if he considered the force of such scriptures ! " Without me you can
do nothing. What hast thou which thou hast not received," in a remote
or immediate manner ? « We are not sufficient of ourselves to think
any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. Who hath
first given him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of
him, &c, are all things."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 171
2. We cannot do an action that is truly good without faith and love ;
and the least degree of true faith and genuine love springs first from free
grace ; for " faith is the gift of God, love is the fruit of his Spirit :" and
when the apostle wishes charity to his converts, he wishes it to them
" from God the Father, who is the author of every good and perfect
gift." Now if our every good thought, word, arid work, spring from
faith and love ; and if faith and love spring from God ; is it not evident
that he is the first cause of our genuine righteousness, as well as of
our existence ?
3. When God says, " Ask and you shall have," does he not show
himself the original of all that we want for body and soul, for time and
eternity ? And if God owes us nothing, if " the help, that is done upon
earth, the Lord originally does it himself," is it not the height of ingra
titude and pride to restrain from God, and arrogate to ourselves, the
glory due to him and his infinite perfections ?
4. We are commanded " in every thing to give thanks." But if
grace be not the source of all the good we do or receive, does it riot fol
low, that in some things the original glory belongs to us, and therefore
we deserve thanks before God himself? And is not this the horrid sin
of antichrist, who " sitteth as God in the temple of God," and there
receives Divine honours " as if he were God ?"
5. Does not reason dictate that God will not give his glory to
another, and that even " the man who is his fellow," must pay him
homage ? Is it not the Almighty's incommunicable glory to be the first
cause of all good, agreeably to those words of our Lord, " There is none
good [i. e. self good, and truly self righteous] but God," from whom
goodness and righteousness flow, as light and heat do from the sun ? How
dangerous then, how dreadful is the error of the self righteous, who are
above stooping to Divine goodness, and giving it its due ! If robbing a
Church of its ornaments is sacrilege, how sacrilegious is the pride of a
Pharisee, who, by claiming original goodness, robs God's grace of 'its
indisputable honours, and God himself of his incommunicable glory !
6. To show Christians how ridiculous and satanic the pride of the
self righteous is, I need only remind them that Christ himself — " Christ
the righteous" (as the Son of David) declined all self righteousness.
Did he not call his works " the works that I do in my Father's name,"
or by my Father's grace 1 And did he not, as it were, annihilate him
self, when he said, " Why callest thou me GOOD," without any refer
ence to the Godhead, of which I am the living temple ? "I can do
nothing of myself. I speak not of myself, but the Father that
dwelleth in me, he does the works. Learn of me to be lowly in heart ?"
What real Christian can read such scriptures without learning to dis
claim all self righteousness, and to abhor Pharisaic dotages ? If Hon-
estus be a reasonable Christian I need say no more to reconcile him to
free grace.
I know not which of the two extremes is the most abominable, that of
the Pharisee, who, by slighting free grace, will not allow God to be the
first, cause of all our good works ; or that of the Antinomian, who, by
exploding free will, indirectly represents the Parent of good as the first
cause of all our wickedness. This last error is that of Zelotes, to whom
I recommend the following arguments : —
172 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
1. All rationals(as such) are necessarily endued with free will, other
wise reason and conscience would be powers as absurdly bestowed
upon them, as persuasiveness upon a carp, and a taste for music upon an
oyster. What are reason and conscience but powers, by which we dis
tinguish right from wrong, that we may choose the one and refuse
the other 1 And how do they reflect upon God's wisdom, who suppose
that he gave and restored to man these powers, without giving him a
capacity to use them ? And what can this capacity be, if it be not free
will 1 As surely then as wings and legs prove that eagles have a power
to fly, and hares to run ; whether they fly or inn toward the sports
man's destructive weapon, or from it ; so surely do reason and con
science demonstrate that men are endued with liberty, i. e. have a
power to choose, whether they make a right or a wrong choice. Again :
2. What is a human soul ? You justly answer, " It is a thinking,
willing, accountable creature." And I reply, from the very nature of our
soul, then, it is evident that we are, and ever shall be, free-willing beings.
For the moment souls have lost their power of thinking and willing
freely, they are no longer accountable ; moral laws are as improper for
them as for raging billows. None but fools would attempt to rule deli
rious persons, and mad men by penal laws. The reason is plain : peo
ple stark mad, thinking freely no longer, are no longer free willers ; and
being no longer free willers, they are no more considered as moral
agents. So certain then as man is a reasonable, accountable creature,
he is endued with free will : for all rationals under God are accountable,
and all accountable beings have more or less power over themselves and
their actions. " He [the Lord] himself made man from the beginning,
and left him in the hand of his own counsel. If thou wilt keep the
commandments, and perform acceptable faithfulness. He hath set fire
and water before thee : stretch forth thy hand unto whether thou wilt.
Before man is life and death, and whether him liketh shall be given him,"
Ecclus. xv, 14, &c. The tempter therefore may allure, but cannot force
us to do evil ; and God himself so wisely invites, and so gently draws us
to obedience, as not to turn the scale for us in an irresistible manner.
3. O the absurdity of supposing that " God has appointed a day in
which he will judge the world in righteousness," if the world be not
capable of making a right and wrong choice ; and if Christ, Adam or
the devil absolutely turn the scale of our morals for us ! O the blot upon
God's wisdom, when he is represented as rewarding men with heavenly
thrones, for having done the good which they could no more avoid doing
than rivers can prevent their flowing ! O the dishonour done to his jus
tice, when he is represented as sentencing men to everlasting burnings,
for committing sin as necessarily as a leaden ball tends to the centre !
4. If free grace do all in believers without free will, why does David
say, " The Lord is my helper ?" Why does our Church pray, after the
psalmist, " Make haste to help me ?" Why does St. Paul declare that
'* the Spirit itself* helpeth our infirmities?" Why did he not say, / can
* The word in the original has a peculiar force : (<7t)vavrtAa/*6«?'£r<n.) It ex
presses at once how God's Spirit does his part (aw) "with us," and (avn) "over
against us ;" like two persons that take up a burden together and carry it, the one
at one end, and the other at the other end ; or like a minister and a congregation,
who join in prayer by alternately taking up the responses of the Church.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 173
do absolutely nothing, instead of saying, " I can do all things through
the Lord who strengtheneth me ?" And when Christ had said, " Without
me ye can do nothing," why did he not correct himself, and declare that
we can do nothing with him, and that he alone must do all 1 Nay, why
does St. Paul apply to himself and others, when they work with God,
the very same word that St. Mark applies to God, when he works with men 1
" We are tfuvspyoi, workers together with God," 1 Cor. iii, 9. " The
Lord tfuvspyavro^, working together with them," Mark xvi, 20.
5. Do not all the PROMISES, the performance of which is suspended
upon some terms to be performed by us through Divine assistance, prove
the concurrence of free grace with free will ? W^hen God says, " Seek,
and you shall find. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Come unto
me, and I will give you rest. Return to me, and I will return to you,"
&c ; when God, I say, speaks this language, who does not see free
grace courting and alluring free will ? Free grace says, " Seek ye my
face ;" and free will answers, " Thy face, Lord, will I seek." On the
other hand, unbelievers know that so long as their free will refuses to
submit to the terms fixed by free grace, the promise miscarries, and God
himself declares, " Ye shall know my breach of promise," Num. xiv, 34.
6. As the promises, which free grace makes to submissive free will,
prove the doctrine of the Gospel axioms ; so do the THREATENINGS,
which anxious free grace denounces, lest it should be rejected by free
will. Take also two or three examples : — " I will cast them that com
mit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their
deeds. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He that
believeth not shall be damned. v If we sin wilfully, [i. e. obstinately, and
to the last moment of our day of grace,] after we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth [for us,] &c, a fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries," &c. Who does not see here that
free grace, provoked by inflexible free will, can, and will act the part of
inflexible justice ?
7. There is not one reproof, encomium, or exhortation in the Old or
New Testament that does not support the capital doctrines of free grace
or free will. WThen Christ says with a frown, " How is it that you have
no faith ? O perverse generation, how long shall I suffer you 1 O
generation of vipers, bring forth fruit meet for repentance. Have ye
your heart yet hardened V When he smiles and says, " Well done,
good and faithful servant." When he marvels and cries out, " Great is
thy faith." Or when he gives such gracious exhortations, " Be not faith-
less, but believing : come to the marriage : be faithful unto death : only
believe." When Christ, I say, speaks in this mariner, is it not as if he
expressed himself in such words as these : " My free grace tries every
rational means to win your free will. I reprove you* for your sins, I
commend you for your faith, I exhort you to repentance, I shame you
into obedience, I leave no stone unturned to show myself the rational
Saviour of my rational, free creatures ?"
8. I may proceed one step farther, and say, There is not one com
mandment in the law, nor one direction in the Gospel that does not
demonstrate the truth of this doctrine. For all God's precepts and
directions are for our good ; therefore free grace gave them. Now
since God is wise as well as gracious, it follows that he gave his prt.
!74 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
cepts and directions to free agents, that is, to free-willing creatures.
Let a king, who has lost his reason, make a code of moral laws for trees
or horses ; let him send preachers into every mill in the kingdom to
give proper directions to cog wheels, and to assure them that if they turn
last and right, they shall grind for the royal family; and, if they stop or
turn wrong, they shall be cut to pieces and ground to saw dust. But
let not the absurdity of a similar conduct be charged upon God.
9. Every humble confession of sin shows the various workings of free
grace and free will : « I have sinned— I have done wickedly," &c, is
the language of free will softened by free grace. To suppose that these
acknowledgments are the language of free grace alone, is to suppose
that free grace sins and does wickedly. And when we heartily join in
such petitions as these, « Turn us, and we shall be turned : draw me,
and I will run after thee : bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise
thy name : save, or I perish," &c, do we not feel our free will endea
vouring to apprehend free grace? Is this heresy? Did not St. Paul
maintain this doctrine in the face of the Church, and seal it with the
account of his own experience, when he said, « I follow after, if that I
may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of God ?"
10. To conclude : there is not a damned spirit in hell that may not
be produced as a living witness of the double doctrine which I defend.
Why is Lucifer loaded with chains of darkness? Is it because there
never was any free grace for him, and because free wrath marked him
out for destruction, before he had personally deserved it ? No : but
because his free will "kept not the first estate" of holiness, in which
God's free grace had placed him. Why is Judas gone to his. own
place ? Is it because the Holy Ghost spake an untruth when he said
that (till the day of retribution comes) « God's mercy is over all his
works ?" No : but because Judas' free will was so obstinately bent
upon "gaining the world," that, according to our Lord's declaration,
" he lost his own soul," became a " son of perdition," and, by « denyirm-
in works the Lord that bought him, brought upon himself swift destruc
tion." Now, if Judas himself cannot say, « God's free wrath sent me
to hell, and not my free will ; I am here in Adam's place, and not in my
own ; I never rejected against myself the counsel of a gracious God ;
for, with respect to ME, the Father of mercies was always unmerciful—
4 the God of all grace' had never any saving grace :"— if Judas, I sav,
cannot justly utter these blasphemies, surely none can : and if none can,
then every sinner in hell demonstrates the truth of the Gospel axioms,
and is a tremendous monument of the vengeance justly taken on free
will, for doing obstinately despite to the Spirit of free grace.
11. Cut leaving Judas to experience the truth of this awful scripture,
ihe backslider in heart shall be filled with HIS OWN ways," let your
soul soar upon the wings of faith and reason to the happy regions where
the spirits of just men made perfect shine like stars or suns in their
Father's kingdom. Ask them, « To whom and to what do you ascribe
your salvation ?" and you hear them all reply, « Salvation is of the
Lord. Not unto us, but to his name we ascribe glory. Of his own
mercy he saved us, to the praise of the glory of his grace'." What a
noble testimony is this to the doctrine of free grace !
12. Nor does the Lord stand less for their free will than they do for
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE' SCALES 17»j
his free grace. Prostrate yourselves before his everlasting throne ; and,
with all becoming reverence, ask the following question, that you may
be able to vindicate God's righteous ways before unrighteous man.
" Let not the Lord be angry, and I will take upon me to speak unto the
Lord. Didst thou admit those happy spirits into thy kingdom entirely
out of partiality to their persons ? If they are raised to glorious thrones,
while damned spirits are cast into yonder burning lake, is it merely
because absolute grace and absolute wrath made originally all the differ
ence ? In a word, is their salvation so of thy free grace that their free
will had absolutely no hand in the matter ?"
Methinks I hear " the Judge of all the earth" giving you the follow,
ing answer, which appears to me perfectly agreeable to his sacred
oracles : —
" O injudicious man, how canst thou be so ' slow of heart to believe
all that I and my prophets have said !' Am not I a Judge as well as a
Saviour ? Can I show myself a righteous Judge, and yet be partial in
judgment ? Nay, should I not be the most unjust of all judges, if from
my righteous tribunal I distributed heavenly thrones and infernal racks
out of distinguishing grace and distinguishing wrath ? Know that * all
souls are mine,' and that, in point of judgment, * there is no respect of
persons with me.' In the great day ' I judge,' that is, I condemn or
justify, I punish or reward ' every man according to his own work,'
and consequently according to his free will ; for if a work is not the
work of a man's free will, it is not his work, but the work of him that
uses him as a tool, and works by his instrumentality. So certain then
as the office of a gracious Saviour is compatible with that of a righteous
judge, my capital doctrines of free grace and free will are consistent
with each other. If these, therefore, ' walk with me in white,' know
that it is ' because they are WORTHY : for the righteous is MORE EXCEL
LENT than his neighbour. Like good and faithful servants, they occu
pied till I came ; and lo, I come, and my reward is with me.' They
have ' kept the faith ;' and I have kept my promise. They have not
finally forsaken me ; and I have not finally forsaken them. < They
have kept the word of my patience ; and I have kept them from the
great tribulation.' They have « made themselves ready,' (though some
have done it only at the eleventh hour,} and I have admitted them to the
heavenly feast. They have ' done my commandments, and they are
entered by the gates into the New Jerusalem.' My free grace gave
them their free will ; their free will yielded to my free grace : and now
my free grace crowns their faithfulness. They 'were faithful unto
death, and I have given them the crown of life.' Thus my free grace
and rnercy, which began the work of their salvation, concludes it in
conjunction with my truth and justice : and my free-willing people
shout, Grace f grace ! when they consider the top stone, as well as when
they behold the foundation of their salvation. My free grace is ALL to
them, and their free will is so much to me that ' I am not ashamed to
call them BRETHREN,' and to acknowledge that 'as the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so do I rejoice over them, because when they
heard my voice, they knew the day of their visitation, and did not harden
their hearts' to the last."
If Honestus and Zelotes candidly weigh the preceding arguments in
176 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
the balance of the sanctuary, they will, I hope, drop their prejudices
against free grace and free will, and consent to a speedy, lasting recon
ciliation. But Zelotes is ready to say that there can be no reconcilia
tion between Honestus and himself, because he cannot in conscience be
reconciled even to me, who here act the part of a mediator ; though I
come nearer to " the doctrines of grace" than Honestus does. Consider
we then the capital objections of Zelotes : and if we can answer them
to his satisfaction, we shall probably remove out of his way the strongest
bars which the author of discord has fixed between him and Honestus.
SECTION VI.
Zeloles produces his first objection to a reconciliation with Honestus,
taken from God's foreknowledge — Our Lord is introduced as answer -
ing for himself, and showing how his prescience is consistent with our
liberty, and his goodness with the just destruction of those who obsti
nately sin away their day of initial salvation — The absurdity of sup
posing that God cannot certainly know future events, which depend
upon the will of free agents, because we cannot.
WHILE Honestus says that he has no great objection to the* doctrine
of free grace, when it is stated in a rational and Scriptural manner, Ze
lotes intimates that he is still averse to the doctrine of free will ; and
declares that capital objections are in his way, and that, till they are
answered, he thinks it his duty equally to oppose Honestus and the re
conciler. Hear we then his objections, and let us see if they are as
unanswerable as he supposes them to be.
OBJECTION I. "You want to frighten me from th<j doctrines of
grace, and to drive into the heresy of the free willers, by perpetually
urging that the personal, unconditional, and eternal rejection of the non-
elect is inconsistent with Divine mercy, goodness, and justice : but you
either deny, or grant God's foreknowledge. If you deny it, you are an
Atheist : it being evident that an ignorant God is no God at all. If you
allow it, you must allow that when God made such men as Cain and
Judas he foreknew that they would certainly deserve to be damned ;
and that when he made them upon that foreknowledge, he made them
that they might necessarily deserve to be damned. And is not this
granting all that we contend for, namely, that G.od does make, and of
consequence has an indisputable right of making « vessels of wrath,'
without any respect to works and free will ? Is it not far better to say
that we have no free will, than to rob God of his prescience ?"
ANSWER. We need neither rob God of his prescience, nor man of
his free will. I grant, God made angels and men, that if they would
not be eternally saved, they might be damned. But what has this doc
trine to do with yours, which supposes that he made some angels jind
men that they might absolutely and necessarily be damned ? Is not our
doctrine highly consistent with God's goodness and justice ; while yours
is the reverse of these Divine perfections ? Again : —
Your argument, though ingenious, is inconclusive, because it is found.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 177
ed upon the common mistake of shifting the words upon which it chiefly
turns. The flaw of it consists in substituting the clause " necessarily
deserve to be damned," instead of the clause " certainly deserve to be
damned," just as if there was no difference between certainty and ne
cessity ! But a little attention will convince you of your error. It is
certain that I write this moment, but am I necessitated to it ? May I not
drop my pen, and meditate, read, or walk ? The chasm which, in many
cases, separates absolute certainty from absolute necessity, is as immense
as that which stands between a point and infinity. Take notice of the
insect that buzzes about your ears : does it not exist as certainly as God
himself] But would it not be a kind of blasphemy to say that it exists
as necessarily 1 Would it not at least be paying to a fly an honour which
is due to none but God. the only supreme and absolutely necessary being ?
And when you support your doctrines of grace by confounding certainty
with necessity, do you not support them by confounding two things, which,
in a thousand cases, and especially in the present one, have no more con
nection than the two poles ? Have not judicious Calviriists granted that
although the prescience of God concerning Judas' destruction could not
stand (cum eventu contrarid) " with his salvation ;" yet it stood perfectly
well (ciun possibilitate ad eventum contrariuin) " with the possibility oi'
his salvation ]" And is not this granting that although God clearly saw
that Judas would not repent, he clearly saw also that Judas might have
repented " in the accepted time," which is all that I contend for '/ (See
Davenantfs Animad. Cambridge edition, 1641, p. 38.)
To be a little more explicit : let me again intreat you to fall with me
before the throne of grace, where the Redeemer teaches mortals to be
" meek, lowly, and wise in the heart." Spread your doubts before him
in such humble language as this : " Thou light of the world, let not thy
creature remain in darkness with respect to the most important question
in the world. Am I appointed necessarily to continue in sin and be
damned ] Is my damnation finished 1 Hast thou absolutely ordained
me to be a vessel of wrath, and irrevocably appointed my eternal rejec
tion without any respect to my personal free will 1 Does thy foreknow
ledge necessitate my actions ? Or may I choose life or death, and,
through thy mercy or justice, have either the one or the other, accord
ing to my free, unnecessitated choice — my choice equally opposed to
unwillingness arid to necessity ? Speak, gracious Lord, that if I am a
necessary agent, I may, without any farther perplexity, yield myself to
be carried by the irresistible stream of thy free grace, or of thy free
wrath, to the throne in heaven, or to the dungeon in hell, which thou
hast appointed for me from all eternity, according to the doctrine of the
heathen poet : —
* Solvite mortales animos, curisque levate :
Fata regimt orbern, certa slant omnia lege.'"*
If Christ is the Logos ; if he is reason and the Word — the eternal
wisdom, and the uncreated Word of the Father ; may we not get a satis
factory answer to the preceding question by considering, with humble
prayer, his unerring word, and by diligently listening to the reason which
'* ilO ye mortals, dismiss your cares, and unbend your minds. Predestination
ules the world : all things happen according to a fixed decree." (Manilius.) .
VOL. II. 12
ITS EQUAL CHECK. [PART
he has given us ? And shall I take an unbecoming liberty, if I suppose
that he himself expostulates with Zelotes in such words as these ?
" Son of man, if thou chargest the reprobation of the damned, or their
predestination to eternal death upon my free wrath, my sovereignty, or
Adam's sin, thou insultest my goodness and justice. That reprobation
has no properly original cause, but their own personal free will. I would a
thousand times have crushed thy primitive parents into atoms, when they
forfeited my favour, rather than I would have spared them to propagate
a nice of creatures, most of whom, according to thy doctrines, are
under an absolute necessity to sin and be damned. Thou hast a wrong
idea of my word and attributes. With the wisdom and equity of a tender,
hearted judge I condemn the victims of my justice, and I do it merely
for their personal and obstinate contempt of my free grace. Be then no
longer mistaken : my decree of reprobation is nothing but a fixed reso
lution of giving sinners over to the perverseness of their free will, if they
resist the drawings of my free grace to the end of their day of initial
salvation. And what can be more equitable than such a resolution ? Is
it not right that free agents, who to the last despise my goodness, should
become monuments of my despised goodness, which is but another name
for my vindictive justice ?
" I foresaw, indeed, that, by such a final contempt of my grace, many
would bring destruction upon themselves ; but having wisely decreed to
make a world of probationers and free agents, I could not necessarily
incline their will to obedience, without robbing them of free agency : nor
could I rob them of free agency without foolishly defeating the counsel
of my own mind, and absurdly spoiling the work of my own hands. Be
side, from the beginning my intention was not only to show my power
and goodness in creating, but also to display my wisdom and justice in
governing accountable creatures, to whom ' without respect of persons,
I should render according to their works — eternal life to them who by
patient continuance in well doing seek for glory; but tribulation and
anguish to them that are contentious and disobedient.'
" I abhor extorted, forced, necessary submission in rationals : it suits
the dastardly children of the devil, and not the free-born sons of God.
I could not then in wisdom send upon this world such overpowering
streams of light ; or permit the tempter to spread such thick darkness
upon it, as might invincibly or necessarily turn the scale of man's will
for loyalty or rebellion. So unadvised a step would immediately have
taken them out of the probation in which I had placed them.
" Again : had I directly or indirectly thrown into the scale a weight
.sufficient to turn it irresistibly, I should have acted a most unreasonable
and detestable part : (1.) A most unreasonable part : for if I alone com
pletely l work out the salvation' of believers, according to what thou
callcst finished salvation, nothing can be more absurd than my appoint
ing a day of judgment and rewards, to bestow upon the elect an eternal
life of glory according to tJieir icorlcs. (2.) A most detestable part : for
if I earnestly invited all the wicked to choose life, after having absolutely
chosen death for most of them, should I not show myself the most hypo
critical of all tyrants ?
" But thou stumblest at my foreknowledge, and askest why I bestow
the blessings of initial salvation upon those whose free agency will cer-
THIRD. J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 179
taitily abuse my goodness, and do despite to the Spirit of my saving
grace. Thou thinkest it is wrong in me to give them that will perish
the cup of initial salvation, when I know they will not accept the cup of
eternal salvation. Thou supposest it would be better to reprobate them
at once, than to expose them to a greater damnation, by putting it in
their power to reject the terms of eternal salvation, and by that mean to
fall from initial salvation. But I shall silence thy objections by proposing
some plain questions to thee, as I once did to my servant Job.
1. "Is it reasonable to suppose that I should pervert my nature, and
act in a manner contrary to my perfections, to prevent free agents from
perverting their nature, and acting in a manner contrary to their happi
ness ? What wouldest thou have thought of my wisdom if I had appointed
Lucifer to hell, and Adam to the grave, from eternity, for fear they
should deserve those punishments by wilfully falling from heaven and
from paradise ? Is it not absurd to fancy that the Creator must bring
himself in guilty of misconduct, lest his rational creatures should render
themselves so ?
2. " If thou thinkest it right in me to command the Gospel of my free
grace to be preached to * every creature,' although thou knowest that the
neglecters of it will, like tlie people of Capernaum, fall into a deeper
hell for their final contempt of that favour ; why shouldest thou think it
wrong in me to extend the virtue of my blood, and the strivings of my
Spirit to those who will finally reject my free grace ? When thou ap-
provest the extensive tenor of my Gospel commission, dost thou well to
be angry, or to fret, like Jonah, at the extensiveness of my mercy ?
Dost thou not see that if I were absolutely merciless toward some men,
my commission to preach the Gospel to every man would be utterly
inconsistent wilh my veracity ?
3. " Have I not a right to create free agents, and to place them in a
state of probation, that I may wisely reward their obedience, or justly
punish their rebellion ? ' Who art thou, that repliest against God ? Shall
the thing formed say to him that formed it,' Why hast Ihou made me a
free agent 1 a probationer for heavenly rewards, or infernal punishments ?
May not I appoint that free-willing unbelievers, who do final despite to the
Spirit of my free grace, shall be « vessels of wrath, self fitted for destruc
tion ;' and that free-willing, obedient believers shall be « vessels of mercy,
afore prepared unto glory' by my free grace, with which their free will
has happily concurred ?
4. " In the nature of things must not free agents, in a state of proba
tion, be free to fall, as well as free to stand ? When thou weighest gold,
if thou hinderest one scale from turning, dost thou not effectually hinder
the free motion of the other scale ?
5. " Does it not become me to show myself good and gracious, though
my creatures prove wicked and ungrateful ? Should I extinguish or
restrain my light, because some people love darkness rather than light 1
If they will not do their duty by me, as obedient creatures, ought I not to
behave to them as a gracious Creator, and to hold out the golden sceptre
of my mercy, before I strike them with the iron rod of my vengeance ?
And should not the honour of my Divine attributes be considered more
than the additional degrees of misery, which ungrateful free agents will
obstinately bring upon themselves ?
180 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
6. " When I had decreed to create a world of free agents, and to try
their loyalty, in order to reward the obedient and punish the rebellious,
could I execute my wise, just, and gracious plan without suffering sin to
enter into the world, if free agents would commit it 1 Is permitting the
possibility of sin, any more than permitting that jfree wilt might, or might
not concur with my free grace ? And could I ever have judged the world
in righteousness, if I had not permitted such a possibility ?
7. •' If I had given the casting vote for Peter's obedience, and for
Judas' disobedience, should I not have fixed an eternal blot upon my
impartiality ? Thinkest thou that I could be so unwise and unjust as to
hold a universal judgment, to judge angels and men according to what
they have done through mere necessity ? Shall irresistible free grace,
and omnipotent free wrath, force the human will ? and shall I reward or
punish overpowered mankind according to such constraint ? Far be
the thought from thee ! Far be the iniquity from me ! I judge the
world in righteousness, and not in madness ; according to their own works,
and not according to mine.
8. " When I foresaw that sin would enter into the world, could I have
been just if I had not decreed to punish sinners ? Could I, with justice,
sentence moral agents either to non-existence, or to a wretched existence,
BEFORE they had done wickedly ? — AFTER they had sinned, and I had
graciously promised them a Saviour, could I, without showing myself
full of dissimulation, partiality, arid falsehood, condemn those that per-
ish, BEFORE I had afforded them the means of recovery, by which many
of their fellow sinners, under the same circumstances, attain eternal sal
vation ? Must not, in the nature of things, those who work out their
damnation be doubly guilty, or I be notoriously partial ? Must they not
appear without excuse before all ; or I without mercy, long suffering, and
truth toward them 1
9. " Dost thou not see that although the ministration of righteousness
and rewards i exceeds in glory,' yet the ministration of condemnation
and punishments * is glorious ?' Beside, are they not closely connected
together ? Has not the fear of hell, as well as the hope of heaven, kept
thousands of martyrs from drawing back to perdition, when the snares of
death compassed them about ? Nay, is not ' the spirit of bondage unto
fear' the beginning of wisdom, and, generally, of the conversion of tho
heart of man to me ? And shall I act a deceitful part for thousands of
years together, working upon my people by a lie, and making them be
lieve that they have damnation if they disbelieve, or if they cast off their
first faith, when yet (upon thy scheme) there is nothing but finished
salvation for them ?
10. "Will not the damnation of obstinate sinners answer as important
ends in the world of rationals, as prisons and places of execution do in
the kingdoms of this world ? if incorrigible, free-willing rebels sin toj
all eternity, will it not be just in rne to make the line of their punish-"
inent run parallel with the line of their wickedness ? Does not thy rea
son dictate that an unceasing contempt of my holy law, and a perpetual
rebellion against creating, redeeming, and sanctifying grace, will call
aloud for a perpetual outpouring of my righteous indignation ? And does
it not follow that the eternal damnation of rebels eternally obstinate — of
rebels who have wantonly trampled under foot the blessings of initial sal-
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 181
vation, is as consistent with my despised goodness, as with my provoked
justice 1
11. "As I could not justly condemn necessary agents to infernal misery ;
so I could not delight in, and reward the obedience of such agents. And
as thou hast more pleasure in the free, loving motions of one of thy
friends, than in the necessary motions of ten thousand pieces of clock
work, let them move ever so regularly, so do I put more value upon the
free, voluntary obedience of one of my people, than upon all the necessary
revolutions of all the planetary worlds. Why then wilt thou, by thy
doctrine of bound will, rob me of what I value most in the universe — the
free obedience of my faithful servants — the unforced, spontaneous love of
my mystical body, my spouse, my Church ?
12. " With respect to my foreknowledge of sin, it had absolutely no
influence on the commission of it. Thou thinkest the contrary, because
thou canst not, in general, certainly foresee what thy neighbours will do,
unless they are absolutely directed and influenced by thee : but the con
sequence does not hold. Short sighted as thou art, dost thou not some
times with a degree of certainty foresee things which thou art so far from
appointing, that thou wouldest gladly prevent them, if thou didst not
consider that such a step would be inconsistent with thy wisdom, and the
liberty of others ?
13. " Again : may not my foreknowledge of a future event imply the
certainty of that event with respect to me, without implying its necessity
with respect to the free agent who spontaneously causes it ? Suppose
thou wert perfectly acquainted with the art of navigation, the force of
every wind, the situation of every rock and sand bank, the strength and
burden of every ship, the disposition and design of every mariner, &c :
suppose again thou sawest a ship going full sail just against a dangerous
rock, notwithstanding thy repeated signals and loud warnings to the pilot ;
mightest thou not foresee the certain loss of the ship, without laying the
least necessity upon the pilot to steer her upon the fatal spot where she
goes to pieces ? And shall not I, from whom no secrets are hid, and
before whom things past and to come meet in one immovable, everlasting
NOW : — shall not I, « who inhabit eternity,' where he « that was, and is,
and is to come,' shows himself the unchangeable I AM, — shall not I, 1
say, foresee the motions and actions of all my free-acting creatures, as
certainly as a wise artist foresees the motions' of the watch which he
has made ? Imperfect as the illustration is, it is adapted to thy imperfect
understanding. For though thou canst not comprehend how I know
future contingencies, thou canst easily conceive, that as no one but a
watch maker can perfectly foresee what may accelerate, stop, or alter
the motion of a watch, so none but the Creator of a free agent can perfectly
foresee the future motions of a free agent. If * hell is naked, and destruc
tion hath no covering before me,' is it not absurd to suppose that the
human heart can be hid from my all-piercing eye 1 And if thou, who
livest but in a point of time, and in a point of space ; — if thou, whose
faculties are so shallow, and whose powers are so circumscribed ; — if
thou, I say, in that point of time and space which thou fillest, canst see
what is before thee, why should not I, an all-wise and superlatively per
fect Spirit, who fill all times, and all places, through an infinite NOW and
a boundless HERE, see also what is before me ? Perceivest thou not the
182 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
absurdity of measuring me with thy span 1 Try to weigh the mountains
in a balance, and to measure the seas in the hollow of thy hand ; and if
thou findest thyself confounded at the bare thought of a task so easy to
my omnipotence, fall in the dust, and confess that thou hast acted an
unbecoming part, in attempting to put the very same bounds to my omni
science, which I have put to thy foreknowledge. To conclude : —
14. " Thou art ready to think hardly of my wisdom, goodness, or
foresight, for giving a talent of saving grace to a man, who, by burying
it to the last, enhances his own destruction. To solve this imaginary
difficulty, thou ascribest to me a dreadful sovereignty — a horrible right
of making vessels to dishonour, and filling them with wrath, merely to
.show my absolute power. But let me expostulate a moment with thee.
I foresaw, indeed, that the slothful, unfaithful man, to whom I gave one
talent, would bury it to the last : but if I had kept it from him ; if I had
afforded him no opportunity of showing his faithfulness, or his unfaith
fulness ; what could I have done with him 1 Had I sent him to hell
upon foreseen disobedience, I should have acted the absurd and cruel
part of a judge who hangs an honest man to-day, under pretence that
he foresees the honest man will turn thief to-morrow ; — had I taken him
to heaven, I should have rewarded foreseen unfaithfulness with heavenly
glory. And, had I refused to let him come into existence, my refusal
would have been attended with a glaring absurdity, and with two great
inconveniences. (1.) With a glaring absurdity ; for if I foresee that a
man will certainly bury his talent ; and if, upon this foresight, I refuse
that man existence, it follows I foresaw that a thing which shall never
come to pass, shall certainly come to pass. And what can be more
unworthy of me, and more absurd, than such a foresight? (2.) The
notion that my foreknowledge of the man's burying his talent should
have made me suppress his existence, is big with two great inconve
niences. For, first, I should have defeated my own purpose, which was
to show my distributive justice by rewarding him, if he would be faith-
ful ; or by punishing him, if he would continue in his unfaithfulness.
And, secondly, I should have broken, almost without interruption, the
laws of the natural world, and nipped the man's righteous posterity in the
hud. Had I, for instance, prevented the wickedness of all the ancestors
of the Virgin Mary, by forbidding their existence, ten times over I might
have suppressed her useful being, and my own important humanity.
Nay, at this rate, I might have destroyed all mankind twenty times over.
Drop then thy prejudices ; be not wise above what is written for thy
instruction. Under pretence of exalting free grace, do not pour con
tempt upon free will, which is my masterpiece in man, as man himself
is my masterpiece in this world. Remember that hell is the just wages
which abused free grace gives to free-willing, incorrigible sinners ; and
that heaven is the gracious reward with which my free grace, when it
is submitted to, crowns the obedience of corrigible persevering believers.
Nor forget that, if thou oppose the doctrine of free grace, thou wilt
undermine my cross, and insult me as a Saviour : and if thou decry the
doctrine of free will, thou wilt sap the foundation of my tribunal, and
affront me as a judge."
To the arguments contained in the preceding plea, I add an extract
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 183
from a discourse written, I think, by Archbishop King, with a design to
reconcile the Predestinarians and the free willers.
" Foreknowledge and decrees," says that judicious writer, " are only
assigned to God, to give us a notion of the steadiness and certainly of
the Divine actions ; and if so, for us to conclude that what is represented
by them is inconsistent with the contingency of events or free will, &c,
is the same absurdity as to conclude that China is no bigger than a
sheet of paper, because the map that represents it is contained in that
compass."
The same ingenious author proposes the argument that has so puzzled
mankind, and done so much mischief in the world. It runs thus : — " If
God foresee, &c, that I shall be saved, I shall infallibly be so ; and if
he foresee, &c, that I shall be damned, it is unavoidable. And there-
fore it is no matter what I do, or how I behave myself in this life." "If
God's foreknowledge were exactly conformable to ours, the consequence
would seem just ; but, &c, it does not follow, because our foresight of
events, if we suppose it infallible, must presuppose a necessity in them,
that therefore the Divine prescience must require the same necessity in
order to its being certain. It is true we call God's foreknowledge and
our own by the same name ; but this is not from any real likeness in the
nature of the faculties, but from some proportion observable in the effects
of them ; both having this advantage, that they prevent any surprise on
the person endowed with them. Now as it is true that no contingency
or freedom in the creatures can any way deceive or surprise God, put
him to a loss, or oblige him to alter his measures ; so on the other hand
it is likewise true that the Divine prescience does not hinder freedom :
and a thing may either be, or not be, notwithstanding that foresight of it
which we ascribe to God. When therefore it is alleged that if God
foresees I shall be saved, my salvation is infallible ; this does not fol
low : because the foreknowledge of God is riot like man's, which requires
necessity in the event, in order to its being certain ; but of another na
ture consistent with contingency : and our inability to comprehend this
arises from our ignorance of the true nature of what we call foreknow,
ledge in God, &c. Only of this we are sure, that it so differs from ours
that it may consist either with the being, or not being of what is said to
be foreseen, &c. Thus St. Paul was a chosen vessel, and he reckons
himself in the number of the predestinated, Eph. i, 5. And yet he sup-
poses it possible for him to miss of salvation : and therefore he looked
upon himself as obliged to use mortification, and exercise all other
graces, in order to make his calling and election sure ; ' lest,' he says,
* that, by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should
be a castaway,' or a reprobate, as the word is translated in other places."
This author's important observation, concerning the difference be
tween God's foreknowledge and ours, may be illustrated by the following
remarks : — Hearing and sight are attributed to God, as well as fore
knowledge and foresight. " He that planted the ear," says David,
" shall he not hear ? And he that formed the eye, shall he not see ?"
Now is it not as absurd to measure God's perfect manner of foreseeing
and foreknowing, by our imperfect foresight and knowledge, as to mea
sure his perfect manner of seeing and hearing by our imperfect manner
of doing them ? If Zelotes said, " I cannot see the inhabitants of the
184 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
planets : I cannot see the antipodes : I cannot see through that wall :
1 can see nothing of solids but their surface, &c, therefore GOD cannot
ace the inhabitants of the planets, the antipodes," &c, would not his
argument appear to you inconclusive ? Nevertheless, it is full as strong
as the following, on which Zelotes' objection is founded : — " I cannot
certainly foresee, the free thoughts and contingent intentions of the hu
man heart, therefore God cannot do it : I am not omniscient, therefore
God is not so." If I argued in this manner, would you not say, " O
injudicious man, how long wilt thou measure God's powers by thine '[
Seo, if thou canst, what now passes in my breast ? Nay, see thy own
back ; see the fibres which compose the flesh of thy hands, or the vapour
that exhales out of all thy pores. And if these near — these present —
these material objects are out of the reach of thy sight, what wonder is
it if future contingencies are out of the reach of thy foresight ? Cease
then to confine God's foreknowledge within the narrow limits of thine,
and own that an omnipresent, omniscient, and everlasting Spirit, who
' is over all, through all, and in all,' and whose permanent existence
and boundless immensity comprehend all times and places, as the atmos
phere contains all clouds and vapours ; — own, I say, that such a Spirit
can, at one glance, see from his eternity all the revolutions of time far
*nore clearly than thou canst see the characters which thine eyes are
now fixed upon. And confess that it is the highest absurdity to sup
pose that an omnipresent, omnipotent, spiritual, and eternal eye, which
is before, behind, and in all things, times, and places, can ever be at a
loss to know or foreknow any thing. And what is God but such an eye 1
And what are Divine knowledge and foreknowledge, but the sight of
such a spiritual, eternal, and omnipresent eye ?"
I do not know whether this vindication of our free agency, of God's
foreknowledge, and of the consistency of both will please my readers :
but I flatter myself that it will satisfy Candidus. Should it soften the
prejudices of Zelotes, without hardening those of Honestus, it will pro-
mote the reconciliation which I endeavour to bring about, and answer
the end which I proposed when I took up the pen to throw some light
upon this deep and awful part of my subject.
SECTION VII.
Zelotes' second objection to a reconciliation — That objection is taken
from President Edwards? and Voltaire's doctrine about necessity —
The danger of that doctrine — The truth lies between tJie extremes of
rigid bound willers and rigid free wilier s — We have liberty, but it is
incomplete, and much confined — The doctrines of power, liberty, and
necessity, are cleared up by plain descriptions, and important dis
tinctions — The ground of Mr. Edwards1 mistake about necessity is
discovered ; and his capital objection against free will is answered.
ZELOTES has another specious objection to a reconciliation with Ho.
nestus. It runs thus : —
OBJECTION II. " Honestus is for free will, and I am against it. How
can you expect to reconcile us? Can you find a medium between free
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 185
will and necessity ? Now, that we are not free-willing creatures may
be demonstrated from reason and experience : (1.) From reason. Does
not every attentive mind see that a man cannot help following the last
dictate of his understanding ; that such a dictate is the necessary result
of the light in which he sees things ; that this light likewise is the ne
cessary result of the circumstances in which he is placed, and of the
objects which he is surrounded with ; — and, of consequence, that all is
necessary ; one event being as necessarily linked to, and brought on by
another, as the second link of a chain in motion is necessarily connected
with, and drawn on by the iirst link ? Thus, for example, the accidental,
not to say the providential sight of Bathsheba, necessarily raised un
chaste desires in David's mind : these desires necessarily produced
adultery : and adultery, by a chain of necessary consequences, neces
sarily brought on murder. All these events were decreed, and depended
as much upon each other as the loss of a ship depends upon a storm,
and a storm upon a strong rarefaction or condensation of the air. (2.)
EXPERIENCE shows that we are not at liberty to act otherwise than we
do. Did you never hear passionate people complain that they could
not moderate their anger 1 How often have persons in love declared
that their affections were irresistibly drawn to, and fixed upon such and
such objects '[ You may as soon bid an impetuous river to stop, as bid
a drunkard to be sober, and a thief to be honest, till sovereign, almighty,
victorious grace makes them so. * ' The way of man is not in himself;
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,' Jer. x, 23."
ANSWER. I grant that " the way of man is not in himself" to make
his escape, when the hour of vengeance is come, and when God sur
rounds him with his judgments : and that this was Jeremiah's meaning,
in the verse which you quote to rob man of his moral agency, is evident
from the words that immediately precede : " The pastors are become
brutish: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be
scattered ; behold the noise of the bruit [the hour of vengeance] is come,
and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of
Judah desolate, and a den of dragons." Then come the misapplied
words, " O Lord, I know that the way of a man [to make his escape] is
not in himself, &c. Correct me, but with judgment, &c, lest thou bring
me to nothing:" see verses 21, 22, 24. With respect to David, he had
probably resisted as strong temptations to impurity, as that by which he
fell ; and he might, no doubt, have stood, if he had not been wanting to
* This very passage was urged to a friend of mine by the obdurate highway
man who was hanged last year at Shrewsbury! He cited it on the morning of
his execution, to excuse his crimes, and to comfort himself. He had drunk so
deeply into the doctrine of necessity, bound will, and fatalism, that he was en-
tirely inaccessible to repentance. What pity is it that Zelotes should counte
nance so horrid a misapplication of the Scriptures ! Heated Austin is my Ze
lotes in this respect. Bishop Davenant saith of him, that " he did not abhor
fate ;" and to prove his assertion he quotes the following words of that father : —
" If any one attributes human affairs [which take in all the bad thoughts, words,
and actions of men,] to fate, because he calls the icill and the power of God by
the name of fate, let him hold his sentiment and alter his language. Sententiam
teneat, linguam corrigat" (Aug. De Grat. lib. 5, c. 1.) Is not t'nis granting
Mr. Voltaire as much fatalism as he contends for? and gilding the fatal pill so
piously as to make it go down glib with all the rigid bound willers in Christen
dom ?
186 EQUAL CHECK. [PABT
himself, both before, and at the time of his temptation. With regard
to what you say about a storm ; two ships of equal strength may be
tossed by the same tempest, and without necessity one of them may be
lost by the negligence, and the other saved by the skill of the pilot.
And if we may believe St. Paul, the lives which God had given him
would have been lost, if the sailor had not stayed in the ship to manage
her to the last, Acts xxvii, 31, 34. You appeal to experience : but it is
as much against you as against Honestus. Experience shows that we
have liberty, and thus experience is against you. Again : experience
convinces us that our liberty has many bounds, and thus experience is
against Honestus. As to your scheme of the concatenation of forcible
circumstances and events, it bears hard upon all the Divine perfections.
God is too wise, too good, and holy, to give us a conscience and a law
which forbids us to sin ; and to place us in the midst of such forcible
circumstances as lay a majority of mankind under an absolute necessity
of sinning to the last, and being damned for ever. We are therefore
endued with a degree of free will. Through Him who " tasteth death
for every man," and through " the free gift which came upon all men,"
we may " choose life" in the day of initial salvation ; we may, by grace,
(by " the saving grace which has appeared to all men,") pursue the
things that make for our peace ; or we may, by nature, (by our own
natural powers,) follow after the things that make for our misery, just
as we have a mind. " We cannot do all" says one, " therefore we can
do nothing.''1 "We can do something" says another, "therefore we can
do all." Both consequences are equally false. The truth stands be
tween two extremes. Beside : —
The doctrine of bound will draws after it a variety of bad conse
quences. It is subversive of the moral difference which subsists between
virtue and vice. It takes away all the demerit of unbelief. It leaves
no room for the rewardableness of works. It strikes at the propriety
of a day of judgment. It represents truth and error like two almighty
charms, which irresistibly work upon the elect and the reprobates, to
execute God's absolute decrees about our good or bad works, our finished
salvation or finished damnation. In a word, it fastens upon us the gross
est errors of Pharisaic fatalists, and the wildest delusions of Antino-
mian gospellers.
Having thus given a general answer to the objection proposed, I re
mind the reader that Mr. Edwards, president of New Jersey college, is
exactly of Zelotes' sentiments with respect to necessity or bound will.
They agree to maintain that necessary circumstances necessarily turn
the scale of our judgment, that our judgment necessarily turns the scale
of our will, and that the freedom of our will consists merely in choosing
with willingness what we choose by necessity. Mr. Voltaire also at the
head of the fatalists abroad, and one of my opponents at the head of
the Calvinists in England, give us, after Mr. Edwards, this false idea of
liberty. >
To show their mistake, I need only to produce the words of Mr.
Locke : — " Liberty cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no
will, &c. So a man striking himself, or his friend, by a convulsive mo
tion of his arm, which it is not in his power by volition, or the direction
of his mind, to stop or forbear ; nobody thinks he has liberty in this ;
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 187
every one pities him, as acting by necessity and constraint. Again :
there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where
there is no liberty. Suppose a man be carried, while fast asleep, into
a room, where is a person he longs to see, and there be locked fast in
beyond his power to get out ; he awakes, and is glad to see himself
in so desirable company, in which he stays so willingly; that is, he
prefers his staying to going away. Is not this stay voluntary ? I think
nobody will doubt it ; and yet being locked fast in, he is not at liberty to
stay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea be
longing to volition, or preferring ; but to the person having the power
of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall choose or
direct." (Essay on Hum. Und. chap. 21.)
This excellent quotation encourages me to make a fuller inquiry into
the mistakes of the rigid Predestinarians and rigid free willers, who
equally start from the truth that lies between them both. It is greatly
to be wished that the bounds of necessity and liberty were drawn con.
sistently with reason, Scripture, and experience. I shall attempt to do
it : and if I am so happy as to succeed, I shall reach the centre of the
difficulty, and point out the very spring of " the waters of strife :"
Honestus will be convinced that he has too high thoughts of our liberty :
Zelotes will see that his views of it are too much contracted : and Can-
didus will learn to avoid their contrary mistakes. I begin by a definition
of necessity and of liberty.
Moral philosophers observe that necessity is that constraint upon, or
confinement of the soul, whereby we cannot do a thing otherwise than
we do it. Hence it appears that, strictly speaking, there is no such
thing as moral necessity. For could we be constrained to do unavoid
able good or evil, that good were not moral good, that evil were not
moral evil. Could we be necessarily confined in the channel of virtue
or of vice, as a river is confined in its bed, without any power to retard
or accelerate our virtuous or vicious motions as we see fit ; our tempers
and actions would lose their morality and their immorality. To speak
with propriety, necessity has no place but in the natural world. Strictly
speaking, it is excluded from the moral world ; for what we may and
must regulate or alter, cannot possibly be necessary or unalterable.
Nevertheless I shall, by and by, venture upon the improper expression
of moral necessity, to convey the idea of a strong, moral propensity or
habit, and to point out with greater ease Mr. Edwards' mistake.
This ingenious author asserts that, by the law of our nature, we
choose what we suppose to be, upon the whole, most eligible. I grant
it is so in most cases: nevertheless, I deny necessity, because there is
no necessity imposed upon us to suppose that, upon the whole, a thing
is most eligible which at first sight appears to be so to the eye of preju
dice or passion ; our liberty being chiefly a limited power to attend
either to the dictates of reason and conscience, or to those of prejudice
and passion ; — to follow either the motions of the tempter or those of
Divine grace. I say a limited power, because our power is incomplete,
as will appear by considering the particulars of which our liberty does
and does not consist. And,
1. It does not consist, in general,* in a power to choose evil and
* I use these limited expressions because, upon second thoughts, I do not abso-
188 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
misery as such. Seldom do men, who are yet in a state of probation ;
men, who are not degenerated into mere fiends, choose evil only as evil.
When we pursue some evil, it is then generally under the appearance
of some good ; or, as leading to some good, which will sooner or later
make us ample amends for the present evil. For God having made us
for the supreme good, which is the knowledge and enjoyment of him
self, he has placed in our souls an unquenchable thirst after happiness,
that we may ardently seek him, the fountain of true happiness. It can
hardly be said, therefore, that probationers are at liberty with respect to
the capital inquiry, " Who will show us any good ?" We naturally desire
good, just as a hungry man desires food : although he may say, " I do
not choose to be hungry," yet he is so, whether he will or not.
2. But although a hungry man is necessarily hungry, yet he does not
eat necessarily ; for he may fast, if he please : and when he chooses to
eat, he may prefer bad to wholesome food ; he may take more or less
of either ; he may take it now, or by and by ; with deliberation, or with
greediness, as he pleases. Apply this observation to our necessary
hunger or thirst after happiness. All probationers necessarily ask,
" Who will show us any good ?" But although they necessarily aim at
happiness, yet they are not necessitated to aim at it in this or that way ;
although they cannot but choose that end, yet they are not irresistibly
obliged to choose any one particular mean to attain it.
Here then room is left for free will or liberty. We may choose to
go to happiness, our mark, by saying, " What shall we eat ? What
shall we drink ? Wherewith shall we be clothed ?" Who will give us
corn and wine, silver and gold, worldly honours and sensual gratifica
tions 1 or we may say, Who will give us pardon and peace, grace and
glory ? " Lord ! lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us !" In
a word, though we are not properly at liberty, whether we will choose
happiness in general, that choice being morally necessary to us ; yet in
the day of initial salvation we may choose to seek happiness in our
selves, in our fellow creatures, or in our Creator ; we may choose a
way that will lead us to imaginary and fading bliss, or to real and
eternal happiness : or, to speak as the oracles of God, we may choose
death or life.
This being premised, I observe that our liberty consists, 1. In our
lately assent to Mr. Edwards' doctrine, that the will always necessarily follows
the last dictate of the understanding. I now think that in this respect Calvin's
judgment deserves our close attention: — "Sic interdum flagitii turpitude con-
scientiam urgct, ut non sibi imponens sub falsa boni imagine, sed sciens et volens,
in malum ruat. Ex quo affectu prodeunt istce voces, ' Video meiiora proboque,
Deteriora sequor."1" (Inst. lib. 2, cap. 2, section 23.) Sometimes the horrid na
ture of vice so urges the conscience, that the sinner, no longer imposing upon
himself by the false appearance of good, knowingly and willingly rushes upon
evil. Hence flow these words, / see and approve what is good, but follow what
is bad.
Since these sheets went to the press, I have seen Mr. Wesley's Thoughts upon
Necessity. He strongly sides with Calvin against Edwards. For after asserting
that sometimes our first, sometimes our last judgment is according to the impres
sions we have received ; that in some cases we may or may not receive those im
pressions ; and that in most we may vary them greatly ; he denies that the will
necessarily obeys the last judgment, and affirms that "the mind has an intrinsic
power of cutting off the connection between the judgment and the will."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 189
being under no natural necessity with regard to our choice of the means
by which we pursue happiness ; and, of consequence, with regard to our
schemes and actions. I repeat it; by natural necessity I mean an abso-
lute want of power to do the reverse of what is done. Thus by natural
necessity an ounce is outweighed by a pound ; it can no ways help it :
and a man, whose eyes are quite put out, cannot absolutely see the
light, should he desire and endeavour it ever so much. Hence it
appears, that when Peter denied his Master, he was under no natural
necessity so to do ; for he might have confessed him if he had pleased.
When the martyrs confessed Christ, they might have denied him with
oaths, if they had been so minded : and when David went to Uriah's
bed, he might have gone to his own. There was no shadow of natural
'iccessity in the case. We may then, or we may not admit the truth or
the lie, that is laid before us as a principle of action. Thus the eunuch,
without necessity, admitted the truth delivered to him by Philip ; and Eve,
icithout nccessitt/, entertained the lie which was told her by the serpent.
2. Our liberty consists in a power carefully to consider whether what
is presented to us as a principle of action is a truth or a lie ; lest we
should judge according to deceitful appearances. Our blessed Lord, by
steadily using this power, steadily baffled the tempter : and Adam, by
not making a proper use of it, was shamefully overcome.
3. It consists in a power, natural to all moral agents, to do acts of
sin if they please, and in a supernatural or gracious power (bestowed
for Christ's sake upon fallen man) to forbear, with some degree of ease,
doing sinful acts,* at least when we have riot yet fully thrown ourselves
down the declivity of temptation and passion ; and when we have not
yet contracted such strong habits as make virtue or vice morally neces
sary to us.
4. It consists in a gracious power to make diligent inquiry, and to apph
in doubtful cases to "the Father of lights" for wisdom, before we practi
cally decide that such a doctrine is true, or that such an action is right.
Had Eve and David used that power, the one would not have been
deceived by a flattering serpent ; nor the other by an impure desire.
But, 5. The highest degree of our liberty consists in a power to sus.
pend a course of life entered upon ; to re-examine our principle, and to
admit a new one, if it appear more suitable ; especially when we are
particularly assisted by Divine grace, or strongly assaulted by tempta
tions adapted to our weakness. Thus, by their gracious free agency,
Manasses and the prodigal son suspended their bad course of life,
* I make these exceptions for two reasons : (1.) Because I am sensible of the
justness of Ovid's advice to persons in love : —
Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur, &c.
For if love, and indeed any other violent passion, is not resisted at its first ap
pearance, it soon gets to such a height that it can hardly be mastered, till it has
had its course. (2.) Because a habit strongly rooted is a second nature. It is far
easier to refrain from the first acts than to break off inveterate habits of virtue or
of vice. In such cases, powerful, uncommon impulses of grace or of temptation
are peculiarly necessary to throw us out of our beaten track. Hence the strong
comparison of the prophet, " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots ? Then may ye also, that are accustomed to do evil, do good," — without
a more than common assistance of Divine grace.
190 EQUAL CHECK. (PART
weighed the case a second time for the better, admitted the truth which
they once rejected, and from that new principle wrought righteousness :
while, on the other hand, Solomon, Judas, and Demas, by their natural
free agency suspended their good course of life, weighed the case a
second time for the ivorse, admitted the lie which they once detested, and
from that new principle wrought damnable iniquity. Is not this account
of our real, though limited liberty, more agreeable to Scripture, reason,
conscience, and experience, than the necessity maintained by Calvin-
istic bound willers and Deistical fatalists ?
I have already observed, (Equal Check, vol. i, p. 444,) that the seem
ingly contrary systems of those gentlemen, like the two opposite half
diameters of a circle, meet in natural necessity, a central point which is
common to both ; Mr. Voltaire, who is the apostle of the Deistical
world, and Mr. Edwards, who is the oracle of Calvinistic metaphy
sicians, exactly agreeing to represent man as a mere, though willing
slave, to the circumstances in which he finds himself, and to load him
from head to foot, arid from the cradle to the grave, with the chains of
absolute necessity, one link of which he can no more break, than he can
make a world. Their error, if I mistake not, springs chiefly from their
overlooking the important difference there is between natural necessity,
and what the barrenness of language obliges me to call moral necessity*
Hence it is that they perpetually confound real liberty, which is always
of an active nature, with that kind of necessity in disguise, which I beg
leave to call passive liberty. Clear definitions, illustrated by plain ex
amples, will make this intelligible ; will unravel the mystery of fatalism,
and rescue the capital doctrine of liberty from its confinement in mysti
cal Babel.
1. A thing is done by natural necessity, when it unavoidably takes
place, according to the fixed laws of nature. Thus, by natural necessity,
a serpent begets a serpent, and not a dove ; a fallen man begets a fallen
child, and not an angel ; a deaf man cannot hear, and a cripple cannot
be a swift racer.
2. A thing is done by moral necessity, (if I may use that improper
expression,) when it is done by a free agent with a peculiar degree of
readiness, resolution, and determination ; from strong motives, powerful
arguments, confirmed habits ; and when it might nevertheless be done
just the reverse, if the free agent pleased. Thus, by a low degree of
moral necessity, chaste, conscientious Joseph struggled out of the arms
of his master's wife, and cried out, " How can I do this great wickedness,
and sin against God ?" And, by a high degree of it, Satan hates holiness,
God abhors sin, and Christ refused to fall down and worship the devil.
3. I have observed in the Second Check that Mr. Edwards' celebra
ted Treatise upon Free Will turns in a great degree upon a comparison
between balances and the will. To show more clearly the flaw of his
performance, I beg leave to venture upon the improper, and, in one sensr^,
contradictory expression of " passive liberty." By passive liberty (which
might also be called mechanical liberty} I mean the readiness with which
just scales turn upon the least weight thrown into either of them. Now
it is certain that this liberty (so called) is mere necessity ; for two even
scales necessarily balance each other, and the heavier scale neces
sarily outweighs the lighter. According to the fixed laws of nature
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 191
it cannot be otherwise. It is evident, therefore, that when Mr. Ed
wards avails himself of such popular, improper expressions as these,
" Good scales are free to turn either way ; just balances are at
liberty to rise or fall by the least weight," he absurdly imposes upon the
moral world a mechanical freedom or liberty, which is mere necessity.
His mistake is set in a still clearer light by the following definition : —
4. Active liberty is that of living creatures endued with a degree of
power to use their faculties in various manners ; their prerogative is to
have in general the weight that turns them, in a great degree, at their
own disposal. Experience confirms this observation : how many stub-
born beasts, for example, have died under the repeated strokes of their
drivers, rather than move at their command ! And how many thousand
Jews chose to be destroyed rather than to be saved by Him who said,
" How often would I have gathered you, &c, and ye would not !"
Hence it appears that active liberty subdivides itself into brutal liberty,
and rational or moral liberty.
5. Brutal liberty belongs to beasts, and rational or moral liberty be
longs to men, angels, and God. By brutal liberty understand the power
that beasts have to use their animal powers various ways, according to
their instinct and at their pleasure. By rational liberty understand the
power that God, angels, and men have to use their Divine, angelic, or
human powers in various manners, according to their wisdom, and at
their pleasure. Thus, while an oak is tied fast by the root to the spot
where it feeds and grows, a horse carries his own root along with him,
ranging without necessity, and feeding as he pleases, all over his pas
ture. While a horse is thus employed, a man may either make a sad
dle for his back, a spur for his side, a collar for his shoulder, a stable for
his conveniency, or a carnage for him to draw : or, leaving these me
chanical businesses to others, he may think of the scourge that tore his
Saviour's back ; call to mind the spear that pierced his side ; reflect
upon the cross that galled his shoulder ; the stable where he was born ;
and the bright carriage in which he went to heaven : or he may, by
degrees, so inure himself to infidelity as to call the Gospel a fable, and
Christ an impostor.
According to these definitions it appears that our sphere of liberty
increases with our powers. The more powers animals have, and the
more ways they can use those powers, the more bridal liberty they
have also : thus those creatures that can, when they please, walk upon
the earth, fly through the air, or swim in the water, as some sorts of
fowls, have a more extensive liberty than a worm, which has the free
dom of one of those elements only, and that too in a very imper
fect degree.
As by the help of a good horse a rider increases his power to move
swiftly, and to go far : so by the help of science and application a phi
losopher can penetrate into the secrets of nature, and an Archytas or a
Newton can
Acrias tentare domos, animoque rotundum
Tr.uismigrare polurn.*
Such geniuses have undoubtedly more liberty of thought than those sots,
* Soar to the stars, and with his mind travel round the universe.
192 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
whose minds are fettered by ignorance and excess, and whose imagina
tion can just make shift to flutter from the tavern to the play house and
back again. By a parity of reason, they who enjoy " the glorious liberty
of the children of God," who can in a moment collect their thoughts,
fix them upon the noblest objects, and raise them not only to the stars,
like Archytas, but to the throne of God, like St. Paul ; — they who can
" become all things to all men, be content" in every station, and even
" sing at midnight" in a dungeon, regardless of their empty stomachs,
their scourged backs, and their " feet made fast in the stocks ;" they
who can command their passions and appetites, who " are free from
sin," and find " God's service perfect freedom ;" these happy people, I
say, enjoy far more liberty of heart, than the brutish men who are so
enslaved to their appetites and passions, that they have just liberty
enough left them, not to ravish the women they set their eyes upon, and
not to murder the men they are angry with. But although the liberty
of God's children is " glorious" now, it will be far more glorious
when their regenerate souls shall be matched in the great day with bodies
blooming as youth, beautiful as angels, radiant as the sun, powerful as
lightning, immortal as God, and capable of keeping pace with the Lamb,
when he shall lead them to new fountains of bliss, and run with them
the endless round of celestial delights.
To return : innumerable are the degrees of liberty peculiar to various
orders of creatures ; but no animals are accountable to their owners
for the use of their powers, but they which have a peculiar degree of
knowledge. Nor are they accountable, but in proportion to the degree
of their knowledge and liberty. Your horse, for instance, has power to
walk, trot, and gallop : you want him to do it alternately ; and, if he does
riot obey you, when you have intimated your will to him in a manner suit
able to his capacity, you may, without folly and cruelty, spur or whip him
into a reasonable use of his liberty and powers ; for inferior creatures
are in subjection to their possessors in the Lord. But if his feet were
tied, or his legs broken, and you spurred him to make him gallop ; or
if you whipped a hen to make her swim, or an ox to make him fly, you
would exercise a foolish and tyrannical dominion over them. This cruel
absurdity, however, or one tantamount, is charged upon Christ by those
who pretend to " exalt him" most. They thus dishonour him, as often
as they insinuate that the children of men have no more power to be
lieve, than hens to swim, or oxen to fly ; and that the Father of mercies
will damn a majority of them, for not using a power which he determined
they should never have.
Some people assert that man has a little liberty in natural, but none
in spiritual things. I dissent from them for the following reasons : (1.)
All men (monsters not excepted) having a degree of the human form,
they probably have also a degree of human capacity, a measure of those
mental, powers by which we receive the knowledge of God ; a knowledge
this, which no horse can have, and which is certainly of a spiritual
nature. (2.) The same apostle, who informs us that "the natural man"
(so called) the man who quenches the Spirit of grace under his dispen
sations, " cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, because they
are discerned" only by the light of the Spirit, which he quenches or
resists, — the same apostle, I say, declares, that " what may bo known of
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. • 193
God, is manifest in them, [the most abandoned heathens ;] for God hath
showed it unto them ; so that they are without excuse ; because when thev
knew God, [in some degree,] they glorified him not as God," according
to the degree of that knowledge ; but became brutish, besotted persons ;
or, to speak St. Paul's language, " they became vain in their imaginations ;
they became fools ; their foolish heart was darkened ; wherefore God
gave them up to a reprobate mind," and they were left in the deplorable
condition of the Christian apostates described by St. Jude, " sensual,
having not the Spirit :" in a word, they became YU^JXOI,* mere animal
men, the full reverse of spiritual men, I Cor. ii, 14. Far from being
the wiser for " the light that [graciously] enlightens every man that
cometh into the world," they became " inexcusable, by changing the truth
of God into a lie," and turning their light to darkness, through the wrong
use which they made of their liberty.
When the advocates for necessity deny man the talent of spiritual
liberty, which Divine wisdom arid grace have bestowed upon him, they
fondly exculpate themselves, and rashly charge God with Calvinistic
reprobation. For who can think that an oyster is culpable for not flying
as an eagle ? And who can help shuddering at the cruelty of a tyrant,
who, to show his sovereignty, bids all the idiots in his kingdom solve
Euclid's problems, if they will not be cast into a fiery furnace ? Nor
will it avail to say, as Elisha Coles and his admirers do, that though
man has lost his power to obey, God has not lost his power to command
upon pain of eternal death : for this is pouring poison into the wound,
which the doctrine of natural necessity gives to the Divine attributes.
Your slave runs a sportive race, falls, -dislocates both his arms, and by
that accident loses his power or liberty to serve you : in such circum
stances you may indeed find fault with him, for bringing this misfortune
upon himself; but you show a great degree of folly and injustice if you
blame him for not digging with his arms out of joint ; and when you
refuse him a surgeon, and insist upon his thrashing, unless he choose
doubly to feel the weight of your vindictive hand, you betray an uncom
mon want of good nature. But in how much more unfavourable a light
would your conduct appear if his misfortune had been entailed upon him
by one of his ancestors, who lost a race near six thousand years ago ;
and if you had given him a bond stamped with your own blood, to assure
him that " your ways are equal," and that you are " not an austere
man," that " your mercy is over all your household," and that punishing
is your (' strange work ?"
God is not such a master as the Calvinian doctrines of grace make him.
For Christ's sake he is always well pleased with the right use we make of
our present degree of liberty, be that degree ever so little. For uncon
verted sinners themselves have some liberty. Fast tied and bound as
they are with the chain of their sins, like chained dogs, they may move
a little. If they have a mind they may, to a certain degree, come out
* VVXTJ is sometimes taken only for the principle of animal lift. Thus, Rev.
viii, 9, " The third part of the sea became blood, and the third part of the crea
tures which wer • in the sea,, and had**''.'^? [not -natural but] animal life, died."
Hence Calvin himself renders the word ¥V%IKOS, animal man, though our trans
lators render it " natural man," as if the Greek word were <J>VCHKOS. And upon
their mistakes a vast majority of mankind are rashly represented as being abso
Cutely destitute of all capacity to receive the saving truths of religion.
VOL. II. 13
194 . EQUAL CHECK [PART
of Satan's kennel. When they are pinched with hunger or trouble, like
the prodigal son, they may go a little way toward the bread arid the cor
dial that came down from heaven ; and when their chains gall their
minds, they may give the Father of mercies to understand that they
want " the pitifulness of his great mercy to loose them." Happy the
souls who thus meet God with their little degree of power ! Thrice
happy they who go to him so far as their chain allows, and then groan
with David, " My belly cleaveth to the dust. Bring my soul out of pri
son, that 1 may praise thy name !" When this is the case, " the captive
exile hasteneth that he may be loosed ;" they that are thus " faithful
over a few things," will soon be " set over many things ;" they will soon
experience an enlargement, and say with the psalmist, " Thou hast en
larged my steps under me :" my liberty is increased. " I will run the
way of thy commandments."
The defenders of necessity are chiefly led into their error by con
sidering the imperfection of our liberty, and the narrow limits of our
powers : but they reason inconclusively who say, " Our liberty is imper
fect : therefore we have none. ' Without Christ we can do nothing :'
therefore we have absolutely no power to do any thing." As some ob
servations upon this part of my subject may reconcile the judicious and
candid on both sides of the question, I venture upon making the follow
ing remarks : —
All power, and therefore all liberty, has its bounds. The king of
England can make war or peace when he pleases, and with whom he
pleases ; and yet he cannot lay the most trilling tax without his parlia
ment. The power of Satan is circumscribed by God's power. God's
own power is circumscribed by his other perfections : he cannot sin,
because he is holy ; he cannot cause two and two to make six, because
he is true ; nor can he create and annihilate a thing in the same
instant, because he is wise. Our Lord's power is circumscribed also :
" Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do."
If a degree of confnement is consistent with the liberty of omnipotence
itself, how much more can a degree of restraint be consistent with our
natural, civil, moral, and spiritual liberty ! Take an instance of it : (1.)
With regard to natural liberty. Although you cannot fly, you may
walk, but not upon the sea, as Peter did ; nor thirty miles at once, as
some people do ; nor one mile when you are quite spent ; nor five yards
when you have a broken leg. (2.) With respect to civil liberty. You
are a free-born Englishman : nevertheless, you are not free from taxes ;
and probably you have not the freedom of two cities in all the kingdom.
On the other hand, St. Paul is Nero's " prisoner, bound with a chain,"
and yet he swims to shore, he gathers sticks, makes a fire, and preaches
" two years in his own hired house, nobody forbidding him." (8.) With
respect to moral liberty. When Nabal is in company with his fellow
sots, has good wine before him, and is already heated by drinking, he
cannot refrain himself, he must get drunk : but might he not have done
violence to his inclination before his»blood was inflamed? Conscious
of his weakness, might he not at least have avoided the dangerous com
pany lie is in, and the sight of the sparkling liquor, in which all his
good resolutions are drowned?
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 195
Take one instance more of the imperfect liberty I plead for. Is not
what I have said of civil, applicable to devotional liberty ? You have
not the power to LOVE God with all your heart ; but may you not FEAR
him a little ? You cannot wrap yourself for one hour in the sublime
contemplation of his glory ; but may you not meditate for two minutes
on death and judgment ? St. Paul's burning zeal is far above your
sphere ; but is not the timorous inquistiveness of Nicodemus within your
reach ? You cannot attain the elevations of him who has ten talents of
piety ; but may you not so use your one talent of consideration, as to
gain two, four, eight, and so on, till the unsearchable riches of Christ
are all yours ? And, if I may allude to the emblematic pictures of the
four evangelists, may you not ruminate upon earth with the ox of St.
Luke, till you can look up to heaven with St. Matthew's human face,
fight against sin, with the courage of St. Mark's lion, and soar up to
ward the Sun of righteousness, with the strong wings of St. John's eagle ?
Did not our Lord expect as much from the Pharisees, when he said to
them, " Ye hypocrites, how is it that you do not discern this [accepted]
time 1 Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?"
Alas ! how frequently do we complain of the want of power, when we
have ten times more than we make use of! How many slothfully bury
their talent, and peevishly charge God with giving them none ! And
how common is it to hear people, who are sincerely invited to the Gos
pel feast, say, " I cannot come," who might roundly say, if they had
Thomas' honesty, "I will not believe !" The former of these pleas is
indeed more decent than the latter : but is it not shamefully evasive ?
And does it not amount to the following excuse : — " I cannot come with
out taking up my cross ; and as I will not do that, my coming is morally
impossible?" A lame excuse this, which will pull down aggravated
vengeance upon those who, by making it, trifle with truth, and their
own souls, and with God himself.
From the whole I conclude that our liberty, or free agency, consists
in a limited ability to use our bodily and spiritual powers right or wrong
at our option ; and that to deny mankind such an ability is as absurd as
to say that a man cannot work, or beg, or steal, as he pleases ; bend the
knee to God, or to Ashtaroth ; go to the house of prayer, or to the
play house ; turn a careless, or an attentive ear to a Divine message ;
disbelieve, or give credit to an awful report ; slight, or consider a matter
of fact ; and act in a reasonable, or unreasonable mariner, at his option.
Is not this doctrine agreeable to the dictates of conscience, as well as
to plain passages of Scripture ? And when we maintain that, as often
as our free will inclines to vital godliness since the fall, it is touched,
though not necessarily impelled by free grace : when we assert, in the
words of our tenth article, that " we have no power to do good works
acceptable to God, without the grace of God, by Christ preventing [not
forcing] us that we may have a GOOD will ;" do we not sufficiently se
cure the honour of free grace 1 Say we not as much as David does in
this passage : " Thy people [obedient believers] shall [or will] be willing
[to execute thy judgments upon* thine enemies] in the day of thy power,"
* That this is the true meaning of Psalm ox, 3, is evident from the context.
Read the whole Psalm ; compare it with Psalm cxlix, 6; Mai. iv, 1, 2, 3 ; anJ
Rev. xix, 19; and you will see that "the day of God's power," or "the day of
196 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
i. e. in the day of thy powerful wrath ? Or, as we have it in the Common
Prayer, " In the day of thy power shall the people offer free will [not
bound will] offerings ?" Do we not grant all that St. Paul affirms, when
he says to the Philippians, " Work out your own salvation with fear,
&c, for it is God that worketh.in you both to WILL and to DO ?" i. e.
God of his own good pleasure gives you a gracious talent of will and
power : bury it not : use it " with fear :" lay it out " with trembling ;"
lest God take it from you, and " give you up to a reprobate mind."
And is it riot evident that these two passages, on which the rigid bound
willers chiefly rest their mistake, are perfectly agreeable to the doctrine
of the moderate free willers which runs through all the Scriptures, as
the preceding pages demonstrate 1
THIRD OBJECTION OF ZELOTES. Rational and Scriptural as the doc
trine of liberty is, President Edwards will root it up : and to succeed in
his attempt, he fetches ingenious arguments from heaven and hell.
Superos, Acheronta movcndo,
he musters up all the subtleties of logic and metaphysics, with all the
refinements of Calvinism, to defend his favourite doctrine of necessity.
To the best of my remembrance, a considerable part of his book maj
be summed up in the following paragraph, which contains the most in
genious objections of the Calvinists : —
The Arminians say that if we act necessarily we are neither punishable
nor rewardable ; because we are neither worthy of blame, nor of praise.
But the devil, who is punished, and who therefore is blameworthy, is
necessarily wicked ; he has no liberty to be good. And God, who de
serves ten thousand times more praises than we can give, is necessarily
good; he has no liberty to be wicked. Hence it appears that the re
probates may be necessarily wicked like the devil, and yet may be justly
punishable like him ; and that the elect may be necessarily good like
God and his angels, and yet that they may be, in their degree, praise
worthy like God, and rewardable like his angels. Therefore, the doctrine
of the Calvinists is rational, as only supposing what is undeniable,
namely, that necessary sins may justly be punished in the reprobates ;
and that necessary obedience may wisely be rewarded in the elect. And,
on the other hand, the doctrine of the Arminians, who make so much
ado about reason and piety, is both absurd and impious : absurd, as it
supposes that the devil is not worthy of blame, because he sins neces
sarily ; and impious, as it insinuates that God does not deserve 'praise,
because his goodness is necessary.
This argument is plausible, and an answer t > it shall conclude this
dissertation. God is enthroned in goodness far above the region of
evil ; neither " can he be tempted of evil ;" the excellence, unchange,
ableness, and self sufficiency of his nature being every way infinite.
He docs not then exercise his liberty in choosing moral good or evil ;j
but, (1.) In choosing the various manners of enjoying himself accord
ing to all the combinations that may result from his unity in trinity, and
from his trinity in unity. (2.) In regulating the infinite variety of his
external productions. (3.) In appointing the boundless diversity of
God's army," is the day of his wrath against his enemies: a day this which is
expressly mentioned two verses after, and described in the rest of the Psalm.
THIKD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 197
rewards and punishments, with which he crowns the obedience or dis
obedience of his rational creatures. (4.) In finding out different me
thods of overruling the free agency of men and angels ; and of SUN
pending the laws by which he governs the material world. And, (5.)
In stamping different classes of beings with different signatures of his
eternal power and Godhead ; and in indulging, with multifarious dis
coveries of himself, the innumerable inhabitants of the worlds which
he has created, or may yet condescend to create.
On the other hand, the devil is sunk far below the region of virtue and
bliss ; neither can he be tempted of good, on account of his consum
mate wickedness, and fixed aversion to all holiness. His liberty of
choice is not then exercised about moral good and evil ; but about va
rious ways of doing mischief, procuring himself some ease, and trying
to avoid the natural evils which he feels or fears.
This is not the case of man, who inhabits, if I may use the expres
sion, a middle region between heaven and hell ; a region where light
and darkness, virtue and vice, good and evil, blessing and cursing, are
yet before him, and where he is in a state of probation, that he may be
rewarded with heaven, or punished with hell, " according to his good or
bad works." It is then as absurd in President Edwards to confound our
liberty with that of God and of the devil, as it would be in a geographer
to confound the equinoctial line with the two poles.
A comparison may illustrate this conclusion. As the mechanical
liberty of a pair of just scales consists in a power gradually to ascend
as high, or to descend as low as the play of the beam permits ; so the
moral liberty of rationals in a state of probation, consists in a gracious
power gradually to ascend in goodness quite to their zenith in heaven,
and in a natural power to descend in wickedness quite to their nadir in
hell ; so immensely great is the play of the moral scales ! God's will,
by the perfection of his nature, being immovably fixed in the height of
all goodness, cannot stoop to an inferior good, much less to evil : and
the devil, being sunk in the depth of all wickedness, and daily confirm
ing himself in his iniquity, can no more rise in pursuit of goodness.
Thus the presence of all wickedness keeps the scale of the prince of
darkness fixedly sunk to the nethermost hell ; while the absence of all
unrighteousness keeps the scale of the Father of lights fixedly raised
to the highest pitch of heavenly excellence. God is then quite above,
and Satan quite below a state of probation. The one is good, and the
other evil, in the highest degree of moral necessity. Not so man, who
hovers yet between the world of light and the world of darkness — man,
who has life and death, salvation and damnation placed within his reach,
and who is called to " stretch forth his hand" to that which he .will
have, that "the reward of his hands may be given him."
Nor does it follow from this doctrine that God's goodness is not praise
worthy, and that Satan's wickedness is not worthy of blame : for although
God is fixedly good, and Satan fixedly wicked, yet the goodness of God,
and the wickedness of the devil are still of a moral nature ; and there
fore commendable or discommendable. I mean, (1.) That God's good
ness consists in the perfect rectitude of his eternal will, and not in a
want of power to do an act of injustice. And, (2.) That the devil's
wickedness consists in the complete perverseness of his obstinate will,
'98 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
and not in a complete want of power to do what is right. Examples
will explain this : —
A rock cannot do an act of justice or an act of injustice, because
reason and free agency do riot belong to a stone ; therefore, the praise
of justice and the dispraise of injustice, can never be wisely bestowed
upon a rock. If a rock fall upon the man who is going to murder you,
and crushes him to death, you cannot seriously return it thanks ; because
it fell without any good intention toward you ; nor could it possibly help
falling just then. Not so the « Rock of ages," the parent of rationals
and free agents : he does justice with the highest certainty, and yet with
the highest liberty : I say with the highest liberty ; because, if he would,
he COULD, with the greatest ease, do what to me appears inconsistent
with the Scriptural description of his attributes. Could he not, for ex-
ample, to please Zelotes, make " efficacious decrees" of absolute repro
bation, that he might secure the sin and damnation of his unborn crea
tures? Could he not protest again and again that "he willeth not
primarily the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn and
live ;" when, nevertheless, he has primarily, yea absolutely appointed
that most of them shall never turn and live ? Could he not openly
" command all men every where to repent," upon pain of eternal death,
and yet keep ?nost men every where from repenting, by giving them up
to a reprobate mind from their mother's womb, as he is supposed to
have done by the myriads of « poor creatures" for whom, if we believe
the advocates of Calvinistic grace, Christ never procured one single
grain of penitential grace ? Could he not invite « all the ends of the
earth to look unto him, and be saved," and call himself the Saviour of
the world, and the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that be-
lieve, (of all men by initial salvation ; and of them that believe and obey
by eternal salvation,) when yet he determined from all eternity that there
should be neither Saviour nor initial salvation, but only a damncr and
finished damnation for the majority of mankind ? Could he not have
caused his only begotten Son to assume a human form, and to weep,
yea, bleed over obstinate sinners ; protesting that he « came to save the
world, and to gather them as a hen gathers her brood under her wings ;"
when yet from all eternity he had absolutely ordained* their wicked,
ness and damnation to illustrate his glory ? In a word, could he not
prevaricate from morning till night, like the God extolled by Zelotes,—
a God this, who is represented as sending his ministers to preach the
* When Calvin speaks of the absolute destruction of « so many nations, which
(una cum libens eorum infantibus,} together with their little children, are involved
without remedy in eternal death by the fall," he says that " God foreknew their
end before he made man;" and he accounts for his foreknowledge thus: "He
foreknew it because he had ordained it by his decree :» a decree this, which three
lines above lie calls " horribly awful." "Et idea prascivit, quia decreto suo sic
ordinarat. Dccretum quidem horribile, fateor." And in the next chapter he ob-
_, — ""c-> jut-wit -fi.iiu in me next cnapier ne OD-
serves that, " forasmuch as the reprobates do not obey the word of God, we may
well charge their disobedience upon the wickedness of their hearts; provided we
add at the same time that they were devoted to this wickedness, because by the
just and unsearchable judgment of God, they were raised up to illustrate his glory
by their damnation." « Modo simul adjicilur, ideo in hanc pravitatem addidos
iuia justo, et inscrutabili Dei judicio suscitati sunt, ad gloriam eius sua dnmna.
tione illustrandam." This Calvinism unmasked maybe seen in Calmrfs Insti.
*utes, tmrd book, chap. 23, sec. 7, and chap. 24, sec. 14.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 199
Gospel [i. e. to offer " finished and eternal salvation"] to every creature,
when his unconditional, efficacious decree of reprobation, and the par
tiality of Christ's atonement, leave to multiplied millions no other pros
pect, but that of finished and eternal damnation ? Could not God, I
say, do all this if lie would ? Do not even some good men indirectly
represent him as having acted, and as continuing to act in that manner?
Now if he does it not, when he has full power to do it ; if he is de
termined not to sully his veracity by such shuffling, his goodness by
such barbarity, his justice by such unrighteousness ; or, to use Abra
ham's bold expression, if " the Judge of all the earth does right," when,
if he would, he could do wrong, to set off his " sovereignty" before a
Calvinistic world ; is not his goodness praiseworthy ? Is it not of the
moral kind ?
The same might be said of the devil's wickedness. Though he is
confirmed in it, is it not still of a moral nature ? Is there any other
restraint laid upon his repenting, but that which he first lays himself?
Could he not confess his rebellion, and suspend some acts of it, if he
would ? Could he not of two sins, which he has an opportunity to com
mit, choose the least, if he were so minded 1 But, granting that he has
lost all moral free agency, granting that he sins necessarily, or that he
could do nothing better if he would ; I ask, Who brought this absolute
necessity of sinning upon him ? Was it another devil wht> rebelled five
thousand years before him ? You say, No ; he brought it upon himself
by his wilful, personal, unnecessary sin : and I reply, Then he is blame
worthy for wilfully, personally, and unnecessarily bringing that horrible
misfortune upon himself: and therefore his case has nothing to do with
the case of the children of men, who have the depravity of another
entailed upon them, without any personal choice of their own. Thus,
if I mistake not, the doctrine of liberty, like the bespattered swan of the
fable, by diving a moment in the limpid streams of truth, emerges fairer,
and appears purer, for the aspersions cast upon it by rigid bound willers
and fatalists, headed by Mr. Edwards and Mr. Voltaire.
SECTION VIII.
The fourth objection of Zelotes to a reconciliation with Honestus — In
answer to it the reconciler proves, by a variety of quotations from the
writings of the fathers, and of some eminent divines, and by the tenth
article of our Church, that the doctrines of free grace and free will, as
they are laid down in the Scripture Scales, are the very doctrines of
the primitive Church, and of the Church of England — These doc
trines widely differ from the tenets of the Pelagians and ancient semi-
Pelagians.
OBJECTION IV. " You have done your best to vindicate the doctrine
of moderate free willers, and to point out a middle way between the
sentiments of Honestus and mine, or to speak your own language,
between rigid free willers and rigid bound willers • but you have not yet
gained your end : for, if you have Pelagius and Mr. Wesley on your
200 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
side, the primitive Church and the Church of England are for us: nor
are we afraid to err in so good company."
ANSWER. I have already observed that, like true Protestants, we rest
our cause upon right reason and plain scriptures : and that both are for
us, the preceding sections, I hope, abundantly prove. Nevertheless, to
show you that the two Gospel axioms can be defended upon any ground,
I shall, first, call in the Greek and Latin fathers, that you may hear from
their own mouths how greatly they dissent from you. Secondly, to cor-
roborate their testimony I shall show that St. Augustine himself, and
judicious Calvinists have granted all that we contend for concerning
free will and the conditionality of eternal salvation. And, thirdly, I
shall confirm the sentiment of the fathers by our articles of religion,
one of which particularly guards the doctrine of free will evangelically
connected with and subordinated to free grace.
I. I grant that when St. Augustine was heated by his controversy
with Pelagius, he leaned too much toward the doctrine of fate ; meaning
by it the overruling, efficacious will and power of the Deity, whereby he
someti?nes rashly hinted that all things happen: (see the note, page
185 :) but in his best moments he happily dissented from himself, and
agreed with the other fathers. Take some proofs of their aversion to
fatalism and bound will, and of their attachment to our supposed
" heresy." •
1. JUSTIN MARTYR, who flourished in the second century, says:
Sifatofieret ut esset out improbus aut bonus ; nee alii quidem probi essent
nee alii mail. (Apol. 2.) That is, " If it happen by fate (or necessity)
that men are either good or wicked ; the good were not good, nor should
the wicked be wicked."
2. TERTULLIAN, his contemporary, is of the same sentiment : Cceterum
nee boni nee mali merces jure pensaretur ei, qui aut bonus aut malus neces.
sitatefuit inventus, non voluntate. (TERT. lib. 2, contra Marc.) "No
reward can be justly bestowed, no punishment justly inflicted upon him
who is good or bad by necessity, and not by his own choice." In the
fifth chapter of the same book he asserts that God has granted man
liberty of choice, ut sui dominus constanter occurrerct, et bono sponte ser-
rando, et malo sponte vitando : quoniam et alias positum hominem sub
judicio Dei, oportebat justum illud efficere de arbitrii sui meritis : " that
he might constantly be master of his own conduct by voluntarily doing
good, and by voluntarily avoiding evil : because, man being appointed
for God's judgment, it was necessary to the justice of God's sentence
that man should be judged according to [meritis'} the deserts of his
free will."
3. IREN.EUS, bishop of Lyons, who flourished also in the second cen
tury, bears thus his testimony against bound will : — Homo vero ration,
abilis, et secundum hoc similis Deo, liber arbitriofactus, et SUCK potestafis,
ipse sibi causa est ut aliquando quidem fmmentum, aliquando autem palea
fat; quapropter et juste condemnabitur. (Lib. iv, adv. Iferet. cap. 9. -
That is, "Man, a reasonable being, and in that respect like God, is
made free in his will; and being endued with power to conduct himself,
he is a cause of his becoming sometimes wheat and sometimes chaff;*
* According to the doctrine maintained in these pages, God is the first cause
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 201
therefore will he be justly condemned." Again : Dedit ergo Dem
bonum, $c, et qui operantur quidurn illud, gloriam et honorem percipient
quoniam operati sunt bonum, cum possent non operari illud. Hi autem
qui illud non operaniin\judicium Dei nostri recipient, quomam non sunt
operati bonum cum possent operari illud : " God gives goodness, and they
who do good shall obtain honour and glory ; because they have done
good, when they could forbear doing it. And they who do it not, shall
receive the just judgment of our God ; because they have not done good,
when they could have done it." Once more : Non tantum in operibus,
sed etiam in fide, libcrum, et SIKB potestatis, arbitrium servavit homini
Deus. (Ibid. lib. 4, cap. 62.) "God has left man's will free, and at
his own disposal^ not only with regard to works, but also with regard to
faith." Nor did Iremeus say here more than St. Augustine does in this
well-known sentence : Posse credere est omnium, credere verojidelium :
" To have a power to believe is the prerogative of all men ; but actually
to believe is the prerogative of the faithful."
4. ORIGEN nobly contends for liberty: he grants rather too much
than too little of it : he continually recommends xoCkr^ ^poaipstfiv, " a
good choice," which he frequently calls <rr;v po-r^v <rx aurs^tfi*, "the
inclination of the powerful principle whereby we are masters of our own
conduct." He observes that we are not at liberty to see, but (TO xpjvai —
<ro ^p^tfa^ai TYJV po-n-jv, <rryv su5oxy]crjv) " to judge ; to use our power of
choice and our approbation." And in the solution of some scriptures,
which seem to contradict one another, he refutes the sentiment of those
who reject the doctrine of our co-operating with Divine grace, and who
think xx TjasTepov sp/ov SWOLI TO xoc-r' apsr^v €ixv, aXXa tfav-ra Ssiav ^aP'v>
" That it is not our own work to lead a virtuous life, but that it is entirely
the work of Divine grace."
5. ST. CYPRIAN and LACTANTIUS speak the same language, as the
learned reader may see by turning to the seventh book of Vossius' His
tory of Pelagianism. Nor did St. Basil dissent from them, if we may
judge of his sentiments by the following passage, which is extracted
from his thirty-seventh homily, where he proves that God is not the
author of evil : — " What is forced is not pleasing to God, but what is
done from a truly virtuous motive : and virtue comes from the will, not
from necessity." Hence it appears that, in this father's account, neces
sity is a kind of compulsion contrary to the freedom of the will. "For,"
adds he, " the will depends on what is within us ; and within us is free
will."
6. GREGORIUS NYSSENUS is of one mind with his brother ST. BASIL.
For speaking of faith, he says, that it is placed " within the reach of
our free election." And again : " We say of faith what the Gospel
contains, namely, that he who is begotten by spiritual regeneration,
knows of whom he is begotten, and what kind of a living creature he
becomes. For spiritual regeneration is the only kind of regeneration
which puts it in our power to become what we choose to be." (Greg.
Catech. Disc. chap. 36, and chap. 6.)
7. ST. CIIRYSOSTOM is so noted an advocate for free will, that CALVIN
complains first of him. Part of Calvin's complaint runs thus : — Habet.
of our conversion, or of our " becoming wheat." But man is the first cause of
his own perversion, or his "becoming chaff."
202 EQUAL CHECK. [PAKT
Chrysostomus alicubi, &c. (Inst. lib. 2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) That is, "St.
Chrysostom says somewhere, * Forasmuch as God has put good and
evil in our own power, (electwms liberwn donawt arbitrium,) he has
given us a free power to choose the one or the other ; and as he does
iiot retain us against our will, so he embraces us when we are willing.' "
Again : " Often a wicked man, if he will, is changed into a good man ;
and a good man, through sloth, falls away* and becomes wicked ;
because God has endued us with free agency : nor does he make us do
things necessarily, but he places proper remedies before us, and suffers
all to be done according to the will of the patient," &c. From these
words of St. Chrysostom, Calvin draws this conclusion : — Porro GrcBci
PTCB aliis, atque inter eos singulariter Chrysostomus, in extollenda
hwnance voluntatis facilitate modum excesserunt. That is, " The Greek
fathers above others, and among them especially Chrysostom, have
exceeded the bounds in extolling the power of the human will." Hence
it appears that, Calvin himself being judge, the fathers, but more parti-
cularly the Greek fathers, and among them St. Chrysostom, strongly
opposed bound will and necessity.
8. ST. AMBROSE, a Latin father, was also a strenuous defender of
the second Gospel axiom, which stands or falls with the doctrine of
free will. Take two proofs of it : — Ideo omnibus opera sanitatis detulit,
ut quicunque periret mortis suce causas sibi adscribat ; qui curari noluit
cum remedium haberet quo posset evadcre. (Amb. lib. 2, de Cain et
Abel, cap. 12.) That is, « God affords to all the means of recovery,
that whoever perishes may impute his own destruction to himself; for-
asmuch as he would not be cured when he had a remedy whereby he
might have escaped." Again, commenting upon these words of Christ,
" It is not mine to give," &c, he says, Non esL meum qui Justitiam servo,
non Gratiam. Denique ad Patrem refer ens addidit, " Quibus paratum
est" ut ostendat Patrem quoque non petitionibus deferre solere, scd ME-
RITIS ; quia Deus personarum acceptor non est. Unde et apostolus ait,
"Quos prsescivit praedestinavit." Non enim ante prcedestinavit. (Amb.
de jide. cap. 4.) That is, "It is not mine [to give the next seat to my
person] in point of justice, for I do not speak in point of favour ; and
referring the matter to his Father, he adds, To them for whom it is pre
pared, to show that the Father also [in point of reward] is not wont to
yield to prayer, but (meritis) to worthiness ; because God [when he act*
* I have advanced several arguments to prove that Judas was sincere, when
Christ chose him to the apostleship. I beg leave to confirm them by the judgment
of two of the fathers. St. Chrysostom, in his fifty-second discourse, says, O Iwta •
BwnXnoj vios irpurov >;v, &c. That is, " Judas was at first a child of the kingdom',
and heard it said to him with the disciples, 'You shall sit upon twelve thrones •»
but at last he became a child of hell." And St. Ambrose, upon Rom. ix, 13, has
these remarkable words, Non est personarum acceptio in prcescientia Dei, &c
That is, " There is no respect of persons in God's foreknowledge ; for prescience is
that whereby he knows assuredly how the will of every man will be, in which he
will continue, and by which he shall be damned or crowned, &c. They who, as
God knows also, will persevere in goodness, are frequently bad before ; and they
who, as ne knows also, will be found evil at last, are sometimes good before, &c.
For both Saul and Judas were once good." Hence it is, that he says, in another
place, "Sometimes they are at first good, who afterward become and continue
evil ; and in this respect they are said to be written in the book of life, and blotted
out of it."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 203
as judge and revvarder] is no respecter of persons. Hence it is that the
apostle says, Those whom God foreknew he predestinated. For he did
not predestinate to reward them before he foreknew them" [as persons
fit to be rewarded.] From this excellent quotation it appears that St.
Ambrose maintained the two Gospel axioms, or the doctrines of grace
and justice, of favour and worthiness, on which hang the election of dis
tinguishing grace, and the election of remunerative justice, which the
Calvinists perpetually confound, and which 1 have explained, section
twelfth.
9. ST. JEROME, warm as he was against Pelagius, is evidently of the
same mind with the other fathers, where he says : — Liberi arbitrii nos
condidit Deus. Nee ad virtutes nee ad vitia necessitate trahimur. Alio-
quin ubi necessitas est, nee damnatio nee corona est. That is, " God
hath endued us with free will. We are not necessarily drawn either to
virtue or to vice. For where necessity rules, there is no room left either
for damnation or for the crown." Again, in his third book against the
Pelagians, he says : — Etiam his qui mail futuri sunt, dari protestatem
conversionis et penitentice. That is, " Even to those who shall be wicked,
God gives power to repent and turn to him." Again, upon Isaiah i,
liiberum servat arbitrium, ut in utramque partem, non ex prcejudicio Dei,
sed ex meritis singulorum, vel pcena vel prczmium sit. " Our will is kept
free to turn either way, that God may dispense his rewards and punish
ments, not according to his own prejudice, but according to the merits [that
is, according to the works'] of every one." Once more : he says to Ctesi-
phon, Frustra blasphemas, et ignorantium auribus ingeris, nos Ltiberium
Arbitrium condemnare. Damnetur ille qui damnat. That is, " You speak
evil of us without ground ; you tell the ignorant that we condemn free
will ; but let the man who condemns it, be condemned."
When I read these explicit testimonies of ST. JEROME, in favour of
free will, I no longer wonder that Calvin should find fault with him, as
well as with ST. CHRYSOSTOM. Take Calvin's own words : (Inst. lib.
2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) Ait Hieronymus (Dial. 3, contra Pelag. $c.) Nostrum
[est] offerre quod possumus ; Illius [Dei] implere quod non possumus.
" Jerome says, (in his third dialogue against Pelagianism,) it is our part
to offer what we can. It is God's part to Jill up what ice cannot. You
see clearly by these quotations," adds Calvin, " that they [these fathers,
upon the Calvinian plan,] attributed to man too much power to be virtu
ous." Such a conclusion naturally becomes Calvin. But what I cannot
help wondering at is, that Zelotes should indifferently call all the advo
cates for free will, Pelagians, when St. Jerome, who, next to St. Augus
tine, distinguished himself by his opposition to Pelagianism, is so strenu
ous a defender of the doctrine of free will, in the books which he wrote
against Pelagius.
10. EPIPHANIUS confirms this doctrine where he says, Sane quidem
justius a stellis, qiicr, necessitatem pariunt, pozncB rcpetantur, quam ab eo
qui quod agit necessitate aductus aggreditur. (Epiph. advers. Haer. 1. 1.)
•' It would be more just to punish the stars, which make a wicked action
necessary, than to punish the poor man, who does that wicked action by
necessity." He expresses himself still more strongly in the same book.
Speaking of the Pharisees, who were rigid Predestinarians, he says, Est
iUud vero extremes cujusdam impcriti<£, ne dicam amentia, cum resurrec-
204 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
tionem mortuorum essefateare, ac justissimum cujusque facti judicium
constitution, fatum nihilominus esse ullum asserere. Qui enim duo ista
convenire possunt, JUDICIUM atque FATUM ! That is, "It is extreme
ignorance, not to say madness, to allow the resurrection of the dead, and
a day of most righteous judgment for every action ; and at the same
time to assert that there is a destiny ; for how can these two agree
together, a JUDGMENT AND A DESTINY ?" (or necessity 1)
11. ST. BERNARD grants rather more liberty than I contend for, where
he says, Sola voluntas, quoniam pro ingenita libertate aut dissentire sibi,
aut prater se in aliquo consentire nulla vi nulla cogitur necessitate, non
immerito justum vel injustum, beatitudine sen miseria dignam ac capacem
creaturam constituit, prout scilicet justifies, injustiti&ve consenserit. (Bern.
I)e Grat. et lib. Arb.) That is, "The will alone can make a man
deservedly just or unjust, and can deservedly render him fit for bliss or
misery, as it consents either to righteousness or to iniquity ; forasmuch
as the will, according to its innate liberty, cannot be forced to will or
nill any thing against its own dictates."
12. CYRILLUS ALEXANDRIUS upon John, (book vi, chap. 21,) vindica
ting God's goodness against the horrid hints of those who make him the
author of sin, as all rigid Predestinarians do, says with great truth : — " The
visible sun rises above our horizon, that it may communicate the gift
of its brightness to all, and make its light shine upon all ; but if any one
shut his eyes or willingly turn himself from the sun, refusing the bene
fit of its light, he wants its illumination, and remains in darkness : not
through the fault of the sun, but through his own fault. Thus the true
Sun who came to enlighten those that sit in darkness, visited the earth,
that in different manners and degrees he might impart to all the gift of
knowledge and grace, and illuminate the inward eyes of all, &c. But
many reject the gift of this heavenly light freely given to tliem, and have
closed the eyes of their minds, lest so excellent an irradiation of the
eternal light should shine unto them. It is not then through the defect
of the true Sun, but only through their own iniquity," i. e. through
their own perverse free will. And, (book i, chap. 11,) the same father,
speaking on the same subject, says, " Let not the world accuse the word
of God and his eternal light ; but its own weakness : for the Sun en
lightens, but man rejects the grace that is given him, blunts the edge of the
understanding granted him, &c, and, as a prodigal, turns his sight to the
creatures, neglecting to go forward, and through laziness and negligence
[not through necessity and predestination] buries the illumination, and
despises this grace."
13. CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS is exactly of the same sentiment; for,
calling " the Divine word" what St. Cyril calls " Divine light," he says,
" The Divine word has cried ; calling all, knowing well those that will
not obey ; and yet, because it is in our power, either to obey or not to
obey, that none may plead ignorance, it has made a righteous call, and
requireth but that which is according to the ability arid strength of every
one." (CLEM. ALEX. Strom, book ii.)
14. The father who wrote the book De Vocatione Gentium, says, Si-
cut, qui crediderunt juvantur ut injide maneant ; ita qui nondum credide
runt, juvantur ut, credant : ct quemadmodum illi in sua potestate habent, ut
exeant ; ita et isti in sua habent potestate ut venmnt. That is, " As they
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 205
that have believed are helped to abide in the faith ; so they that have
not yet believed are helped to believe ; and as the former have it in their
power to go out, so the latter have it in their power to come in."
15. ARNOBIUS produces this objection of a heathen: "If the Saviour
of mankind be come, as you say, why does he not save all ?" and he
answers it thus : — Patet omnibus fons vita, &c. That is, " The fountain
of life is open to all, nor is any one deprived of the right of drinking :
but if thy pride be so great that thou refusest the offered gift and bene
fits, &c, why dost thou blame him [Christ] who invites thee," cujus sola
sunt hcB partes, ut sub tui juris arbitrio fructum SIKB benignitatls exponal 1
(ARX. Contra Ge?ites, lib. 2,) " whose full part it is to submit the fruit
of his bounty to a choice that depends upon thyself?"
16. PROSPER, although he was St. Augustine's disciple, does justice
to the truth which I maintain. For speaking of some that fell away
from holiness to uncleanness, he says, Non ex eo necessitatem pcreundi
habuerunt quia predestinati non sunt ; sed idea pr<zdestinati non sunt ;
quia tales futuri ex voluntaria prcevaricatione prasciti sunt. (PROSF. Ad.
Ob. Hi, Gall.) That is, " They did not He under a necessity of perish,
ing because they were not elected [to a crown of life ;] but they were
not elected [to that reward] because they were foreknown to be such as
they are by their voluntary iniquity." The same father allows that it is
absurd to believe a day of judgment, and to deny free will. Judicium
fufarum, says he, omnino non esset si homines Dei voluntate peccarent.
(PROS. ad. obj. 10, Vine.) That is, " By no means would there be a
day of judgment, if men sinned by the will or decree of God." The rea
son is plain, if we sinned through any necessity laid on us by " the will of
God," or by predestinating fate, we might say, like the heathen poet,
Fati ista cuJpa est ; nemo Jit fat o nocens : "It is the fault of fate : neces
sity excuses any one."
17. FULGENTIUS, although he was also St. Augustine's disciple, cuts
up the doctrine of bound will by the root, where he says :- — Nee justitia
jus'.a dicetur, si puniendum rcum non invenisse, sed fecisse dicatur. Ma
jor vero injustitia, si lapso Dcus retribuat pcen-am, quern stantem dicitur
prcedestinasse ad ruinam." (FuLG. 1. 1, ad Man. cap. 22.) That is,
" Justice could not be said to be just if it did not find, but made man an
offender. And the injustice would be still greater, if God, after having
predestinated a man to ruin when he stood, inflicted punishment upon
him after his fall."
18. If any of the fathers is a rigid bound wilier, it is heated AUGUS
TINE : nevertheless, in his cool moments, he grants as much free will as
I contend for. Hear him : Nos quidem sub fato stellarum mtllius homi-
nis genesim ponimus, ut liberum arbilrium volunlatis, quo bcne vel male
vivtiur, propter jitstum Dei judiciwn ab omni necessitatis vinculo vindi-
cemus. (AUG. 1, 2, contr. Faust, c. 5.) That is, "We place no man's
nativity under the fatal power of the stars, that we may assert the liberty
of the will, whereby our actions are rendered either moral or immoral,
and keep it free from every bond of necessity, on account of the righteous
judgment of God." Again : Nemo habet in poles! ate quid veniat in men-
tern ; sed c(m,sentire vel disseniire proprue, voluntatis est. (Auo. De Liter a
et Spirittt, cap. 34.) That is, " Nobody can help what comes into his
mind ; but to consent or to dissent from involuntary suggestions, is the pre-
206 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
rogative of our own will."* Once more : Initium salutis nostra a Deo
miserante habemus ; ut acquiescamus salutifercB inspiration^ nostrce est
potestatis. (De Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis, cap. 21.) That is, "The
beginning of our salvation flows from the merciful God ; but it is in our
power to consent to his saving inspiration." And what he means by
" having a thing in our power" he explains in these words, Hoc quis-
que in sua potestat.e habere dicitur, quod si vidtfacit, si non vult non fa.
cit. (AUG. De Spir. et Ut. c. 31.) That is, "Every one has that in his
own power which he does if he will, and which he can forbear doing if
he will not do it."
Agreeable to this is that rational observation, which, I think, is St.
Augustine's, also : — Si non est liberum arbitrium, non est quod salvetur.
8i non est gratia, non est unde salvetur : " If there be no free will,
there is nothing to be saved : if there be no free grace, there is nothing
whereby we may be saved :" a golden saying this, which is as weighty
as my motto, " If you take away free grace, how does God save the
world 1 And if you take away free will, how does he judge the world ?"
So great is the force of truth, that the same prejudiced father, com-
menting upon this text, " Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth
himself," 1 John iii, 3, does not scruple to say : — " Behold after what
manner he has not taken away free will, that the apostle should say,
' keepeth himself pure.' Who keepeth us pure, except God ? But God
keepeth thee not thus against thy will. Therefore inasmuch as thou
joinest thy will to God, thou keenest thyself pure. Thou keepest thy
self pure, not of thyself, but by him who comes to dwell in thee. Yet
because in this thou dost something of thine own will, therefore is some-
thing also attributed to thee. Yet so it is ascribed to thee, that still thou
mayest say, with the psalmist, « Lord, be thou my helper !' If thou sayest,
« Be thou my helper,' thou dost something ; for if thou dost nothing, how
does he heln 7" Happy would it have been for the Church if St. Au
gustine had always done justice in this manner to the second, as well as
to the first Gospel axiom ! He would not have paved the way for free
wrath, and Antinomian free grace. Nor could Mr. Wesley do more
justice to both Gospel axioms than Augustine does in the following
words : — Non illi debent sibi tribuere, qui venerunt, quia vocati vene
runt : nee illi, qui noluerant venire, debuerant alteri tribuerc, sed tan-
turn sibi : quia ut venirent vocati in libera erat volantate. ,(Auo. lib.
83, Quastionum.) " They that came [to Christ] ought not to impute
it to themselves, because they came, being called : and they that would
not come, ought not to impute it to another, but only to themselves, be-
* Dr. Tucker judiciously unfolds St. Augustine's thought, where he says,
" There is a sense, in which it may be allowed on the semi-Pelagian, [semi-
Augustinian] or Arminian plan, that grace is irresistible : but it is a sense that
can do no manner of service to the cause of Calvinism. Grace, for instance,
especially prevenient, or preventing grace may be considered as a precious
gift, or universal endowment, like the common gifts of health, strength, &c, in
whicl^case the recipient must necessarily receive them; for he has not a power
to refuse. But after he has received them, he may choose whether he will
apply them to any good and salutary purposes or not: and on this freedom
of choice rests the proper distinction between good and evil, virtue and vice, mo-
rality and immorality. Grace therefore must be received ; but, after it is received,
it may be abused : the talent may be hid in a napkin, and the Spirit may
quenched, or have a despite done to it."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 207
cause, when they were called, it was in the power of their free will to
come." Deus non deserit nisi d'esertus : "God forsakes no man, un
less he be first forsaken." (Quasi. 68.) Here is a right dividing of
the word of truth ! a giving God the glory of our salvation, without
charging him with our destruction !
Nay, ST. JEROME and ST. AUGUSTINE, notwithstanding their warmth
against Pelagius, have not only at times strongly maintained our remu
nerative election ; but by not immediately securing the election of dis.
tinguishing grace, they have really granted him far more than I in
conscience can do. Take the following instances of it : —
ST. JEROME upon Gal. i, says, Ex Dei pr&scientia evenit, ut quern scit
justum fiiturum, prius diligat quam oriatur ex utero : " It is owing to
God's prescience that he loves those who he foresees will become just,
before they come out of their mother's womb." Again, upon Mai. i, he
says, Dilectio et odium Dei vel ex prcEscientia nascitur futurorum vel ex
operibus : " God's love and hatred spring from his foreknowledge of
future events, or from our works." Nay, in his very dispute with the
Pelagians, (book hi,) he declares that God eligit quern bonum cernit,
" chooses him whom he sees good :" which is entirely agreeable to this
unguarded assertion of St. Augustine: — Nemo eligitur nisi jam distans
ab illo qui rcjicitur. Unde quod dictum est, quia " elegit nos Deus
ante mundi constitutionem," non video quomodo sit dictum, nisi dc prcB-
scientia Jidei et operum pietatis. (AUG. Qusest. 2, ad Simplicianum.)
That is, " Nobody is chosen but as he already differs from him that is
rejected. Nor do I see how it can be said that " God has chosen us
before the beginning of the world," unless this be said with respect to
God's foreknowledge of our faith and works of piety."
I call these assertions of St. Jerome and St. Augustine " unguarded,"
because they so maintain the election of remunerative justice as to leave
no room for the election of distinguishing grace, which I have main
tained in my exposition of Rom. ix, and Eph. i : an election this, which
the Pelagians overlook, and which St. Paul secures when he says that
God chose Jacob to the privileges of the covenant of peculiarity, " before
he had done any good, that the purpose of God according to the elec
tion [of superior grace] might stand not of works, but of [the superior
kindness of] him that calleth :" an important election this, inconsistently
given up by St. Augustine, when speaking of Jacob he says, in the
above-quoted treatise, Non electus est ut fieret bonus, sed bonus faclus
eligi potuit : " He was not chosen that he might become good ; but,
being made good, he could be chosen."
I shall close these quotations from the fathers, with one more from
St. Irenams, who was Polycarp's disciple, and flourished immediately
after the apostolic age : — Quonia?n omnes ejusdem sunt naturcc, et potentes
retinere et operari bonum, et potentes rursum amittere id, et non facere ;
jus'e apud homines sensalos, quanto magis apud Deum, alii quidem laudan-
tur, et dignum percipiunt testimonium electionis boncB, et persereranticK ;
alii vcro accusantur, et dignum percipiunt damnum eo quod justum et
bonum reprobavemnt. (!REN. Adv. H&r. lib. iv, cap. 74.) That is,
" Forasmuch as all men are of the same nature, having power to hold
and to do that which is good, and having power again to lose it, and not
to do what is right ; before men of sense, (and how much more before
208 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
God i) some are justly praised, and receive a worthy testimony, for
making a good choice and persevering therein ; while others are justly
accused, and receive condign punishment, because they refused what is
just and right."
If I am not mistaken, the preceding quotations prove, (1.) That the
fathers in general pleaded for as much free will as we contend for.
(2.) That the two champions of the doctrines of grace, Prosper and
Fulgentius, arid their Predestinarian leader, St. Augustine, when they
considered (justum Dei judicium) « the righteous judgment of God,'"
have (at times at least) maintained the doctrine of liberty as strongly as
the rest of the fathers. And, (3.) That St. Augustine himself was so
carried away once by the force of the arguments and scriptures which
support the remunerative election of impartial justice, as rashly to give
up the gratuitous election of distinguishing grace.
Should any of the above-mentioned fathers have contradicted himself,
(as St. Augustine has done for one,) I hope I shall not be charged with
" gross misrepresentations" for quoting them when they speak as the
oracles of God. If at any time they deviate from that blessed rule, let
them defend their deviations if they can ; or let Zelotes and Honestus
(who follow them when they go out of the way) do it for them. I re-
peat it, like a true Protestant, I rest the cause upon right reason and
plain Scripture ; and if I produce the sentiments of the fathers, it is
merely to undeceive Zelotes, who thinks that all moderate free willers
are Pelagian heretics, and that the fathers were as rigid bound willers
as himself.
II. Proceed we to confirm the preceding quotations by the testimony
of some modern divines.
1 . Calvin says, Quasi adhuc integer sfaret homo, semper apud Latinos
Liberi Arbitrii nomeh exlitil. Grccci/s vero non puduit mullo arrogantius
usvrpare vocabulum. Siquidem aursgoutfjov dixerunt, acsi potestas sui
ipsius penes hominem fidssel. (InsL lib. 2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) <; The Latin,
fathers have always retained the word FREE WILL, as if mlin stood yet
upright. As for the Greek fathers, they have not been ashamed to
make use of a much more arrogant expression; calling man au-rsgourtov,
[free agent, or self manager:] just as if man had a power to govern
himself." This concession of Calvin decides the question. I need only
observe that Calvin wrongs the fathers when he insinuates that they
ascribed liberty to man, " as if man stood yet upright." No : they
attributed to man a natural liberty to evil, and a gracious blood-bought
liberty to good. Thus, like our reformers, they maintained man's free
agency without derogating from God's grace.
2. Bishop ANDKEWS, a moderate Calvinist, says, " I dare not con-
demn tiie fathers, who almost all assert we are elected and predestinated
according to faith foreseen ; that the necessity of damnation is hypothe
tical, not absolute, &c. That God is ready and at. hand to bestow and
communicate his grace, &c. It is the fault of men themselves, that
what is offered is not actually conferred : for grace is not wanting to us,
but we are wanting to that." And this he confirms, by this passage
from St. Augustine : — " All men may turn themselves from the love of
visible and temporal things to keep God's commands, if then will; be.
cause that light [Christ] is the light of all mankind."
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 20l»
3. The doctrine of free will stands or falls with the conditionally of
Che covenant of grace. Hence it is that all rigid bound willers abhor
the word condition : nevertheless, Mr. Robert, a judicious Calvinist,
sees the tide of the contrary doctrine so strong, that he says, in his
Mystery of the Bible, " Sound writers, godly and learned, ancient and
modern, foreign and domestic, do unanimously subscribe to the condi-
tionality of the covenant of grace, in the sense before stated :" a sense
this, which Bishop Davenant clearly expresses in these words : — " Peter,
notwithstanding his predestination, might have been damned, if he had
voluntarily continued in his impenitency." And Judas, notwithstanding
his reprobation, might have been saved, if he had not voluntarily con
tinued in his impenitency. (Animadversions, p. 241.)
4. Dr. TUCKER observes, that although Vossius and Norris (who
have each written a history of Pelagianism) differ in some points, yet
they " agree that St. Augustine's [Calvinian] positions were allowed by
his warmest defenders at that very time to be little better than novelties,
if compared with the writings of the most ancient fathers, especially of
the Greek Church." (Letter to Dr. Kippis, p. 79.)
5. EPISCOPIUS, in his answer to Capellus, p. 1, says, "Augustine,
Prosper, and all the other divines of that age, [quin et prioruin omnium
seculorum Patres,~\ and the fathers of all the preceding ages, have not
represented the grace of regeneration so special as to take away free
will. On the contrary, they unanimously agree that the full effect of
regenerating grace depends in some degree on man's free will : inso
much that, this grace being imparted, the consent or dissent of the
human will may follow. I say the consent or dissent, lest some people
should think that I understand by free will nothing but a certain willing -
ness." The same learned author says, in his answer to Camero, chap,
vi, " What is plainer than that the ancient divines, for three hundred
years after Christ, those at least who flourished before St. Augustine,
maintained the liberty of our will, or an indifference to two contrary
things, free from all internal or external necessity ! &c. Almost all the
reformed divines confess it, when they are pressed by the authority of
the fathers. Thus Melancthon on Rom. ix, says, Scriptores veteres
omnes, prczter Aifgustinum, ponunt aliquam causam electionis in nobi;',
essc.''' That is, "All the ancient authors, except St. Augustine, allow
that the cause of our election [to an eternal life of glory] is in some
degree in ourselves."
0. Vossius, a divine perfectly acquainted with all the ancient Chris
tian writers, says, in the sixth book of his Pelagian History, " The
Greek fathers ALWAYS, and ALL the Latin fathers who lived before
Augustine, are wont to say that those men are predestinated to life
[eternal glory] whom God foresaw would live piously and well ; or, a.s
some others speak, whom God foresaw would believe and persevere, &c
Which they so interpret, that predestination unto glory is made ac
cording to God's foreknowledge of faith and perseverance. But they
did not mean the foreknowledge of such things, which a man was to do
by the power of nature, but by the strength of prevencnt and subsequent
grace. Therefore this consent of antiquity is of no service to the Pela
gians or semi -Pelagians, who both hold, that a reason of predestination,
in all its effects, may be assigned from something in us. Whereto
VOL. II. 14
210 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
the orthodox* fathers acknowledge that the first grace [i. e. initial sal.
vation] is not conferred of merit [or works] but freely. So that they
thought no reason, from any thing in us, could be given of predestination
to preuenient grace."
7. Dr. DAVENANT, Bishop of Salisbury, and one of the English
divines who were sent to the synod of Dort, (in his " Animadversions
upon a treatise entitled, God's love to all Mankind" Cambridge edition,
1641, p. 48,) sets his seal to the preceding quotations in these words : — -
" The fathers, when they consider that the wills of men non-elected do
commit all their evil acts freely, usually say that they had a power to
have done the contrary." And he himself espouses their sentiment : for
speaking of Cain's murder, Absalom's incest, and Judas' treason, he
says, p. 253, " All these sinful actions, and the like, are committed by
reprobates, out of their own free election, having a power whereby they
might, have abstained from committing them." Again, p. 198, he says,
" T^y [^°d's decrees] leave the wills of men to as much liberty as the
Divine presciencef does. And this is the general opinion of divines,
though they differ about the manner of reconciling man's liberty with
God's predestination." Once more, p. 326, &c : "The decree of pre-
terition neither taketh away any power of doing well, wherewith persons
non-elected are endued, &c. Neither is it a decree binding God's
hands from giving them sufficient grace to do many good acts, which
they wilfully refuse to do, &c. The non-elect have a power, or pos
sibility to believe or repent at the preaching of the Gospel ; which power
might be reduced into act, if the voluntary frowardness and resistiveness
of their own hearts were not the only hindering cause." Page 72, the
learned bishop grants again all that we contend for, in these words :
« In bad and wicked actions of the reprobate, their freedom of will is
not vain ; because thereby their consciences are convicted of their
guiltiness and misdeserts, and God's justice is cleared in their damna
tion. Neither is there any indeclinable or insuperable necessity domi
neerin
over free will, more than in the opinion of the remonstrants."
Once more, p. 177 : « Predestination (says he) did not compel or neces
sitate Judas to betray and sell his Master, &c. The like may be said
of all other sinners who commit such sins upon deliberation, arid so pro-
ceed to election, [i. e. to choose evil ;] having in themselves a natural
power of understanding, whereby they were able otherwise to have deli-
berated, arid thereupon otherwise to have chosen. And we see by expe
rience that traitors and adulterers, fully bent to commit such wicked acts,
can, and oftentimes do refrain putting them in practice upon better deli-
beration. This is a demonstration that they can choose the doing or the
forbearing to do such wicked acts."
^ From these quotations it appears that, when judicious and candid
Calvinists have to do with judicious and learned remonstrants, tljey are
* I desire the reader to take notice that this doctrine of the absolute freedom
of prevement grace, or initial salvation, is all along maintained in rny first Scale;
and that if Vossms' account of the semi-Pelagians is exact, Zelotes cannot justly
charge us with scmi-Pelagianism : and we have as much right to be called ortho.
dox as the fathers themselves.
t This would be true if it were spoken of the predestination which I contend
for : but it is a great mistake when it is affirmed of the doctrine of efficacious,
absolute predestination maintained by Zelotes.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 211,
obliged to turn moderate free willers, or fly in the face of the sacred
writers, the fathers, and the best divines of their own persuasion.
Since the preceding pages were written, Providence has thrown in my
way Dr. WHITBY'S Discourse on the points of doctrine which are bal
anced in the " Scripture Scales." He highly deserves a place among
the modern divines who confirm the contents of this section, concerning
the antiquity of the doctrine of free will, evangelically connected with
the doctrines of free grace and just wrath. I therefore produce here
the following extract from his useful book, second edition, printed in
London, 1735 : —
In the preface, p. 3, he says, with respect to the leading doctrines of
election and reprobation, in which he entirely dissents from Calvin : " I
found I still sailed with the stream of antiquity, seeing only one, St Aiu
gustine, with his two boatswains, Prosper and Fulgentius, tugging hard
against it, and often driven back into it by the strong current of Scripture,
reason, and common sense." As a proof of this, the doctor produces,
among many more, the following quotations from the fathers, which I
transcribe only in English ; referring those who wish to see the Greek
or Latin to the doctor's discourses, where the books, the pages, and the
very words of the fathers are quoted : —
Page 95, &c, Dr. Whitby says, " They [the fathers] unanimously
declare that God hatri left it in the power of man ' to turn to vice or virtue,'
says Justin Martyr : « to choose or refuse faith and obedience, to believe
or not, say Irenreus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian :
'that every one, &c, renders himself either righteous or disobedient,'
says Clemens of Alexandria : ' that God hath left in our own power to
turn to, or from good ; to be good or bad, to do what is righteous or
unrighteous :' so Athanasius, Epiphanius, Macarius, St. Chrysostom,
Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria : ' that our happiness or punishment
depends on our own choice ; that it is our own choice to be a holy seed,
or the contrary ; to fall into hell, or enjoy the kingdom ; to be children
of the night or the day : by virtue to be God's or by wickedness to be
the devil's children :' so Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Chrysostom, and
Gregory Nyssen : * that we are vessels of wrath, or of mercy, from our
own choice, every one preparing himself to be a vessel of wrath from
his own wicked inclination ; or to be a vessel of Divine love by faith,
because they have rendered themselves fit for [rewarding] mercy :' so
Origcn, Macarius, Chrysostom, yEcumenius, and Theophylact."
Page 336, &c, the doctor has the following words and striking quo
tations : — " All these arguments [for the freedom of the will of man] are
strongly confirmed by the concurrent suffrage, and the express and fre
quent declarations of the fathers. Thus Justin Martyr having told us
that man would not be worthy of praise or recompense, < did he not
choose good of himself, nor worthy of punishment for doing evil, if he
did not this* of himself,' says, ' This the Holy Spirit hath taught us by
* This good father, to guard the doctrine of grace as well as that of justice,
should have observed that free grace is the first cause, and free will the second,
in our choice of moral good; but that free will is the first cause in our choice of
moral evil. Forgetting to make these little distinctions, ho has given the C;iL
vinists just room to complain, and has afforded the Pelagians a precedent to bear
hard upon the doctrine of grace. Should some prejudiced reader think that this
doctrine ascribes too much to man, because it makes free will a first cause in the
" 212 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Moses in these words, See, I have set before thee good and evil ; choose the
good.' Clemens Alexandrinus says, ' The prophecy of Isaiah saith, If
you be willing, &c, demonstrating that both the choice and the refusal,
(viz. of faith and experience, of which he there speaketh,) are in our own
power.' Tertullian pronounces them « unsound in the faith, corrupters
of the Christian discipline, and excusers of all sin, who so refer all things
to the will of God, by saying. Nothing is done without his appointment \
as that we cannot understand that any thing is left to ourselves to do.'
St. Cyprian proves, Credendi vel nan credendi libertalem in arbitrio
positam, i that to believe or not, is left to our own free choice,' From
Deut. xxx, 19, and Isa. i, 19. Theodoret, having cited these words of
Christ, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink, adds : ' Ten thou
sand things of this nature may be found, both in the Gospels and other
writings of the apostles, clearly manifesting the liberty and self election
of the nature of man.' St. Chrysostom speaks thus : — ' God saith, If
you will, and if you will not, giving us power, and putting it in our own
option to be virtuous or vicious. The devil saith, Thou canst not avoid
thy fate. God saith, / have put before thee fire and water, life and death,
stretch forth thy hand to whetJter of them thou wilt. The devil says, It is
not in thee to stretch forth thy hand to them.' St. Austin proves, from
those words of Christ, Make the tree good, <$fc, or make the tree evil (in
nostra potestate situm esse mutare voluntatem,) ' that it is put in our own
power to change the will.' It would be endless to transcribe all that the
fathers say upon this head. Origen is also copious in this assertion :
for having cited these words, And now, Israel, what does the. Lord thy
God require of thee ? he adds : ' Let them blush at these words, who •
deny that man has free will. How could God require that of man
which he had not in his power to offer him?' And again: 'The soul,'
saith he, ' does not incline to either part out of necessity, for then neither
vice nor virtue could be ascribed to it ; nor would its choice of virtue
deserve reward ; nor its declination to vice punishment. But the
liberty of the will is preserved in all things, that it may incline to what
it will ; as it is written, Behold I have set before thee life and death.1 St.
Augustine also, from many passages in which the Scripture saith, Do not
so, or so ; or do this, or that, lays down this general rule : that all such
places sufficiently demonstrate the liberty of the will : and this he saith
against them, qui sic gratiam Dei defendunt, ut negent liberum arb:-
trium, 'who so assert the grace of God, as to denv the liberty of the
will.' "
Page 340. " They [the fathers] add, that all God's commands and
choice of moral evil, I answer two things : (1.) To make God the first cause of
moral evil is to turn Manichee, and assert that there is an evil as well as a good
principle in the Godhead. (2.) When we say that free will chooses moral evil ,
of itself, without necessity, and is, of consequence, the first cause of its own evil ^
choice; we do not mean that free will is its own first <;ause. No: God made the
free-willing soul, and freely endued man with the power of choosing without ne
cessity. Thus God's supremacy is fully secured. If, therefore, in the day of
probation, we have the cast, when good and evil are set before us; our free will
is not placed on a level witli God by this tremendous power, but we place our.
selves voluntarily under the rewarding sceptre of free grace, or the iron rod of
just wrath. By this mean God maintains both his sovereignty as a king, and
his justice as a judge ; while man is still a subject fit to be graciously rewarded
ur justly punished, according to the doctrines of free grace and just wrath.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 213
prohibitions, &c, would be vain and unreasonable, and all his punish,
merits unjust, and his rewards groundless, if man, after the fall, had not
still the liberty to do what is commanded, and forbear what is forbidden.
For, saith St. Austin, * the Divine precepts would profit none, if they had
not free will, by which they, doing them, might obtain the promised
rewards, &c. These precepts cut off men's excuse from ignorance,' &c.
But then, * because others,' saith he, « accuse God of being wanting in
giving them power to do good or inducing them to sin :' against these
men he cites that known passage of the son of Sirach, God left man in
the hands of his counsel, if he would to keep the commandments, &c.
And then cries out, * Behold, here, a very plain proof of the liberty of the
human will ! &c, for how does he command, if man hath not free will or
power to obey 1 What do all God's commands show, but the free will of
man ? For they would not be given, if man had not that freedom of
will by which he could obey them.' And therefore in his book, De
Fide, against the Manichees, who denied that man had free will, and
that it was in his power to do well or ill, he makes this an indication of
their blindness : — ' Who,' saith he, ' will not cry out that it is folly to
command him who has not liberty to do what is commanded ; and that
it is unjust to condemn him who has it not in his power to do what is
required ? And yet these miserable men [the Manichees] understand
not that they ascribe this wickedness and injustice to God.' Clemens
of Alexandria declares « that neither praises nor reprehensions, rewards
nor punishments are just, if the soul has not the power of choosing or
abstaining: but evil is involuntary.' Yea, he makes this 'the very
foundation of salvation, without which there could be neither any ioa-
sonable baptism, nor Divine ordering of our natures, because faith would
not be in our own power.' ' The soul,' says Origen, * acts by her
own choice, and it is free for her to incline to whatever part she will :
and therefore God's judgment of her is just, because of her own ac
cord she complies with good or bad monitors.' « One of these two
things is necessary,' saith Epiphanius, ' either that there should be no
judgment, because men act not freely ; or if laws be justly made by
God, and punishments threatened to, and inflicted on the wicked, and
God's judgments be according to truth, there is no fate ; for therefore
is one punished for his sins, and another praised for his good works,
because he has it in his power to sin or not.' * For how,' says Theo-
doret, * can he justly punish a nature [with endless torments] which
had no power to do good, but was bound in the bonds of wickedness V
And again : ' God, having made the rational nature with power over its
own actions, averts men from evil things, and provokes them to do what
is good by laws and exhortations, but he does not necessitate the un
willing to embrace what is better, that he may not overturn the bounds
of nature.' Innumerable are the passages of this nature, which might
be cited from the fathers."
Page 361, &c, the doctor produces again many quotations from the
fathers, in defence of liberty. Take some of them : " Justin Martyr
argues : ' If man has not power by his free choice to avoid evil, and
to choose the good, he is unblamable, whatsoever he does.' Origen, in
his Dissertation against Fate, declares ' that the asserters of it do free
men from all fault ; and cast the blame of all the evil that is done upon
"<J14 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
God.' Eusebius declares « that this opinion absolves sinners, as doing
nothing on their own accord which was evil ; and would cast all the
blame of all the wickedness committed in the world upon God and upon
his providence.' 'That men lie under no necessity from God's fore-
knowledge [which was of old the chief argument of the fatalists, es
poused of late by Mr. Hobbes, arid is still made the refuge of the Pre-
destinarians] may be thus proved,' saith Origen, ' because the prophets
are exhorted in the Scripture to call men to repentance, and to do this
iii such words, as if it were unknown whether they would turn to God,
or would continue in their sins ; as in those words of Jeremiah, Per-
haps they will hear, and turn every man from his evil way: and this is
said, not, that God understood not whether they would do this or not, but
to demonstrate the almost equal balance of their power so to do, and
that they might not despond, or remit of their endeavours by an imagi
nation that God's foreknowledge laid a necessity upon them, as not
leaving it in their power to turn, and so was the cause of their sin.'
« If men,' says Chrysostom, « do pardon their fellow men, when they
are necessitated to do a thing, much more should this be done to men
compelled by fate [or by decrees] to do what they do ; for if it be ab
surd to punish them, who by the force of barbarians are compelled to
any action, it must be more so to punish him who is compelled by a
stronger power.' ' If fate be established,' says Eusebius, « philosophy
and piety are overthrown.' "
Page 364, the doctor adds : — " Though there is in the rational soul a
power to do evil, 'it is not evil on that account,' saith Didymus Alexan-
drinus, < but because she will freely use that power ; and this is not only
ours, but the opinion of all who speak orthodoxly of rational beings.'
St. Augustine lays dow^n this as the true definition of sin : — « Sin is the
will to obtain or retain that which justice forbids, and from which it is
free for us to abstain.' Whence he concludes « that no man is worthy
of dispraise or punishment, for not doing that which he has not power to
do ; and that if sin be worthy of dispraise and punishment, it is not to
be doubted, (tune esse peccatum cum et liberum est nolle) that our choice
is sin, when we are free not to make that choice.' < These things,'
saith he, ' the shepherds sing upon the mountains, and the poets in the
theatres, and the unlearned in their assemblies, and the learned in the
libraries, and the doctors in the schools, and the bishops in the churches,
and mankind throughout the whole earth.' "
I conclude this extract by accounting for St. Augustine's inconsist
ency. He was a warm man : and such men, when they write much,
and do not yet firmly stand upon the line of moderation, are apt to con
tradict themselves, as often as they use the armour of righteousness on
the right hand and on the left, to oppose contrary errors. Hence it is,"
that when St. Augustine opposed the Manicheesj who were rigid bound
willers, he strongly maintained free will with Pelagius ; and when he
opposed the Pelagians, who were rigid free willers" he strongly main
tained bound will and necessity with Manes. The Scripture doctrine of
free will lies between the error of Pelagius and that of Manes. The
middle way between these extremes is, I hope, clearly pointed out iu
section xx. Upon the whole, he must be perverse who can cast his eyes
upon the numerous quotations which Dr. Whitby has produced, and deny
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 215
that the fathers held the doctrine of the Scripture Scales with respect
to free will ; and that, if they leaned to one extreme, it was rather to
that of the Pelagians, than to that of the rigid bound willers, who clothe
their favourite doctrine of necessity with the specious names of invin
cible fate, irrevocable decrees, or absolute predestination.
III. Zelotes endeavours to hide his error under the wings of the
Church of England, as well as behind the authority of the fathers, but
with as little success. I design to show his mistake in this respect, in
an " Essay on the Seventeenth Article." In the meantime I shall ob
serve, that a few years before Archbishop Cranmer drew up our " arti
cles of religion," he helped the other reformers to compose a book
called, " The Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man," and added to it
a section upon free will, in which free will is defined " a power of the
will joined with reason, whereby a reasonable creature, without con-
strairit, in things of reason, discerneth and willeth good and evil ; but
chooseth good by the assistance of God's grace, and evil of itself."
" Wherefore," adds Cranmer, " men be to be warned, that they do not
impute to God their vice or their damnation, but to themselves, which
by free will have abused the grace and benefits of God. All men be
also to be monished, and chiefly preachers, that in this high matter
they, looking on both sides, [i. e. regarding both Gospel axioms] so
attemper and moderate themselves, that neither they so preach the grace
of God [with Zelotes] that they take away thereby free will ; nor, on
the other side, so extol free will [with Honestus] that injury be done to
the grace of God."
I grant that in the book, from which this quotation* is taken, there
* Burnet's History of the Reformation, (second edition, part i, p. 291,) and a
pamphlet entitled, A Dissertation on the Seventeenth Article, &c, furnish me with
these important quotations. The last seems greatly to embarrass Mr. Hill. He
attempts to set it aside, by urging: (1.) That in The Necessary Erudition of a.
Christian Man, " the doctrines of the mass, transubstantiation, &c, are particu
larly taught as necessary to salvation," (2.) That"Bonner and Gardiner, as
well as Cranrner, gave their imprimatur to it." And, (3.) That "even in this book
the doctrine of predestination is not denied, but the thing itself clearly admitted;
only it is laid down in such a manner as riot to, &c, supersede the necessity of
personal holiness." To this I answer : (1.) That Cranmer expressly recanted the
errors which Mr. Hill mentions, but instead of recanting the doctrines of free
grace and free will, he proceeded upon that very plan, in drawing up our articles
and liturgy, as I shall prove just now. (2.) That Bonner and Gardiner gave
their imprimatur to this quotation, no more proves that it contains false doctrine,
than their subscribing to the thirty articles some years after shows that our arti
cles are heretical. (3.) We thank Mr. Hill for informing the public that the book
called The Erudition of a Christian Man, " clearly admits the doctrine of pre
destination only in such a manner as not to supersede the necessity of holiness."
This is just the manner in which we admit it after Cranmer in our seventeenth
article. And we argue thus: — If the doctrine of free grace and free will, ad
mirably well balanced by Cranmer in The Erudition of a Christian Man, be a
false doctrine, because the book contains some Papistical errors ; does it riot fol
low that the doctrine of a predestination consistent with personal holiness is a false
doctrine, since (Mr. Hill himself being judge) such a doctrine is clearly admit
ted in that very book ? If Mr. Hill give himself time to weigh, this short an
swer to his pamphlet, entitled, " Cranmer vindicated from the charge of [what
he is pleased to call] Pelagiariisrn, by the author of Goliath slain ;" I make no
doubt but he will see that Goliath, (if that word means our doctrine,) far from
being; slain, is not so much as wounded.
~16 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
are some errors which Cranmer afterward renounced, as he had done
absolute predestination before. But that he never varied from the doc
trine of free will laid down in the above-mentioned passage, is evident
from the tenor of our articles of religion, which he penned, and which
contain exactly the doctrine of the above-quoted lines.
Hear him and the Church of England publicly maintaining free grace
and free will. In the tenth article on free will they assert, that " we
have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, with
out the grace of God, by Christ preventing [i. e. first visiting] us, that
we may have a good will." Let the article be thrown into the scales,
and the judicious reader will easily see that it directly or indirectly
guards the very doctrine which the fathers maintained, and which we
defend, No. 1, against Honestus, and No. 2, against Zelotes.
I- II.
" The condition of man after the The condition of man after the
fall of Adam is such, that he can- fall of Adam (and the promise made
not turn and prepare himself by his to him) is such, that he can turn
own natural strength, &c, to faith and prepare himself to faith and
and calling upon God." calling upon God, although not by
his own natural strength.
" Wherefore we have no power Wherefore we have a power to
to do good works, &c, without the do good works, &c, through the
grace of God by Christ preventing grace of God by Christ preventing
us, [i. e. visiting us first,] that we us, (i. e. visiting us first,) that we
may have a g;ood will, and working may have a good will, and working
with, [not without] us, when we with, (not without us,) when we
have that good will." have that good will.
Who does not see that there is not the least disagreement between
these balanced propositions ? And that, when Zelotes produces the tenth
article of the Church* to prove us heretics, he acts as unreasonable a
part as if he produced John xv, 5, to show that St. Paul was not ortho
dox when he wrote Phil, iv, 13.
I- II.
Without me [Christ] ye can do I [Paul] can do all things through
nothing, John xv, 5. Christ strengthening me, Phil, iv,
13.
This supposed « heresy" runs through our Common Prayer Book.
Take one or two instances of it. In her catechism, she teaches every
child whom she nurses, to « thank God for calling him to this state of
* The Rev. Mr. Toplady makes much ado in his Historic Proof of the Calvin-
ism of our Church, about some dissenters whom he calls free willers, and repre
sents as the first separatists from the Church of England. But they were rig-id
Pelagian free willers, and not moderate, Bible free willers, such as Cranmer was,
and all unprejudiced Churchmen are. This is evident from the account which Mr.
Toplady himself gives us of their tenets, page 54. Some of which are as follows :—
That children are not born in original sin : that lust after evil is not sin, if the
act be not committed," &c. Honestus does not run into such an extreme : much
less we, who stand with Cranmer on the line of moderation, at an equal distance
from Calviman rigid bound willers, and from Pelagian rigid free willers. I hope this
hint is sufficient to show that though the simple may be frightened by the words free
willers and separatists, no judicious Church-of-England man will think that he
separates from our Church when he stands to the harmonizing doctrine of free
grace and free will, which is maintained in our tenth article, and in these pages.
THIRD. j S<:RIPTURK SCALES. 217
salvation," i. e. to a state of initial salvation according to the Christian
covenant. She informs him that " his duty is to love God with all his
heart, and his neighbour as himself," &c, and then she adds : — u My
good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thy
self, nor to walk in the commandments of God without his special grace,
which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer," &c.
Now every child, whose mind is not yet tainted with Calvinism, under-
stands the language of our holy mother according to the doctrine of
the Scales, thus : —
I. II.
Of myself I am not able to love By God's special grace I am able
God with all my heart, &c. to love him with all my heart, &c.
I am not able to walk in the I am able to walk in the com.
commandments of God without his mandments of God with his special
special orace. grace, " and, by God's grace, so I
will."
I am in a state of initial grace, To have God's special grace, « I
and I heartily thank our heavenly must learn at all times to call for it
Father that he has called me to by diligent prayer," according to
this state of salvation. the help afforded me in my state of
initial salvation.
This doctrine of free grace and free will runs also through the col-
lects of our Church. Read one of those which Zelotes admires most :
— "Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit, [i. e. the special
grace,] to think and do always such things as be rightful ; that we who
cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled
to live according to thy will, through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Ninth
Sunday after Trinity.) Divide the doctrine of this collect according to
the two Gospel axioms, and you will have the following balanced pro-
positions : —
I. II.
We cannot do any thing that is By thee, or thy Spirit, we can
good without thee, or thy Spirit. think and do alway such things as
be rightful.
We cannot, but by thee, live ac- By thee we can live according
cording to thy will, &c. to thy will, &c.
To bring more proofs that this is the doctrine of the Church of Eng
land, would be to offer an insult to the attention of her children. Nor
can her sentiments on free will be more clearly expressed than they
are in these words of the martyred prelate who drew up her articles : —
" It pleaseth the high wisdom of God, that man prevented [i. e. first
visited] by his grace, which, being offered man, he may if he will refuse
:r receive, be also a worker by his free consent and obedience to the
same, &c, and by God's grace and help shall walk in such works as be
requisite to his [continued* and final] justification." (Necess. Doct.)
However, lest Zelotes should object to my quoting " the Necessary
* I add the words " continued and final," to guard the unconditional freeness
of initial justification and salvation : because this justification is previous to all
works on our part, and because all good works are but the voluntary (Zelotes
would say the necessary] fruits of the free gift, which is come upon all men to
justification, Rom. v, 18.
218 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Doctrine of a Christian Man" I substitute for the preceding quotation,
one to which he has indirectly subscribed, in subscribing to the thirty,
fifth article of our Church : — " Cast we off all malice, and all evil will ;
for this spirit will never enter into an evil-willing soul [to bring there
his special grace.] Let us cast away all the whole lump of sin that
stancleth about us, for he will never dwell in a body that is subdued to
sin, &c. If we do our endeavour, we shall not need to fear. We shall
be able to overcome all our enemies, &c. Only let us apply ourselves
to accept the grace that is offered us. Of Almighty God we have comfort
by his goodness ; of our Saviour Christ's mediation we may be sure ;
and this Holy Spirit will suggest unto us that which shall be whole
some, and comfort us in all things." (Homily for Rog. Week, part
iii.) How strongly are the doctrines of free grace and free will guarded
in these lines ! And who does not see that our articles, liturgy, and
homilies agree to maintain the Gospel marriage of free grace and free
will, as well as Mr. Wesley, Mr. Sellon, and myself?
The preceding quotations and remarks will, I hope, convince the im
partial reader, that (some few unguarded expressions being excepted)
Zelotes might as well screen his doctrines of narrow grace, bound will,
and free wrath, behind the Scripture Scales, as defend them by the
authority of the primitive Church, and the Church of England.
IV. Should Zelotes think to answer the contents of this section by
saying that my doctrine is "rank Pelagianism :" I reply, 1. That Vos-
sius, who wrote the history of Pelagianism, entirely clears our doctrine
of the charge of both Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, as appears by
the passage which I have quoted from him, page 209 : and in this cause
the name of Vossius is legion.
2. PROSPER, in his letter to St. Augustine, gives us this account of the
principles of the Pelagians : — Prior est hominis obedientia quam Dei
gratia. Initium salutis ex eo est qui salvatur, non ex eo qui sahat.
" Man's obedience is beforehand with God's grace. The beginning of
salvation is from him that is saved, and not from him that saves."
These two propositions are greatly Pharisaic and detestable : they set
aside the first Gospel axiom; and, far from recommending them, I
every where oppose to them the weights of my first Scale. It would
not then be more ridiculous to charge me with Crispianity, than it is to
accuse me of Pelagianism.
3. Bishop Davenant, in his "Animadversions," (pages 14 and 15,)
calls Faustus Rhegiensis " one of the ancient semi-Pelagians," and lays
down his doctrine in the five following anti-Calvinistic propositions, in
which reigns a confusion equal to that of Calvinism : (1.) Salus hominis
non in pradestinatione factoris, sed in operatione famulantis collocata
est : " Man's salvation is not placed in the election of the Creator, but in
the actions of the worker." This is absolutely false with respect to the
election of distinguishing grace. What had the Ephesians wrought to
deserve to be elected and called to share the blessings of the Gospel of
Christ, which St. Paul calls "so great salvation?" Who can make
appear that they merited so great a favour better than the Hottentots ?
(2.) Non est specialis circa credentes Dei munificentia : " God shows no
special grace and favour to believers." This is absolutely false also
with respect to all Jewish and Christian believers, to whom he gives
THIRD.]
SCRIPTURE SCALES. 219
that grace, and those talents, which he does not bestow upon the
heathens who " fear God and work righteousness." (3.) Pradeslinatio
adjustitiam pertinet: " Election belongs to justice." This also is abso
lutely false, if it be understood of the election of distinguishing grace,
whereby a man receives one, two, or five talents to trade with before
he has done any thing. And it is partly false if it be understood of our
election to receive rewards of grace and glory : for that election belongs
to rich mercy as well as to distributive justice ; it being God's mercy in
Christ, which engaged him to promise penitent, obedient believers re
wards of grace and glory. (4.) Nisi prcBscientia exploraverit, prcdesti-
natio niJiil decernit : " Predestination appoints nothing, unless prescience
has seen a cause for the appointment." This is false also, if this cause
is supposed to be always in us. What foreseen excellence made God
predestinate the posterity of Jacob to the old covenant of peculiarity
rather than the offspring of Esau? And what reason can Honestus
assign for his being called to read the Bible in a church, and riot the
Koran in a mosque? (5.) Justitia periclitabitur, si sine merito indignus
eligitur : " Justice will be in danger, if an undeserving person is chosen
without any worthiness." This is true with regard to the remunera
tive election of obedient believers to crowns of glory in the Church
triumphant. Therefore, when Christ speaks of that election, he says,
" They shall walk with him in white, for they are worthy :" but it is
absolutely false with respect to the election of distinguishing grace,
whereby the English and Scotch are ohosen to the blessings of Chris
tianity, rather than the Turks and Cannibals. I may therefore conclude
that, according to the accounts which Vossius, Prosper, and Bishop
Davenant give us of Pelagianism arid ancient semi-Pelagianism, our doc
trine is just as far from those erroneous systems, as it is from fatalism
and Calvinism.
SECTION IX.
The fifth objection of Zelotes against a reconciliation with Honestus — In
answer to it the reconciler shows that the earliest fathers held the doc-
trine of the Scripture Scales, and that the Rev. Mr. Toplady's Historic
Proof of their Calvinism is quite anti-historical.
THE preceding section seems to embarrass Zelotes almost as much
as my second Scale ; but, soon recovering his positiveness, he endea
vours to set all the preceding quotations aside by the following objec
tion : —
OBJECTION V. " I make no great account of the fathers, except
those who may be called apostolic, as having lived in or immediately
after the apostolic age. Therefore, if Barnabas, who was St. Paul's
fellow apostle ; if Clement, who was bishop of the uncorrupted Church
at Rome ; Clement, whom the apostle mentions not only as his ' fellow
labourer,' but also as one « whose name was written in the book of life,'
Phil, iv/3; if Poly carp and Ignatius, who were both disciples of the
apostle St. John, who filled the Episcopal sees at Smyrna and Antioch,
arid who noblv laid down their lives for Christ, the one in the flames,
220 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
and the other in the jaws of hungry lions : if these early fathers, I say,
these undaunted martyrs are for us as well as St. Augustine ; we may,
without endangering the truth, allow you that the generality of the other
fathers countenanced too much the doctrine of your Scales. And that
these fathers were for us, is abundantly demonstrated in the Rev. Mr
Toplady's Historic Proof of Calvinism."
ANSWER. It is true that when Mr. Toplady promises us " the judg
ment of the earliest fathers," concerning Calvinism, he says, (Historic
Proof, page 121,) "I must repeat my question, which seems to have
given Mr. Sellon and his fraternity so much disquiet : where was not
the doctrine of predestination before Pelagius ?" But nothing can be
more frivolous than this question ; since I myself, who oppose Calvinian
predestination as much as Mr. Toplady does the second Scripture Scale,
would put the question to a Pelagian, i. e. to a rigid free wilier. To do
the subject justice, and not to mislead his unwary readers into un-
scriptural tenets by the lure of a Scriptural word, Mr. Toplady should
have said, " Where was not, before Pelagius, the Calvinian doctrine of
the absolute predestination of some men to unavoidable, eternal life, and
of all the rest of mankind to unavoidable, eternal death, without any
respect to their voluntary faith and works ?" For neither Mr. Sellon,
nor any of his " fraternity," ever denied the predestination which St.
Paul mentions. Nay, we strongly contend for it ; see section xiv. All
we insist upon is, that the predestination, election, and reprobation taught
by St. Paul, by the earliest fathers, and by us, are as different from the
predestination, &c, taught by Calvin, Zanchy, and Mr. Toplady, as the
Scripture Scales are different from the Historic Proof. (See our Genuine
Creed, article vii.)
We grant also that the ingenious vicar of Broad Hembury has filled
a section with proofs that the early fathers were sound Calvinists ; but
what weight have these proofs? Are they not founded, (1.) Upon the
words our, we, us, and elect, which he fondly supposes to mean us who
are Calvinistically elected in opposition to our neighbours, who, from all
eternity, were unconditionally and absolutely reprobated from eternal
life ? (2.) Upon some phrases, where those fathers mentioned the par
ticular, applicatory redemption, or the particular election and calling of
those to whom the Gospel of Christ is preached ; a redemption of
believers, an election and a calling these, for which I myself, who am
no Calvinist, have strongly contended in my answer to Mr. Hill's Creed
for the Arminians? (3.) Upon some sentences, which, being torn from
the context, seem to speak in the Calvinian strain ? (4.) Upon the harm
less words will, purpose, requisite, decree, &c, which are fondly sup
posed to demonstrate the truth of Calvinian necessity and Calvinian
decrees? (5.) Upon the words "brethren, the Church of saints, the
new people, my people?" Which (such is the force of prejudice !)
Mr. Toplady imagines must mean his Calvinistically elected brethren,
&c, just as if people could not be brethren, form a Christian Church,
be God's peculiar, new, Christian people, in opposition to his old people,
the Jews, or to those who in every nation fear God and work righteous,
ness, or even in opposition to unconverted people, without the chimerical
election, which drags after it the necessary damnation of all the world
beside !
THIRD.] SCRIPTUKE SCALES. 221
The truth is, that the fathers, mentioned in Zelotes' objection, followed
the very same plan of doctrine which is laid down in these pages,
although they did not always balance the two Gospel axioms with the
scrupulous caution and nicety which the vain jangling of captious, con
tentious, and overdoing divines obliges me to use. Mr. Toplady himself
will hardly deny that the early fathers held the doctrine of our first
scale. And that they held the doctrine of the second, I prove by the
following* extracts from their excellent epistles.
Barnabas says, in his Catholic epistle, " Let us give heed unto the last
days, for all the time of our life and faith shall profit us nothing, if we
do not endure unjust things, and future temptations. Let us, being-
spiritual, be made a perfect temple to God, as much as in us lies. Let
us meditate upon the fear of God, and endeavour to keep his command
ments, that we may rejoice in his judgments : the Lord, accepting no
man's person, judgeth the world ; every man shall receive according to
his deeds. If he be good, his goodness goes before him ; if wicked, the
ways of his wickedness follow after him. Take heed lest, at any time,
being called, and at ease, we should fall asleep in our sins, and the
wicked one getting power over us, &c, exclude us from the kingdom of
the Lord. Understand a little more ; having seen the great signs and
wonders among the people of the Jews, and that the Lord does so leave
them ; therefore let us take heed, lest haply we be found, as it is written,
' Many called, few chosen.' That man shall justly perish, who hath
knowledge of the way of truth, and yet will not refrain himself from the
dark way." (Pages' 6, 7, 8.)
I grant to Mr. Toplady, that Barnabas says, p. 28, " Thou shalt not
command thy maid or man servant with bitterness, especially those who
hope in him, lest thou be found destitute of the fear of God, who is over
both : for he came not to call men [to the blessings of Christianity] by
their persons, [that is, according to the context, he came not io call mas
ters only,] but those whom his Spirit prepared :" [whether they be servants
or masters : for God called to Christian liberty the devout soldiers and
servants who waited on Cornelius, as well as Cornelius himself; giving
them equally " the Spirit of adoption," because they were equally pre
pared for it by " the Spirit of conviction and bondage," which they had
not received in vain.] From the last words of this quotation Mr. Top-
lady fondly infers the Calvinism of Barnabas ; whereas from the words
which I have produced in Italics, it is evident that this apostle was as
far from Calvinism as St. James himself: for they show that Barnabas
thought a believer could be " found destitute of the fear of God," i. e.
could so fall away into a graceless state, as to make shipwreck even of
" the fear of God," only by " commanding a servant with bitterness."
This historic proof of Barnabas' Calvinism is so much the more sur
prising, as he says, a few lines below, " Meditate to sate a soul by the
word. And thou shalt labour for the redemption of thy sins. Give to
* Not having the original, I extract what follows of Clement's, from Mr. Wes
ley's " Christian Library," vol. 1. The quotations from the epistles of B;trnabas,
Polycarp, and Ignatius are taken from the translation of Thomas Elborowe,
vicar of Chiswick. It is to be met with in his hook, called "A Prospect of Pri
mitive Christianity, as it was left by Christ and his Apostles;" printed in the
Savoy, 16G8.
222 EQUAL CHECK. I PART
every one that asketh of thce ; but know withal who is the good Recom-
penser for the reward, &c. It is therefore an excellent thing for him
who learns the righteous commands of the Lord, dec, to walk in them.
For he who does them, shall be glorified in the kingdom of God ; but
he who chooseth the other things, shall perish with his works. There
fore there is a resurrection and a retribution. The Lord is at hand, and
his reward. I entreat you, again and again, that ye be good lawgivers
to yourselves, and that ye remain faithful counsellors to yourselves. Be
ye taught of God, seeking out what the Lord requireth from you, and
do, that ye may be saved in the day of judgment." I see no Calvinism
in all this ; but only the doctrine of the second Scripture Scale, which
cJl Calvinists would abhor, as they do Mr. Wesley's Minutes, if consist
ency belonged to their system.
Nor was St. Clement more averse to that scale than Barnabas : for
although, in the excellent epistle which he wrote to reconvert the wrang
ling Corinthians, he maintains the Protestant doctrine of faith, as clearly
as our Church does in her eleventh article ; yet he as strongly inculcates
the doctrine of works, as she does in the twelfth. Nay, he so closely
connects faith and its works, that what St. Paul calls faith, he does not
scruple to call obedience. " By obedience, (says he) he [Abraham] went
cut of his own land." And again : " By faith and hospitality was Rahab
saved." Hence it is that he guards the doctrine of obedient free will
as strongly as that of prevenierit free grace. " Let us remember (says
he) the words of our Lord, Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Let them
[children] learn how great power humility has with God ; how much
holy love avails with him ; how the fear of him is good and great, and
saveth all those who, with a pure mind, turn to him in holiness. Let us
agonize to be found in the number of them that wait for him, [God,] that
we may partake thereof:" that is, of the things which are prepared for
them that wait for him.
His description of love is so highly anti-Calvinistic, that it amounts
even to Christian perfection. " By love were all the elect of God made
perfect : no words can declare its perfection — all the generations, from
Adam to this day, are passed away ; but those who were made perfect
in love, are in the region of the just, and shall appear in glory.* ' Love
covereth a multitude of sins.' Happy then are we, beloved, if we fulfil
the commandments of God in the unity of love, that so through love our
sins may be forgiven us. Following the commandments of God they
sin not."
* By comparing these two sentences, it is evident St. Clement believed and
taught that our charity not only causes us to cover the sins of others, but in a
secondary sense causes also God's covering of our own sins : the first cause of
pardon being always his free grace in Jesus Christ. Mr. Baxter exactly expresses
St. Clement's sentiment in his comment upon these words of St. Peter : — " Above
all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall cover the mul
titude of sins." " It is but partiality (says he) and jealousy of the cause of jus-
tification among the Papists, which makes some excellent expositors distort the
text, so as to exclude from its sense God's covering of our sins; because they con
sider not aright, (1.) That pardon, as continued, and as renewed, has more for
the condition of it required in us, than the first pardon and begun justification
has. The first act of sound faith serveth for the beginning, but the continuance
of it [of sound faith] with its necessary fruits [love, &c,] is necessary to the con
tinuance of pardon. (2.) That the faith which is required to justification aii<!5
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 223
So far was he from Calvinian narrowness and reprobation, that when
he exnorts the Corinthians to repentance, he does it in these words : —
" Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, and see how precious it is
before God, which, being shed for our salvation, brought the grace of
repentance to all the world. Let us look diligently to all ages,« and
learn that our Lord has always given place for repentance to all who
desired to turn to him. Noah preached repentance, and they who
hearkened to him were saved. Jonah denounced destruction upon the
Ninevites ; yet they, repenting of their sins, appeased God by their
prayers, and received salvation, although they were strangers to the
covenant of God. Wherefore let us, &c, turn ourselves to his mercy."
In ail this I see no more Calvinism than I do in Mr. Wesley's Mi
nutes. However, Mr. Toplady's " Historic Proof" is gone forth ; and
it is now demonstrated that St. Clement was an orthodox arid a sound
Calvinist ; while the author of the Minutes is a heretic, and almost every
thing that is bad ! O Solifidianism ! is thy influence over those who
drink of thy enchanting cup so great that they can prove, believe, and
make people believe almost any thing ?
By the same frivolous arguments Mr. Toplady attempts to evince
the Calvinism of Polycarp, whose epistle, in some places, is rather too
much anti-Calvinistical. Reader, judge for thyself, and say which of
Calvin's peculiarities breathe through the following passages of his
Epistle to the Philippians : page 2, " Who [Christ] shall come to judge
the quick and the dead, and whose blood God will strictly require at
the hands of those who do not believe on him. But he, who raised him
from the dead, will raise us up also, if we do his will, and walk in his
commandments, <fyc, remembering what the Lord said, teaching in this
wise, ' Judge not, that ye be not judged : forgive, and it shall be for
given you : be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy : in what measure
ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,' &c. These things, bre
thren, I write unto you concerning righteousness."
Polycarp, far from recommending the Calviriian imputation of Christ's
righteousness, openly sides with those who are reproached as perfec
tionists in our days ; for in the next page he says, " If any man is pos
sessed of these, [faith, followed by hope, and led on by love,] he hath
fulfilled the command of righteousness. He who is possessed of love,
is free from all sin. Let us arm ourselves with the armour of right
eousness, and teach ourselves in the first place to walk in the com
mandments of the Lord :" " from whom," says he, in the next page,
" if we please him in this world, we shall receive a [or the] future re
ward. For he has engaged for us, to raise us from the dead : and if
pardon, is giving up ourselves to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the
baptismal covenant ; that is, our Christianity, which is not put in opposition to
thnl love or repentance, which, is still implied as part of the same covenant con
sent, or as its necessary fruit ; but to the works of the law of Moses, or of works,
or to any works that are set in competition with Christ and free grace. If pre
judice hindered not men, the reading of the angel's words to Cornelius, and of
Christ's, ('forgive and ye shall be forgiven,') and the parable of the pardoned
debtor, cast into prison for not pardoning his fellow servant, with James ii, and
Matt, xxv, would end all this controversy." O Clement! O Baxter! what have
ye said ? Aro ye not as heterodox as the author of the Minutes and their Vin
dicator ?
224 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
we have our conversation worthy of him, we shall also reign with him,
as we believe." Nor is he ashamed to urge the practice of good works
from a motive which Zelotes would call downright popery. For after
observing that " Paul, and the rest of the apostles, have not run in vain,
but MI faith and righteousness ; and having obtained the place due unto
them, are now with the Lord," &c, he adds : " When ye can do good,
do not defer it, for alms delivereth from death.'7 If Mr. Wesley said this,
he would be a heresiarch. Polycarp says it; but, no matter, Poly,
carp is a famous martyr ; and therefore he must be a sound Carvinist.
And so must Ignatius, who, from the same motive, is pressed into the
service of the Calvinian doctrines of grace. To show that Mr. Top-
lady is mistaken, when he asserts that Ignatius was Calvinistically ortho
dox, I need only prove that Ignatius enforced the second Gospel axiom
as well as the first. Arid that he did so, is evident from the following
quotations. He writes to the Smyrneans : — " Let all things abound
among you in grace, for ye are worthy. Ye have every way re-
freshed me, and Jesus Christ will refresh you. Ye have loved me, &c.
God will requite you ; and if ye patiently endure ail things for his sake,
ye shall enjoy him. Being perfect yourselves, mind the things which
are perfect. For if ye have but a will to do good, God is ready to as
sist you." He writes to Polycarp: — "The more the labour is, the
more the gain. It is necessary for us patiently to endure all things for
God, that he may patiently bear with us. Ministers of God, do things
pleasing to him, &c, whose soldiers ye are, from whom ye expect your
salary. Let none among you be found a deserter of his colours. Let
your baptism arm you ; let faith be your helmet, love your spear, pa
tience your whole armour, and your works your gage [your de-positum]
that you may receive a reward worthy of you. When ye shall have
despatched this business, the work shall be ascribed to God and to
you," according to the doctrine of free grace and free will. And, at
the end of his letter, he exhorts the presbyters and Polycarp to write
edifying letters to the neighbouring Churches, " that ye may all be glo
rified by an eternal work, as thou art worthy."
To the Ephesians, whom he calls " elect by real sufferings," as well
as " through the will of God," he writes : — " Keeping the melody of
God, which is unity, ye shall with one voice glorify the Father by Jesus
Christ, that he may also hear you, and acknowledge you by what you
do, to be the members of his Son. So that it is profitable tor you to
Continue in immaculate unity, that ye may always be partakers of God.
Keep yourselves in all purity and temperance, both in flesh and spirit,
through Jesus Christ."
To the Mugnesians he says : " All works have some end ; two [ends]
are proposed, DEATH and LIFE ; and every man shall go to his proper
place," through his works of faith or unbelief.
To the Trallians indeed he writes : — " Flee therefore evil plants
[Atheists and infidels] which bring forth deadly fruit, which if a man
tastes of, he dies presently. For these are not the plantation of the
Father ; if they were, they would appear branches of his cross, and
their fruit would be incorruptible," or rather, not rotten, not vn^ound.
Mr. Toplady depends much on the latter part of this quotation : but all
we see in it is, that Ignatius believed none are actually plant:.} ox' right-
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES.
eousness but they who actually appear such, by actually bearing good
fruit, which he calls etq&aprof, in opposition to rotten fruit : for if the
word (jjSsjpw means " to spoil, to corrupt, to rot," a<p&ap<ros means as well
«« not rotten" as « incorruptible." And that it means so here is evident
from the motive urged by Ignatius in the context, to make the Trallian
believers flee from those evil plants, these Atheistical apostates : " If a
man," that is, if any one of you, believers, (for unbelievers being dead
already, have no spiritual life to lose,) « if a man tastes their deadly fruit,
he dies presently;" so far is he from being sure to recover, and shir'
louder in heaven if he apostatizes, and feasts for months upon their
deadly fruit ! This important clause renders the quotation altogether
anti-Calvinistical, especially if we compare it to a similar caution which
this very father gives to the Ephesians :— " Let no one among you be
found an herb of the devil ; keep yourselves in all purity," &c. That is,
let none of you apostatize by tasting the deadly fruit of these evil plants,'
which have apostatized. Both quotations evidently allude to these
words of Jeremiah ii, 21, «I had planted thee a nobie vine, wholly a
right seed : how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a
strange vine !" Both are strongly anti-Calvinistical ; and yet the former
is produced by Mr. Toplady as a proof of Calvinism ! Need I say anv
more to make Zelotes himself cry out, Logica Genecensis ?
From the whole, I hope that unprejudiced readers will subscribe to
the following remarks : (1.) Barnabas, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius
undoubtedly held the first Gospel axiom, or the godly, Scriptural doc-
trine of free grace ; so far we agree with Mr. Toplady. But to prove
them jalhers after his own heart, this gentleman should have proved
that at least by necessary consequence they rejected the second Gospel
axiom, which necessarily includes our doctrines of moderate free will,
of the works of penitential faith, and of the reward of eternal salvation
annexed to the unnecessitated, voluntary obedience of faith. (2 ) If
Mr. Toplady dismembered the « Equal Check," and broke the « Scrip.
'ture Scales ;" taking what I advance against the proper merit of works,
and in defence of free grace ; producing my arguments for the covenants
3f peculiarity, and for the election of distinguishing grace ; and carefully
concealing all that I have written in favour of assisted free will and
evangelical morality: if Mr. Toplady, I say, followed this method, in
those two pieces only, he would find a great many more proofs of Cal-
vmisrn, i. e. of mangled, immoral, Antinomian Christianity, than he has
found in all the writings of the earliest fathers, to whom he so confidently
appeals. (3.) We must then still go down so low as the fourth or fif.h
century, before we can find Calvin the First, I mean HEATED St. Au-
gustme. And how inconsistent a Calvinist COOL St. Augustine was,
has already been proved. I therefore flatter myself, that Mr. Toplady Is
jmfo-historic proof of the Calvinism of the primitive Church will no
longer keep Zelotes from a Scriptural reconciliation with Houestus.
I see that the time is not yet come ; for he turns over two octavo
volumes, and prepares another weighty objection, which the reader will
imd in the following section.
VOL. II. 15
220 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
SECTION X.
Zelotes' sixth objection to a reconciliation with Honestus — The reconciler
answers if by showing y (1.) That the evangelical marriage of free
grace and free will rejlectsno dishonour upon God's sovereignty. (2.)
That Mr. Topladifs grand argument against that marriage is incon
clusive. (3.) That Mr. Whiiejield's " inextricable dilemma" in favour
of Calvinian election and reprobation, is a mere sophism. And, (4.)
That Z doles' jumble of free wrath, and unevangelical free grace, pours
real contempt upon all the Divine perfections, sovereignty itself not
excepted.
OBJECTION VI. " If you are not a Pelagian, are you riot a secret
Atheist? Do you not indirectly represent Jehovah as not God? You
want me to meet Honestus half way : but if I meet him where you are,
shall not I meet him on the brink of a horrible precipice ? Are you not
an opposer of God's sovereignty, which shines as gloriously among his
other perfections, as the moon does among the stars 1 Is not a God with-
out sovereignty as contemptible as a king without a kingdom ? And can
you reconcile your arrogant doctrine of free will, with the supreme, ab
solute, irresistible power, by which God « works all things after the coun
sel of his own will V Hear the Calvin of the day — the champion of
the doctrines of grace : —
" ' For this [Atheism] also Arminianism has paved the way, by
despoiling the Divine Being, among other attributes of his unlimited
supremacy, of his infinite knowledge, of his infallible wisdom, of his in-
vincible power, of his absolute independency, of his eternal immutability.
Not to observe that the exempting of some things and events from the
providence of God, by referring them to free will, &c, is another of
those black lanes, which lead, in a direct line, from Arminianism to
Atheism. Neither is it at all surprising that any who represent men as
gods (by supposing man to possess the Divine attribute of independent
self determination) should, when their hand is in it, represent God himself
with the imperfections of a man, by putting limitations to his sovereignty,
by supposing his knowledge to be shackled with circumscription, and
darkened with uncertainty ; by connecting their ideas of his wisdom and
power with the possibility of disconcertment and disappointment, embar
rassment and defeat ; by transferring his independency to themselves,
in order to support their favourite doctrine, which affirms that the
Divine will and conduct are dependent on the will and conduct of men ;
by blotting out his immutability, that they may clear the way for condi
tional, variable, vanquishable, and amissible grace ; and by narrowing his
providence, to keep the idol of free will upon its legs, and to save human
reason from the humiliation of acknowledging her inability to account
for many of the Divine disposals, &c. Who sees not the Atheistical
tendency of all this ? Let Arminianism try to exculpate herself from the
heavy, but unexaggerated indictment, which if she cannot effect, it will
be doing her no injustice to term her Atheism in masquerade.' " (Rev.
Mr. Toplady's Historic Proof, p. 728, &c.)
ANSWER. If this terrible objection had the least degree of solidity,
I would instantly burn the Checks and the Scripture Scales ; for I trust
THIRD.! SCRIPTURE SCALES. 227
that the glory of God is ten thousand times dearer to me than the
success of my little publications. But I cannot take bare assertions,
groundless insinuations, and bombastic charges for solid proofs. In a
mock sea fight, cannons may dreadfully roar, but no masts are shot
away, no ship is sent to the bottom. And that, in this polemical broad
side, the weight of the ball (if there be any) does not answer to
the noise of the explosion, will appear, I hope, by the following an
swers : —
I. (i.) This objection is entirely levelled at the second Scripture
Scale, which is made of so great a variety of plain scriptures, that, to
attempt to set it aside as leading to Atheism, is to endeavour setting
aside one half of the doctrinal part of the Bible as being Atheistical. And
if so considerable a part of the Bible be Atheistical, the whole is undoubt
edly a forgery. Thus Zelotes, rather than not to cut down what he is
pleased to call Arminianism, fells one half of the trees that grow in the
fruitful garden of revealed truth, under pretence that they are produc
tive of Atheism : and, by that means, he gives infidels a fair opportunity
of cutting down all the rest.
(2.) Zelotes is greatly mistaken if he thinks that the free agency we
plead for, absolutely crosses the designs of " Him who works all after
the counsel of his own will :" for if part of this counsel be, that man shaO
be a free agent, that life and death, heaven and hell, shall be " set be
fore him ;" and that he shall eternally have either the one or the other,
according to his own choice : if this be the case, I say, God's wisdom
cannot be disappointed, nor his sovereign power baffled, be man's choice
whatever it may : because God designed to manifest his sovereign wis
dom and power in the wonderful creation, wise government, and rio-ht-
eous judgment of free agents ; and not in overpowering their will, or
in destroying their free agency ; much less in subverting his awful tri
bunal, and in obscuring all his perfections to place one of them (sove
reignty) in a more glaring light.
(3.) I grant that the doctrine of free will evangelically assisted by
free grace, (not Calvinistically overpowered by forcible grace or wrath,)
I grant, I say, that this doctrine can never be reconciled with the doc
trine of an unscriptural, tyrannical sovereignty, which Zelotes rashly
attributes to God, under pretence of doing him honour. But that it is
perfectly consistent with the awful, and yet amiable views which the
Scriptures give us of God's real sovereignty, is, I hope, abundantly
proved in the preceding pages. To the arguments which they con
tain, I add the following illustration : —
If a king, wisely to try, and justly to reward the honesty of his sub
jects, made a statute, to insure particular rewards to thief catchers,
and particular punishments to thieves ; would it be any disparagement
to his wisdom, power, supremacy, and sovereignty, if he did not neces
sitate, nor absolutely oblige some of his subjects to rob, and others to
catch them in the robbery ; lest he should not order the former for in-
fallible execution, and appoint to the latter a gratuitous reward ? Would
riot our gracious sovereign be injured by the bare supposition that he is
capable of displaying his supreme authority by such a pitiful method ?
And shall we suppose that the King of kings — the Judge of all the
earth, maintains his righteous sovereignty by a similar conduct ?
228 EQ.UAL CHECK. [PART
(4.) We perpetually assert tnat God is the only first cause of all
good, both natural and moral ; arid thus we ascribe to him a sovereignty
worthy of the Parent of good. If we do not directly, with the Mani-
chees, or indirectly, with the Calvinists, represent God as the first cause
of evil, it is merely because we dare not attribute to him a diabolical
supremacy. And we fear that Zelotes will have no more thanks for
giving God the glory of predestinating the reprobate necessarily to con-
tinue in sin, and be damned, than 1 should have, were I to give our
Lord the shameful glory of seducing Eve in the shape of a lying ser
pent, lest he should not have the glory of being, and doing all in all.
(5.) We apprehend that the doctrine of the Scales (i. e. the doctrine
of free will, evangelically subordinate to free grace or to just wrath)
perfectly secures the honour of God's greatness, supremacy, and power
without dishonouring his goodness, justice, and veracity. It seems to
us unscriptural and unreasonable to suppose that God should eclipse
these, his MOKAL perfections, (by which he chiefly proposes himself to
us for our imitation,) in order to set off those, his NATURAL perfections.
A grim tyrant, a Nebuchadnezzar, is praised for his greatness, sove
reignty, and power ; but a Titus, a prince who deserves to be called
"the darling of mankind," is extolled for his goodness, justice, and
veracity. And who but Satan, or his subjects, would so overvalue the
praise given to a Nebuchadnezzar, as to slight the praise bestowed upon
a Titus 1 Was not Titus as great a potentate as Nebuchadnezzar and
Darius, though he did not, like them, make tyrannical decrees to assert
his powers, and then execute them with wanton cruelty, or with absurd
mourning ; lest he should lose the praise of his sovereignty and immu
tability, before a multitude of mistaken decretisis ?
II. Having, I hope, broken the heart of Zelotes' objection by the
preceding arguments, it will not be difficult to take in pieces his boasted
quotation from Mr. Toplady's "Historic Proof;" and to point out the
ilaw of every part.
(1.) " Armiiiianism paves the way for Atheism by despoiling the Di
vine Being of his unlimited supremacy.''' No : it only teaches us that
it is absurd to make God's supremacy bear an undue proportion to his
other perfections. Do we despoil the king of his manly shape, because
we deny his having the head of a giant, and the body of a dwarf? (2.)
•'Of his infallible wisdom." No: God wisely made free agents, that
he might wisely judge them according to their works ; and it is one of
our objections to the modern doctrines of grace, that they despoil God
of his " wisdom" in both these respects. (3.) " Of his invincible power."
No : God does whatever pleases him, in heaven, earth, and hell. But
reason and Scripture testify that he does not choose to set his invincible
power against his unerring wisdom, by overpowering with saving grace,
or damning wrath, the men whom lie is going judicially to reward or
punish. (4.) "Of his absolute independency." Absurd*! when we say
that the promised reward, which a general bestows upon a soldier for
his gallant behaviour in the field, depends in some measure upon the
soldier's gallant behaviour, do we despoil the general of his independ
ency with respect to the soldier ? Must the general, to show himself
independent, necessitate some of his soldiers to fight, that he may fool-
ishly promote them ; and others to desert, that he may blow their brains
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 229
out with Calvinian independence ? (5.) " Of his eternal immutability."
No : when we assert that God justifies men according to their faith,
and rewards them according to their good works ; or when we say that
he condemns them according to their unbelief, and punishes them ac
cording to their bad works ; do we intimate that he betrays the least
degree of mutability 1 On the contrary, do we not hereby represent
him as faithfully executing his eternal, immutable decree of judging and
treating men according to their works of faith, or of unbelief I (See
"the Genuine Creed" article eighth.)
Mr. Toplady goes on: (6.) "The exempting of some things and
events from the providence of God, by referring them to free will, dec,
is another of those black lanes, which lead, in a direct line, from Armi-
nianism to Atheism." This is a mistake all over. By the doctrine of
moderate free will we exempt no event or thing from the providence of
God : for we maintain, that as God's power made free will, so his pro
vidence rules or overrules it in all things. Only we do not believe that
ruling or overruling implies " necessitating, overpowering," or " trick
ing," when judgments, punishments, and rewards are to follow. Our
doctrine, therefore, is a lightsome walk, which leads to the right know
ledge of God, and not one of those " black lanes which leads in a direct
line" from Calvinian election to " Mr. Fulsome's" presumption ; and
from Calvinian reprobation, to Francis Spira's despair.
(7.) Arminianism "represents men as gods, by supposing man to
possess the Divine attribute of independent self determination." Our
doctrines of grace suppose no such thing : on the contrary, we assert
that obedient free will is always dependent upon God's free grace ; and
disobedient free will upon God's just wrath : this charge of Mr. Top-
lady is therefore absolutely groundless. (8.) Arminianism "represents
God himself with the imperfections of a man, by putting limitations to
his sovereignty." This is only a repetition of what is absurdly said,
No. 1, about God's "unlimited supremacy." (9.) It "supposes his
knowledge to be shackled with circumscription, and darkened with un
certainty." It supposes no such thing : on the contrary, one of our
great objections to Calvinism is, that it so shackles God's infinite know
ledge as to despoil him of the knowledge of future contingencies, or of
those events which depend upon man's unnecessitated choice : absurdly
supposing that God knows what he absolutely decrees, and no more.
" If events were undecreed," says Mr. Toplady, in his Hist. Proof, p.
192, "they would be unforeknown ; if unforeknown, they could not be
infallibly predicted. How came God to foreknow man's fall," says
Calvin, [nisi quia sic ordinarat,~] " but because he had appointed it ?"
Thus Calvin and Mr. Toplady, in one sense, allow less foreknowledge
to God, than to a stable boy ; for without decreeing any thing about the
matter, a postilion knows that if the horse he curries gets into his mas
ter's garden, some of the beds will be trampled ; and that if a thief has
an opportunity of taking a guinea without being seen, he will take it.
(See pages 283, 287.)
(10.) The Arminians "connect their ideas of God's wisdom and
power with the possibility of disconcertment and disappointment, em
barrassment and defeat." No such thing : we maintain that God, in
his infinite wisdom and power, has made free agents, in order to display
230 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
his goodness by rewarding them, if they believe and obey ; or his justice
by punishing them, if they prove faithless and disobedient. "Whichso
ever of the two therefore cornes to pass, God is no more " disconcerted,
disappointed, embarrassed," &c, than a lawgiver and judge, who acquits
or condemns criminals according to his own law, and to their own works
(11.) What Mr. Toplady says in the next lines about the Arminiar
" transferring independency to themselves in order to support thesr
favourite doctrine, which affirms that the Divine will and conduct are
dependent on the will and conduct of men ;" and what he adds about
their " blotting out God's immutability, and narrowing his providence,
to keep the idol of free will upon its legs," is a mere repetition of what
is answered in No. 4, 5, 6, 7. This elegant tautology of Mr. Toplady
may make some of his admirers wonder at the surprising variety of his
arguments ; but attentive readers can see through the rhetorical veil.
What that gentleman says of " conditional, variable, vanquishable,
and amissible grace," is verbal dust, raised to obscure the glory of the
second Gospel axiom, to hide one of the Scripture Scales, and to substi
tute overbearing, necessitating grace, and free, unprovoked wrath, for
the genuine grace and just wrath mentioned in the Gospel. Let us
however dwell a moment upon each of these epithets: (1.) "Con
ditional grace :" we assert (according to the first axiom) that the grace
of initial salvation is unconditional ; and (according to the second axiom)
we maintain that the grace of eternal salvation is conditional, excepting
the case of complete idiots, and of all who die in their infancy. If Mr.
Toplady can disprove either part of this doctrine, or, which is all one,
.if he can overthrow the second Gospel axiom, and break our left Scale,
let him do it. (2.) "Variable grace:" we assert that grace, as it is
inherent in God, is invariable. But we maintain that the displays of it
toward mankind are various ; asserting that those displays of it which
God grants in a way of reward to them that faithfully use what they
have, and properly ask for more, may and do vary according to the
variations of faithful or unfaithful free will ; our Lord himself having
declared that " to him that hath to purpose, more shall be given ;" and
that " from him that hath not to purpose, even what he hath shall be
taken away." (3.) " Vanquishable grace :" to call God's grace van
quishable is absurd ; because Christ does not fight men with grace, any
more than a physician fights the sick with remedies. If a patient will
not take his medicines, or will not take them properly, or will take poison
also, the medicines are not vanquished, but despised, or improperly taken.
This does not show the weakness of the medicines, but the perverseness
of the patient. Nor does it prove that the dying man is stronger than
his healthy physician ; but only that the physician will not drench him
as a farrier does a brute. If Mr. Toplady asserts the contrary, I refer
him to page 67 of this volume. And, pointing at Christ's tribunal, I
ask, Could the Judge 'of all the earth wisely and equitably sentence men
to eternal life, or to eternal death, if he first drenched them with the cup
of finished salvation, or finished damnation? (4.) " Amissible grace :"
why cannot evangelical grace be lost as well as the celestial and para
disiacal grace which was bestowed upon angels and man before the fall ?
Is a diamond less precious for being amissible 1 Is it any disgrace to
the sun that thousands of his beams are lost upon the drones who sleep
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 231
away his morning light ? or that they are abused by all the wicked who
dare to sin in open day? If Divine grace is both forcible and ina.
missible, what signify the apostolic cautions of " not receiving it in
vain," and of not " doing despite to the Spirit of grace ?" In a word,
what signifies our second Gospel Scale, with all the scriptures that fill
it up?
To conclude : if those scriptures clearly demonstrate the doctrine of
a free will, always subordinate either to free grace or to just wrath ;
when Mr. Toplady calls that free will an " idol," does he not inad
vertently charge God with being an idol maker, and represent the sacred
writers as supporters of the idol which God has made ? And when thai
gentleman says that we " keep the idol of free will upon its legs, to save
human reason from the humiliation of acknowledging her inability to
account for many of the Divine disposals ;" does he not impose bound
will and Calvinian reprobation upon us, just as the bishop of Rome im
poses transubstantiation upon his tame underlings : that is, under pretence
that we must humbly submit our reason to the Divine declarations,
decrees, or disposals ? Just as if there were no difference between
popish declarations, or Calvinian decrees, and " Divine disposals !"
Just as if the bare fear of regarding reason were sufficient to drive us
from all the rational scriptures which fill our second Scale, into all the
absurdities and horrors of free wrath and finished damnation !
And now say, candid reader, if I may not justly apply to the Calvinian
doctrines of grace a part of what Mr. Toplady rashly says of " Ar-
minianism ?" " Lei Calvinism exculpate herself from the heavy, but
unexaggerated indictment, which, if she cannot effect, it will be doing
her no injustice to term her" (I shall not say " Atheism in masquerade, "
but) an irrational and unscriptural system of doctrine.
III. " Not so, (replies Zelotes :) if you have answered Mr. Toplady's
argument, you cannot set aside Mr. Whitefield's dilemma in his letter to
Mr. Wesley. To me, at least, that dilemma appears absolutely un
answerable. It runs thus : — ' Surely Mr. Wesley will own God's justice
in imputing Adam's sin to his posterity: and also, that after Adam fell,
and his posterity in him, God might justly have " passed them all by,"
without sending his own Son to be a Saviour for any one. Unless you
do heartily agree in both these points, you do not believe original sin
aright. If you do own them, you must acknowledge the doctrine of
election and reprobation to he highly just and reasonable. For if God
might justly impute Adam's sin to all, and afterward have passed by all,
then he might justly pass by some. Turn to the right hand or to the
left, you are reduced to an inextricable dilemma.' " (See Mr. White-
field's Works, vol. iv, p. 67.)
ANSWER. We own God's justice in imputing Adam's sin seminally
to his posterity, because his posterity sinned seminally in him, and was
in him seminally corrupted. And we grant that, in the loins of Adam,
we seminally deserved all that Adam himself personally deserved. So
far we agree with Mr. Whiteiield ; maintaining, as he does, that, by our
fallen nature in Adam, we are all children of wrath ; and that, as soon
as our first parents had sinned, God might justly have sent them, and us
in their loins, into the pit of destruction ; much more " might he justly
have passed us all by, without sending his own Son to be a Saviour for
232 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
any one." Therefore Mr. Whitcficld has no reason to suspect that we
deny the Scripture doctrine of original sin.
This being premised, we may easily see that the great flaw of the
" inextricable dilemma" consists in confounding our seminal state with
our personal state : and in concluding that what would have been just,
when we were in our seminal state in the loins of Adam, must also be
just in our personal state, now we are out of his loins. As this is the
main spring of Mr. Whitefield's mistake, it is proper to point it out a
little more clearly. Let the following propositions form the pointer : —
(1.) " The wages of sin is death," yea, eternal death or damnation.
(2.) The wages of sin personally and consciously committed, is damna
tion personally and consciously suffered. (3.) The wages of sin semi-
nally and unknowingly committed is damnation, seminally and unknow
ingly suffered. (4.) When Adam had personally and consciously
sinned, God would have been just if he had inflicted upon him the per
sonal and conscious punishment which we call damnation. (5.) When
we had seminally and unknowingly sinned in Adam, God would have
been just if he had inflicted a seminal and urifelt damnation upon us for
it ; for then our punishment would have borne just proportion to our
offence. We should have been punished as we had sinned, that is,
seminally, and without the least consciousness of pain or of loss.
But is it not contrary to all equity to punish a sin seminally and
unknowingly committed with an eternal punishment, personally and
knowingly endured ? For what is Calvinian reprobation but a dreadful
decree that a majority of the children of men shall be personally bound
over to conscious, necessary, and eternal sin ; which sin shall draw
after it conscious, necessary, and eternal damnation ? Hence it appears
that Calvinian predestination to death is horrible in its end, which is
personal, necessary, and eternal torments consciously endured : but
much more horrible in the means which it appoints to secure that end,
namely, personal, remediless sin ; sin necessarily, unavoidably, and
eternally committed ; and all this merely for a sin seminally, unknow
ingly, and unconsciously committed : and (what is still more horrible)
for a sin which God himself had absolutely predestinated, if the doctrine
of Calvinian predestination, or of the absolute* necessity of events be
Scriptural. « It is true," Zelotes says, " that although reprobates are
absolutely reprobated merely for the sin of Adam, yet they are damned
merely for their own." But this evasion only makes a bad matter
worse ; for it intimates that free wrath so flamed against their unformed
persons, as to determine that they should absolutely be formed, not only
to be necessarily and eternally miserable, but also to be necessarily and
eternally guilty; which is pouring as much contempt upon Divine
goodness, as I should pour upon Phinehas' character, if I asserted that
he contrived, and absolutely secured the filthy crime of Zimri and Cosbi,
that, by this means, he might have a fair opportunity of infallibly running
them both through the body.
An illustration may help the reader to understand how hard the ground
* Wickliff used to say, "All things that happen do come absolutely of neces
sity." (Historic Proof, page 191.) And Mr. Toplady, after taking care to dis
tinguish, and set off the words will, absolutely, and necessity, says, in the next
page, "I agree with him as to the necessity of events."
THIRD. J
SCRIPTURE SCALES. 233
of Mr. Whitefield's dilemma bears upon God's equity. I have committed
a horrible murder : I am condemned to be burnt alive for it ; my sentence
is just ; having personally and consciously sinned without necessity, I
deserve to be personally and consciously tormented. The judge may
then, without cruelty, condemn every part of me to the flames ; and the
unbegotten posterity in my loins may justly burn with me, and in me :
for with me and in me it has sinned as a part of myself. Nor is it a
great misfortune for my posterity to be thus punished ; because it has
as little knowledge and feeling of my punishment, as of my crime. But
suppose the judge, after reprieving me, divided and multiplied me into
ten thousand parts ; suppose again that each of these parts necessarily
grew up into a man or a woman ; would it be reasonable in him to say
to seven or eight hundred of these men and women, " You were all
.ieminally guilty of the murder committed by the man whom I reprieved ;
and from whose loins I have extracted you ; and therefore my mercy
passes you by, and my justice absolutely reprobates your persons ? I
force you into remediless circumstances, in which you will all necessa
rily commit murder ; and then I shall have as fair an opportunity of
unavoidably burning you for your own unavoidable murders, as I have
had of absolutely reprobating you for the murder committed by the man
from whom your wretched existence is derived." Who does not see
the injustice and cruelty of such a speech? Who, but Zelotes, would
not blush to call it a gracious speech, or a " doctrine of grace?" But if
the persons, whom I suppose extracted from me, are reprieved as well as
myself; if we are put all together in remediable circumstances, where sin
indeed abounds, but where grace abounds much more, supposing we are
not unnecessarily, voluntarily, and obstinately wanting to ourselves ; who
does not see that, upon the personal commission of avoidable, voluntary
murder, (and much more upon the personal refusal of a pardon sincerely
offered upon reasonable conditions,) my posterity may be condemned to
the flames as justly as myself?
If this illustration exactly represents the deplorable case of Calvinian
reprobates, who, barely for a sin which they seminally committed, are
supposed to be personally bound over first to unavoidable perseverance
in sin, and next to unavoidable and eternal damnation ; will not all my
unprejudiced readers wonder to hear Mr. Whitefield assert that the Cal
vinian doctrine of reprobation is " highly just and reasonable ?"
" What ?' replies that good mistaken man, " will not Mr. Wesley own
that God might justly have passed all Adam's posterity by, without send
ing his own Son to be a Saviour for any man ?" ANSWER. God forbid
we should ever imagine that God was bound to send his Son to die for
any man ! No : God was no more bound to redeem any man, than he
was bound to create the first man ; redemption as well as creation
entirely flowing from rich, and eveiy way undeserved grace.
" Then you give up the point," says Zelotes ; " for there is no medium
between God's refusing to send his Son to redeem a part of Adam's
posterity, and his passing a sentence of Calvinian reprobation upon
them. Now if he could justly refuse to send his Son to save all, he
could justly refuse to send him to save some, and therefore he could
justly reprobate some, i. e. predestinate them to a remediless state of
sin, and of consequence to unavoidable damnation."
234 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
This sophistical argument probably misled Mr. Whitefield. But the
" medium" which he could not see, the medium which spoils his "inex
tricable dilemma," the door at which we readily go out of the prison
where Logica Genevensis fancies she has confined us, may easily be
pointed out, thus : — If God had not entertained gracious thoughts
of peace, mercy, and redemption toward all mankind ; if he had
designed absolutely and unconditionally to glorify nothing but his vindic
tive justice upon a number of them, for having seminally sinned in Adam,
he might undoubtedly have passed them by; yea, he might have severely
punished them. But, as I have observed, in this case he would have
punished them equitably, that is, seminally : he would have crushed
guilty Adam, and with him his Cainish, reprobated seed ; contriving the
birth of Abel, Seth, and others, in such a manner as to bring no man
into personal existence, but such as had a personal share in his redeem
ing mercy. And this is the very plan, which, according to our doctrines
of grace, and according to the Scriptures, God graciously laid down in
eternity, and faithfully executed when <: the Lamb slain from the founda
tion of the world tasted death for every man — gave himself a ransom for
all" — and became an evangelical (not an Antinornian) " propitiation for
the sins of the whole world."
A third flaw in Mr. Whitefield's dilemma is the supposition that Cal-
vinian reprobation is only a harmless preterition : but a passing by, in
some cases, is horrible cruelty. Thus if a mother Calvinistically passes
by her suckling child for a week, she actually starves and destroys him.
This is not all : Calvinian reprobation is a downright appointment to
eternal death. " The [Calvinian] predestination of some to life," &c,
says Mr. Toplady, " cannot be maintained without admitting the [Cal
vinian] reprobation of some others unto death," even unto eternal death,
or damnation. But I ask, again, what can be mere unreasonable and
unjust than to appoint millions of unborn infants to personal, conscious,
unavoidable, and eternal death, through the horrible medium of a per
sonal, unavoidable perseverance in sin ; and this merely'rfor a sin which
they never personally and consciously committed ?
A fourth flaw in Mr. Whitefield's argument consists in confounding
the Calvinian with the Scriptural imputation of Adam's sin. If God
imputed sin to Adam's offspring in its seminal state, it was merely
because Adam's offspring seminally sinned in him. God's imputation is
always according to truth. When Adam had actually tainted his soul
with sin, and his body with mortality, sinfulness and mortality actually
tainted all his offspring then in his loins ; and therefore God can truly
impute sinfulness and mortality to all, that is, he could truly account
them all to be what they really were, i. e. seminally sinful and mortal.
How different is this righteous imputation, from the imputation main
tained by Zelotes ! a cruel, supposed imputation this, whereby God is
represented as arbitrarily determining that numberless myriads of
unformed men shall be so accounted guilty of a sin which they never
personally committed, as to be personally and absolutely predestinated to
eternal death, through the horrible medium of necessary, remediless sin !
If Zelotes reply : " God may as justly impute Adam's sin to the natu
ral seed of Adam, as he does impute Christ's righteousness to the
spiritual seed of Christ:" I reply, (1.) The case is not parallel. The
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 235
king may justly give a thousand pounds gratis to whom he pleases, but
he cannot give a thousand stripes gratis to whom he pleases, because
free wrath is absolutely incompatible with justice. (2.) "Faith is im
puted for righteousness ;" or, if you please, God imputes righteousness
to believers. Now, who are believers ? Are they not men who have
faith? men who have that grace which unites them to Christ the
righteous, and by which they actually derive from Christ (in various
degrees) not only a peculiar interest in his merits, but also the very-
righteousness, the very hatred of sin, and the very love of virtue,
which were in the heart of Christ? Therefore when God imputes
faith for righteousness, or when he imputes righteousness to believers,
he only accounts that what is in believers is actually there ; or, if
you please, that believers are what they really are, that is, righteous.
Hence it appears, that to support Calvinian imputation of sin, by
Calvinian imputation of righteousness, is only to defend one chimera by
another.
Mr. Whitefield's argument in defeiice of Calvinian reprobation ap
pears to us so much the more inconclusive, as it is not less contrary to
Scripture than to reason. Who can fairly reconcile that reprobation to
the texts which intimate that " this proverb shall no more be used in
Israel : — The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the case is remediless ;
the children's teeth being necessarily and eternally set on edge ?" that
"the son shall not eternally die," or be reprobated to eternal death
" for the sins of the father ;" that " God's mercy is over all his works"
till provoked free grace gives place to just wrath ; that he " willeth not
•primarily the death of a sinner ;" and that " God our Saviour will have
all men to be saved," in a rational, evangelic way, that is, by freely
working out their own salvation in subordination to his free grace.
From all the preceding answers, I hope I may conclude, that the " in.
extricable dilemma" is a mere sophism ; and that the truly reverend
Mr. Whitefield understood far better how to offer up a warm prayer,
and preach a pathetic sermon, than how to follow error into her
lurking holes, in order to seize there the twisting viper with the
tongs of truth, and bring her out to public view, stripped of her shining,
slippery dress, and darting in vain her forked and hissing tongue.
IV. Having answered the threefold objection of Zelotes, Mr. Top-
lady, and Mr. Whitefield, I shall now retort it, and show, that upon the
plan of the Calvinian " doctrines of grace" and wrath — of unavoidable,
finished salvation for a fixed number of elect, and of unavoidable,
finished damnation for a fixed number of reprobates, all the Divine per
fections (sovereignty not excepted) suffer a partial, or a total eclipse. I
have, it is true, done it already in the Checks : but as my opponents do
not seem to have taken the least notice of the passage I refer to, though
it contains the strength of our cause with respect to the Divine perfec^
tions, I beg leave to produce it a second time. If in a civil court a
second citation is fair and expedient, why might it not be so too in a
court of controversial judicature? I therefore ask a second time: —
" What becomes of God's goodness, if the tokens of it, which he
gives to millions of men, be only intended to enhance their ruin, or
cast a deceitful veil over his everlasting wrath ? What of his mercy,
which ' is over all his works,' if millions were for ever excluded from
286 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
the least interest in it, by an absolute decree that constituted them ves
sels of wrath from all eternity ? What becomes of his justice, if he sen
tence myriads of men upon myriads to everlasting fire, < because they
have not believed on the name of his only begotten Son ;' when, if they
had believed that he wasx their Jesus, their Saviour, they would have
believed a monstrous lie, and claimed what they have no more right to,
than I have to the crown of England ? What of his veracity, and the
oath he swears that he 'willeth not primarily the death of a sinner;'
if he never affords most sinners sufficient means of escaping eternal
death? if he sends his ambassadors to 'every creature,' declaring
that * all things are now ready' for their salvation, when nothing but
' Tophet is prepared of old' for the inevitable destruction of a vast ma
jority of them ? What becomes of his holiness, if, in order to condemn
die reprobates with some show of justice, and to secure the end of his
decree of reprobation, which is, that ' millions shall absolutely sin and
be damned,' he absolutely fixes the means of their damnation, that is,
their sins and wickedness ? What of his wisdom, if he seriously expostu
lates with souls as dead as corpses, and gravely urges to repentance and
faith persons that can no more repent and believe, than fishes can speak
and sing ? What becomes of his long suffering, if he waits to have an
opportunity of sending the reprobates into a deeper hell, and not sincerely
to give them a longer time to « save themselves from this perverse gene
ration ?' What of his equity, if there was mercy for Adam and Eve, who
personally broke the hedge of duty, and wantonly rushed out of para
dise into this howling wilderness ; while there is no mercy for millions
of their unfortunate children, who are born in a state of sin and misery
without any personal choice, and of consequence without any personal
sin ? And what becomes of his omniscience, if he cannot foreknow fu
ture contingencies 1 if to foretel, without a mistake, that such a thing
will happen, he must necessitate it, or do it himself? Was not Nero as
wise in this respect ? Could not he foretel that Phebe should not con-
tinue a virgin, when he was bent upon ravishing her ? That Seneca
should not die a natural death, when he had determined to have him
murdered ? And that Crispus should fall into a pit, if he obliged him to
run a race at midnight in a place full of pits ? And what old woman in
the kingdom could not precisely foretel that a silly tale should be told
at such an hour, if she were resolved to tell it herself; or, at any rate,
make a child do it for her ?
" Again : what becomes of God's < loving kindnesses, which have been
ever of old toward the children of men ?' And what of his impartiality,
if most men, absolutely reprobated for the sin of Adam, are never
placed in a state of personal trial and probation ? Does not God use
them far less kindly than he does devils, who were tried every one for
himself, and remain in their diabolical state, because they brought it
upon themselves by a personal choice ? Astonishing ! That the Son of
God should have been flesh of the flesh, and bone of the bone of millions
of men, whom, upon the Calvinistic scheme, he never indulged so far as
he did devils ! What a hard-hearted relation to myriads of his fellow
men does Calvin represent our Lord ! Suppose Satan had become our
kinsman by incarnation, and had by that mean got the right of redemp
tion, would he not have acted like himself, if he had not only left the
THIRD.] SCKIPTURE SCALES. 237
majority of them in the depths of the fall, but enhanced their misery by
the sight of his partiality to the elect ?
" Once more : what becomes of fair dealing, if God every where
represents sin as the dreadful evil which causes damnation, and yet
the most horrid sins work for good to some, and, as P. O. intimates,
' accomplish their salvation through Christ T And what of honesty, if the
God of truth himself promises that « all the families of the earth shall be
blessed in Christ,' when he has cursed a vast majority of them with a
decree of absolute reprobation, which excludes them from obtaining an
interest in him, even from the foundation of the world ?
"Nay, what becomes of his sovereignty itself, if it is torn from the
mild and gracious attributes by which it is tempered? If it is held forth
in such a light as renders it more terrible to millions than the sovereignty
of Nebuchadnezzar in the plain of Dura appeared to Daniel's companions,
when « the form of his visage was changed against them, and he decreed
that they should be cast into the burning fiery furnace?' For they
might have saved their bodily life, by bowing to the golden image, which
was a thing in their power ; but poor Calvinian reprobates can escape
at no rate ; the ' horrible decree' is gone for*h ; they must, in spite of
their best endeavours, « dwell,' body and soul, ' with everlasting burn
ings.'"
To these queries, taken from the Third Check, I now add those which
follow : — What becomes of God's infinite power, if he cannot make free
agents, or creatures endued with free will ? And what of his boundless
wisdom, if, when he has made such creatures, he knows not how to rule,
overrule, reward, and punish them, without necessitating them, that is,
without undoing his own work — without destroying their free agency,
which is his masterpiece in the universe ? Nay, what would become of
the Divine immutability, about which Zelotes makes so much ado, if
after God had suspended in all the Scriptures the reward of eternal life,
and the punishment of eternal death, upon our unnecessitated works of
faith and unbelief, he so altered his mind, in the day of judgment, as to
suspend heavenly thrones, and infernal racks, only upon the good works
of Christ, and the bad works of Adam ; through the necessary medium
of faith and holiness, absolutely forced upon some men to the end ; and
through the necessary means of unbelief and sin, absolutely bound upon
all the rest of mankind ? And, to conclude, how shall we be able to
praise God for his invariable faithfulness, if his secret will arid public
declarations are at almost perpelual variance ? And if Zelotes' doctrines
of grace tempt us to complain with the poet,
Nescio quo tenearn nmtantcm Protea nodo ;*
instead of encouraging us to say, with David. " For ever, O Lord, thy
word is settled in heaven:" " thy faithfulness is unto all generations."
If Zelotes cannot answer these queries in as rational and Scriptural a
manner as his objections have, I trust, been answered ; will not the
" He is like Proteus : I know not how to hold him :" whether by his secret
will, which has absolutely predestinated millions of men to necessary sin and
eternal damnation; or by his revealed will, which declares that he willeth not
primarily that any man should perish, but that all should be eternally s;tved, by
"working out their own salvation," according to the talent of will and power,
which he gives to every ;-aan to profit withal.
238 EQUAL CHECK. JPART
Calviniun doctrines <..f unscriptural free grace and everlasting free wrath
appear to unprejudiced persons as great enemies to the Divine perfec
tions, and to " the sincere milk of God's word," as Virgil's Harpies
were to the Trojan hero, arid to his richly spread tables ? And is there
not some resemblance between the Diana and Hecate whom I unmask,
and the petty goddesses whom the poet describes thus ?
Sive" DBSB, seu sint diroe obscenasque volucres, —
Tristius hand illis monstrum, nee sasvior ulla
Pestis et ira deum Stygiis sese extulit undis.
Virginei volucrum vultus, fsedissima ventris
Proluvies, uncaeque manus : — nee vulnera tergo
Accipiunt : cetcrique fuga sub sidera lapsae,
Semesam procdarn, et vestigia faeda relinquunt.
SECTION XI.
Zelotes1 last objection against a reconciliation with Honestus — In answer
to it, the reconciler shows, by various illustrations, that the Scriptures
do not contradict themselves in holding forth first and second causes —
Primary and subordinate motives ; and that the connection of free grace
with free will is properly illustrated by the Scriptural emblem of a
marriage ; this relation exactly representing the conjunction and oppo
sition of the two Gospel axioms, together with the pre-eminence of free
grace, and the subordination of free will.
IF you compare the prejudice of Zelotes against Honestus to a strong
castle, the objections which fortify that castle may be compared to tlifr
rivers which were supposed to surround Pluto's palace. Six of them
we have already crossed ; one more obstructs our way to the reconcilia -
tion, and, like Phlegethon, it warmly runs in the following lines : —
OBJECTION VII. " When King Joram said to Jehu, « Is it peace ?
Jehu answered, « What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mothei
Jezebel are so many V And what peace can I make with Honestus
and you, so long as you adulterate the Gospel, by what you call the
evangelical marriage, and what I call the monstrous mixture of free,
grace arid free will ? I cannot, in conscience, take one step toward a
reconciliation, unless you can make appear that, upon your conciliating
plan, the dignity of free grace is properly secured. But* as this is impos
sible, I can only look upon your Scripture Scales as a new attempt to
set one part of the Scripture against the other, and to give infidels more
room to say that the Bible is full of contradictions."
ANSWER. Exceedingly sorry should I be, if the Scripture Scales hac5
this unhappy tendency. To remove your groundless fears in this re-
spect, and to prevent the hasty triumph of infidels, permit me, (1.) TV.
show that what at first sight seems a contradiction in the scripture*
which compose my Scales, appears, upon due consideration, to be only
* " Tis hard to say whether they are goddesses or fowls obscene. However
they are as ugly and dangerous appearances as ever ascended from the Stygiai
lake. They have faces like virgins, hands like birds' claws, and an intolerable
hlthy looseness! As for their body, it is invulnerable; at toast, vou cannov
wound it, they so nimbly fly away into the clouds; leaving tho food, which they
greedily tore, polluted by thoir defiling touch."
TISI.RD.J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 239
the just subordination of second causes to the first, or the proper union
of inferior motives with leading ones. And, (2.) To prove what Zelotes
calls ;< a monstrous mixture of free grace and free will," is their im
portant concurrence, which the Scriptures frequently represent to us
under the significant emblem of a marriage. Plain illustrations will
throw more light upon the subject than deep arguments ; I shall there-
fore use the former, because they are within the reach of every body,
and because Zelotes cannot set them aside under pretence that they are
" metaphysical."
I. May we not, on different occasions, use with propriety words which
seem contradictory, and which nevertheless agree perfectly together?
For instance : with respect to the doctrine of first and second causes,
and of primary and secondary means, may I not say, " I ploughed my
field this year," because I ordered it to be ploughed ? May I not say,
on another occasion, " Such a farmer ploughed it alone," because no
other farmer shared in his toil ? May I not, the next moment, point at
his team, and say, " These horses ploughed all my field alone," if I
want to intimate that no other horses were -employed in that business ?
And yet, may I not by and by show Zelotes a new constructed plough,
and say, « That light plough ploughed all my field ?" Would it be right
in Zelotes or Lorenzo to charge me with shuffling, or with self contra
diction, for these different assertions ?
If this illustration do not sufficiently strike the reader, I ask, May
not a clergyman, without a shadow of prevarication, say, on different
occasions, I hold my living through Divine permission ; through the
lord chancellor's presentation ; through a liberal education ; through my
subscriptions ; through the bishop's institution, &c 1 May not all these
expressions be true, and proper on different occasions ? And may not
these causes, means, and qualifications, concur together, and be all
3ssential in their pfaces ?
Once more : speaking of a barge that sails up the river, may I not,
without contradicting myself, say one moment, The wind alone (in oppo
sition to the tide) brings her up ? And if the next moment I add, Her
^ails alone (in opposition to oars or haling lines) bring her up against
the stream, would it be right to infer that I exclude the tackling of
the vessel, the rudder, and the steersman from being necessary in their
places ? Such, however, is the inference of Zelotes. For while Honestus
thinks him an enthusiast, for supposing that absolutely nothing but wind
and sail [grace and faith] is requisite to spiritual navigation, Zelotes
thinks that Honestus is hardly fit to be a cabin boy in the ship of the
Church, because he lays a particular stress on the right management of
the tackling and rudder; and both will perhaps look upon me as a
trimmer, because, in order to reconcile them, I assert that the wind and
^ails, the masts and yards, the rigging and the rudder, the compass and
pilot have each their proper use and office.
II. With respect to primary and secondary motives, may I not say
that Christ humbled himself to the death of the cross, out of obedience
to his Father ; out of compassionate love for a lost world ; that he might
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish ; that the Scriptures might be fulfilled ; that he
might leave us an example of humble patience ; that through death he
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
might destroy the prince of darkness ; and that he might see the fruit
of the travail of his soul, obtain the joy that was set before him, and be
satisfied ? Would Zelotes show himself a judicious divine, if he intimated
that these motives are incompatible and contradictory? May not a
variety of motives sweetly concur to the same end ? May you not, for
example, relieve your indigent neighbour, out of fear lest you should
meet the fate of the inexorable rich man in hell ? Out of pity for a
fellow creature in distress ? Out of regard for him as a fellow Christian ?
Oat of a desire to maintain a good conscience, and to keep the com
mandments ? Out of gratitude, love, and obedience to Christ ? That
the worthy name by which we are called Christians may not be bias-
phemed ? That your neighbour may be edified ? That you may show
your love to God ? That you may declare your faith in Christ ? That
you may lay up treasure in heaven? That, like a faithful steward, you
may deliver up your accounts with joy ? That you may receive the
reward of the inheritance ? That you may be justified by your works
as a bdiever in the great day, &c ? May not all these motives, like the
various steps of Jacob's mysterious ladder, perfectly agree together ?
And if a good work " comes up for a memorial before God," winged with
all these Scriptural motives, is it not likely to be more acceptable than
one which ascends supported only by one or two such motives ?
Zelotes frequently admits but of two causes of our salvation, and
recommends but one motive of good works. The two causes of eternal
salvation, which he generally confines himself to, are Christ and faith :
and, what is most astonishing, Solifidian as he is, he sometimes gives up
even faith itself: for if he reads that "faith was imputed to Abraham for
righteousness," he tells you that faith is to be taken objectively for Christ
and his good works ; which is just as reasonable as if I said that when
Sir Isaac Newton speaks of the eye and of a telescope, he intends that
these words should be taken objectively, and should mean the sun and
the moon. Again : as Zelotes frequently admits but one cause of salva
tion, that is. Christ's righteousness, so he often admits but one motive of
sincere obedience, and that is, the love of Christ known by name. Hence
he gives you to understand that all the good works of those who never
heard of Christ are nothing but splendid sins. To avoid his mistake,
we need only admit a variety of causes and motives : and to steer clear
of the error of Honestus, we need only pay to the Redeemer the so justly
deserved honour of being, in conjunction with his Father and Spirit, the
grand original cause, and as he is the Lamb slain, the one properly
meritoruvs cause of our salvation ; representing a grateful love to him
as the noblest and most powerful motive to obedience, where the Christian
Gospel is preached. In following this reasonable and catholic method,
we discover the harmony of the Scriptures ; we reconcile the opposite
texts which iill the Scripture Scales ; and far from giving room to infidels
to say that the Bible is full' of contradictions, we show the wonderful
agreement of a variety of passages, which, upon the narrow plajlg of
Zelotes and Honestus, are really inconsistent, if not altogether contra
dictory.
III. With respect to the two Gospel axioms and their basis, FRKK
GRACE and FREE WILL, contrary as they seem to each other, they uoree
as well as a thousand harmonious contrasts around us. li Zelotes
THIRD. J SCRIPTURE SCALES. 241
consider the natural world in a favourable light, he will see nothing but
opposition in harmony. Midnight darkness, when it is reconciled with
the blaze of noon, crowns our hills with the mild, the delightful light of
the rising or setting sun. When sultry summers and frozen winters
meet half way, they yield the flowers of the spring and the fruits of
autumn. If the warming beams of the sun act in conjunction with
cooling showers, the earth opens her fruitful bosom, and crowns our
fields with a plenteous harvest. Reflect upon your animal frame : how
does it subsist ? Is it not by a proper union of opposite things, fluids
and solids? And by a just temperature of contrary things, cold and
heat? Consider your whole self: are you not made of a thinking soul,
and of an organized body ? Of spirit and matter ? Thus two things,
which are exactly the reverse of each other, by harmonizing together,
form man, who is the wonder of the natural world : just as the Son of
God, united to the son of Mary, forms Christ, who is the wonder of the
spiritual world.
I readily confess that the connection of the two Gospel axioms, like
that of matter and spirit, is a deep mystery. But as it would be absurd
to infer that man is an imaginary being, because we cannot explain how
thought and reason can be connected with flesh and blood : so would it
be unreasonable to suppose that the coalition of free grace with free will
is a chimera in divinity, because we cannot exactly describe how they
are coupled. We are, however, indebted to St. Paul for a most striking
emblem of the essential opposition and wonderful union that subsist
between the two axioms, or (which comes to be the same thing) between
the Redeemer and the redeemed — between free grace and free will.
If the true Church is a mystical body composed of all the souls whose
submissive free will yields to free grace, and exerts itself in due subordi
nation to our loving Redeemer ; does it not follow that free grace exactly
answers to Christ, and holy free will to God's holy Church ? " Now/'
says the apostle, " the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ
is the head of the Church : husbands, love your wives as Christ loved
the Church : a man shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be
one flesh : this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and
the Church ;" and upon the preceding observation I take the liberty to
add : — This is a great mystery, bid I speak concerning FREE GRACE and
FREE WILL. If marriage is a Divine institution, honourable among all
men, and typical of spiritual mysteries : if Isaiah says, " Thy Maker is
thy husband :" if Hosea writes, " In that day, says Jehovah, thou shait
call me Ism ;" that is, MY HUSBAND : if St. Paul says to the Corinthians,
" I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to one HUSBAND, even Christ :"
and if he tells the Romans that they " are become dead to the law, that
they should be married to another, even to HIM who is raised from the
dead, that they should bring forth fruit unto God ;" if the sacred writers,
I say, frequently use that emblematical way of speech, may I not reve
rently tread in their steps, and in the fear of God warily run the parallel
between the conjugal tie and the mystical union of free grace and free
will? Arid,—
(1.) "If the husband is the head of the wife," as says St. Paul ; or
her lord, as St. Peter intimates ;. is not free grace the head and lord of
free will ? Has it not the pre-eminence in all things 7 (2.) If the bride.
VOL. II. 16
242 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
groom makes his address to the bride first, without forcing or binding
her with cords of necessity, does not free grace also seek free will first,
without forcing it, and chaining it down with necessitating, Turkish de
crees? (3.) If the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of the
bridegroom and of the bride, is the very essence of marriage ; may I
not say that the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of free grace
and free will makes the marriage between Christ and the willing souls,
whom St. John calls "the bride," and " the Lamb's wife ?" (4.) The
husband owes no obedience to his wife, but the wife owes all reasonable
obedience to her husband. And does riot the parallel hold here also ?
Must not free will humbly and obediently submit to free grace, as Sarah
did to Abraham, calling him lord? (5.) The man is to "give honour
to his wife, as to the weaker vessel :" and does not free grace do so to
free will, its inferior? Is not its condescending language, "Behold,!
stand at the door arid knock : open to me, my sister, my love," &c.
Yea, does not free grace, like St. Paul, " become all things [but sin and
wantonness] to all men, that by any means it may gain tliefree will of
some ?" (6.) " If the unbelieving wife departs, let her depart," says St.
Paul. And if unbelieving free will is bent upon eloping from free grace,
may it not do it ? Is it locked up as the sultanas are in Turkey ? Al
though incarnate free grace compassionately mourned over the obstinate
free will of the Jews, did it dragoon them into compliance ? Was not
its language, " I would and ye would not ?" * " Thou hast been weary
of me, O Israel. My people would none of me ; so I gave them up
to their own hearts' lust, and they walked in their own counsel :" doing,
as a nation, what Judas was judicially permitted to do as an individual.
'7.) In case of adultery is it not lawful for the husband to put away his
wife ? And may not free grace repudiate free will for the same reason ?
When the free will of Judas had long carried on an adulterous com
merce with mammon ; and when he refused to return, did not our
Lord put him away, giving him a bill of divorce, together with the fatal
sop ? And far from detaining him by fulsome Calvinian caresses, did •
he not publicly say, " Wo to that man ! What thou doest, do quickly.
Remember Lot's wife?" (8.) Can the husband, or the wife, have chil
dren alone ? Can free grace do human good works without human free
will ? Did not our Lord speak a self-evident truth, when he declared,
" Without me ye can do nothing?" And did not St. Paul set his seal to
it when he said, " We are not sufficient, of ourselves, to think any thing
[morally good] as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God. Not I,
[alone or principally] but the grace of God, which was with me ?" And,
morally speaking, what can Christ do as the husband of the Church,
* Some Calvinists have done this great truth justice, and among them the
judicious Mr. Ryland, of Northampton, A. M., who hath published an extract
from Dr. Long, bishop of Norwich, descriptive of the resemblance that man
bears to God. The first article of his extract runs thus : — "The soul is an image
of the almighty power of God. God has a power of beginning motion : so has
the soul. God's will acts with astonishing sovereignty, and absolute dominion
and pleasure, where, and when, and how he will. The soul chooses or refuses,
accepts or rejects an object, with an amazing resemblance to God. Even devils
arid the wicked refuse God with sovereign will and a most free contempt."
Hence it appears that to rob man of free agency, under pretence of making free
grace all in all, is to destroy the first feature of God's image in his living picture,
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES.
without her concurrence ? What beside atoning, inviting, pre-engaging,
and drawing? Do we not read, that he could not do many works
among the people of Nazareth, because of their unbelief? And for
want of co-operation or concurrence in sinners, does he not complain.
" I have laboured in vain : I have spent my strength for naught : all
the day long I stretched forth my hands, and no man regarded ?" LAST
LY : may I not observe that as the procreation of children is the most
important consequence of marriage ; so the production of " the fruits of
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ," is the most important conse
quence of the harmonious opposition of free grace and free will, when
they are joined together in that evangelical marriage, wThich the Scrip
ture calls " faith working by love ?"
Should Zelotes object here that " some good people produce all the
fruits of righteousness, and do all the good works which St. Paul expects
from believers, though they will hear of nothing but free grace, and
perpetually decry their own good works :" I reply, that there are such
persons is granted : nor are they less conspicuous for their unreason
ableness, than for their piety. They may rank for consistency with a
woman, who is excessively fond of her husband, and peevish with every
body else, especially with her own children. Her constant language is,
" My husband is all in all in the house ; he does every thing : I am ab
solutely nobody, I am worse than any body, I am a monster, I bring
forth nothing but monsters : my best productions are dung, dross, and
filthy rags," &c, &c. A friend of her husband, tired to hear such
speeches day by day, ventures to set her right by the following ques
tions : — " Pray, madam, if your husband is all in all in the house, is he
his own wife ? If he does all that is done under your roof, did he get
drunk the other day when your footman did so ? Does he bear his own
children, and give them suck ? If you are absolutely nobody, who is
the mother of the fine boy that hangs at your breast ? And if that child
is a mere* monster, why do you dishonour your husband by fathering a
monster upo*n him ?" While she blushes and says, " I hate controversy,
I cannot bear carnal reasonings," &c, I close this parallel between mar
riage, and the evangelical union of free grace and free will, by some
remarks, which, I hope, will reconcile Zelotes and Honestus to the har
monious opposition of the seemingly contrary doctrines of grace and
justice, of faith and works, of free grace and free will, which answer to
the two Gospel axioms, and are balanced in the two Scripture Scales.
Union without opposition is dull and insipid. You are acquainted
with the pleasures of friendship : you would gladly go miles to shake
hands with an intimate friend ; but why did you never feel any pleasure
* Walking about my parish some years ago, I heard a collier's wife venting
her bad humour upon somebody, whom she called " son of a b — h." I went into
the house to make peace ; and finding it was her own son, whom she thus
abused, I expostulated with her about the absurdity of her language, so far as it
offended God, and reflected upon herself. I might have added that if her child
was the. son of a b — c/i, he must also be the son of a d-g ; a circumstance this not
less dishonourable to her husband than to herself: but I really forgot this argu
ment [ad mulierem] at that time. However, I mention it here, in hopes that
Zelotes, who, through voluntary humility, calls his good works as many bad
names as the woman did her son, will take the hint, and will no more reflect
upon Christ, by injudiciously loading the productions of his free grace with
Antinomian abuse.
244 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
in shaking your left hand with your right, and in returning the friendly
civility ? Is it not because the joining of your own hands would be
expressive of a union without proper opposition ; of a union without
sufficient room to display the mutual endearments of one free will in
harmony with another ? For what I have all along called free grace,
is nothing but God's gracious free will, to which the obedient free will
of believers humbly submits itself. Why can you have no satisfaction
in going to the fire, when a fever inflames your blood ; or in drinking a,
cooling draught, when you are benumbed with cold ? Is it not because
in either case the pleasure ceases, or rather becomes pain, for want of
proper opposition ?
Is not opposition without union the very ground of infernal wo?
When opposition amounts to downright contrariety, does it not end in
fierce, destructive discord ? And does not this discord produce the hor
rid concert which our Lord describes by " weeping, wailing, and gnash
ing of teeth," the genuine expressions of sorrow, anguish, and despair?
On the other hand, is not opposition in union the very soul of celestial
joys ? And should I take too much liberty with the deep things of
God, if I ventured upon the following query : — Is it not from the eternal,
mysterious, ineffable opposition of Father and Son, in eternal, mysterious,
ineffable union with each other, that the eternal love and joy of the
Spirit proceeds to accomplish the mystery of the Divine unity, and form
the very heaven of heaven ?
But if that question appear too bold, or too deep, I drop it, and, keep
ing within earthly bounds, I ask, Does not experience convince us that
the most perfect concerts are those in which a number of instruments,
soft as the flute, and strong as the bassoon, high sounding as the clarion,
and deep toned as the kettle dram, properly agree with tenor, counter
tenor, bass, and treble voices ? Is it not then that the combined effects
of slow and quick vibrations, high and low notes, sharp and flat tones
solemn and cheerful accents, grave and shrill, melting and rousing, gen
tle and terrible sounds, by their harmonizing oppositions, •alternately
brace and dilate our auditory nerves ; or delightfully soothe and alarm,
lull and ravish our musical powers ? Such, and far more glorious, is
the Gospel concert of free grace and free will : a sweetly awful concert
this, in which prohibitions and commands, cautions and exhortations,
alluring promises and fearful threatenings, gentle offers of mercy and
terrible denunciations of vengeance, have all their proper places.
Now man is brought down to the gates of hell, as a rebellious worm ;
and now [by a proper transition] he is exalted to the heaven of heavens,
as the friend of God. Now Christ hangs on an ignominious cross ; and
now he fills the everlasting throne : one day as a Saviour and a prophet,
he gives grace, he offers glory ; he calls, he entreats, he weeps, he
bleeds, he dies : another day, as a rewarder and a king, he revives and
triumphs : lie absolves or condemns ; he opens and shuts both hell and
heaven. The treble in this doctrinal concert appears enthusiastic jar to
prejudiced Honestus ; and the bass passes for heretical discord with
heated Zelot.es : but an unbiassed Protestant " knows the joyful sound"
of free grace ; the solemn sound of free will ; and the alarming sound
of just wrath ; and admitting each in his concert, he makes Scriptural
melody to his Priest and Lawgiver — to his Redeemer and his Judge. As
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 245
for the merry tune of Antinomian free grace, mixed with the reprobating
roar of Calvinian free wrath, it grates upon him, it grieves his soul, it
diffuses chillness through his veins, it carries horror to his very heart.
While a divine combines evangelically, and uses properly the two
Gospel axioms, you may compare him to a musician who skilfully tunes,
and wisely uses all the strings of his instrument. But when Zelotes and
Honestus discard one of the evangelical axioms, they resemble a harper
who peevishly cuts half the strings of his harp, and ridiculously confines
himself to using only the other half. Or, to return to the Scripture
simile of a marriage : when an unprejudiced evangelist solemnizes the
doctrinal marriage which I contend for, he pays a proper regard to the
bridegroom and to the bride ; he considers both free grace and free will.
Therefore when he sees Honestus perform all the ceremony with free
will only, he is as much surprised as if he saw a clergyman take a gold
ring from the right hand of a woman, put it on the fourth finger of her
left hand, and gravely try to marry her to herself. And when he sees
Zelotes transact all the business with free grace alone, he is not less
astonished than if he saw a minister take a single man's right hand, put
it into his left hand, and render himself ridiculous by pronouncing over
him a solemn nuptial blessing.
If Zelotes be still afraid that upon the plan of an evangelical marriage
between free grace and free will, the transcendent dignity of God's grace
is not properly secured ; and that human agency will absolutely claim
the incommunicable honours due to Divine favour ; I shall guard the
preceding- pages by some remarks, which will, I hope, remove Zelotes'
groundless fears, and give Honestus a seasonable caution.
God's gracious dispensations toward man, (or which comes to the same,)
the dealings of free grace with free will, are frequently represented in
Scripture under the emblem of gracious covenants. Now covenants
which are made between the Creator and his creatures ; between the
Supreme Being, who is absolutely independent, because he wants nothing ;
and inferior beings, who are entirely dependent upon him, because they
want all things ; such gracious covenants, I say, always imply a match-
less condescension on the part of the Creator, and an inconceivable obli
gation on the part of his creatures. Therefore, according to the doctrine
enforced in these sheets, free grace, which shines by its own eternal
lustre, without receiving any thing from free will, can never, in point of
dignity, be confounded with free will ; because free will borrows all its
power and excellence from free grace ; just as the moon borrows all her
light and glory from the sun.
We infer, therefore, that as the moon acts in conjunction with, and
due subordination to the sun in the natural world, without supplanting or
rivalling the sun : so free will may act in conjunction with, and due
subordination to free grace in the spiritual world, without rivalling, much
more without supplanting free grace. And hence it appears that Zelotes7
fears lest our doctrine should pour contempt on the glory of free grace,
arc as groundless as the panic of the ancient Persians, who, when they
saw the moon passing between the earth and the sun, imagined that the
great luminaries which rule the day and the night were actually fighting
for the mastery ; and absurdly dreaded that the strife would end in the
total extinction of the solar light.
246 EQUAL CHECK [PART
Ezokiel, chap, xvi, gives us an account of the glory to which God
advanced the Jewish Church. From a state of the greatest meanness
and pollution, lie raised her to the dignity and splendour described in
these words : — " I sware unto thee, and entered into a marriage cove
nant with thee, saith the Lord God ; and thou becamest mine. I clothed
thee also with embroidered work ; I decked thee with ornaments : thou
wast exceeding beautiful : thou didst prosper into a kingdom, and th}
renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty : for it was per
fect through the comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord."
However, the Jewish Church (such is the power of free will !) abused
these glorious favours, as appears from the next words : — "Thou didst
trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot, saith the Lord God."
But does this adulterous ingratitude of the Jews disprove the truth of
Ezekiel's doctrine, any more than the adultery of Bathsheba disproved
her being once Uriah's lawful wife ? And can any consequence be
charged upon the doctrine of the evangelical marriage maintained in
these sheets, which is not equally chargeable upon the above-mentioned
doctrine of the prophet ?
We grant that free will too frequently forgets its place, as too many
persons of the inferior and weaker sex forget theirs, notwithstanding their
solemn promise of dutiful obedience till death ; but does this show, either
that the union of indulgent free grace and dutiful free will is a heretical
fancy : or that free will is really equal to free grace ? If imperious free
will rises against free grace, and acts the part of a Jezebel, is not free
grace strong enough to reduce it by proper methods, or wise enough to
give it a bill of divorcement, if such methods prove ineffectual 1 Does
Zelotes act a becoming part when he so interferes between free grace
and free will, as to turn the latter out of the Church, under pretence of
siding with the former ? Has he any more right to do it, than I have to
turn Queen Charlotte out of England, under pretence that bloody Mary
abused her royal authority ?
Why does Zelotes stumble at the doctrine of the evangelical marriage
which I prove? And why is Lorenzo offended at the mystery of
Christ's incarnation ? Is it not because they overlook the noble original
of free will ? If you trace the free-willing soul back to its eternal
source, you will find that it proceeds from Him, who " breathed into the
nostrils of Adam the breath of life," that man might " become a living
soul." And where is the absurdity of asserting that by means of the
mysteries which we call redemption and sanctification, he reunites him
self to that very spirit which came from him ; to that very soul which
he breathed into the earthly Adam ? If man's dignity before the fall
was such, that when St. Luke declares our Lord's human generation,
and comes to the highest round of the genealogical ladder, he is not
afraid to say that Christ was " the son of Adam, &c, who wras the son
of God," Luke iii, 38, where is the absurdity of supposing that God in
Christ kindly receives his son again, when that son returns to him like
the free-willing, penitent prodigal ?
Nor need free will be proud of this unspeakable honour : for, not to
mention its creation, for winch it is entirely indebted to free grace,
does it not owe to Divine favour all the blessings of redemption? If
free grace should say to free will, " When I passed by thee, and saw
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 247
thee polluted in thy own blood, I said unto thee, Live ;" would not
believing free will instantly bow to the dust, and thankfully acknowledge
the undeserved mercy ? Why then should Zelotes think that free will
will infallibly forget its place, if it be raised to the honour of an evan
gelical, conjugal union with free grace ? If a prince raised a filthy, con-
demned, dead shepherdess from the dung hill, the dungeon, and the grave ;
graciously advancing her to princely honours, and a seat at his feet, or
by his side ; does it follow that she must necessarily forget her former
baseness ? or that his condescension must unavoidably rob him of his
native superiority ? For my part, when I hear St. John say, " Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we [who
submit our free will to free grace] should be called the sons of God, —
the wife of the Lamb," &c, far from being tempted to forget my wretch
edness, I am excited to " fear the Lord and his goodness," and encou
raged to " perfect holiness in that fear ;" for " every man who hath this
faith and hope, purifieth himself, even as God is pure :" so far is he
from necessarily walking in pride as a vain- glorious Pharisee ; or from
exalting himself as a self-deified antichrist ! Beside, to all eternity the
glaring truth, maintained by the apostle, will abase free will, and secure,
the transcendent dignity of free grace : " What hast thou, which thou
hast not [more or less directly] received" of free, creating, persevering,
redeeming, sanctifying, or rewarding grace ? " Who h&ihjirst given to
it, and it shall be recompensed to him again ?" " For of him," i. e. of
God, the bottomless and shoreless ocean of free grace, " and through
him, and to him, are all good things : to whom be glory, for ever.
Amen !"
SECTION XII.
The author sums up the opposite errors of Zelotes and Honestus, whom
he invites to a speedy reconciliation — To bring them to it, he urges
strong and soft motives; and after giving them some directions and
encouragements, he concludes by apologizing for his plainness of
speech.
IF Honestus be not averse to the rational and Scriptural terms of
peace proposed in the preceding pages ; and if I have removed the
objections which Zelotes makes against these terms, what remains for
me to do but to press them both to be instantly reconciled? To this
end I shall once more urge upon them two powerful motives, the one
taken from the unspeakable mischief done by their unreasonable divi
sion, and the other from the advantage and comfort which their Scrip
tural agreement will produce.
Permit me, Zelotes, to begin by the mischief which you do, through
your opposition to the moral truths maintained by Honestus. If reason
and Scripture breathe through the preceding pages, is it not evident that,
under pretence of exalting free grace, which is theftrst weight of the
sanctuary, you throw away the second weight, which is the free will
offering of sincere obedience ; constantly refusing it the place of a
weight before God, when the children of men are weighed for eternal
248 EQUAL CHECK. fPART
life or eternal death, in the awful, decisive balance of election and
reprobation ? Does it not necessarily follow from thence that the per
sonal election of some men to eternal salvation is merely of unscriptural
free grace ; while the personal reprobation of others from grace and
glory is entirely of tyrannical free wrath ? Is not this the language of
your doctrine ? " There is for the elect but one weight, bearing the
stamp of Heaven and everlasting love; namely, the finished work of
Christ, which is absolutely and irresistibly thrown into the scale of all
who are predestinated to eternal life : and this golden weight is so
heavy that, without any of their good works, it will unavoidably tum the
scale for their eternal salvation. And, on the other hand, there is for
the reprobates but one weight, bearing the stamp of hell and everlasting
wrath, namely, the JinisJied work of Adam, which is absolutely and
irresistibly thrown into the scale of all that are predestinated to eternal
death : and this leaden weight is so heavy, that let them endeavour ever
so much to rise to heavenly joys, it will necessarily sink them to eternal
wo." Thus you turn the Gospel into a Calvinian farrago ; whereas,
if you divided the truth aright, you would do both Gospel axioms jus
tice ; asserting, that although the initial salvation of sinners is of free
grace alone ; yet the eternal salvation of adult believers, which is judi
cially as well as graciously bestowed upon them by way of reward, is
both of free grace and of rectified free will ; both of faith, and of its
voluntary works ; both of Christ living, dying, and rising again for us ;
and of believers graciously assisted (not despotically necessitated) to
persevere in the obedience of faith.
The mischief does not stop here. To make way for your error, you
frequently represent the second Scripture Scale, with the passages
which it contains, as Pharisaical or Mosaical legality; distressing the
minds of the simple by your unscriptural refinements, and hardening the
Nicolaitans, — the practical Antinomians, in their contempt of morality
and sincere obedience. I do you justice, Zelotes : I confess that, like
Christ, you hate their deeds ; but, alas ! like antichrist, you love, you
dearly love their spurious doctrines of grace ; and this inconsistency
involves you in perpetual difficulties and glaring contradictions. One
moment Solifidianism makes you extol their immoral principles ; the
next moment your exemplary piety makes you exclaim against their
consistent immoral practices. One hour you assure them that our
eternal justification entirely depends upon God's absolute predestination,
and upon the salvation completely finished by Christ for us ; you openly
declare that, from first to last, our works have absolutely rio hand in the
business of salvation ; and you insinuate that a fallen believer is as much
a child of God when he puts his bottle to his neighbour to make him
drunk, or when he commits adultery and premeditates murder, as when
he deeply repents and bears fruit meet for repentance. The next hour,
indeed, you are ashamed of such barefaced Antinomianism. To mend
the matter you contradict yourself, you play the Arminian, and assert
that all drunkards, adulterers, and murderers are unbelievers, and that
all such sinners are in the high road to hell. Thus you alternately
encourage and chide, flatter and correct your Nicolaitan converts ; but
one caress does them more harm than twenty stripes or wounds ; for
instead of the precious balm of Gilead, you have substituted the cheap
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 249
balm of Geneva : a dangerous salve this, which slightly heals, and too
often imperceptibly poisons a wounded conscience. With this applica
tion they soon cure themselves ; one single dose of unconditional elec
tion to eternal life, of inamissible, complete justification merely by the
good works of another, or of '•' salvation finished in the full extent of the
word," without any of our outward performances, makes them as hearty
and cheerful as any Laodiceans ever were.
When they hear your Arminian pleas for undefiled religion, they
wonder at your legality. If you will be inconsistent, they will not : they
are determined to be all of a piece. You have inspired them with sove
reign contempt for the preceptive, remunerative, and vindictive part of
the Gospel : nay, you have taught them to abhor it, as the dreadful
heresy of the Arminians, Pelagians, Pharisees, and free willers. And
thus you have inadvertently paved and pointed out the way to the Anti-
nomian city of refuge. Thither they have fled, by your direction, and
having laid hold on the false hope which you have set before them, they
now stand completely deceived in self-imputed and non-imparted right
eousness. It is true that you attack them there from time to time ;
ashamed of the genuine consequence of your partial gospel, you call
St. James to your assistance, and erect a Wesleyan battery to demolish
their Solifidian ramparts : but, alas ! you have long since taught them to
nail up all the pieces of evangelical ordnance ; and when you point them
against their towers, they do but smile at your inconsistency. Looking
upon you as one who is not less entangled in the law, than risen Lazarus
was in his grave clothes, they heartily pray that you may be delivered
from the remains of Moses' veil, and see into the privileges of believers
as clearly as they do ; and when they have briskly fired back your own
shots, legality ! legality ! they sit down behind the walls which you take
so much pains to repair, I mean the walls of mystical Geneva, singing
there a Solifidian Requiem to themselves, and sometimes a triumphal
Te Deum to one another.
Happy would it be for you, Zelotes, and for the Church of God, if the
mischief done by your modern gospel were confined to the immoral
fraternity of the Nicolaitans. But, alas ! it produces the worst effect
upon the moralists also. Honestus and his admirers see you extol free
grace in so unguarded a manner, as to demolish free will, and unfurl the
banner of free wrath. They hear you talk in such a strain of " a day
of God's power," in which the elect are irresistibly converted, as to make
sinners forget that now is the day of salvation, and the time to use one
or two talents, till the Lord comes with more. Perhaps also Honestus
meets with a soul frightened almost to distraction by the doctrine of ab
solute reprobation, which always dogs your favourite doctrine of Cal-
vinian election. To complete the mischief you drop some deadly hints
about the harmlessness of sin ; or, what is still worse, about its profit
ableness arid sanctifying influence with respect to believers. Neither
height nor depth of iniquity shall separate them from the love of God
Nay, the most grievous falls, falls into adultery and murder, shall be sc
overruled, as infallibly to drive them nearer to Christ, and of consequence,
to make them rise higher and sing louder in heaven. This Solifidian
gospel shocks Honestus. His moral breast swells against it with just,
indignation ; and supposing that the doctrine of free grace (of which you
250 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
call yourself the defender) is necessarily connected with such loose prin
ciples, he is tempted to give it up, arid begins perhaps to suspect that
religious experiences are only the workings of a melancholy blood, or
the conceits of enthusiastic brains. This, Zelotes, and more, is the mis
chief you inadvertently do by your warm opposition to the doctrines of
justice, which support the second Gospel axiom, and are inseparable
from the Scripture doctrines of grace.
And you, Honestus, if you lay aside thefrst weight of the sanctuary,
are you less guilty than Zelotes ? When you say little or nothing of the
fall in Adam, of our recovery by Christ, and of our need of a living,
victorious faith : and when, under the plausible pretence of asserting our
moral agency, and pleading for sincere obedience, you keep out of sight
the unsearchable riches of Christ, the wonderful efficacy of his atoning
blood, and the encouraging doctrine of free grace ; do you not inadvert
ently confirm Deistical moralists in their destructive notions, that scraps
of moral honesty will answer the end of exalted piety, and of renovating
faith ? And do you not increase the prejudices of Zelotes ; making him
believe, by your sparing use of the first Gospel axiom, that all who re
present morality and good works as an indispensable part of Christ's
Gospel, are secret enemies to free grace, and stiff maintainers of Phari
saic errors?
O Zelotes, O Honestus, what have ye done ? What are ye still doing ?
Alas ! ye drive one another farther and farther from the complete " truth,
as it is in Jesus." In your unreasonable contention, you break the har
mony of the Gospel ; ye destroy the Scripture Scales ; ye tear in two
the book of life, and run away with a mangled part, which ye fondly
take for the whole. Ye crucify Christ doctrinally : Honestus pierces
his right hand, while Zelotes transfixes the left ; both pleading, as the
scribes and Pharisees did, that ye only crucify a " deceiver of the people."
A skilful physician, by prudently mixing two contrary drugs, may so
temper their effect as to compound an excellent medicine. Thus those
ingredients, which, if they were given alone, would perhaps kill his pa
tients, by being administered together, operate in corrective, qualifying
conjunction, and prove highly conducive to health. Happy would it be
for your spiritual patients, if ye imitated his skill, by evangelically com
bining the gracious promises, and the holy precepts, which support the
two Gospel axioms ! But, alas ! ye do just the reverse, when ye indis
criminately administer only the truths of the first or of the second axiom.
Thus, instead of curing your patients, ye sour their minds ; Honestus
with the poisonous leaven of the Pharisees ; and Zelotes with the killing
leaven of the Antinomians.
The practice of thousands shows what dangerous touches ye have, by
these means, given to their principles : for your admirers, O Zelotes, are
encouraged so to depend upon free grace, as not vigorously to exert the
powers of free will. And it is well if some of them do not lie down in
stupid dejection, idly waiting for an overbearing impetus of Divine grace,
which, you insinuate, is to do all for us without us ; while others cheer
fully rise up to play, in consequence of the Laodicean ease which natu
rally flows from the doctrine of salvation Calvinistically finished. On the
other hand, your hearers, O Honestus, are so taught to depend upon their
best endeavours, and the faithful exertion of their free will, that many of
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 251
them see no occasion ardently to implore the help of free grace, as de
praved, impotent, blind, guilty, hell-deserving sinners ought to do. Trust
ing to what they will do to-morrow, they neglect and grieve the Holy
Spirit, which is ready to help their infirmities to-day. And it is to be
feared that many of them play the dangerous game of procrastination
till the Sun of righteousness sets, with respect to them ; till all their oil
is burned, and their lamps, going out with a bad smell, leave them in the
dreadful night when no man can work.
Who can tell the mischiefs which ye have already done by your
mangled gospels ? It will be known in the great day. But suppose
ye had only caused the miscarriage of one soul ; would not this be matter
of unspeakable grief? If ye would esteem it a misfortune to have oc
casioned the loss of your neighbour's horse ; think, O think, how sad a
thing it must be to have caused, though undesignedly, the destruction of
his soul ! The loss of the cattle upon a thousand hills can be repaired ;
but if a man should gain the whole world, and through your wrong direc
tions lose his own soul, what will he, what will you give in exchange for
his soul?
In the multitude of those, whose salvation is thus endangered, I see
Lorenzo — sensible, thoughtful, learned Lorenzo : his case is truly
deplorable, and a particular attention to it may convince you of the
fatal tendency of a gospel which wants almost one half of its proper
weight. Although the dogmatical assertions of a preacher, if they be
supported by the charms of a mellifluous eloquence, or the violence of a
boisterous oratory, prevail with many ; yet not with all. For while
some greedily drink in the very dregs of error, through the weakness of
their minds, the movableness of their passions, and the credulity which
accompanies superstitious ignorance ; others are tempted to doubt of
the plainest truths, through the nicety of a keen wit, the refinements of
a polite education, and the scrupulousness of a skeptical understanding.
Lorenzo is one of this number. He is determined not to pin his faith
upon any man's sleeve. And he sets out in search of religious truth
with this just principle, that religion may improve, but can never oppose
good sense and good morals. In this disposition Lorenzo hears Zelotes ;
and when Zelotes begins to play upon his numerous audience with his
rhetorical artillery, Lorenzo examines if the cannon of his eloquence is
loaded with a proper ball ; if the solidity of his arguments answers to
the positiveness, loudness, or pathos of his delivery. Zelotes, not satisfied
to preach only the doctrine contained in the first Scripture Scale, takes
upon himself warmly to decry the doctrine contained in the second ; and
at times he even explodes morality ; unguardedly representing it as the
cleaner way to hell. If this be the Gospel, says Lorenzo, I must ever
remain an unbeliever ; for I cannot swallow down a cluster of incon
sistencies, whence the poison of immorality visibly distils.
He hears you next, Honestus ; and he admires the rational manner in
which you prove man's free agency, and point out the delightful path of
virtue ; but. alas ! you mention neither our natural impotence, nor the
help which free, redeeming grace has laid on Christ for helpless sinners.
As this doctrine is not repugnant to the light of reason, Lorenzo prefers
it to the Solifidian scheme of Zelotes. Thus reason stands him instead
of Christ, free will instead of free grace, and some external acts of
252 EQUAL CHECK. [I'ART
benevolence instead of the faith which renews the heart. And upon the
same leg of this outward morality he hops along in the ways of virtue,
till a violent temptation pushes him into some gross immorality. His
wounded conscience begins then to want ease and a cure ; but he knows
not where to seek it. Honestus seldom points him clearly to the Saviour's
blood ; and when Zelotes does it, he too often defiles the sacred fountain
with unscriptural refinements, and immoral absurdities, artfully wrapped
up in Scripture phrases. Hence it is that Lorenzo does not see the
remedy, or that he turns from it with contempt. Nor should I wonder
if, while each of you thus keeps from him one of the keys of Christian
knowledge, he remained a stranger to the Gospel, and began to suspect
that the Bible is a mere jumble of legends and inconsistencies — an apple
of discord thrown among men by crafty priests, and artful politicians,
to awe the vulgar, and divert the thoughts of the inquisitive. In these
critical circumstances he meets with Hume and Voltaire, whom he
prefers to you both ; and, renouncing equally free grace and free will,
he flees for shelter to open infidelity and avowed fatalism. Thither
numbers follow him daily ; and thither your refinements, O Zelotes, and
your errors, O Honestus, will probably drive the next generation, if ye
continue to sap the foundation of the Gospel axioms. For the Gospel
can no more stand long upon one of its pillars, than you can stand long
upon one of your legs. Christianity without faith, or without works, is
like a sun without light, or without heat. Such Christianity is as different
from primitive Christianity, as such a sun is different from the bright.
luminary at whose approach darkness flies and winters retire.
Nor are Lorenzo, and his Deistical friends, only hurt by your doc
trinal mistakes. Ye, yourselves, probably feel the bad effects of your
parting the Gospel axioms. It is hardly possible that ye should take off
the fore wheels, or the hind wheels of the Gospel chariot, without retarding
your own progress towrard the New Jerusalem. To say nothing of your
spiritual experiences, may I not inquire if Honestus, after all his dis
courses on morality and charity, might not, in some instances, be a little
more moral, or more extensively charitable, if not to the bodies, at least
to the souls of his neighbours ? And may I not ask Zelotes, if after all
his encomiums upon free grace, he might not be a little more averse to
narrowness of spirit, unscriptural positiveness, and self-electing partiality ;
a little less inclined to rash judging, contempt of his opponents, and free
wrath ?
Should ye find, after close examination, that these are the mischievous
consequences of your variance ; and should ye desire to prevent them,
ye need only go halfway to meet and embrace each other. You, Zelotes,
receive the important truth which Honestus defends, and, in subordination
to Christ and free grace, preach free will, without which there can be
no acceptable obedience. And you, Honestus, espouse the delightful
truth recommended by Zelotes. Preach free grace, without which free
will can never be productive of sincere morality. So shall you vindicate
morality and free will with less offence to Zelotes, and with more success
among your own admirers. In a word, instead of parting the two Gos
pel axioms, and filling the Church with Gnostics or formalists ; with
Antinomian believers, or faithless workers ; instead of tearing our Priest
asunder from our King, and making Christianity a laughing stock for
THIRD.] SCXirTURE SCALES. 253
infidels by your perpetual divisions, admit the use of the Scripture Scales ;
contend for the faith once delivered to the saints ; and, dropping your
unreasonable and unscriptural objections against each other, seek, hand
in hand, " Fulsome," the gross Antinomian, and Lorenzo, the immoral
moralist ; earnestly seek these lost sheep, which ye have inadvertently
driven from the good Shepherd, and which now wander upon the dark
mountains of immorality and skepticism. They may be brought back ;
they are not yet devoured by the roaring lion. If you will reclaim them,
you, Honestus, calm the agitated breast of Lorenzo, and strengthen his
feeble knees, by all the reviving, exhilarating truths of the first Gospel
axiom. And you, Zelotes, instead of frightening him from these truths
by adulterating the genuine doctrine of free grace, with loose, Solifidian
tenets ; or by slyly dropping into the cup of salvation which you offer
him, poisonous drops of free wrath, Calvinian reprobation, arid necessary
damnation ; recommend yourself to his reason and conscience by all the
moral truths which spring from the fitness of things and the second
Gospel axiom. With regard to Fulsome, remember, O Zelotes, that you
are commanded to " feed the fat with judgment," and that Christ himself
fed the ancient Laodiceans with that convenient food. Give therefore
to this modern Laodicean chiefly the Gospel truths which fill the second
Gospel scale. But give them to him in full weight. Let him have a
good measure, pressed down, and running over into his Antinomian
bosom, till he " hold the truth in unrighteousness" no more. And that
he may receive the " whole truth as it is in Jesus," be you persuaded,
Honestus, to second Zelotes. Enforce your moral persuasions upon
Fulsome, by all the weighty, evangelical arguments which the first axiom
suggests. So shall you break the force of his prejudices. He will see
that sincere obedience is inseparable from true faith ; and, being taught
by happy experience, he will soon acknowledge that the doctrine of free
will is as consistent with the doctrine of free grace, as the free returning
of our breath is consistent with the free drawing of it. Thus ye will
both happily concur in conveiting those whom ye have inadvertently
perverted.
While, like faithful dispensers of Gospel truths, ye weigh in this man
ner to every one his portion of physic or food in due season, and in
proper scales ; our Lord, by lifting upon you the light of his pleased
countenance, will make you sensible, that, in spirituals as well as in
temporals, « a false balance is an abomination to him ; but a just weight
is his delight." Your honesty may indeed offend many of your admirers,
and make you lose your popularity ; but prefer the testimony of a good
conscience to popular applause; and the witness of God's Spirit to the
praise of party men. Nor be afraid to share the fate of our great Pro
phet, and of his blunt forerunner, who, by firmly standing to the Gospel
axioms, lost their immense congregations and their lives. Christ fell a
sacrifice not only to Divine justice, but also to Caiaphas' Pharisaic rage
against the truths contained in the first Scale ; and John the Baptist had
the honour of being beheaded, for bearing his bold testimony to those
contained in the second Scale, and against the Antinomianism of a pro
fessing prince, who "observed him, heard him gladly, and did many
things." O Honestus, O Zelotes, think it an honour to tread in the
steps of these two martyred champions of truth. Let them revive, and
254 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
preach again in you. Shrink not at the thought of the Pharisaic con-
tempt, and of the Antinomian abuse which await you, if you are deter-
mined to preach both the anti -Pharisaic and the anti-Solifidian part of
the Gospel. On the contrary, be ambitious to suffer something for him,
who calls himself the truth : for him, who suffered so much for you, and
who, for the joy of your salvation, which was set before him, despised
the shame, endured the cross, and now sits at God's right hand, ready
to reward your faithfulness with a crown of righteousness, life, and
glory.
Ye should wade to that triple crown through floods of persecution,
and rivers of blood, if it were necessary. But God may not call you
to suffer for your faithfulness. And if he do, he will reward you, even
in this life, with a double portion of peace and love. While the demon
of discord sows the tares of division, and blows up the coals which bi
gotry has kindled, ye shall inherit the beatitude of peace makers. « The
peace of God, which passes all understanding," shall rest upon you as
it does upon all the sons of peace. And the delightful tranquillity
restored to the Church, shall flow back into your own souls, and be
extended as a river to your families and neighbourhood, which your
opposite extremes have perhaps distracted.
What a glorious prospect rises before my exulting imagination ! A
holy, catholic Church ! A Church, where the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, and the foretastes of eternal life, are constantly
enjoyed ; where swords are beat into reaping hooks ; and where shouts
for controversial engagements are turned into songs of brotherly love !
To whom, next to God, are we obliged for this wonderful change ? It
is to you, Zelotes, whose intemperate zeal is now rectified by the judi
cious solidity of Honestus ; and to you, Honestus, whose phlegmatic
religion is now corrected by the fervour of Zelotes. Henceforth, in
stead of contending with each other, ye amicably bear together the ark
of the Lord. While ye triumphantly sustain the sacred load, and while
Christian psalmists joyfully sing, "Behold how good and pleasant a
thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ; union is the refresh
ing dew which falls upon the hill of Sion, where the Lord has promised
his blessing, and life for evermore :" — while they sing this, I see the
thousands of Israel pass the " waters of strife," and take possession of
the land of Canaan — the spiritual kingdom of God. Their happiness is
almost paradisiacal ! « The multitude of them that believe are of one
heart and of one soul : they continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship— in breaking of bread, and in prayers. They eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart ; neither says any of them
that aught of the things which he possesses is his own : for they have
all things common ; they are perfected in one." Truth has cast them
into the mould of love. Their hearts and their language are no more
divided. They think and speak the same. In a word, Babel is no
more, and the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven.
O Zelotes ! O Honestus ! shall this pleasing prospect vanish away as the
colours of the rainbow ? Will ye still make Lorenzo think that the Acts
of the Apostles is a religious novel? And the Christian harmony there
described a delusive dream ? O God of peace, truth, and love, suffer
it not. Bless the scriptures, bless the arguments which fill these pages.
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 255
Give, O give me favour in the sight of the two antagonists whom I
address. Make me, unworthy as I am, the mean of their lasting recon
ciliation. Remove their prejudices ; soften their hearts ; humble their
minds ; and endue me with the strength of a spiritual Samson ; that,
taking these two pillars of our divisions in the arms of praying love, I
may bend them toward each other, and press them, breast to breast,
upon the line of moderation, till they become one with the truth, and one
with each other. When thou hadst prospered the endeavours of Abra
ham's servant, to the bringing about the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca,
thou wroughtest new miracles. Thou didst melt angry Esau in the
arms of trembling Jacob, and injured Joseph over the neck of his relent
ing brethren. Repeat, good Lord, these ancient wonders ; show thyself
still the God of all consolation. Let me not only succeed in asserting
the evangelical marriage of condescending free grace and humble free
will ; but also hi reconciling the contentious divines, who rashly put
asunder what thou hast so strongly joined together.
0 Zelotes ! O Honestus ! my heart is enlarged toward you. It ar
dently desires the peace of Jerusalem and your own. If to-day ye do not
despise the consistent testimonies of the fathers, and of our reformers ;
if to-day ye regard the whispers of reason, and the calls of conscience ;
if to-day ye reverence the suffrages of the prophets, the assertions of
the apostles, and the declarations of Jesus Christ ; if to-day " ye hear
the voice of God" speaking to you by the Spirit of truth, and by the
Prince of Peace ; " harden not your hearts." You, Zelotes, harden it
not against free will, sincere obedience, and your brother Honestus.
And you, Honestus, humbly bow to free grace, and kindly embrace your
brother Zelotes. All things are now ready. Come together to the
marriage of free grace and free will. Come to the feast of reconcilia
tion. Jesus himself will be there, to turn your bitter "waters of jea
lousy" into the generous wine of " brotherly kindness." Too long have
you begged to be excused ; saying, " I have married a wife ; I have
espoused a party, and therefore I cannot come !" Party spirit has
seduced you ; put away that strumpet. Espouse truth ; embrace love ;
and you will soon give each other the right hand of fellowship.
1 have gently drawn you both with the bands of a man — with rational
arguments. I have morally compelled you with the Spirit's sword, " the
word of God." By the numerous and heavy weights, which fill these
Scripture Scales, I have endeavoured to turn the scale of the preju
dices, which each of you has entertained against one of the Gospel
axioms. But, alas ! my labour will be lost, if you are determined still
to rise against that part of the truth, which each of you has hitherto
defended. Come, then, when reason invites, when revelation bids, when
conscience urges, yield to my plea : nay, yield to the solicitations of
thousands ; for although I seem to mediate alone between you both,
thousands of well wishers to Sion's peace, thousands of moderate men,
who mourn for the desolations of Jerusalem, wish success to my media
tion. Their good wishes support my pen ; their ardent prayers warm
my soul ; my love for peace grows importunate, and constrains me to
redouble my entreaties. O Zelotes, O Honestus, by the names of
Christians, and Protestants, which ye bear ; by your regard for the
honour and peace of Sion ; by the blessings promised to them that love
256 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
her prosperity ; by the curses denounced against those who widen the
breaches of her walls ; by the scandalous joy, which your injudicious
contentions give to all the classes of infidels ; by the tears of uridis-
sembled sorrow, which God's dearest children shed in secret over the
disputes which your mistaken zeal has raised, and which your opposi
tion to a part of the truth continues to foment ; by your professed regard
for the sacred book, which your divisions lacerate," and render contemp.
tible ; by the worth of the souls, which you fill with prejudices against
Christianity ; by the danger of those whom you have already driven
into the destructive errors of the Antinomians and of the Pharisees ; by
the Redeemer's seamless garment, which you rend from top to bottom ;
by the insults, the blows, the wounds which Christ personal received in
the house of his Jewish friends ; and by those which Christ doctrinal
daily receives at your own hands ; by the fear of being found proud
despisers of one half of God's revealed decrees, and rebellious opposers
of some of the Redeemer's most solemn proclamations ; by all the woes
pronounced against the enemies of his royal crown, or of his bloody
cross ; by the dreadful destruction which awaits antichrist ; whether he
transforms himself into an angel of light, artfully to set aside Christ's
righteous law ; or whether he appears as a man of God, slyly to super-
sede Christ's gracious promises ; by the horrible curse which shall light
oil them, who, when they are properly informed, and lovingly warned,
will nevertheless obstinately continue 'to weigh out, in false " balances,
the food of the poor to whom the Gospel is preached ; and, above all,
by the matchless love of him who « was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself," I entreat you, « suffer the word of reconciliation : be ye
reconciled" to reason and conscience; to each other and to me : to all
the Bible and to primitive Christianity ; to Christ our King 'and to
Christ our Priest. So shall all unprejudiced Christians meet and em-
brace you both, upon the meridian of moderation and Protestantism,
which stands at an equal distance from Antinomian dreams and Phari-
saic delusions.
O Zelotes ! O Honestus ! mistaken servants of God ; if there be any
consolation in Christ ; if any delight in truth ; if any comfort in love ;
it any fellowship of the Spirit ; if any bowels of mercies, fulfil ye my
joy, and the joy of all moderate men in the Church militant ; nay, fulfil
ye the joy of saints and angels in the Church triumphant : « be ye like
minded ; having the same love ; being of one accord ; of one mind. Let
nothing be done through strife or vain glory ; but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem the other better than himself. Look not each on his
own things, [on the scriptures of his favourite scale ;] but look also on
the things of the other," on the passages which fill the scale defended by
your brother. Remember, that if we « have all faith," and nil external
works, without « charity we are nothing." « Charity suffereth long, and
is kind: charity envieth not: charity seekcth not her own: charity
rejoiceth not in iniquity and discord, but rejoiceth in the truth," even
when the truth bruiseth the head of our favourite serpent—our darling
prejudice. Let then charity, never-failing charity, perfect you both in one.
Hang on this golden beam, and it will make you a couple of impartial,
complete divines, holding together as closely, and balancing one another
as evenly as the concordant passages which form my Scripture Scales.
THIRD.} SCRIPTURE SCALES. 257
My message respecting the equipoise of the Gospel axioms I have
endeavoured to deliver with that plainness and earnestness which the
importance of the subject calls for ; if, in doing it, my aversion to unscrip-
tural extremes, and my love of peaceful moderation have betrayed me
into any unbecoming severity of thought, or asperity of expression, for
give me this wrong, which I never designed, and for which I would make
you all possible satisfaction, if I were conscious of guilt in this respect.
Ye are sensible that I could not act as a reconciler, without doing first
the office of an expostulator and reprover ; an office this which is so
much the more thankless, as our very friends are sometimes prone to
suspect that we enter upon it, not so much to do them good, as to carry
the mace of superiority, and indulge a restless, meddling, censorious,
lordly disposition. If unfavourable appearances have represented me to
you in these odious colours, give me leave to wipe them off, by cordial
assurances of my esteem and respect for you. Yes, my dear, though
mistaken brothers, I sincerely honour you both for the good which is in
you ; being persuaded that your mistakes spring from your religious
prejudices, and not from a conscious enmity against any part of the
truth. When I have been obliged to expose your partiality, I have com-
forted myself with the pleasing thought that it is a partiality to an impor
tant part of the Gospel. The meek and lowly Saviour, in whose steps
I desire to tread, teaches me to honour you for the part of the truth
which you embrace, and forbids me to despise you for that which you
cannot yet see it your duty to espouse. Nay, so far as ye have
defended free grace without annihilating free will, or contended for free
will without undervaluing free grace, you have done the duty of evan
gelists in the midst of this Pharisaic and Antinomian generation. For
this ye both deserve the thanks of every Bible Christian, and I publicly
return you mine. Yes, so far as Zelotes has built the right wing of
Christ's palace, without pulling down the left ; and so far as llonestus
has raised the left wing, without demolishing the right, I acknowledge
that ye are both ingenious and laborious architects, and I shall think
myself highly honoured, if, like an under labourer, I am permitted to wait
upon you, and to bring you some rational and Scriptural materials, that
you may build the temple of Gospel truth with more solidity, more evan
gelical symmetry, and more brotherly love, than you have yet done.
God only knows what contemptible thoughts I have of myself. It is
better to spread them before him, than to do it before you. This only I
will venture to say; in a thousand respects I see myself vastly inferior
to either of you. If I have presumed to uncover your theological sores,
and to pour into them some tincture of myrrh and aloes, it is no proof
that I prefer myself to you. A surgeon may open an imposthume in a
royal breast, and believe that he understands the use of his scissors and
probe better than the king, without entertaining the least idea of his
being the king's superior. If I have made a pair of Scripture Scales,
which weigh Gospel gold better than your single scales ; it no more
follows that I esteem myself your superior, than it follows that an artist
who makes scales to weigh common gold esteems himself superior to the
ministers of state, because he understands scale making better than they.
Horace will help me to illustrate the consistency of my reproofs to
you, with my professions of respect for you. I consider vou, Zelotes, as
VOL. II. * 17
258 EQUAL CHECK. [PART THIRD.
a one -edged sword, which cuts down the Pharisaic error ; and you, Ho-
nestus, as a one-edged scymetar, which hews the Antinomian mistakes
in pieces ; but I want to see you both as the Lord's two-edged sword ;
and I have indulged my Alpine roughness, in hopes that (through the
concurrence of your candour with the Divine blessing which I implore
on these pages) you will be ground to the other edge you want. This,
ye know, cannot be done without some close rubbing ; and, therefore,
while ye glitter in the field of action, let not your displeasure arise
against a grinding stone cut from the neighbourhood of the Alps, and
providentially brought into a corner of your Church, where it wears
itself away in the thankless office of grinding you both, that each of you
may be as dreadful to Antinomianism and to Pharisaism, as the cherub's
" flaming sword, which turned, and cut every way," was terrible to the
two first offenders. So shall ye keep the way to the tree of life in an
evangelical manner ; and instead of triumphing over you, as I go the
dull round of my controversial labour, I shall adopt the poet's humble
saying : —
Fungor vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi.
Not that I dare to flaming zeal pretend,
But only boast to be the Gospel's friend ;
To whet you both to act, and, like the hone,
Give others edge, though I myself have none. .
Or rather, considering what the prophet says of the impartial hand
which weighed feasting Belshazzar, and wrote his awful doom upon the
wall that faced him, I will pray : « O God, be merciful to me a sinner ;
and when I turn my face to the wall on my dying bed, let not my kne'es
smite one against the other at the sight of the killing word, ' TEKEL :
thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.' Let me not
be « found wanting' either the testimony of thy free grace, through faith,
or the testimony of a good conscience through the works of faith. So
shall the Spirit of thy free grace bear witness with my free-willing spirit,
that I am a child of thine, that I have kept the faith, and that in the great
day, when I shall be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, I shall be
found a justified sinner, according to the anti-Pharisaic weights, which
fill the first Scripture Scale ; and a justified believer, according to the
anti-Solifidian weights, which fill the second."
THE DOCTRINES
GRACE AND JUSTICE,
EQUALLY
ESSENTIAL TO THE PURE GOSPEL :
SOME REMARKS
ON THE MISCHIEVOUS DIVISIONS CAUSED AMONG CHRISTIANS
BY PARTING THOSE DOCTRINES.
AN INTRODUCTION TO A PLAN OF RECONCILIATION
BETWEEN THE DEFENDERS OF THE DOCTRINES OF PARTIAL GRACE, COMMONLY
CALLED CALVINISTS ; AND THE DEFENDERS OF THE DOCTRINES OF
IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, COMMONLY CALLED ARMINIANS.
THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE.
SECTION I.
A plain account of the Gospel in general, and of the various dispensa
tions into which it branches itself— The Gospel holds forth the doctrines
of justice, as well as the doctrines of grace — An opposition to this
capital, truth gave rise to the controversy about the Minutes — An an
swer to an objection of those who suppose that the Gospel consists only
of doctrines of grace.
IF a judicious mariner, who has sailed round the world, sees with
pleasure and improvement a map, which exhibits, in one point of view,
the shape and proportion of the wide seas, in crossing of which he has
spent some years ; a judicious Protestant may profitably look upon a
doctrinal map, (if I may be allowed the expression,) which places before
him in diminutive proportion, the windings of a controversy, which, like
a noisy, impetuous torrent, has disturbed the Churches of Christ for
fourteen hundred years, and carried religious desolation through the four
parts of the globe*; but more especially if this map exhibits, with some
degree of accuracy, the boundaries of truth, the crooked shores of the
sea of error, the haven of peace, and the rocks rendered ^famous by
the doctrinal wrecks of myriads of unwary evangelists. Without any
apology, therefore, I shall lay before the reader a plain account of the
primitive catholic Gospel, and its various dispensations.
THE GOSPEL, in general, is a Divine system of truth, which, with
various degrees of evidence, points out to sinners the way of eternal
salvation, agreeable to the mercy and justice of a holy God ; and there-
fore the Gospel, in general, is an assemblage of holy doctrines of GHACE,
and gracious doctrines of JUSTICE. This is the idea which our Lord
himself gives us of it, Mark xvi, 16. For though he speaks there of
the peculiar Gospel dispensation, which he opened, his words may, in
some sense, be applied to every Gospel dispensation. "Preach the
GOSPEL. He that believeth [in the light of his dispensation, supposing
he does it * with the heart unto righteousness9] shall be saved," according
to the privileges of his dispensation : here you have a holy doctrine of
grace. " But he that believeth not shall be damned :" here you have a
gracious doctrine of justice. For, supposing man has a gracious capa
city to believe in the light of his dispensation, there is no Antinomian
grace in the promise, and no free wrath in the threatening, which com
pose what our Lord calls the Gospel; but the conditional promise
exhibits a righteous doctrine of grace, and the conditional threatening
displays a gracious doctrine of justice.
THE GOSPEL in general branches itself out into four capital dispen
sations, the last of which is most eminently called the Gospel, because
it includes and perfects all the preceding displays of God's grace and
justice toward mankind. Take we a view of these four dispensations,
beginning at the lowest, viz. Gentilism.
EQUAL CHECK. [PA1?T
I. GENTILISM, which is frequently called natural religion, and might
with propriety be called, the Gospel of Gentiles: Gentilism, I say, is a
dispensation of grace and justice, which St. Peter preaches and describes
ill these words : — " In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh
righteousness [according to his light] is accepted of him." These words
contain a holy doctrine of grace ; which is inseparably connected with
this holy doctrine of justice, In every nation he that feareth NOT God,
and worketh NOT righteousness, [according to his light,] is NOT accepted
of him.
II. JUDAISM, which is frequently called the Mosaic dispensation, or
the law, (that is, according to the first meaning of the Hebrew word
mm, the doctrine, or the instruction,] and which might with propriety be
called the Jewish Gospel : Judaism, I say, is that particular display of
the doctrines of grace and justice, which was chiefly calculated for the
meridian of Canaan, and is contained in the Old Testament ; but espe
cially in the five books of Moses. The Prophet Samuel sums it all up
in these words :— « Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all
your heart, [according to the law, i. e. doctrine of Moses,] for consider
how great things he hath done for you, [his peculiar people :] but if ye
shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed," 1 Sam. xii, 24. In this
Gospel dispensation, also, the doctrine of grace goes hand in hand with
the doctrine of justice. Every book in the Old Testament confirms the
truth of this assertion.
III. THE GOSPEL of John the Baptist, which is commonly called the
baptism of John, in connection with the Gospel, or baptism, which the
apostles preached, before Christ opened the glorious baptism of his own
Spirit on the day of pentecost ; this Gospel dispensation, I say, is the
Jewish Gospel improved into infant Christianity. Or, if you please, it
is Christianity falling short of that " indwelling power from on high,"
which is called " the kingdom of God come with power." This Gospel
is chiefly found in the four Gospels. It clearly points out the person
of Christ, gives us his history, holds forth his mediatorial law ; and, lead,
ing on to the perfection of Christianity, displays, with increasing light,
(1.) «The doctrines of grace, which kindly call the chief of sinners to
eternal salvation through the practicable means of repentance, faith, and
obedience. And, (2.) The doctrines of justice, which awfully threatens
sinners with destruction, if they finally neglect to repent, believe, and
obey.
The capital difference between this Gospel dispensation and the
Jewish Gospel, consists in this : the Jewish Gospel holds forth Christ
about to come, in types and prophecies ; but this Gospel displays the fill-
filment of the Jewish prophecies, and without a typical veil points out
Christ already come. Again : the political part of the Jewish Gospel
admits of some temporary indulgences, with respect to divorce, a plu
rality of wives, &c, which indulgences are repealed in the Christian
institution, where morality is carried to the greatest height, and enforced
by the strongest motives. But, on the other hand, the ceremonial part
of the Gospel of Christ grants us many indulgences with respect to
Sabbaths, festivals, washings, meats, places of worship, &c. For it
binds upon us only the two unbloody significant rites, which the Scrip
tures call baptism and the Lord's Supper; freeing us from shedding
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 263
human blood in circumcision ; and the blood of beasts in daily sacri
fices ; an important freedom this, which St. Paul calls " the ceremonial
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," and for which he so
strenuously contends against the Judaizing preachers, who would have
brought his Galatian converts under the bloody yoke of circumcision
and Jewish bondage.
IV. The perfect Gospel of CHRIST is frequently called THE GOSPEL
only, on account of its fulness, and because it contains whatever is
excellent in the above-described Gospel dispensations. We may truly
say, therefore, that perfect Christianity, or the complete Gospel of Christ,
is Gentdisfn, Judaism, and the baptism of John, arrived at their full
maturity. This perfected Gospel is found then, initially, in the four books,
which bear the name of Gospels, and perfectively in the Acts of the
Apostles and the epistles. The difference between this perfected
Gospel and the Gospel which was preached before the day of pentecost,
consists in this capital article : — Before that day, our Lord and his fore
runner, John the Baptist, foretold that Christ " should baptize with the
Holy Ghost ;" and Christ promised the indwelling Spirit. He said,
" He dwelleth with you, and shall then be in you. Ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence." But the full Gospel of
Christ takes in the full dispensation of Christ's Spirit, as well as the full
history of Christ's life, death, and resurrection ; comprehending the glad
news of the descent of the Holy Ghost, as well as the joyful tidings of
the ascension of the Son ; and therefore its distinguishing character is
thus laid down by St. Peter, " Jesus, being by the right hand of God
EXALTED, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. This pro
mise is unto you [that repent and believe.] We are his witnesses of
these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God [since the day
of pentecost] hath given to them that obey him :" for, before Christ's
ascension, the evangelists could say, " The Holy Ghost is not yet given,
[in its Christian fulness,] because Christ is not yet GLORIFIED :" coin-
pare Acts ii, 33, &c, with Acts v, 22, and John vii, 39.
This Gospel is the richest display of Divine grace and justice which
takes place among men in the present state of things. For Christ's
sake " the Holy Ghost is given" as an indwelling, sanctifying comforter.
Here is the highest doctrine of grace ! He is thus given " to them that
obey ;" and of consequence he is refused to the disobedient. Here is
the highest doctrine of justice, so far as the purpose of God, according
to the elections of grace and justice, actually takes place in this life,
before the second coming of Christ. These two last clauses are of
peculiar importance.
1. I say in this life, because, after death, two great dispensations of
grace and justice will yet take place, with respect to every man : the
one in the day of death, when Christ will say to each of us, " Thou
shalt be with me in paradise ;" or, " Thou shalt go to thy own place :"
and the other in the day of judgment, when our Lord will add, « Come,
ye blessed," or, " Go, ye cursed." Then shall the " Gospel mystery of
God," which equally displays the doctrines of grace and of justice, be
fully accomplished.
2. 1 have added the clause, before the second coming of Christ
264 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
because in the Psalms, Prophets, Acts, Epistles, and especially in the
Revelation, we have a variety of promises, that " in the day of his dis
played power, Christ will come in his glory, to judge among the heathen,
to wound even kings in the day of his wrath, to root up the wicked, to
till the places with their dead bodies, to smite in sunder antichrist, and
the heads over divers countries, and to lift up his triumphant head," on
this very earth, where he once " bowed his wounded head, and gave up
the ghost:" compare Psalm ex, with Acts i, 11 ; 2 Thess. i, 10 ; Rev.
xix, &c. In that great day, another Gospel dispensation shall take
place. We have it now in prophecy, as the Jews had the Gospel of
Christ's first advent ; but when Christ shall " come to destroy the
wicked, to be actually glorified in his saints, and admired in all them
that believe : in that day," ministers of the Gospel shall no more pro
phesy, but, speaking a plain, historical truth, they shall lift up their
voices, as " the voice of many waters and mighty thunderings, saying,
Allelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; the marriage of the
Lamb is come ; his wife [the Church of the first born] has made her
self ready : blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection :
he REIGNS with Christ a thousand years. Blessed are the meek, for
they DO inherit the earth. The times of refreshing ARE come, and he
HAS SENT Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto us ; whom the
heaven DID receive" till this solemn season. But now are come " the
times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth
of all his holy prophets, since the world began," Rev. xix, xx ; Matt, v,
5; Acts iii, 19, &c. May the Lord hasten this Gospel dispensation!
And, till it take place, may "the Spirit and the bride say, Come !"
This being premised, it will not be difficult to give the reader a just
idea of the grand controversy which has torn the Churches of Christ,
from the days of Augustine and Pelagius, and which has lately been
revived among us, on the following occasion.
In the year 1770, Mr. Wesley (in the Minutes of a conference, which
he held with the preachers in his connection) advanced some propositions,
the manifest tendency of which was to assert that the doctrines of justice
are an essential part of the Gospel ; and that, when we have been afraid
to preach them, as well as the doctrines of grace, we have been partial
dispensers of the truth, and have leaned too much toward Calvinism ;
that is, toward a system of doctrine, which, in a great degree, explains
away the doctrines of justice, to make more room for the doctrines of
grace.
Some good people, who imagined that the doctrines of impartial jus
tice have little or nothing to do with the Gospel, were not only highly
displeased with Mr. Wesley's propositions, but very greatly alarmed at
the word merit, which he warily used in one of them, to intimate that
the doctrines of justice and the day of judgment must fall to the ground,
if every kind of merit or desert is banished from the Gospel ; justice
being a virtue which, from an impartial tribunal, " renders to every man
according to his WORKS," that is, according to his worthiness or unwor-
thiness, or, as some express it, according to his merit or demerit.
A regard for the doctrines of justice, and a fear lest Antinomian doc
trines of grace, and dreadful doctrines of free wrath, should be still
entertained by my friends as the genuine doctrines of grace, engaged me
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 265
to vindicate those obnoxious propositions, or rather, the doctrines of
justice held forth therein. And this, I hope, I have done in a series of
Checks to Antinomianism, or of tracts against an unscriptural doctrine
of grace, a doctrine of grace torn from the Scripture doctrine of justice.
In order to rescue the doctrine of justice, I have endeavoured to prove
that no man is born an absolute reprobate in Calvin's sense of the word ;
that " God is loving to every man" for Christ's sake ; and that, of con
sequence, there is a Gospel dispensation for every man, though it should
be only that which is called Gentilism. I have shown the cruelty of
those opinions which directly or indirectly doom to eternal perdition all
the heathens, who never read the law of Moses, or heard the Gospel of
Christ. I have evinced, by a variety of arguments, that nothing can be
more unscriptural than to represent the law of Moses (i. e. the Jewish
Gospel) as a graceless doctrine of justice ; and the law of Christ (or the
Christian Gospel) as a lawless doctrine of grace. By these means I
have defended, so far as lay in me, both the Jewish doctrines of grace
and the Christian doctrines of justice. And by demonstrating that the
Scripture doctrines of grace are inseparably connected with the Scrip,
ture doctrines of justice, I flatter myself to have opened the way for the
reunion of the two partial gospels of the day ; the capital error of which
consists either in excluding the doctrines of grace from the doctrines of
justice, which is the error of all rigid free willers ; or in excluding the
doctrines of justice from the doctrines of grace, which is the mistake of
all rigid bound willers.
" What," says one of these partial defenders of the doctrines of grace,
" will you still persist to legalize the Gospel ? Do you not know that
the word GOSPEL, in the original, means GOOD news, or a GOOD message,
and therefore must denote doctrines of grace abstracted from all the
severity of what you call the doctrines of justice ?" To this plausible
objection, which has deluded thousands of simple souls, I answer : —
(1.) A royal proclamation may be called a GOOD proclamation, though
it does not turn the king's subjects into lawless favourites, and the LAWS
of the realm into rules of life, as insignificant in judgment as rules of
grammar. And the statutes of parliament may be GOOD statutes, though
they may secure the righteous punishment of offenders as well as the
gracious privileges of loyal subjects. (2.) If the hand of God is a
GOOD hand when it " resists the proud," as well as when it "gives grace
to the humble ;" and if his arm was a merciful arm when it " overthrew
daring Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea," as well as when it
" made obedient Israel to pass through the midst of it," see Psalm cxxxvi,
why may not a message from God, which requires practical obedience,
and is enforced by promises of gracious rewards in case of compliance,
and by threatenings of righteous punishments in case of non-compli
ance ; why may not, I say, such a message be called a GOOD message,
or Gospel? (3.) Why should not a revelation from God be a GOOD
revelation or a Gospel, when it displays the severity of his justice toward
those who reject his gracious offers, as well as the tenderness of his
compassion toward those who accept them ; especially if we consider
that the first intention of the denunciations of his vindictive justice is to
excite the godly fear which endears offers of mercy to sinners, and is in
them "the beginning of wisdom?" (4.) If, in the Old Testament, the
260 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
sweetest and most joyful messages of God's grace are called law ; and
if, in the New Testament, the most terrible denunciations of indignation
and wrath, tribulation and anguish, are called Gospel ; nothing in the
world can be more unscriptural and absurd than the Antinomian Babel
erected by some zealous evangelists, who teach that the law of God is
nothing but the doctrine of merciless justice ; and that the Gospel of
Christ is nothing but the doctrine of lawless grace.
That the word LAW, in the Old Testament, frequently means the
sweetest Gospel promises, I prove, Jirst, from these sayings of David:
" The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and
silver," Psa. cxix, 72. " He hath remembered his Gospel covenant for
ever, — which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac,
and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law," Psa. cv, 8, &c. Here
the Gospel covenants made with the three chosen patriarchs, are called
a law. Hence it is that when Isaiah speaks of the brightest display of
Gospel grace at the time that " the mountain of the Lord's house shall
be established on the top of the mountains," he says, " Out of Sion
shall go forth the law," Isa. ii, 2, 3. Agreeably to this view of things
we read in Nehemiah, that " all the people gathered themselves together
as one man, and spake to Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses :
that the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law :
that the Levites did read in the law of God distinctly, and gave the
sense : and that all the people went their way, &c, to make great mirth,
because they had understood the words that were declared to them :
and there was a very great gladness, — the joy of the Lord being their
strength," Neh. viii, 1, 3, 8, 10, 12, 17. Now, if the law, which was
read and explained to them, contained only the impracticable sanctions
of a merciless, thundering justice ; were not all the people out of their
senses when they " went their way with great gladness" after hearing
the, law expounded ?
The New Testament confirms this account of the doctrines of grace
and justice, and of the words law and Gospel. When our Lord (who
undoubtedly knew the exact meaning of the word Gospel) sent his dis
ciples to " preach the Gospel to every creature," he charged them to
declare, that " he who believeth not shall be damned," as well as that
" he who believeth shall be saved," Mark xvi, 16. Whence it evidently
appears that our Lord meant by the GOSPEL the severe doctrines of jus
tice, as well as the comfortable doctrines of grace.
St. Paul gives us exactly the same idea of the Gospel. In the Epistle
to the P^omans, where he contends most for the gratuitous election of
distinguishing love, he expostulates with those who " despise the riches
of God's goodness, and treasure up unto themselves wrath against the
day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God ; who
will render to every man according to his deeds, — eternal life to them,
who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory ; but indigna
tion and wrath to them that obey not the truth." If you ask St. Paul
when God will thus display his merciful goodness and tremendous jus
tice, he directly answers, " When God shall judge the secrets of men
according to my Gospel," that is, according to the promises and threat-
enings, — the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice, which
compose the Gospel I preach, Rom. ii, 4-16.
THIRD.] GRACE AXD JUSTICE. 267
Hence it is that the apostle calls the Mosaic dispensation sometimes
the law, and sometimes the Gospel, while he styles the Christian dispen
sation sometimes the law of Christ, and sometimes the Gospel of Christ.
That St. Paul indifferently calls the Mosaic dispensation law and Gos
pel, is evident from the following texts : " Every man that is circum
cised is a debtor to the whole law," Gal. v, 3. Here the word law
undoubtedly means the Mosaic dispensation. Again : " To us was the
Gospel preached, as well as to them," the Israelites who perished in the
wilderness, for not believing Moses, Heb. iv, 2. Whence it follows,
that " to THEM [the Israelites, who perished] the Gospel [i. e. the doc
trines of grace and justice] was preached as well as to us," Christians,
who are saved by obedient faith. Once more : that what Moses
preached to them was a doctrine of grace and of justice, is evident
from this consideration : had the Mosaic Gospel been a doctrine of
mere justice, it could not have been a Gospel like our gracious Gospel;
and had it been a mere doctrine of grace, the apostle could never have
excited us not to neglect our Christian Gospel, and great salvation, by
pointing out to us the fearful destruction of the Israelites, who neglected
their Jewish Gospel and salvation ; " lest any Christian should fall after
the same example of unbelief," Heb. iv, 11.
With respect to the Christian dispensation, the apostle calls it some-
times the law : " The doers of the law [i. e. of the preceptive part of
the Gospel] shall be justified, when God shall judge the secrets of men
according to my Gospel," Rom. ii, 13, 16, compared with Matt, xii, 36,
37. Sometimes he calls it the law of Christ : " Bear ye one another's
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," Gal. vi, 2 : sometimes the laws
of God : " I will write my laws [i. e. my evangelical precepts and pro
mises] in their hearts," Heb. viii, 10; x, 16: sometimes the law of
the Spirit, Rom. viii, 2 : and sometimes the Gospel of Christ, Rom. i,
16. Hence it is that to be a Christian believer, in St. Paul's language,
is "to be under the law of Christ," 1 Cor. ix, 21. As for St. James,
he never calls the Christian dispensation Gospel ; but he simply calls it
either the law, James iv, 11, 12 ; ii, 10, the law of liberty, James ii, 12,
or, the perfect law of liberty, James i, 25. St. John uses the same lan
guage in his epistles, in which he never mentions the word Gospel, and
in which, speaking of the sins of Christian believers, he says, that " sin
is the transgression of the law ;" whence it follows, that the sin of Chris
tians is the transgression of the law of Christ, or of the holy doctrines
of justice preached by Jesus Christ. To deny it, would be asserting
we cannot sin ; for St. Paul informs us that the Mosaic law is done
away, 2 Cor. iii, 11. Now, if no Christian is under the law of Moses,
and if Christ never adopted the law of our nature, and never grafted
the moral part of the Mosaic law into the Christian dispensation ; or,
in other terms, if Christ's Gospel is a lawless institution, it necessarily
follows that no Christian can sin : for sin is not imputed or charged,
(that is, there is no sin,) "where there is no law," Rom. v, 13. Hence
it is that Antinomian doctrines of grace represent fallen, adulterous,
bloody believers as spotless, or sinless before God. in all their sins.
Such is the necessary consequence of a lawless Gospel armed with
pointless " rules of life !" Such the dreadful tendency of doctrines of
grace torn away from the doctrines of justice.
268 EQUAL CHECK. [PAR
SECTION II.
Remarks on the two Gospel axioms, or capital truths, upon which the
doctrines of grace and justice are founded — Augustine himself once
granted both those truths — Rigid Arminians indirectly deny the one,
and rigid Cahinists the other — How the partial defenders of the
doctrines of justice and grace try to save appearances, with respect to
the part of the truth which they indirectly oppose.
So noble and solid a superstructure as the Gospel, i. e. the Scripture
doctrines of grace and justice, undoubtedly stands upon a noble and
sure foundation. Accordingly we find that the primitive Gospel rests
on two principles, the one theological and the other moral. These two
principles, or, if you please, these two pillars of Gospel truth, may, for
distinction sake, be called Gospel axioms ; at least, I beg leave to call
them so. Nor will the candid reader deny my request, if he consider
the following definitions : —
t. AN AXIOM is a self-evident truth, which at once recommends itself
to the understanding, or the conscience of every unprejudiced man.
Thus, two and two make four, is an AXIOM in every counting house.
And that " the absolute necessity of all human actions is incompatible
with a moral law and a day of judgment," is an axiom in every unpre-
judiced mind.
II. The two Gospel axioms are the two principles, or capital self-evi
dent truths, on which the primitive Gospel, that is, the Scripture doc
trine of grace and justice is founded.
III. The first Gospel axiom bears up the holy doctrines of grace,
and when it is cordially received, is equally destructive of proud Phari
saism and the unholy doctrines of lawless grace. This axiom is the
following self-evident truth, which recommends itself to the mind and
conscience of 'every candid Bible Christian: — "Our first talent or de
gree of salvation is merely of God's free grace in Christ, without any
work or endeavour of our own ; and our eternal salvation is originally,
capitally,* and finallyf of God's free grace in Christ ; through our not
* A Solifidian would say entirely, and by this means he would leave no room
for the second Gospel axiom, for the rewardableness of the works of faith, and
for the doctrine of remunerative justice. But by saying capitally, we avoid this
threefold mistake, we secure the honour of holy free grace, and shut the door
against its counterfeit.
t By adding finally, we show that the top stone, as well as the foundation
stone of our eternal salvation, is to be brought with " shouting, Grace ! grace !
unto it ;" because if God had honoured his obedient saints with a sight of his
heavenly glory for half an hour, and then suffered them to fall gently asleep in
the bosom of oblivion, or to slide into a state of personal non-existence, he would
have demonstrated his remunerative justice, and amply rewarded their best ser
vices. Hence it appears that God's giving eternal rewards of glory for a few
temporary services, done by his own grace, is such an instance of free grace as
nothing but eternal shouts of " Grace ! grace !" can sufficiently acknowledge.
We desire our mistaken brethren to consider this remark ; otherwise they will
wrong the truth and us, by continuing to say that our doctrines of grace allow
indeed free grace to lay the foundation, but that they reserve to the works of our
rectified free will the honour of bringing the top stone of our eternal salvation,
with saying, "Works! works! unto it:" a Pharisaic doctrine this, which we
abhor; loudly asserting that although our free, nnnecessitated obedience of faith
intervenes, yet God in Christ is the Omega as well as the Alpha, — the end, as
well as the beginning, of our eternal salvation.
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 2(59
neglecting that first talent or degree of salvation. I say through our
not neglecting, &c, to secure the connection of the two Gospel axioms,
and -to leave Scripture room for the doctrines of remunerative justice.
It^. The second Gospel axiom bears up the doctrines of justice, and
extirpates the doctrine of free wrath. It is the following proposition,
which, I believe, no candid Bible Christian will deny : — " Our eternal
damnation is originally* and principally of our own personal free will,
through an obstinate and final neglect of the first talent or degree of
salvation."
These two Gospel axioms may be thus expressed: (1.) Our salva
tion is of God : or, there is free grace in God, which, through Christ,
freely places all men in a state of temporary redemption, justification, or
salvation, according to various Gospel dispensations, and crowns those
who are faithful unto death with an eternal redemption, justification, or
salvation. (2.) Our damnation is of ourselves : or, there is free will in
man, by which he may, through the grace freely imparted to him in the
day of temporary salvation, work out his own eternal salvation : or he
may, through the natural power which angels had to sin in heaven, and
our first parents in paradise, choose to sin away the day of temporary sal
vation. And by thus working out his damnation, he may provoke just
wrath, which is the same as despised free grace, to punish him with
eternal destruction.
These two truths, or axioms, might be made still plainer, thus : ( 1.) Our
gracious and just God, in a day of salvation begun, sets life or death
before us. (2.) As free-willing, assisted creatures, we may, during that
day, choose which we please : we may " stretch out our hand to the water,
or to the fire." Or thus : (1.) There' is holy, righteous, and partial free
grace in God. (2.) There is free will in redeemed, assisted man,
whereby he is capable of obeying or disobeying God's holy, righteous,
and partial free grace. For conveniency's sake, these axioms may be
shortened thus : (1.) The doctrine of holy free grace and partial mercy
in God is true. (2.) The doctrine of rectified, assisted free will in man,
and of impartial justice in God, is true also.
This lovely pair of evangelical propositions appears tome so essential
to the fulness and harmony of the Gospel, that I believe if Pelagius
and Augustine themselves were alive, neither of them would dare
directly to rise against it. Time, or envy, has destroyed the works of
Pelagius, the great asserter of free will and the doctrines of justice ; we
cannot therefore support the doctrines of free grace by his concessions :
but we have the writings of Augustine, the great defender of God's dis
tinguishing love, and the doctrine of free grace ; and yet, partial as he
was to these doctrines, in a happy moment, he boldly stood up for free
* I add the word originally, to cut off the self-excusing opinion. of those men
who charge their eternal damnation upon an absolute decree of reprobation, or
upon Adam's first transgression. As for the word principally, it secures the part
in the damnation of the wicked, which the Scriptures ascribe to the righteous
God: it being certain, (1.) That God judicially hardens his slothful and unpro
fitable servants, by taking from them, at the end of their day of grace, the talent
of softening grace, which they have obstinately buried. And, (2.) That he judi
cially reprobates or damns them, by pronouncing this awful sentence, " Depart,
ye cursed," &c. A flame of vindictive justice belongs to the Gospel of Christ.
Heb. xji, '29, but not a single spark of free wrath.
270 EQUAL CHECK. [1'AKT
will and the doctrines of justice. This appears from the judicious and
candid questions which he proposes in one of his epistles : — Si non
est gratia, Dei, quomodo salvat mundum ? Si non est liberum a?'bitrium,
quomodo judicat mundum 1 If there be not free grace in God, how does
he graciously save the world ? If there be not free will in men, how does
he righteously judge the world ?"
To conclude : whoever holds forth these two Bible axioms, " There
is free grace in God, whence man's salvation graciously flows in various
degrees ;" and, " There is free will in every man, whence the damnation of
ail that perish justly proceeds :" whoever, I say, consistently holds forth
these two self-evident propositions, is, in my humble judgment, a Gos
pel minister, who "rightly divides the word of truth." He is a friend
to both the doctrines of partial grace and impartial justice, of mercy and
obedience, of faith and good works : in short, he preaches the primitive
Gospel, reunites the two opposite gospels of the day, and equally obviates
the errors of Honestus and Zelotes, who stand up for these modern
gospels.
If you ask what those errors are, I answer, as follows : — Honestus,
the Pelagian, seldom preaches free grace, and never dwells upon the
absolute sovereignty with which God at first distributes the various
talents of his grace : and when he preaches free will, he seldom preaches
free will initially rectified and continually assisted by free grace ; rarely,
if ever, deeply humbling his hearers by displaying the total helplessness
of unrectified and unassisted free will : and thus he veils the delightful
doctrine of God's free grace, clouds the evangelical doctrine of man's
free will, and inadvertently opens the door to self- conceited Pharisaism.
On the other hand, Zelotes, the Solifidian, or rigid Calvinist, seldom or
never preaches rectified, assisted free will ; he harps only on the doc
trines of absolute necessity ; and when he preaches free grace, he too
often preaches, (1.) A cruel free grace, which turning itself into free
wrath, with respect to a majority of mankind, absolutely passes them by,
and consigns them over to everlasting, infallible damnation, by means of
necessary, foreordained sin ; and, (2.) An unscriptural free grace, which
turning itself into lawless fondness, with respect to a number of favourite
souls, absolutely insures to them eternal redemption, complete justifica
tion, and finished salvation, be they ever so unfaithful.
By these means Zelotes spoils the doctrine of free grace, undesign-
edly injures the doctrine of holiness, and utterly destroys the doctrine of
justice. For when he denies that the greatest part of mankind have any
interest in God's redeeming love ; when he intimates that the doctrines
of an absolute, necessitating election to eternal life are true ; and that
God's reprobates are not less necessitated to sin to the end and be
damned, than God's elect are to obey to the end and be saved ; does he
not pour contempt upon the throne of Divine justice ? Does he not make
the supreme Judge, who fills that throne, appear as unwise when he
distributes heavenly rewards, as cruel, when he inflicts infernal punish
ments 1
Honestus and Zelotes will probably think that I misrepresent them.
Honestus will say that he cordially believes God is full of free grace for
all men, and that he only thinks it would be unjust in God to be partial
in the distribution of his free grace. But when Honestus reasons thus,
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 271
does he not confound grace and justice ? Does he not sap the founda
tion of the throne of grace, under pretence of establishing the throne of
justice ? If God cannot do what he pleases with his grace, and if jus-
tice always binds him in the distribution of his favours, does not his
grace deserve the name of impartial justice, for better than the appellation
of free grace '!
As Honestus tries to save appearances with regard to the doctrines
of grace, so does Zelotes with regard to the doctrines of justice. " The
Gospel I preach," says he, " is highly consistent with the doctrines of
justice. I indeed intimate that the elect are necessitated to believe and
be eternalty saved ; and the reprobates to continue in sin and be lost :
but both this salvation of the elect, and damnation of the reprobates, per-
fectly agree with Divine equity. For Christ, by his obedience unto
death, merited the eternal salvation of all that shall be saved : and
Adam, by his first act of disobedience, deserved the absolute reproba
tion of all that shall be damned. Our doctrines of grace are therefore
highly consistent with the doctrines of justice." This argument appears
unanswerable to Zelotes : but I confess it does not satisfy me. For
if the doctrine of absolute necessity be thus foisted into the Gospel, and
if Christ make his elect people absolutely and unavoidably willing to
obey and go to heaven, while Adam makes his reprobate people abso
lutely and unavoidably willing to sin and go to hell ; I should be glad to
know how the elect can be wisely judged according to, and rewarded
for their faith and good works ; and how the reprobates can be justly
sentenced according to, and punished for their unbelief and bad works.
I repeat it, the doctrine of absolute predestination to life or death eternal,
which is one and the same with the doctrine of an absolute necessity to
believe or disbelieve, to obey or disobey, to the last, — such a doctrine,
I say, is totally subversive of the doctrines of justice. For reason de
poses that it is absurd to give to necessary agents a law, or rule of life,
armed with promises of reward, and threatenings of punishment. And
conscience declares that it is unjust and cruel to inflict fearful, eternal
punishments upon beings that have only moved or acted by absolute
necessity : whether such beings are running streams, aspiring flames, fall
ing stones, turning wheels, mad men, bound thinkers, bound willers, or
bound agents ; supposing such bound thinkers, bound willers, and bound
agents, did think, will, and act, as unavoidably as the wind raises a
storm, and as necessarily as a fired cannon pours forth flames and
destruction. Absolute necessity and a righteous judgment are ab
solutely incompatible. We must renounce the mistakes of rigid Cal-
vinists, or give up the doctrines of justice.
SECTION III.
By whom chiefly the Gospel axioms were systematically parted ; and under
what pretences prejudiced, good men tore asunder the doctrines of grace
and justice ; and rent the one primitive, catholic Gospel, into the ttco
partial gospels of the day.
FROM the preceding section it appears, that to preach the Gospel in
its primitive purity, is so to hold forth and balance the two Gospel axioms
EQUAL CHECK. (PART
as to allow both the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice the
place which is assigned them in the word of God : it is so to preach
holy free grace, and rectified, assisted free will, as equally to grind
Pharisaism and Antinomianism (the graceless and the lawless gospel)
between these two evangelical mill stones. And thus the Gospel was,
in general, preached by good men for above three hundred years after
Christ's ascension. If ever the tempter put successfully in practice his
two capital maxims, " Confound and destroy, — Divide and conquer," it
was in the fourth century, when he helped Pelagius and Augustine, two
warm disputants, openly to confound what should have been properly
distinguished, and systematically to divide what should have been re-
ligiously joined ; by which means they broke the balance of the doctrines
of grace and justice. Nor did they do it out of malice ; but through an
immoderate regard for one part of the Gospel ; an injudicious regard
this, which was naturally productive of a proportionable disregard for the
other part of God's word.
Pelagius (we are told by Augustine) preached free will ; but, con-
founding natural free will with free will rectified and assisted by grace,
he made too much of natural free will, and too little of God's free grace.
The left leg of his Gospel system grew gigantic, while the right leg
shrunk almost to nothing. And, commencing a rigid free wilier, he
insisted upon the sufficiency of our natural powers, and dwelt on the
second Gospel axiom, and the doctrines of justice in so partial a manner,
that he almost eclipsed the first Gospel axiom and the doctrines of grace.
Augustine, his cotemporary, under pretence of mending the matter,
was guilty of an error exactly contrary. He so puffed up the right leg
of his Gospel system, as to make it monstrous ; while the left grew as
slender and insignificant as a rotten stick. To bring this unhappy
change about, in his controversial heats he confounded lawful, righteous
free grace, with lawless, unscriptural, overbearing free grace ; and, to
make room for this latter, imaginary sort of grace, he sometimes turned,
free will out of its place, to give that place to necessity. Thus he com
menced a rigid bound wilier. The irresistible free grace, which he
preached, bound the elect by the chains of an unconditional election to
life, absolutely necessitating them to repent, believe, and be eternally
saved : while the irresistible free wrath, which secretly advanced behind
that overbearing grace, bound the non-elect in chains of absolute repro
bation, and necessitated them to continue in sin, and be unavoidably
cJamnccJ. By these means, new, unholy doctrines of grace and wrath
jostled the holy, ancient doctrines of grace and justice out of their place.
The two Gospel axioms did no longer agree ; but the first axiom, be
coming like Leviathan, swallowed up the second. For the moment
irresisiible, lawless free grace, and despotic, cruel free wrath, mount the
throne, what room is there for holy, righteous free grace ? What room
for free will 1 What room for the doctrines of justice ? What room for
the primitive Gospel ? Absolutely none ; unless it be a narrow room
indeed, artfully contrived under a heap of Augustinian contradictions,
and Calvinian inconsistencies.
From this short account of Pelagianism and Augustinianism, it is
evident that heated Pelagius (if the account given us he true) gave a
desperato thrust to the right side of primitive Christianity ; and that
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 273
heated Augustine, in his hurry to defend her, aimed a well-meant blow '
at Pelagius, but by overdoing it, and missing his mark, wounded the left
side of the heavenly woman, who from that time has lain bleeding
between these two rash antagonists. "The beginning of strife is as
when one letteth out water," says the wise man. These " waters of
strife," which Pelagius and Augustine let in upon the Church, by break
ing the flood gates of Gospel truth, soon overflowed the Christian world,
and at times, like the waters of the overflowing Nile, have almost been
turned into blood. When streams of self-justifying, rigid, Pelagian free
will, have met with streams of self-electing, lawless, Augustinian free
grace, the strife has been loud and terrible. They have foamed out
their own shame, and frighted thousands of persons, travelling to Siori,
out of the noisy ways of a corrupted gospel, into the more quiet paths
of infidelity.
For above a thousand years these "waters of strife" have spread
devastation through the Christian world ; I had almost said also through
the Mohammedan world : for Mohammed, who collected the filth of
corrupt Christianity, derived these errors into his system of religion :
Omar and Hali, at least, two of his relations and successors, became the
leaders of two sects, which divide the Mohammedan world. Omar,
whom the Turks follow, stood up for bound will, necessity, and a species
of absolute Augustinian predestination. And Hali, whom the Persians
revere, embraced rigid free will and Pelagian free agency. But the
worst is, that these muddy waters have flowed through the dirty channel
of the Romish Church, into all the Protestant Churches, and have at
times deluged them ; turning, wherever they came, brotherly love into
fierce contention. For, breaking the evangelical balance of the Gospel
axioms is as naturally productive of polemical debates in the Church,
as breaking the parliamentary balance between the king and the people
is of contention and civil wars in the state. How the plague first infected
Protestantism will be seen in the next section.
SECTION IV.
Luther and Calvin do not restore the balance of the Gospel axioms —
That honour was reserved for Cranmer, the English reformer, who
modelled the Church of England very nearly according to the primitive
Gospel — How soon the Augustinian doctrines of lawless grace pre
ponderated — How tlie Pelagian doctrine of unassisted free will now
preponderates.
WHEN the first reformers shook off the yoke of Papistical trumperies,,
they ibvight gallantly for many glorious truths. But it is to be wished,,
that while they warmly contended for the simple, Scriptural dress of the
primitive Gospel, they had not forgotten to fight for some of its very
vitals, I mean the doctrines of holy free grace, and rectified, assisted free
will. They did much good in many respects ; so much indeed, that no
grateful Protestant can find fault with them without reluctance. But,
after all, they did not restore the balance of the doctrines of grace and
justice. Luther, the German reformer, being a monk of the order of
VOL. II. 18
274 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Augustine, entered upon the reformation full of prejudices in favour of
Augustine's Solifidian mistakes. And he was so busy in opposing the
pope of Rome, his indulgences, Latin masses, and other monastic fool
eries, that he did not find time to oppose the Augustinian fooleries of
fatalism, Maaichean necessity, lawless grace, and free wrath. On the
contrary, in one of his heats, he broke the left scale of the Goppel
balances, denied there was any such thing as free will, and by that
means gave a most destructive blow to the doctrines of justice : a rash
deed, for which Erasmus, the Dutch reformer, openly reproved him, but
with too much of the Pelagian spirit.
Calvin, the French reformer, who, after he had left his native country,
taught divinity in the academy of Geneva, far from getting light, and
learning moderation by the controversy of Luther and Erasmus, rushed
with all the impetuosity of his ardent spirit into the error of heated Au
gustine, and so zealously maintained it, that, from that time, it has been
called Calvinism.
If Calvin did not grow wiser by the dispute of Luther and Erasmus,
Melancthon, another German reformer, did; and our great English
reformer, Cranmer, who in wisdom, candour, and moderation, far
exceeded the generality of the reformers on the continent, closely imi
tated his excellent example. Nay, to the honour of this favoured island,
and of perfect Protestantism, in a happy moment he found the exact
balance of the Gospel axioms. Read, admire, and obey his anti- Augus
tinian, anti-Pelagian, and apostolic proclamation. " All men be also to
be monished, and chiefly preachers, that, in this high matter, they, look
ing on both sides, [i. e. looking both to the doctrines of grace and the
doctrines of justice] so attemper and moderate themselves, that neither
they so preach the grace of God, [with heated Augustine] that they take
away thereby free will, nor on the other side so extol free will, [with
heated Pelagius,] that injury be done to the grace of God." (Erud. of
a Christian Man, sec. on free will, which was added by Cranmer.) Here
you see the balance of the doctrines of grace and justice, which Augus
tine and Pelagius had broken, and which Luther and Calvin had ground
to dust in some of their overdoing moments, — you see, I say, that impor
tant balance perfectly restored by the English reformer. With this short
valuable quotation, as with a shield of impenetrable brass, all men, and
chiefly preachers, may quench all the fiery darts cast at the primitive
Gospel by the preachers of the partial gospels of the day ; I mean the
abettors of the Augustinian or of the Pelagian error.
Mankind are prone to run into extremes. The world is full of men
who always overdo or underdo. Few people ever find tl\e line of mo
deration, the golden mean ; and of those who do, few stay'long upon it.
One blast or another of vain doctrine soon drives them east or west from tl.
meridian of pure truth. How happy would it have been for the Church of
England if her first members had steadily followed the light which our
great reformers carried before them. But alas, not a few of them had
more zeal than moderation. Cranmer could not make all his fellow
reformers to see with his eyes. In the time of their popish superstition
many of them had deeply imbibed the errors of St Augustine, whom the
Church of Rome reveres as the greatest of the fathers, and the holiest
of the ancient saints. These good men, finding that his doctrine was
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 275
countenanced by Luther, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Bucer, and others, whom
they look upon as oracles, soon relapsed into the Augustinian doctrines
of lawless grace, from which some of them had never been quite disen
tangled. Even during Cranmer's confinement (but much more after his
martyrdom) they began to renounce the doctrines of justice, which were
onlv indirectly secured in the seventeenth article of our Church ; warmly
contending for the doctrines of necessitating grace, which are always
destructive of the doctrines of justice. Thus, while some of them erected
the canopy of a lawless, Solifidian free grace over some men, elected
according to Calvin's notion of an absolute election to eternal life ; others
cast the sable net of free wrath over the rest of mankind ; imagining that
from all eternity most men were absolutely predestinated to eternal
death, according to the Calvinian doctrine of absolute, unconditional
reprobation. Thus the balance of the Gospel axioms, which Cranmer
(considering the times) had maintained to admiration, was again broken.
Rigid Calvinism got the ascendancy ; the doctrines of justice were pub
licly decried as popery and heresy, almost all England over. All the
reprobates were exculpated. By the doctrine of necessity, their una
voidable continuance in sin, and their damnation, were openly charged
upon God and Adam. Decrees of absolute predestination to necessary
holiness and eternal salvation, and statutes of absolute appointment to
necessary sin and eternal damnation began currently to pass for Gospel.
And the doctrines of justice were swept away, as if they had been poi
sonous cobwebs spun by popish spiders. Hence it is that the Rev. Mr.
Toplady, describing the triumphs of rigid Calvinism in the days of Queen
Elizabeth, says, in his letter to Dr. Nowell, p. 45, that " those who
held this opinion of God's not being any cause of sin and damnation,
were at that time mightily cried out against by the main body of our
Reformed Church, <isfautors of false religion" and "that to be called
a free-will man, was looked upon as a shameful reproach, and oppro
brious infamy ; yea, arid that a person so termed was deemed heretical."
A proof this, that Dr. Peter Heylin speaks the truth when he says, " It
was safer for any man in those times to have been looked upon as a hea
then or publican, than an anti-Calviriist."
Should the judicious reader ask how it happened that the doctrines of
imscriptural grace, free wrath, and necessity were so soon substituted for
the doctrines of genuine free grace, and rectified, assisted free will, which
Cranmer had so evangelically maintained ; I answer, that although Thomas
Aquinas and Scotus, the leading divines of the Church of Rome, through
their great veneration for Augustine, leaned too much toward the lawless,
wrathful doctrines of grace ; yet Luther, Calvin, and Zuinglius leaned
still more toward that extreme. This was soon observed by some of
the popish doctors ; and as they knew not how to make a proper stand
against the genuine doctrines of the reformation, they were glad to find
a good opportunity of opposing the reformers, by opposing the Augusti
nian mistakes which Luther and Calvin carried to the height. Accord
ingly, leaving the extreme of Augustine, to which they had chiefly
leaned before, many of the popish divines began to lean toward the
extreme of Pelagius, and commenced rigid and partial defenders of the
doctrines of justice, which the German, French, and Swiss reformers
had indirectly destroyed, by overthrowing the doctrine of free will, which
276 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
is inseparably connected with the doctrine of a day of just judgment.
Hence it is, that, at the council of Trent, which the pope had called to
stop the progress of the reformation, the Papists took openly the part of
the second Gospel axiom ; and in the spirit of contradiction began
warmly to oppose Augustine's mistakes, which the first Jesuits had
ardently embraced, Bellarmine himself not excepted. Party spirit soon
blew up the partial zeal of the contending divines. Protestant bigotry
ran against popish bigotry ; and the effect of the shock was a driving
of each other still farther from the line of Scripture moderation. Thus
many Papists, especially those who wrote against the Calvinian Protest
ants, became the partial supporters of the doctrines of justice, while
their opponents showed themselves the partial vindicators of the doctrines
of grace. Hence it is, that, in the popish countries, those who stood up
for faith and distinguishing free grace began to be called heretics, Luther
ans, and Solifidians : while, in the Protestant countries, those who had
the courage to maintain the doctrines of justice, good works, and unne-
cessitated obedience, were branded as Papists, merit mongers, and
heretics.
Things continued in this unhappy state till oppressed truth made new
efforts to shake off the yokes put upon her. For the scales, which
hold the weights of the sanctuary, (the two Gospel axioms,) hover and
shift till they have attained their equilibrium ; just as the disturbed
needle of a compass quivers and moves till it has recovered its proper
situation, and points again due north. This new shifting happened in the
last century, when Arminius, a Protestant divine, endeavoured to rescue
the doctrines of justice, which were openly trampled under foot by most
Protestants ; and when Jansenius, a popish bishop, attempted to exalt
the doctrines of distinguishing grace, which most divines of the Church
of Rome had of late left to the Protestants. Thus Jansenius, overdoing
after Augustine, brought the doctrines of unscriptural grace and free
wrath with a full tide into the Church of Rome : while Arminius (or, at
least, some of his followers) drove them with all his might out of the
Protestant Churches.
Many countries were in a general ferment on this occasion. A great
number of Protestant divines, assembled at Dort in Holland, confirmed
Calvin's indirect opposition to the doctrines of justice, and condemned
Arminius after his death ; for during his life none dared to attack him ;
such was the reputation he had, even through Holland, both for learning
and exemplary piety ! On the other hand, the pope, with his conclave,
imitating the partiality of the synod of Dort, injudiciously condemned
Jansenius and his Calvinism, and thus did an injury to the doctrines of
grace, which Jansenius warmly contended for. But truth shall stand,
be it ever so much opposed by either partial Protestants or partial
Papists. Therefore, notwithstanding the decisions of the popish con-
clave, Jansenism and the doctrines of grace continued to leaven the
Church of Rome : while, notwithstanding the decisions of the Protestant
synod, Arminianism and the doctrines of justice continued to spread
through the Protestant Churches.
Archbishop Laud, in the days of King James and Charles the First,
caused in the Gospel scales the turn which then began to take place in
our Church in favour of the doctrines of justice. He was the chief
THIRD.] GRACE AXD JUSTICE. 277
instrument, which, like Moses' rod, began to part the boisterous sea of
rigid Calvinism. He received his light from Arminius : but it was cor-
rupted by a mixture of Pelagian darkness. He aimed rather at putting
down absolute reprobation and lawless grace, than at clearing up the
Scripture doctrine of a partial election, doing justice to the doctrines of
grace, and reconciling the contending parties, by reconciling the two
Gospel axioms. Hence, passing beyond the Scripture meridian, he led
most of the English clergy from one extreme to the other. For now it
is to be feared that the generality of them are gone as far west as they
were before east, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thejirst Gospel
axiom formerly preponderated, and now the second goes swiftly down.
Free will is, in general, cried up in opposition to free grace, as exces
sively and Pelagianistically (if I may use the expression) as, in the
beginning of the last century free grace was unreasonably and Calvin-
istically set up in opposition to free will. I say in general, because
although most of our pulpits are filled with preachers, who Pelagianize
as well as Honestus, there are still a few divines, who, like Zelotes,
strongly run into the Calvinian extreme.
But however, sooner or later, judicious, moderate men will convince
the Christian world that the Gospel equally comprises the doctrines of
grace and of justice ; and that it consists of promises to be believed,
&.nd precepts to be observed ; gracious promises and holy precepts,
which are armed with the sanction of proper rewards or punishments,
and are as incompatible with Pelagian self sufficiency, as with the
Calvinian doctrines of lawless grace and free wrath. And as soon as
this is clearly and practically understood by . Christians, primitive unity
and harmony will be restored to the partial gospels of the day.
SECTION V.
What the two modern gospels are — Their dreadful consequences — Ar
minius tried to Jind the way of truth between these two gospels, but
perhaps missed it a little — The rectifying of his mistakes lately at
tempted.
BY the two modern gospels, I mean Pelagianism or rigid Arminianism,
and the doctrine of absolute necessity or rigid Calvinism. The former
is a gospel which so exalts the doctrines of justice, as to obscure the
doctrines of partial grace : a gospel which so holds forth the second
Gospel axiom, as to hide the glory of the first, either wholly or in part.
Rigid Calvinism, on the other hand, is a gospel which so extols the doc
trines of distinguishing grace, as to eclipse the doctrines of justice : a
gospel which so holds forth the first Gospel axiom as to hide the glory
of the second, in whole or in part. The fault of these two systems of
doctrine consists in parting, or in not properly balancing the doctrines
of grace and of justice.
The confusion which this error has occasioned in the Churches of Christ
for above a thousand years should, one would think, have opened the eyes
of all overdoing and underdoing divines, and made them look out for a safe
passage between the Pelagian and the Calvinian rocks. That any good
278 ECiUAL CHECK. [PART
men should continue unconcernedly to run the bark of their orthodoxy
against those fatal rocks of error, is really astonishing ; especially if we
consider that nobody can look into ecclesiastical history without seeing
the marks of the numerous wrecks of truth and love which they have
caused. Wide, however, as the empire of prejudice is, candour is not
yet turned out of the world. In all the Churches of Christ, there are
men who will yet hear Scripture and reason. But many of them,
through a variety of avocations, through an indolence of disposition, or
through despair of finding the exact truth, tamely submit to what appears
to them a remediless evil. They are sorry that Christians should be so
divided : but not seeing any prospect of ending our deplorable divisions,
they quietly walk in Pelagian or Calvinian ways, without seeking the
unbeaten path of truth which lies exactly between those two frequented
roads. One of the reasons why they take up so readily with the Pela
gian or Calvinian system, is, their not considering the dreadful evils
which flow from each, some of which I shall set before the reader. I
have already observed that the error of Pelagius (if St. Augustine and
his votaries do not wrong him) consists in exalting free will and human
powers, so as to leave little or no room for the exertion of free grace
and Divine power ; and that, on the other hand, the error of Augustine
and Calvin consists in so exalting irresistible free grace openly, and
irresistible free wrath secretly, that there is no reasonable room left for
the exertion of faithful or unfaithful free will, or indeed for any free will
at all. Now in the very nature of things, these two opposite extremes
lead to the most dangerous errors. I begin with enumerating those
which belong to the Pelagian extreme.
Reason and experience show that when the Pelagian error rises to its
height, it leads men into Arianism, Socinianism, Deism, and, sometimes,
into avowed fatalism, or poirish Pharisaism.
1. By ARIANISM I mean the doctrine of Arius, a divine of Alex,
andria, who lived about the time of Pelagius, and not only insinuated
that man was not so fallen as to need an omnipotent Redeemer, whose
name is " God with us ;" but openly taught that Christ was only an
exalted, super-angelical creature.
2. SOCINIANISM is the error of Socinus, a learned, moral man, who
lived since the reformation, and had such high notions of man's free will
and powers, that he thought man could save himself, even without the
help of a super-angelical Redeemer. And accordingly he asserted that
Christ was a mere man like Moses and Elias, and that his blood had no
more power to atone for sin, than that of Abel or St. Paul.
3. DEISM is the error of those who carry matters still higher, and
think that man is so perfectly able, by the exertions of his own mere
free will and natural powers, to recommend himself to the mercy of the
Supreme Being, that he needs no Redeemer at all. Hence it is, that,
although the Deists still believe in God, and on that account assume the
name of Theists or Deists, they make no more of Christ and the Bible,
than of the pope and his mass book, and look upon the doctrines of the
incarnation and the trinity as wild and idolatrous conceits.
4. AVOWED FATALISM is the error of those who believe that " whatever
is, is right ;" and that all things happen (and of consequence that all sins
are committed) of fatal, absolute necessity. This is an error into which
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 279
immoral Deists are very apt to run : for, when they feel guilt upon their
consciences, as they have no idea of a Mediator to take it away, they
wish that their bad actions had been necessary, that is, absolutely brought
on by the stars, or caused by God's decrees, which would fully exculpate
them. And as this doctrine eases their guilty consciences, they first
desire that it may be true, and by little and little persuade themselves
that it is so, and publicly maintain their error. Hence it is that immoral
Deists, such as Voltaire, and many of his followers, are avowed fatalists.
5. JEWISH PHARISAISM is the error of those who are such strangers
to the doctrines of grace, as to think they have no need of the rich mercy
which God extends to poor publicans. Fancying themselves righteous,
they thank God for their sapposed goodness, when they should smite
upon their breasts on account of their real depravity. POPISH PHARISAISM
is an error still more capital. Those who are deep in it not only take
little notice of the doctrines of grace, but carry their ideas of the doc
trines of justice to such unscriptural and absurd lengths as to imagine
that their penances can make a proper atonement for their sins ; that
God is, strictly speaking, their debtor on account of their good works ;
and that they can not only merit the reward of eternal life for themselves
by their good deeds, but deserve it also for others by their works of
supererogation, and through their superabundant obedience and goodness ;
a conceit so detestable, that one would think it need only be mentioned
to be fully exploded and perfectly abhorred.
Dreadful as are these consequences of Pelagianism carried to its
height, the consequences of Augustinianism, or Calvinism, carried also
to its height, are not at all better. For the demolition of free will, and
the setting up of irresistible, electing free grace, and absolute, reprobating
free wrath, lead toAnlinomianism,Manichei-sm, disguised fatalism, widely
reprobating bigotry, and self. electing presumption or self -reprobating de
spair. The four first of these errors need explanation.
I. ANTINOMIANISM is the error of such rigid Calvinists as exalt free
grace in so injudicious a manner, and make so little account of free will,
and its startings aside out of the way of duty, as to represent sin, at times,
like a mere bugbear, which can no more hurt the believer, who now
commits it, than scarecrows can hurt those who set them up. They
assert that if a sinner has once believed, he is not only safe, but eternally
and completely justified from all future as well as past iniquities. The
pope's indulgences are nothing to those which these mistaken evangelists
preach. I have heard of a bishop of Rome who extended his popish
indulgences, pardons, and justifications, to any crime which the indulged
man might commit within ten years after date : but these preached
finished salvation in the full extent of the word, without any of our own
works, and by that means they extend their Protestant indulgences to
all eternity — to all believers in general — and to every crime which each
of them might choose to commit. In a word, they preach the inamissible,
complete justification of all fallen believers, who add murder to adultery,
and a hypocritical show of godliness to incest. Antmomianism, after all,
is nothing but rigid Calvinism dragged to open light by plain-spoken
preachers, who think that truth can bear the light, and that no honest
man should be ashamed of his religion.
II. MANICHEISM is the capital error of Manes, a Persian, who/
280 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
attempting to mend the Gospel of Christ, demolished free will, made
man a mere passive tool, and taught that there are two principles in the
Godhead, the one good, from which flows all the good, and the other
bad, from which flows all the evil in the world. Augustine was once a
Manichee, but afterward he left their sect, and refuted their errors.
And yet, astonishing ! when he began to lean to the doctrine of absolute
predestination, he ran again, unawares, into the capital error of Manes.
For if all the good and bad actions of angels, devils, and men, have their
source in God's absolute predestination, arid necessitating decrees, it
follows that vice absolutely springs from the predestinating God, as well
as virtue ; and, of consequence, that rigid Calvinism is a branch of
Manicheism, artfully painted with fair colours borrowed from Christianity.
III. DISGUISED FATALISM is nothing but an absolute necessity of doing
good or evil, according to the overbearing decrees, or forcible influences
of Manes' God, who is made up of free grace and of free wrath, that is,
of a good and bad principle. I call this doctrine disguised fatalism :
(1.) Because it implies the absolute necessity of our actions ; a necessity
this, which the heathens called fate: and, (2.) Because it is so horrible,
that even those who are most in love with it, dare not look at it without
some veil, or disguise. As the words fatalism, evil god, good devil, or
Manichean deity, are not in the Bible, the Christian fatalists do what
they can to cover their error with decent expressions. The good prin
ciple of their Deity they accordingly call free grace, oy everlasting,
unchangeable love. From this good principle flow their absolute election
and finished salvation. With respect to the bad principle, it is true they
dare not openly call it free wrath, or everlasting, unchangeable hatred,
as the honest Manichees did ; but they give you dreadful hints that it is
a sovereign something in the Godhead, which necessitates reprobated
angels and men to sin ; something which ordains their fall, and absolutely
passes them by when they are fallen; something which marks out
unformed, unbegotten victims for the slaughter, and says to them,
according to unchangeable decrees productive of absolute necessity,
" Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ; for I passed you by : my
absolute reprobation eternally secured your sin, and your continuance
in sin ; and now, my unchangeable, everlasting wrath absolutely secures
your eternal damnation. Go, ye absolutely reprobated wretches, — go,
and glorify my free wrath, which flamed against you before the founda
tion of the world. My curses and reprobation are without repentance."
There is not a grain of equity in all this speech : and yet it agrees as
truly with rigid Calvinism as with the above- described branch of Mani
cheism ; it falls in as exactly with the necessitating, good-bad principles
of Manes, as with the necessitating, good-bad principle of lawless free
grace, and absolute sovereignty — the softer name which some Gospel
ministers decently give to free wrath.
IV. WIDELY REPROBATING BIGOTRY is the peculiar sin of the men
who make so much of the doctrines of partial grace, as to pay little or
no attention to the doctrines of impartial justice. This detestable sin
was so deeply rooted in the breasts of the Jews, that our Lord found
himself obliged to work a miracle, that he might not be destroyed by it
before his hour was come. Because the Jews were the peculiar, and
elected people of God, they uncharitably concluded that all the heathens,
THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 281
i. e. all the rest of mankind were absolutely reprobated, or at least that
God would show them no mercy, unless they became proselytes of the
gate, and directly or indirectly embraced Judaism. And therefore, when
Christ told them that many Gentiles would come from the east and west,
and sit with Abraham in the kingdom of God, while many of the Jews
would be cast out ; and when he reproved their bigotry, by reminding
them that in the days of Elijah God was more gracious to a heathen
widow, than to all the widows that dwelt in Judea, they flew into a rage,
and attempted to throw him down from the top of the craggy hill on
which the town of Nazareth was built. It is the same widely reprobating
bigotry, which makes the rigid Romanists think that there, is no salvation
out of their Church. Hence also the rigid Calvinists imagine that there
is no saving grace but for those who share in their election of grace.
It is impossible to conceive what bad tempers, fierce zeal, and bloody
persecutions this reprobating bigotry has caused in all the Churches and
nations where the privileges of electing love have been carried beyond
the Scripture mark. Let us with candour read the history of the
Churches and people who have engrossed to themselves all the saving
grace of God, and we shall cry out, From such a fierce election, ilid
such reprobating bigotry, good Lord deliver us !
I make no doubt but this sketch of the dangerous errors to which
rigid Pelagianism and rigid Calvinism lead unwary Christians, will make
the judicious reader afraid of these partial gospels, and will increase his
thankfulness to God for the primitive Gospel, which by its doctrines of
grace guards us against rigid Pelagianism and its mischievous effects ;
and, by its doctrines of justice, arms us against rigid Calvinism and its
dangerous consequences.
Among the divines abroad, who have endeavoured to steer their
doctrinal course between the Pelagian shelves and the Augustinian rocks,
and who have tried to follow the reconciling plan of our great reformer
Cranmer, none is more famous, and none came nearer the truth than
Arminius. He was a pious and judicious Dutch minister, who, in the
beginning of the last century, taught divinity in the university of Leyden
in Holland. He made some noble efforts to drive Manicheism and
disguised fatalism out of the Protestant Church, of which he was a
member ; and, so far as his light and influence extended, (by proving
the evangelical union of redeeming grace and free will,) he restored
Scripture harmony to the Gospel, and carried on the plan of recon
ciliation which Cranmer had laid down. His sermons, lectures, and
orations made many ashamed of absolute reprobation, and the bad.
principled God, who was before quietly worshipped all over Holland.
Nevertheless, his attempt was partly unsuccessful ; for, attacking free
wrath, (or the bad principle of the Manichean god,) without setting free
grace in its full Gospel light, and without properly granting the election
of grace which St. Paul contends for, he gave the Calvinists just room to
complain. They availed themselves so skilfully of his embarrassment
about the doctrine of election, and they pleaded so plausibly for the
sovereignty of the good-principled God, as to keep their absolute repro
bation, and the sovereignty of the bad-principled God partly out of sight.
In short, implacable free wrath escaped by means of Antinomian free
grace. The venomous scorpion concealed itself under the wing of the
282 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
simple dove ; and the double-principled Deity, the sparingly electing and
widely reprobating God, was still held forth to injudicious Protestants
as the God of all grace, the God of love, the God in whom is no
darkness at all. For, as I have already observed, a number of divines,
after the heart of Calvin, assembled at Dort in Holland, and openly
condemned there the efforts that Arminius had made to reconcile the
doctrines of justice and the doctrines of grace : the clergy who had
espoused his sentiments were deprived of their livings ; he himself was
represented as the author of a heresy almost as dangerous as that of
Pelagius ; and from that time the rigid Calvinists have considered all
those who stand up for the two Gospel axioms with any degree of con
sistency, as semi-Pelagian, or Arminian heretics.
And if Mr. Bayle be not mistaken, the Calvinists did not complain of
Arminius' doctrine altogether without reason; for although he went
very far in his discovery of the passage between the Pelagian and the
Augustinian rocks, yet he did not sail quite through. Election proved a
rock on which his doctrinal bark stuck fast ; nor could he ever get
entirely clear of that difficulty.
^mong our English divines several have greatly distinguished themselves
by their improvements upon Arminius' discoveries, Bishop Overal, Bishop
Stillingfleet, Bishop Bull, Chillingworth, Baxter, Whitby, and others.
But if I am not mistaken, they have all stuck where Arminius did, or on
the opposite rock. And thereabouts we stuck too, when Mr. Wesley
got happily clear of a point of the Calvinian rock which had retarded
our course, and (so far as he appeared by us to be governed by the Father
of lights) we began to sail on with him through the straits of truth.
When we left our moorings, the partial defenders of the doctrines of
grace hung out a signal of distress, and cried to us that our doctrinal
ark was going to be lost against the same cliff where Pelagius' bark went
to pieces. Their shouts have made us wary. The Lord has, we humbly
hope, blessed us with an anchor of patient hope, a gale of cheerful love
of truth, and a shield of resignation to quench the fiery darts which some
warm men, who defend the barren rock of absolute reprobation, have
thrown at us in our passage. We have sounded our way as we went
on ; and looking steadily to our theological compass, the Scriptures, to
the Sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the stars which
he holds in his right hand, the apostles and true evangelists, after sailing
slowly six years through straits, where strong currents of error and hard
gales of prejudice have often retarded our progress, we flatter ourselves
that we have got quite out of those narrow and rocky seas, where most
divines have been stopped for a long succession of ages. If we are
not mistaken, the ancient haven of Gospel truth is in sight ; and, while
we enter in, I take a sketch of it, which the reader will see in a Plan
of Reconciliation between the Calvinists and Arminians, which these
sheets are designed to introduce.
THE RECONCILIATION:
OR
AN EASY METHOD
TO
UNITE THE PROFESSING PEOPLE OF GOD.
BY PLACING THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE IN SUCH A LIGHT AS TO
MAKE THE CANDID ARMINIANS BIBLE CALVINISTS, AND THE CANDID
CALVINISTS BIBLE ARMINIANS.
Vfstra solum legitis ; vestra amatis ; cceteros, incognita causa, condemnatis. — CICERO.
' Follow peace with all men. Look not every man on his own things [and favourite doctrines
only ;] but every man also on the things ^and favourite doctrines] of others." " The wisdom
that is from above is peaceable, and without partiality," Heb. xii, 14; Phil. ii. 4;
iii 17
THE RECONCILIATION, &c.
SECTION I.
Tlie sad consequences of the divisions of those who make a peculiar
profession of faith in Christ — It is unscripiural and absurd to object
that believers can never be of one mind and heart.
UNSPEAKABLE is the mischief done to the interests of religion by the
divisions of Christians : and the greater their profession is, the greater
is the offence given by their contests. When the men who seek occa
sion against the Gospel, see them contending for the truth, and never
coming to an agreement, they ask, like Pilate, " What is truth ?" and
therf turn away from Christianity, as that precipitate judge did from
Christ.
Of all the controversies which have given offence to the world, none
has been kept up with more obstinacy than that which relates to Divine
grace and the nature of the Gospel. It was set on foot in the fourth
century by Augustine and Pelagius, and has since been warmly carried
on by Godeschalchus, Calvin, Arminius, and others. And it has lately
been revived by Mr. Whitefield, and Mr. Wesley, and by the author of
Pietas Oxoniensis, and the orator of the university of Oxford. This
unhappy controversy has brought more contempt upon the Gospel for
above twelve hundred years, than can well be conceived. Preachers
entangled therein, instead of agreeing to build the temple of God, think
themselves obliged to pull down the scaffolds on which their brethren
work. Shepherds, who should join their forces to oppose the common
enemy, militate against their fellow shepherds : and their hungry fol
lowers are too frequently fed with controversial chaff, when they should
be nourished with the pure milk of the word. After the example of
their leaders, the sheep learn to butt, and wounds or lameness are the
consequences of the general debate. The weak are offended, and the
lame turned out of the way. The godly mourn, and the wicked triumph :
bad tempers are fomented : the hellish flame of party zeal is blown up,
and the souls of the contenders are pierced through with many sorrows.
This is not all : the Spirk of God is grieved, and the conversion of
sinners prevented. How universally would the work of reformation
have spread if it had not been hindered by this growing mischief! How
many thousands of scoffers daily say, Can these devotees expect we
should agree with them, when they cannot agree among themselves ?
And indeed how can we reasonably hope that they should give us the
right hand of fellowship, if we cannot give it one another ? " By this,"
saith our Lord, " shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye
love one another." Continual disputes are destructive of love ; and the
men of the world, seeing us cherish such disputes, naturally conclude
that we are not the disciples of Christ, that there are none in the world,
that the Gospel is only a pious fraud or a fine legend, and that faith is
nothing but fancy, superstition, or enthusiasm.
Nor will such men be prevailed upon cordially to believe in Christ,
286 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
till they see the generality of professors " made perfect in one," by
agreeing in doctrine, and "walking in love." We may infer this from
our Lord's prayer for his Church : " Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also who shall believe on me through their word : that
they all may BE ONE, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us : that THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE," John xvii, 20,
21. Christ intimates, in these words, the men of the world will never
generally embrace the Gospel, till the union he prayed for take place
among believers. To keep up divisions, therefore, is one of the most
effectual methods to hinder the conversion of sinners, and strengthen the
unbelief which hardens their hearts.
The destructive nature of this sin appears from the severity with which
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and Galatians, who were divided
among themselves. The former he could not acknowledge as " spi
ritual men," but called them "carnal," and affirmed that "to their
shame, some of them had not the knowledge of God." And the latter
he considered as persons almost " fallen from Christ ;" intimating, that
if they continued to " bite each other," (an expression which is beauti
fully descriptive of the malignity, with which most controvertists speak
and write against their antagonists,) they would " be consumed one of
another," Gal. v, 15.
In families and civil societies divisions are truly deplorable ; but in the
Churches of Christ they are peculiarly pernicious and scandalous: (1.)
Pernicious : to be persuaded of it, we need only consider these awful words
of St. James : — " If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory
not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is devilish. For where
envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work," James iii,
14, &c. (2.) Scandalous: if Christ be the Prince of Peace, why
should his subjects be sons of contention ? If he came to reconcile
Jews and Gentiles, "by breaking down the middle wall of partition be-
tween them ;" if he "made in himself, of twain [of those two opposed
bodies of men] one new man," that is, one new body of men, " all of
one heart and of one soul ;" if he has " slain the enmity, so making
peace ;" if " it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto himself
by him ;" and if " in the dispensation of the fulness of times [the Chris-
tian dispensation] he gathers together all things in him :" if this, I say,
is the case, what can be more contrary to the Gospel plan than the ob
stinacy with which some Protestants refuse to be " gathered together"
with their fellow Protestants, under the shadow of their Redeemer's
wings ? And what can be more scandalous than for Christ's followers,
yea, for the strictest of them to spend their time in building " middle
walls of partition" between themselves and their brethren, or in " daub
ing over with untempered mortar" the walls which mistaken men have
built in former ages '/
Many Jews refused to be saved by Christ, because he came to save
the Gentiles as well as themselves. And it is to be feared that some
Christians, from a similar motive, refuse the Divine favour, or the emi
nent degrees of it, to which they are called in the Gospel. Christ says
to these bigots, " How often would I have gathered you together, as a
hen gathers her scattered brood under her wings ! but ye would not :"
ye were afraid of your Calvinian or Arminian brethren, and preferred
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 287
the selfish heat of party spirit, to the diffusive warmth of Divine arid
brotherly love. I say Divine, as well as brotherly love ; for he " that
loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God,
whom he hath not seen ?"
My regard for unity revives my drooping spirits, and adds new
strength to my wasted body.* I stop at the brink of the grave over
which I bend : and, as the blood, oozing from my decayed lungs, does
not permit me vocally to address my contending brethren, by means
of my pen I will ask them if they can properly receive the holy com-
munion while they wilfully remain in disunion with their brethren from
whom controversy has needlessly parted them ? For my part, if I felt
myself unwilling to be reconciled on Scripture terms, either with my
Calvinian or Arminian neighbours, I would no more dare go to the
Lord's table, than if I had harboured murder in my heart ; and this
scripture would daily haunt my conscience, " Whosoever shall say to
his brother, Thou fool, [thou silly free wilier, thou foolish bound wilier,
thou heretic !] shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring
thy gift before the altar, and there rememberest that thy [Calvinian or
Arminian] brother hath aught against thee ; leave thy gift and go thy
way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy
gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly" — thy religious as well as
thy civil adversary — him with whom thou differest about the gold of
the word ; as well as him with whom thou contendest about the gold of
this world.
Not to be reconciled when we properly may, is to keep up divisions ;
and to keep up divisions is as bad as to cause them. And what a dread-
ful thing it is to cause divisions, appears from St. Paul's charge to the
Romans : " I beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions
and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid
them," Rom. xvi, 17. Avoid them, for those who have the itch of con-
tention, and the plague of party spirit, are not only in a dangerous case
themselves ; but they carry about a mortal infection, which they fre
quently communicate to others.
Should party men exclaim against my reconciling attempt, and say
that " there always were, and always will be divisions among the children
of God, and that to aim at a general reconciliation, is to aim at an ab
solute impossibility ;" I reply, —
(1.) This plea countenances the lusts of the flesh. "Walk in the
Spirit," saith St. Paul, "and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh :"
and among these lusts he immediately numbers " debate, emulations,
wrath, contentions, and such like," observing, at the same time, that
" the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, gentleness, meekness," &c.
Now when party men insinuate that we can never live in peace and
harmony with our Christian brethren, do they not indirectly teach that
" debate, emulations, contentions, and such like, must" still waste our
time, disturb our minds, and impair our love ? And is not this an under
hand plea for a wretched obligation to neglect " the fruit of the Spirit,"
and for an Antinomian necessity to bring forth the " fruit of the flesh ?"
(2.) It militates against St. Paul's conflict for believers: "I would,"
* Mr. Fletcher was judged to be now in the last stage of a consumption
288 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
says he to the Colossians, " that ye knew what great conflict I have for
you, for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face
in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted ; being knit together
in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgment of the mystery of God," Col. ii, 1, 2. It opposes also
the end of the apostle's prayer for the Romans : « The God of patience
and consolation grant you to be like minded, &c, that you may with one
mind and one mouth glorify God, &c. Wherefore receive you one ano
ther, as Christ also received us," Rom. xv, 5, &c. But what is far worse,
it directly contradicts Christ's capital prayer, which I have already
quoted : " I pray," says he, " that they [believers] may be one, as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee : that they also may be one in us : that
they may be one, even as we are one : I in them and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one : that the [unbelieving] world may
know that thou hast sent me," John xvii, 20, &c. Now if our Lord
asked for an absolute impossiblity, when he asked for the perfect union
of believers in this life, where was his wisdom ? And if he cannot make
us one in heart and mind (supposing we are willing to abide by his
reconciling word) where is his power 1
(3.) It strikes at the authority of these evangelical entreaties, exhor
tations, and commands: — "Be of the same mind," Rom. xii, 16. "I
beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you ; but
that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same
judgment," 1 Cor. i, 10. "Finally, brethren, be perfect, be of good
comfort, be of one rnind ; live in peace, and the God of love and peace
shall be with you," 2 Cor. xiii, 11. "Let your conversation be as it
becometh the Gospel of Christ : that I may hear ye stand fast in one
spirit, with one mind; striving together for the faith of the Gospel.
Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded — being of one accord, of one
mind. I beseech Euodias and Syntyche, that they be of the same mind
in the Lord," Phil, i, 27 ; ii, 2 ; iv, 2. " Finally, be ye all of one
mind, &c. Love as brethren, be courteous. For he that will see good
days, &c, let him seek peace [with his enemies, much more with his
brethren ;] and let him pursue it," 1 Pet. iii, 8, &c. " Let us walk by
the same rule, let us mind the same things," Phil, iii, 1G. « With all
lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in
love : endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
For there is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope
of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all," Eph. iv, 2, &c. The same apostle, writing to the divided
Corinthians, tries to reconcile them by comparing again the body of
believers to the human body, and drawing a suitable inference : " The
body is one," says he, "though it hath many members; that there
should be no schism, [no division] in the body ; but that the members
should have the same care one for another ; all suffering when one
member suffers, and all rejoicing when one member is honoured," 1
Cor. xii, 12-26. Hence it follows that to plead for the continuance
of schisms and divisions in Christ's mystical body, is evidently to plead
for a breach of " the bond of peace," and for the neglect of all the
above-mentioned apostolic injunctions.
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 289
(4.) It gives the lie to the following promises of the God of truth.
" The hatred to Ephraim shall depart, &c. Ephraim shall not envy
Judah, neither shall Judah vex Ephraim," Isa. xi, 13. "I will give
them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the
good of them and of their children," Jer. xxxii, 39. " I will give them
one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them," Ezek. xi, 19. "I
will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the
name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent, &c. Other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they
shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one. fold and one "shepherd,"
John x, 16.
(5.) It contradicts the following accounts of God's faithfulness in the
initial accomplishment of the preceding promises : — « They were all
with one accord in one place : continuing daily with one accord in the
temple," Acts ii, 1, 46. « The multitude of them that believed were of
one heart, and of one soul," Acts iv, 32. " If we walk in the light, &c,
we have fellowship one with another. For he that loveth his°brother
abideth in the light, and there is in him no occasion of stumbling :" no
thing in his heart will either cause or keep up divisions, 1 John i, 7 ;
ii, 10. " We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, because
your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all
toward each other aboundeth," 2 Thess. i, 3. " By one Spirit, all
complete Christians are baptized into one body, whether they bo Jews or
Gentiles, whether they be bond or free ; and have been all made to
drink into one Spirit" — the Spirit of truth and love ; and (unless they
leave their first love as the Corinthians did) they sweetly continue
to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," 1 Cor. xii, 13 ;
Eph. iv, 3. From these accounts of the unity of the primitive Chris-
tians before they « left their first love," I infer, that unity is attainable
because it was attained. The arm of the Lord is not shortened ; " the
same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him ;" and if we be not
obstinately bent upon despising the "wisdom from above, which is
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits and without
partiality ;" we shall find that " the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
of them that make peace ;" and we shall evidence that all the sincere
followers of Christ can yet « continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship," instead of perversely continuing in their own mistakes
and in the spirit of discord.
Lastly : the objection I answer has a tendency to stop the growth of
Christ's mystical body, and opposes God's grand design in sending the
Gospel : for " he gave apostles, evangelists, and pastors, for the per-
fecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ ; till all come,
in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ :
that we be no more carried about with every wind of doctrine, &c, but
speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is
the head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together,
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the
body, unto the edifying of itself in love," Eph. iv, 11, 17. No believer
can, I think, candidly read these words of the apostle, without being
VOL. II. 19
290 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
convinced that union and growth are inseparable in the Church of " Christ,
from whom all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment [or
help] ministered, and being knit together, increaseth with the increase
of God," Col. ii, 19.
From these observations, I hope, it appears, that whether we consider
the earnest entreaties of the apostles ; their conflicts and pious wishes
for their converts ; the wisdom of our Lord's address to his Father for
the union of believers ; the repeated commands of the Gospel to be of
" one mind and one judgment ;" the promises which God has made to
help us to keep these commands; the Divine power, by which the
primitive believers were actually enabled to keep them, so long as they
walked in the Spirit ; or whether we consider the end of evangelical
preaching, and the unity and growth of Christ's mystical body ; nothing
can be more unscriptural than to say that believers can never be again
of one he.art and of one mind.
And as this notion is unscriptural, so it is irrational ; inasmuch as it
supposes that the children of God can never agree to serve him, as the
children of the wicked one do to honour their master ; for St. John
informs us that " these have one mind to give their power and strength
unto the beast," Rev. xvii, 13. And experience daily teaches that when
the men of the world are embarked in the same scheme, they can
perfectly agree in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, and fame, or in the
performance of duty. If ships that sail under the command of the same
admiral do not give each other a broadside, because they have different
captains, and are employed in different services ; if soldiers, who follow
the same general, do not quarrel because they belong to different regi
ments, because their coats are not turned up alike, or because they do
not defend the same fort, fight in the same wing of the army, hear the
same drum, and follow the same pair of colours : and if the king's faithful
servants can unanimously promote his interests, and cheerfully lend each
-other a helping hand, though their departments are as different as the
tleet is difierent from the army, is it not absurd to suppose that Christ's
faithful soldiers and servants, who are the meekest, the humblest, the
most disinterested, and the most loving of all men, can never live in
perfect union, and sweetly agree to promote the interests of their Divine
Master ? I conclude, therefore, that the objection which supposes the
contrary, is not less contrary to reason than to the word of God.
SECTION II.
Pious, moderate Calmnists, and pious, moderate Arminians in particular,
mail be easily reconciled to each other; because the doctrines of grace
and justice, about which they divide, are equally Scriptural, and each
parly contends for a capital part of the Gospel truth ; their grand
mistake consisting in a groundless supposition tJmt the part of the truth
they defend is incompatible with the part which is defended by their
brethren.
SOME persons will probably make a more plausible objection than that
which is answered in the preceding pages. They will urge, « that truth
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 291
should never be sacrificed to love and peace ; that the Calvinists and
the Arminians holding doctrines diametrically opposite, one party at least
mast be totally in the wrong ; and as the other party ought not to be
reconciled to error, the agreement I propose is impossible : it will never
take place, unless the Calvinists can be prevailed upon to give up un
conditional election, and their favourite doctrines of partial grace ; or
the Arminians can be persuaded to part with conditional election, and
their favourite doctrines of impartial justice ; and as this is too great a
sacrifice to be expected from either party, it is in vain to attempt bringing
about a reconciliation between them."
This objection is weighty : but far from discouraging me, it affords
me an opportunity of laying before my readers the ground of hope I
entertain, to reconcile the Calvinists and Arminians. I should indeed
utterly despair of effecting it, were I obliged to prove that either party
is entirely in the wrong. But I may without folly expect some success,
because my grand design is to demonstrate that both parties have an
important truth on their side ; both holding opposite doctrines, which are
as essential to tlie fulness of Christ's Gospel, as the two eyes, nostrils,
and cheeks, which compose our faces, are essential to the completeness
of human beauty.
" The language of Scripture seems to favour the one as well as the
other," says Dr. Watts on a similar occasion : " but this is the mischief
that ariseth between Christians who differ in their sentiments or expres
sion of things ; they imagine that while one is true, the other must needs
be false : and then they brand each other with error and heresy : whereas,
if they would but attend to Scripture, that would show them to be both
in the right, by its different explication of their own forms of speaking.
In this way of reconciliation I cannot but hope for some success, because
it falls in with the universal, fond esteem that each man has of his own
understanding : it proves that two warm disputers may both have truth
on their side. Now, if ten persons differ in their sentiments, it is much
easier to persuade all of them that they may be all in the right, than it
is to convince one that he is in the wrong."
I shall illustrate this quotation by a remark, which occurs in the be
ginning of my Scripture Scales ; only taking the liberty of applying to
pious Calvinists and pious Arminians what I said there of pious Solifidians
and pious moralists : — " The cause of their misunderstanding is singular.
They are good men upon the whole ; therefore they never can oppose
truth as truth : and as they are not destitute of charity, they cannot
quarrel merely for quarreling's sake. Whence then spring their con
tinual disputes ? Is it not from inattention and partiality ? They will not
look truth full in the face : determined to stand on one side of her, they
seldom see above one half of her beauty. The rigid Calvinians gaze
upon her side face on the right hand, arid the rigid Arminians contemplate
it on the left. But her unprejudiced lovers, humbly sitting at her feet,
and beholding her in full, admire the exquisite proportion of all her
features : a peculiar advantage this, which her partial admirers can
never have in their present unfavourable position."
To be more explicit : a rigid Calvinist has no eyes but for God's
sovereignty, unconditional election, and the doctrines of partial grace ;
while a rigid Arminian considers nothing but God's equity, conditional
292 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
election, and the doctrines of impartial justice. And therefore, to unite
these contending rivals, you need only prevail on the Arminians to bow
to God's sovereignty, to acknowledge an unconditional election, and to
receive the doctrines of partial grace ; and as soon as they do this, they
will be reconciled to Bible Calvinism and to all moderate Calvinists.
And, on the other hand, if the Calvinists can be convinced that they
should bow to God's equity, acknowledge a conditional election, and
receive the doctrines of impartial justice, they will be reconciled to
Bible Arminianism, and to all moderate Arminians. Should it be said
that it is impossible to convince the Arminians of the truth of an uncon
ditional election, &c, and that the Calvinists will never receive the
doctrme of a conditional election, &c, I answer, that bigots of either
party will not be convinced, because they all pretend to infallibility,
though they do not pretend to wear a triple crown. But the candid, on
both sides of the question, lie open to conviction, and will, I hope, yield
to the force of plain Scripture and sound reason, the two weapons with
which I design to attack their prejudices.
But before I open my friendly attack, I beg leave, candid reader, to
show thee the ground on which I will erect my Scriptural and rational
batteries. It is made up of the following reasonable propositions : —
(1.) When good men warmly contend about truth, you may in general
be assured that, if truth can be compared to a staff, each party has one
end of the staff, and that to have the whole you need only consistently
hold together what they inconsiderately pull asunder. (2.) The Gospel
contains doctrines of partial grace and unconditional election, as well as
doctrines of impartial justice and conditional election. Nor can wr
embrace the whole truth of the Gospel, unless we consistently hold those
seemingly contrary doctrines. (3.) Those opposite doctrines, which
rigid Calvinists and Arminians suppose to be absolutely incompatible,
agree as well together as the following pair of propositions : God has
a throne of grace and a throne of justice ; nor is the former throne
inconsistent with the latter. God, as the Creator and Governor of
mankind, sustains the double character of sovereign Benefactor, and
righteous Judge : and the first of these characters is perfectly con
sistent with the second. This is the ground of my reconciling plan :
and this ground is so solid, that I hardly think any unprejudiced person
will ever enter his protest against it. Were divines to do it, they would
render themselves as ridiculous as a pilot, who should suppose that the
head and stern of the vessel he is called to conduct, can never be two
essential parts of the same ship.
If Christianity were compared to a ship, the doctrines of grace might
be likened to the fore part, and the doctrines of justice to the hinder
part of it. This observation brings to my remembrance a quotation
from Dr. Doddridge, which will help the reader to understand how it is
possible that an election of grace, maintained by moderate Calvinists,
and an election of justice, defended by moderate Arminians, may both
be true : " I have long observed," says the judicious doctor, " that
Christians of different parties have eagerly been laying hold on par.
ticular parts of the system of Divine truths, and have been contending
about them as if each had been all ; or as if the separation of the mem.
hers from each other, and from the head, were the preservation of tlu
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 293
body, instead of its destruction. They have been zealous to espouse
the defence, and to maintain the honour and usefulness of each part ;
whereas their honour as well as usefulness seems to me to lie much in
their connection : and suspicions have often arisen between the respective
defenders of each, which have appeared as unreasonable and absurd
as if all the preparations for securing one part of a ship in a storm,
were to be censured as a contrivance to sink the rest." In the name
of God, the God of wisdom, truth, and peace, let then the defenders of
the doctrines of grace cease to fall out with the defenders of the doctrines
of justice, and let both parties seek the happy connection which Dr.
Doddridge speaks of, and rejoice in the part of the truth peculiarly held
by their brethren, as well as in that part of the Gospel to which they
have hitherto been peculiarly attached.
Many good men, on both sides of the question, have at times pointed
out the connection of the opposite doctrines, which are maintained in
these sheets. Mr. Henry, a judicious Calvinist, does it in his notes on
the parable of the talents, where he contends for the doctrines of partial
grace and impartial justice, and exalts God both as a sovereign Bene
factor, and a righteous Judge. Commenting upon these words, " Take
therefore the talent from him" [the slothful servant] says he, "The
talents were first disposed of by the master as an absolute owner, [that
is, a sovereign benefactor, who does what he pleases with his own.]
But this was now disposed of by him as a judge ; he takes it from the
unfaithful servant to punish him, and gives it to him that was eminently
faithful to reward him." This is "rightly dividing the word of truth,"
and wisely distinguishing between the throne of grace and that of
justice.
Dr. John Heylin, a judicious Arminian, in his discourse on 1 Tim.
iv, 10, is as candid as Mr. Henry in the above -quoted note ; for he stands
up for God's sovereignty and the doctrine of partial grace, as much as
Mr. Henry does for God's equity and the doctrine of impartial justice.
After pointing out in strong terms the error of those who, by setting
aside the doctrines of justice, " sap* the foundation of all religion, which
is the moral character of the Deity," he adds : —
" Nor, on the other hand, dof they less offend against the natural
prerogative, I mean the absolute sovereignty of God, who deny him the
free exercise of his bounty, as they seem too much inclined to do who
are backward to believe the great disparity among mankind with regard
to a future state, which revelation always supposes. His mercy is over
all his works, but that mercy abounds to some much more than to others,
according to^ the inscrutable * counsel of his own will.' Nor is there
a shadow of injustice in such unequal distribution of his favours. The
term favours implies freedom in bestowing them ; else they were not
favours, but debts. The almighty Maker is master of all his pro
ductions. Both matter and form are his : all is gift, all is bounty ; nor
may the lizard complain of his size, because there are crocodiles ; nor is
the worm injured by the creation of an eagle."
I shall conclude this section by producing the sentiments of two
persons, whose authority is infinitely greater than that of Mr. Henry and
* He means the rigid Calvinists. t He means the rigid Arminians.
294 E£UAL CHECK. [PART
Dr. Heylin. Who exceeds St. Paul in orthodoxy ? And yet what Cal-
vinist ever maintained the doctrines of grace more strongly than he does ?
" By the grace of God," says he, "I am what I am," 1 Cor. xv, 10.
" By grace you are saved [that is, admitted into the high state of
Christian salvation] through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God :" [a special gift, which God has kept back from far the
greatest part of the world ;] " not of works, lest any man should boast,"
Eph. ii, 8. " At this time also there is a remnant according to the
election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works, other
wise grace is no more grace," Rom. xi, 5, 6. "Not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved
us," or made us partakers of the glorious privileges of Christians', which
he has denied to millions of the human race," Tit. iii, 5. " He is the
Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe ;" for he saves
" Christians with" a special salvation, which is called " the great salva
tion," 1 Tim. iv, 10 ; Heb. iii, 3. Christ indeed " is not the propitiation
for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world," 1 John ii, 2.
Nevertheless, he is especially our Mediator, our passover or paschal
Lamb, and " the High Priest of our Christian profession, in whom God
hath chosen us Christians before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy" above all people : " having predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to the praise of the glory of his
grace :" a high adoption, which is so superior to that to which the Jews
had been predestinated in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, that St.
Paul spends part of his Epistle to the Ephesians in asserting the honour
of it, and in extolling the glory of the peculiar grace given unto us in
Christ. And if you exclaim against this Divine partiality, the apostle
silences you by a just appeal to God's sovereignty : see Rom. ix, 20.
But was St. Paul Calvinistically partial ? Did he so contend for the
doctrines of grace, as to cast a veil over the doctrines of justice ? Stands
he not up for the latter, as boldly as he does for the former ? What
Arminian ever bowed before the throne of Divine justice more deeply
than he does in the following scriptures ? " God is not unrighteous to
forget your work and labour of love," Heb. vi, 10. "I have fought
the good fight, &c. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that
day, 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8. These passages strongly support the doctrines
of justice, but those which follow may be considered as the very summit
of Scripture Arminianism. " Knowing that whatsoever good thing any
man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord," Eph. vi, 8. " What-
soever ye do, do it heartily, &c, knowing that of the Lord ye shall
receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the -Lord Christ.
But he that does wrong shall receive [adequate punishment] for the
wrong which he hath done," Col. iii, 23, &c. " We must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the
things done in his body, according to that which he hath done, whether
it be good or bad," 2 Cor. v, 10. "In the day of wrath and revelation
of his righteous judgment, God will render to every man according to
his deeds ; eternal life to them who, by patient continuance in well
doing, seek for glory, honour, and immortality ; but indignation and wrath
to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey un-
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 295
righteousness, &c ; for [before the throne of justice] there is no respect
of persons with God," Rom. ii, 5, &c.
Should it be asked how these seemingly contrary doctrines of grace
and justice can be reconciled, I reply, They agree as perfectly to
gether as the first and second advent of our Lord. At his first coming
he sustained the gracious character of a Saviour ; and at his second
coming he will sustain the righteous character of a Judge. Hear him
explaining the mystery, which is hid from the rigid Calvim'sts and the
rigid Arminians. Speaking of his first coming, he says : — " I came not
to judge the world, but to save the world," by procuring for mankind
different talents of initial salvation : a less number for the heathens,
more for the Jews, and most for the Christians, who are his most pecu
liar people : " for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the
world ; but that the world through him might be saved," John xii, 47 ;
iii, 17. " The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was
lost," Luke xix, 10. " Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,
and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that
your fruit should remain," John xv, 16. Here are doctrines of grace !
But did our Lord so preach these doctrines as to destroy those of jus
tice? Did he so magnify his coming to save the world, as to make
nothing of his coming to judge the world ? No : hear him speaking of
his second advent : " When the Son of man shall come in his glory,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be
gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, [them
that have done good from them that have done evil,] and these shall go
away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,"
Matt, xxv, 31, 32, 46. " Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with
me, to give every man according as his work shall be," Rev. xxii, 12.
" For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall
hear his [the Son of man's] voice, and shall come forth : they that have
done good unto the resurrection of life : and they that have done evil
unto the resurrection of damnation," John v, 28, 29. Here are doc
trines of justice ! And the man who says that such doctrines are not.
as Scriptural as the above-mentioned doctrines of grace, may as well
deny the succession of day and night.
Dr. Watts, in his excellent book entitled, Orthodoxy and Charity
United, gives us a direction which will suitably close the preceding-
appeal to the Scriptures : — " Avoid," says he, " the high flights and ex
tremes of zealous party men, &c. You will tell me, perhaps, that
Scripture itself uses expressions as high upon particular occasions, and
as much leaning to extremes as any men of party among us. But
remember, then, that the Scripture uses such strong and high expres
sions not on one side only, but on both sides, and infinite wisdom hath
done this more forcibly to impress some present truth or duty : but
while it is evident the holy writers have used high expressions, strong
figures of speech, and vehement turns on both sides, this sufficiently
instructs us that we should be moderate in our censures of either side,
and that the calm, doctrinal truth, stript of all rhetoric and figures, lies
nearer to the middle, or at least that some of these appearing extremes
are more reconcilable than angry men will generally allow. If the
apostle charges the Corinthians, « So run that ye may obtain,' 1 Cor.
29(5 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
ix, 24 ; and tells the Romans, ' It is not of him that vvilleth, nor of him
that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy,' Rom. ix, 16 ; we may
plainly infer that our running and his mercy — our diligence and Divine
grace are both necessary to salvation."
From all these scriptures it evidently follows : (1.) That as God is
both a Benefactor and a Governor, a Saviour and a Judge, he has both
a throne of grace, and a throne of justice. (2.) That those believers
are highly partial who worship only before one of the Divine thrones,
when the sacred oracles so loudly bid us to pay our homage before
both. (3.) That the doctrines of grace are the statutes and decrees
issuing from the former throne : and that the doctrines of justice are
the statutes and decrees issuing from the latter. (4.) That the princi
pal of all the doctrines of grace is, that there is an election of grace :
and that the, principal of all the doctrines of justice is, that there is an
election of justice. (5.) That the former of those elections is uncon
ditional and partial ; as depending merely on the good pleasure of our
gracious Benefactor and Saviour : and that the latter of those elections
is conditional and impartial ; as depending merely on the justice and
equity of our righteous Governor and Judge : for justice admits of no
partiality, and equity never permits a ruler to judge any men but such
as are free agents, or to sentence any free agent, otherwise than ac
cording to his own works. (6.) That the confounding or not properly
distinguishing those two elections, and the reprobations which they draw
after them, has filled the Church with confusion, and is the grand cause
of the disputes which destroy our peace. And (lastly) that to restore
peace to the Church, these two elections must be fixed upon their pro
per Scriptural basis, which is attempted in the following section.
SECTION III.
Eight pair of opposite propositions, on which the opposite doctrines of
grace and justice are founded, and which may be considered as the
basis of Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism, and as a double
key to open the mysteries of election and reprobation.
Scripture ground of CALVINISM, Scripture ground of ARMINIANISM,
and the doctrines of GRACE. and the doctrines of JUSTICE.
PROPOSITION I. PROPOSITION I.
GOD is original, eternal, and un- THERE is no death, darkness,
bounded life, light, love, and purity ; free wrath, or sin in God : and
and therefore, wherever these bless- therefore these evils, wherever they
ings are found, in any degree, they are found, originally flow from in-
originally come from him, the over- ferior agents, whose free will may
flowing fountain of all that is ex- become the fountain of all evil : for
cellent in the natural, moral, and when free agents choose first the
spiritual world. evil of sin, God is obliged in jus
tice to choose next the evil of pun-
ishment. Thus moral evil draws
natural evil after it.
THIRD.]
THE RECONCILIATION.
Doctrines of grace.
II. God is an infinitely wise Ben
efactor, full of goodness and GRACE.
III. It seems highly inconsistent
with the wisdom of a Creator and
Benefactor, to make all his crea
tures of the same size and rank,
and to deal out his bounties to them
in the same measure. To say that
he should do it, is as absurd as to
affirm that his goodness requires
him to make every insect as big as
an elephant, and every spire of
grass as tall as an oak.
IV. For want of considering the
preceding, self-evident propositions,
and their necessary consequences,
the heated advocates for the doc
trines of justice have erred, either
by denying, or by not fully granting
these two undeniable truths : (1.)
All good comes originally from
God's free grace and overflowing
fulness. (2.) God, as a sovereign
benefactor, may do what he pleases
with his own. Nor should our
" eye be evil because he is good/
and displays his superabounding
goodness toward some men, more
than he does toward others.
V. The grand mistake of the
rigid Arminians consists then in
not frankly ascribing to God all the
original goodness, and gracious
sovereignty which belong to him as
the sovereign author and first parent
of all good.
VI. Would you get clear of the
error of rigid Arminians, not
only assert God's grace and good,
ness, insisting that he is the first
cause and eternal parent of ALL
good, natural and spiritual, temporal
and eternal, but boldly stand up
also for his free grace and exube-
Doctrines of justice.
II. God is an infinitely wise Go
vernor, full of equity and JUSTICE.
III. It seems highly inconsistent
with the equity of a Governor and
a Judge to decree that millions of
rational creatures shall be born in a,
graceless, sinful, and remediless
state, that he may display his
righteous sovereignty by passing a
sentence of death and eternal tor
ments upon them, for being found
in the state of remediless corruption,
in which his irresistible decree haa
placed them.
IV. For want of considering the
preceding, self-evident propositions,
and their unavoidable consequences,
the heated advocates for the doc
trines of grace have erred, by
directly or indirectly maintaining
these two capital untruths: (1.)
Some real evil can originally flow
from that part of God's predestina
tion which is generally called " ab
solute reprobation," or " predestina
tion to eternal death." (2.) God,
as a sovereign, may absolutely
ordain some of his rational creatures
to eternal death, before they have
personally deserved it : or, which is
all one, he may so pass by unborn
children as to insure their continu
ance in sin, and their everlasting
damnation.
V. The grand mistake of the
rigid Calvinists consists then in di
rectly ascribing to God some ori
ginal evil, and a reprobating sove
reignty, which is irreconcilable with
the goodness of a Creator, and the
equity of a Judge.
VI. Would you, on the other
hand, get clear of the error of rigid
Calvinists, not only maintain in
general that God is just, but confi
dently assert that he utterly dis
claims a sovereignty which dis
penses rewards and punishments
from a throne ol justice, otherwise
298
EQUAL CHECK.
[PART
Doctrines of grace.
Doctrines of justice.
rant goodness ; maintaining that he
has the most unbounded right to
dispense the peculiar bounties of
his grace, without any respect to
our works. For the children [Esau
and Jacob] not being yet born, nei
ther having done any good or evil,
that the purpose of God according
to [the] election [of superior grace]
might stand, not of works, but of
him that [arbitrarily chooseth and]
calleth ; it was said, [not the one
is absolutely ordained to eternal
death, and the other absolutely
ordained to eternal life ; but] " the
elder shall serve the younger :" the
younger shall have a superior
blessing. And in this respect " it
is not at all of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but of God,
who most freely and absolutely
showeth mercy, or favour," Rom.
ix, 11, 12, 16. Hence it appears,
that to deny a PARTIAL election of
distinguishing grace, is equally to
fly in the face of St. Paul and of
reason.
VII. When we consider the elec
tion of partial grace, and the harm
less reprobation that attends it, we
may boldly ask, with St. Paul,
" Hath not the potter power over
the clay, of the same lump to make
one vessel unto [superior] honour,
and* another unto [comparative]
than according to works : witness
his own repeated declarations : — " I
said indeed that thy house, &c,
should walk before me for ever : but
now be it far from me : for them
that honour me, I will honour ; and
they that despise me shall be lightly
esteemed," 1 Sam. ii, 30. Again :
" If the wicked man will turn from
all his sins, he shall surely live, &c
But when the righteous man turneth
away from his righteousness, &c,
in his sin that he hath sinned shall
he die. Yet ye say, The way of
the Lord is not equal. O house
of Israel, are not my ways equal ?
Are not your ways unequal ? There
fore I will judge you, every one
according to his ways, saith the
Lord. Repent, &c, for I have no
pleasure in the death of him that
dieth," Ezek. xviii, 21, &c. Hence
it appears, that with respect to the
election and reprobation of justice,
God's decrees, so far as they affect
our personal salvation or damna
tion, are regulated according to our
personal righteousness or sin, that
is, according to our works.
VII. When we consider the elec
tion of impartial justice, and the
fearful reprobation that answers to
it, we may say, with St. Peter, " If
ye call on the Father, who without
respect of persons judgeth accord
ing to every man's work, pass the
time of your sojourning here in
* To understand Rom. ix, we must remember that the apostle occasionally
speaks of the election and reprobation of justice; although his first design is to
establish the election of grace, and the harmless reprobation which answers to it.
When he speaks of Jacob and Esau, he contends for the election of grace : and
when he brings in Pharaoh and " the vessels of wrath," who, by their obstinate
unbelief, have provoked vindictive wrath to harden them, or to give them up to
the hardness of their hearts, he speaks of the election of justice. The passage to
which this note refers, is the apostle's transition from the one election to the
other, and may be applied to both : I have applied it here to the election of grace.
But if you apply it to the election of justice, the meaning is : hath not the Go-
vernor and Judge of all the earth authority over all mankind, as being their sove
reign and lawgiver ? Can he not fix the terms on which he will reward or pun-
ish his subjects? The terms on which he will give them more grace, or take from
them the talent of grace which they have buried, and leave them to the rigour of
THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 299
Doctrines of grace. Doctrines of justice.
dishonour?" Cannot God ordain,
that of two unborn children, the one
(as Jacob) shall be appointed to
superior blessings, and (in
fear," 1 Pet. i, 17. " God is no
respecter of persons : but in every
nation he that feareth him and
worketh righteousness, is accepted
and (in this
sense) shall be more loved ; while of him," Actsx, 34. We may add
the other (as Esau) shall be de- with Christ, " In the day of judg-
prived of those blessings, and in merit, men shall give account of
this sense shall be less loved, or their words. For by thy words
comparatively hated ? " As it is
written, Jacob have I loved, and
Esau have I hated," Rom. ix, 13.
thou shalt be justified, and by thy
words thou shalt be condemned,"
Matt, xii, 36, 37. And we may
When we speak of the same elec- humbly expostulate with God, as
tion, we may say, as the master of
the vineyard did to the envious
Abraham did : " That be far from
thee to do after this manner, to slay
the righteous with the wicked : and
labourer, " Is thine eye evil, because
the Master of the universe is good ?" that the righteous should be as the
Matt, xx, 15. wicked, that be far from thee : shall
not the Judge of all the earth do
right ?" Gen. xviii, 25.
VIII. From the preceding pro-
positions it evidently follows, that positions it evidently follows, that
when God is considered as electing when God is considered as electing
and reprobating the children of men and reprobating the children of men
from his throne of grace, his elec- from his throne of justice, his elec
tion and reprobation are partial and tion and reprobation are impartial
VIII. From the preceding pro-
unconditional.
and conditional.
Having thus laid down the rational and Scriptural ground of Bible
Calvinism, which centres in the PARTIAL election of grace, — and of
Bible Arminianism, which centres in the IMPARTIAL election of justice,
I shall show the nature, excellence, and agreement of both systems in
the following essays, which, I trust, wilt convert judicious Arminians to
Scripture Calvinism, and judicious Calvinists to Scripture Arminianism.
SECTION IV.
Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism are plainly stated, and equally
vindicated in two essays, the first on the doctrines of partial grace, and
the second on those of impartial justice — Those opposite doctrines are
shoivn to be highly agreeable to reason and Scripture, and perfectly
consistent with each other.
ON the eight pair of balanced propositions, which are produced in the
preceding section, I rest the two essays which follow. I humbly recom
mend the first to rigid Arminians ; because it contains a view of Bible
Calvinism, of the doctrines of grace, and of the absolute, unconditional,
his law? Can he not appoint that obedient believers shall be saved, or elected
to eternal salvation; and that his mark of judicial reprobation shall be fixed upon
all obstinate unbelievers, as Pharaoh and his host certainly were ?
300 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
and partial election, to which they perpetually object. And I earnestly
recommend the SECOND essay to rigid Calvinists, because it contains a
view of Bible Arminianism, of the doctrines of justice, and of the judi
cial, conditional, and impartial election, against which they are unreason,
ably prejudiced.
BIBLE CALVINISM.
ESSAY THE FIRST.
Displaying the doctrines of partial grace, the capital error of the Pela
gians, and the excellence of Scripture Calvinism.
THE doctrines of partial grace rest on these scriptures : — " I will be
Matt, xx, 15.
These precious doctrines subdivide themselves into a partial election,
and a partial reprobation ; both flowing from a free, wise, and sovereign
grace, which is notoriously respective of persons.
The partial election and reprobation of free grace is the gracious and
wise choice, which God (as a sovereign and arbitrary benefactor) makes,
or refuses to make, of some persons, Churches, cities, and nations, to
bestow upon them, for his own mercy's sake, more favours than he does
upon others, ft is the partiality with which he imparts his talents of
nature, providence, and grace, to his creatures or servants ; giving five
talents to some, two talents to others, and one to others ; not only with
out respect to their works, or acquired worthiness of any sort, but fre
quently in opposition to all personal demerit. Witness the thieves,
between whom our Lord was crucified, who were the only dying men
that Providence ever blessed with the invaluable talents or gracious
opportunities of the company and audible prayers of their dying Saviour.
From this doctrine of election it follows, that when God freely elects a
man to the receiving of one talent only, he freely reprobates him with
respect to the receiving of two, or five talents.
According to this election, although God never leaves himself without
the witness of some favour, by which the basest and vilest of men, who
have not yet sinned out their day of salvation, are graciously distin
guished from beasts and devils ; and although, therefore, he is really
gracious to all ; yet he is not equally gracious : for he gives to sonic.
persons, families, Churches, and nations, more power and opportunity
to do and receive good, more means of grace, yea, more excellent
means, more time to use those means, and more energy of the Spirit
in the use of them, than he gives to other persons, families, Churches,
and nations. With respect to the election of grace, therefore, there is
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 301
great partiality in God, and so far is this partiality from being in any
degree caused by any natural or evangelical worth, that it is itself the
first cause of all natural excellences, and evangelical worthiness.
Hence it appears, that the doctrine of the Pelagians destroys the doc
trines of partial grace : the capital error of those who inconsiderately
oppose Calvinism, consisting in denying the gracious, electing, and
reprobating partiality of God ; and in supposing that the reasons of
God's election and reprobation are always taken from ourselves ; that
God never elected some men in Christ, merely " after the counsel of his
own absolute will ;" and that the doctrine of a gratuitous election and
reprobation is both unscriptural and horrible.
Having thus stated the doctrine of grace, and the opposite error of
Pelagius, I encounter that famous champion of the rigid free willers, not
with a sling and a few stones, but with the Bible and some plain quota
tions from it, which will establish and illustrate the gratuitous election
and reprobation, into which the doctrine of partial grace is subdivided.
I have already observed, in the Scripture Scales, that « the election
of [partial] grace" is taught in that part of the parable of the talents,
where it is said, that the master chose and " called his own servants,
and delivered unto them HIS [not THEIR] goods ; freely giving to one
FIVE talents, to another TWO, and to another ONE," Matt, xxv, 14, 15.
In this free distribution of the master's goods to the servants, we see a
striking emblem of God's partiality.
Should a Pelagian deny it, and say that God does not deal out his
talents of grace with Calvinian freeness, but according to the several
abilities of his servants, I reply, by asking the following questions : (1.)
How came these servants to be? (2.) How came they to be his ser
vants ? And, (3.) How came they to have every one HIS several ability ?
Was this several ability acquired merely by dint of unassisted, personal
industry? If you reply in the affirmative, you absurdly hold that God
casts all his rational creatures in the same mould, that they are all
exactly alike both by nature and by grace, and that they alone " make
themselves to differ," as often as there is any difference. If you reply
in the negative, you give up the ground of Pelagianism, and grant that
God of his rich, undeserved goodness, gives to " every one his several
primary abilities" of nature and grace : and when he does this, what
does he do, but display a primary election and reprobation of grace ;
seeing he distributes these natural and gracious abilities in as distin
guishing a manner as five are distinguished from one ; arbitrarily re
probating from four talents the persons, families, Churches, and nations
which he elects only to one talent.
This scripture, " Learn not to think of men above what is written,
that not. one of you be puffed up : for who maketh thee to differ," with
respect to the first number of thy talents ? " Which of them is it that
thou didst not receive ? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou
glory as if thou hadst not received it ?" 1 Cor. iv, 6, 7. This one scrip
ture, I say, like the stone which sunk into Goliah's forehead, is sufficient,
one would think, to bring down the gigantic error of Pelagius. But if
that stone be not heavy enough to do the wished-for execution, I will
choose two or three more out of the brook of truth, which flows from the
throne of God. St. James points me to the first : " Every good gift is
302 EQUAL CHECK. (PART
from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights," James i, 17.
I am indebted for the others to our Lord's forerunner, and to our Lord
himself. "John said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given
him from heaven. Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at
all, except it were given thee from above," John iii, 27 ; xix, 11.
If the Pelagian error stands it out against these weighty declarations,
I shall draw " the sword of the Spirit," and aim the following strokes at
that fashionable arid dangerous doctrine : —
Why was Adam elected to the enjoyment of human powers ? Was
it not God's free electing love which raised him to the sphere of a ra
tional animal; that exalted sphere, from which all other animals are
reprobated ? Was it not distinguishing favour which " made him but a
little lower than the angels ?" Let the Pelagians tell us what uncreated
Adam did to merit the election which raised him above the first horse ?
Or what the first horse had done to deserve his being everlastingly shut
out of heaven, and reprobated from all knowledge of his Creator ? Why
was the lark elected to the blessing of a towering flight, and of sprightly
songs, from which the oyster is so abundantly reprobated ; — the poor
oyster, which is shut up between two shells, without either legs or wings,
arid so far as we know equally destitute of ears and eyes ?
If a disciple of Pelagius think that I demean my pen by proposing
these questions, to prove the gratuitous and absolute election and repro
bation, which are so conspicuous in the world of nature ; I will rise to
his sphere, and ask him what he did to deserve the honour of being
elected to the superiority of his sex — an honour this, from which his
mother was absolutely reprobated ; and if he has a rich father, who
gave him a liberal education, I should be glad to know what good works
he had done, before he was providentially elected to this blessing, from
which the bulk of mankind are so eminently reprobated.
Can we not trace the footsteps of an electing or reprobating Provi
dence all the earth over, with respect to persons and places ? Why is
one man elected to sway a sceptre, when another is only elected to
handle an axe, a spade, a file, or a brush ? Why were Abraham, Job,
and the rich man, mentioned Luke xvi, elected to a plentiful fortune,
when poor Lazarus, a notorious reprobate of Providence, lay starving at
the door of merciless plenty ? Why does a noble sot idle away his life
in a palace, while an industrious, sober mechanic, witli all his care, can
hardly pay for a mean lodging in a garret? Why is one man elected
to enjoy the blessings of the five senses, the advantage of a strong con
stitution, and the prerogative of beauty ; while another is born blind or
deaf, sickly, or deformed? What have these poor creatures done to
deserve this misfortune ? And if God can dispense his providential
blessings with such apparent partiality, why should it be thought strange
that he should be partial in the distribution of his spiritual favours ? May
not our heavenly Benefactor have daisies and crocuses, as well as tulips
and roses, in the garden of his Church ? May he not, in the building
of his temple, use plain free stone, as well as sapphires, amethysts, and
pearls ? And why should we think that it is unjust in God to have
moral instruments of a different shape and sound in his grand, spiritual
concert, when David could (without violation of any right) predestinate
some of his musicians to praise God with trumpets, shawms, and loud
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 303
cymbals, when others were appointed to do it only upon a harp, a lute,
and a pipe ?
St. Paul compares believers, who are the members of Christ's mysti
cal bodv, to the various parts which compose the human frame ; and
wisely observes, that though our uncomely parts (the feet for example)
are reprobated from the honour put upon the head, they are, neverthe
less, all useful in their places. His illustration is striking, and would
help Pelagian levellers to see their mistakes, if they would consider it
without prejudice. " There are diversities of gifts" under all the infe-
lior dispensations of God's grace, as well as under the Gospel of Christ,
to which the apostle's simile immediately refers : " The manifestation
of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For the Spirit
divides his gifts of partial grace to every man severally as he will. The
body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I
am not the hand or the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of
the body ?" Is it absolutely reprobated from the bodily system ? On
the other hand, " if the whole body were an eye, where were the ear ?
And if the whole were ear, where were the nose ? But now hath God
set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him,"
that is, according to the good pleasure, counsel, and wisdom of his
electing or reprobating will.
If the Pelagians will contend for their error on a religious ground, 1
meet them there, and ask, What good thing did Adam to deserve that
God should plant for him " the tree of life in the midst of the garden,"
and should lay upon him no other burden for his trial, than abstaining
from eating of the fruit of one tree 1 Would not God have been gra
cious, if he had suspended the judicial reprobation of our first parents
on their refusing to abstain from .all food every other day, for a thou
sand years? Who does not see free grace in the appointment of so
easy a term, by submitting to which he might have made his gratuitous
election sure, and secured the remunerative election of justice 1 Again :
when judicial reprobation had overtaken the guilty pair, what did they
do to deserve that the execution of the sentence should not instantly
take place in all the fierceness of the threatened curse ? And how many
good deeds did they muster lip, to merit the Gospel of redeeming grace ?
the precious promise that "the seed of the woman should bruise the
serpent's head ?" " Verily," says the apostle, " he [the Redeemer]
took not on him the nature of angels : but he took on him the seed of" a
man, viz. Abraham, and became " the son of man," though he is " the
everlasting Father." Is there no partiality of grace in the mystery of
the incarnation? Was it mere equity, which dictated that the Son of
God should come " in the likeness of sinful flesh," to save sinful man ;
and not " in the likeness of sinful" spirit, to save fallen angels ?
But supposing (not granting) that this partiality in favour of mankind,
sprang merely from the peculiar excusableness of their case ; I ask,
Why did the sons of Cain deserve to be begotten of a marked murderer,
who brought them up as sons of Belial ; while the children of Seth
were providentially elected into the family of a pious man, who brought
them up as sons of God ?
But if we will see the election and reprobation of partial grace,
together with the glory of distinguishing predestination, shining in their
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
greatest lustre, we must take a view of the « covenants of promise,"
which God made at different times with favoured men, families, Churches,
and nations ; peculiar covenants, which flowed every one from a pecu
liar election of grace.
Was it not of free, distinguishing grace, that God called \braham
and raised himself a Church in a branch of his numerous family?
Could he not as well have called to this honour Abimelech, kino- Of
Gerar, Melchisedec, king of Salem, or Job, the perfect man in the land
of Uz ? Or could he not have said to the father of the faithful, Not in
Isaac, but in Ishmael, or in the sons of Keturah, thy last wife, "shall
thy ^ peculiarly covenanted " seed be called ?"
Nay, what did Abraham do to be justified as a sinner? Was he not
! 1 7JUSjJred m thls sense' merely b7 receiving God's free gift through
,ith [ Ihe point is important, for it respects not only Abraham's gra
tuitous justification as a sinner, but also the free justification of every
other sinner, who does not spurn the heavenly gift. Dwell we then a
moment upon St. Paul's question, concerning Abraham's justification
asasmner. « What shall we say then ? If Abraham were justified by
works [as a sinner] he hath whereof to glory ;* but not before God.
* "With fear" of offending any of my brethren, " and with trembling" lest I
should injure any doctrine of grace, I will venture to propose here a ibw ques
tions, the decision of which I leave to the candour of those who are afraid of
making one part of the Scripture contradict another. Granting that a sinner
is such can never have any thing to glory in, unless it be his sin, his shame,'
and condemnation, 1 ask, Is there not a sense, in which a believer mav rejoice
or glory m his works of faith ? And may not such a rejoicing or gloWing be
ruly evangelical? What does St. Paul mean, when he says,g<< Lef everylbe
hevmg] man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing [or] glorying
m hiniscaf, and not in another ?•• Gal. vi, 4. Did St. John preach self rifhtaSZ
ness when he wrote "Hereby [by loving our neighbour in deed and m truth]
we shall assure our hearts before him," that is, before God ? « For if our heart
condemn us God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, [that make
for our condemnation, better than we do.J Beloved, if our heart [or conscience]
condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God, [that is, before God
And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments
and do those things which are pleasing in his sight," 1 John iii, 9, &.c. If al
such glorying is Pharisaical^ who was, to the last, a greater Pharisee than the
great apostle, who said, "Our rejoicing [or glorying] is this, the testimony of
world rtcor ilV" ff I T T*7' ^ T haVG had °Ur ^enation in the
' aU
or l f
f 11 ft'" i • 5 TaUl WaS gUllty for livinS' how much more for
full of this glorying? And is it not evident he did, from his own dyino-
speech? "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure fs at
hand. I have fought-I have finished-! have kept-henceforth there is laid
rivfmf atath^T ° o!^to°.U8T5 whi<* the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall
give me at that day " 2 Inn. 1V, 7, 8. Does not St. John exhort us to attain the
height of the confidence in which St. Paul died, when he says, « Look to your
selves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we re
*
on * r , ' au "presnprtua inen «
persons uho have < God's Spirit bearing witness together with their spirit, [and
vice versa vvno have their spirit or conscience, bearing witness together^ with
Gods Spin] that they are the children of God ?•> Rorn. viii, 16. And is it right
to abolish the office of conscience, by turning out of the world all comfortable
consciousness of having done that which is right in the sight of God and by
discarding al tormenting consciousness of having done the contrary, under the
frivolous pretence that our Lord, in his parabolical account of the day of judi
merit, represents the generality of good and wicked men as not bein<r v«'t »ro
perly acquainted with this Christian truth, that whatever good or wrong we do to
THIXMJ.J BIBLE CALVINISM. 305
For what says the Scripture? Abraham believed God [when God
freely called him to receive grace, or more grace] and it was counted
to him for righteousness," Rom. iv, 1, &c.
Now, if "Abraham believed God," it is evident that God offered him-
the least of our fellow creatures, Christ will reward or punish, as if it were done
to himself? Alas ! if the generality of Christians do not yet properly know this
important truth, which is so clearly revealed to them, is it surprising to hear our
Lord intimate that the Jewish, Mohammedan, and heathen world will wonder
when they shall see themselves rewarded or punished according to that doep say
ing of St. Paul, "The head of every man is Christ?" Whence it follows, that
whatever good or evil is done to any man, (but more especially to any Christian/
is done, in some sense, to a member of Christ, and consequently to Christ him.
self! How deplorable is it to see good men cover an Antinomian mistake by an
appeal to a portion of Scripture, which our Lord spoke to leave Antinomianism
no shadow of covering !
Should it be said that the evangelical glorying, for which I plead after St.
Paul, is subversive of his own doctrine, because he says, " He that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord :" I answer, That we keep this Gospel precept, when
we principally glory in the Lord himself, and when we subordinately glory in
nothing but what is agreeable to the Lord's word, and in the manner, and for the
ends which the Lord himself has appointed. When the apostle says, " He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord," he no more supposes that it is wrong to
glory, as he did, «« in the testimony of a good conscience," than he supposes that
it is wrong in a woman to be married to a man as well as to Christ, because he
says, " If she marrieth, let her marry in the Lord." Such a conclusion would
be as absurd as the following Antinomian inferences : — " God will have mercy
and not sacrifice, and therefore we must offer him neither the sacrifice of our
praises, nor that of our persons." "Christ said to Satan, 'The Lord thy God
only sBalt thou serve;' and therefore it is a species of idolatry in domestics to
serve their masters." May God hasten the time when such sophistry shall no
more pass for orthodoxy !
Should it be farther objected, that St. Paul says, " God forbid that I should
glory, save in the cross of Christ !" Gal. vi, 14 : I reply, That it is unreasonable
not to give evangelical latitude to that expression, because, if it be tuken in a
literal and narrow sense, it absolutely excludes all glorying in Christ's resurrec
tion, ascension, and intercession ; a glorying this, which the apostle himself in.
dulges in, Rom. viii, 34. However, that he could, in a subordinate sense, glory
in something beside the cross of Christ, appears from his own glorying in his
labours, sufferings, infirmities, revelations, and converts ; as well as in his preach
ing the Gospel in Achaia without being burthensome to the people. But all this
subordinate glorying was "in the Lord, through whom" he did and bore all things,
and "to whom" he referred all inferior honours. And therefore when he said,
that " the righteous Judge" would give him " a crown of righteousness" for having
"so run as to obtain it," he, no doubt, designed to cast it at the feet of Him, in
whose cross he principally gloried, and whose person was his "all in all."
" But all this glorying was before men, and not before God." So it is said :
but I prove the contrary by reason and Scripture : (1.) By "reason." Next to
the cross of Christ, what St. Paul chiefly gloried or rejoiced in, was "the testi
mony of his conscience," 2 Cor. i, 12. Now I ask, Had the apostle this joy and
glorying only when he was in company ? Did he not enjoy it when he was alone ?
If you s;iy that he had it only in company, you represent "him as a vile hypocrite,
who could change the testimony of his conscience, as easily as he did hie coat
or company. And if you grant that he had this rejoicing when he was alone,
you five up the point; for reason tells us, that all the rejoicing and glorying,
which an enlightened man has in his own conscience, when he is alone, must be
before God ; because an enlightened conscience is a court, at which none is pre
sent but God, and where God always presides.
2. By " Scripture." Paul himself exhorts the Thessalonians so to "walk" as
to "please God," 1 Thess. iv, 1. Now the joyous testimony of our conscience
that wejvalk so as to please God, ruust, in the nature of things, be a testimony
"before" God. St. Peter represents our present salvation as consisting in "the
VOL. II. 20
306 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
self first to Abraham, that Abraham might believe in him. Therefore
a free election, calling, and gift (for an offer from God is a gift on his
part, whether we receive what he offers or not) a free gift, I say, pre
ceded Abraham's faith. His very belief of any justifying and saving
truth proves that this truth, in which he believed, was freely offered and
given him, that he might believe in it ; yea, before he possibly could
believe in it. To deny this is as absurd as to deny that God freely
gives us eyes and light before we can see. Abraham, therefore, who
was so eminently justified by the works of faith as an obedient believer,
was initially accepted or justified as a sinner of the Gentiles by mere
grace, and before he could make his calling and acceptance sure by
believing and obeving : for the power to believe and obey always flows
from the first degree of our acceptance, a free gift this, which is " come
upon all men to justification," Rom. v, 13, though, alas ! most men re
fuse it through unbelief, or throw it away through an obstinate contin
uance in sin. Abraham, therefore, by receiving this free gift through
faith, was fully justified as a sinner, and went on from faith to faith,
till, by receiving and embracing the special grace, which called him to
a covenant of peculiarity, he became the father of all those who em
brace the special callings and promises of God, under the patriarchal,
Mosaic, and Christian dispensations of Divine grace.
I have said that through faith Abraham was f 'ully just ified as a sinner,
because our full justification as sinners implies two things: (1.) God's
freely justifying us ; and, (2.) Our freely receiving his justifying grace.
Just as being fully knighted implies two things: (1.) The king's con
descending to confer the honour of knighthood upon a gentleman ; and,
(2.) Tiiat gentleman's submitting to accept of this honour.
To conclude this digression : the free and full justification of a sinner
by faith alone, or by a mere receiving of the gratuitous, justifying mercy
of God, is a most comfortable, reasonable, and Scriptural doctrine, which'
St. Paul strongly maintains, where he says, " To him that worketh not,
bat belicveth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for
righteousness," Rom. iv, 5. When Luther therefore held forth this
glorious truth, which the Church of Rome had so greatly obscured, he
did the work of a reformer, and of an apostle. Happy would it have
been for the Protestant world, if he had always done it as St. Paul and
St. James ; and if, adding the doctrines of justice to the doctrines of
grace, he had as impartially enforced the judicial justification of a believer
by the works of faith, as the apostle does in these words, " Not the hearers
of the law [of nature, of Moses, or of Christ] are just before God, but
the doers shall be justified — in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men, according to my Gospel," Rom. ii, 13, 16, yea, and in the day
when God shall try the faith of believers, that he may justly praise or
answer of a good conscience toward God," that is, "before God," 1 Pet. iii, 21.
And St. John cuts up the very root of the objection, where he declares, that, by
the consciousness of our love to our neighbour, " we assure our hearts before
God," that " if our hearts condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God ;"
and that if we abide in Christ by walking as he also walked, " we shall have con
fidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming," 1 John ii, 6, 28; iii, 18,
&.c. How surprising is it, that an objection, which is so contrary to reason, Scrip
ture, and the experience of the apostles, should be as confidently produced by
Protestants, as if it contained the marrow of the Gospel !
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 307
blame them, reward or punish them. And how can he do this justly,
without having respect to their own works, that is, to their tempers,
words, and actions, which are the works of their own hearts, lips, and
hands ? This important doctrine Luther sometimes overlooked, although
St. James strongly guards it by these anti-Solifidian words, " Was not
Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac, &c ?
Ye see then how that by works a believing man is justified, and riot by
faith only," James ii, 21, 24.
But a sinner, considered as such, can never be justified otherwise
than by mere favour. Nor can St. Paul's doctrine be too strongly
insisted upon to " the praise of the glory of God's grace," and to the
honour of " the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ,
unto all and upon all them that believe ; for there is no difference : for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God ; being justified
freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ,"
Rom. iii, 21, dec. Here we see that, to the complete justification of a
sinner, there go three things : (1.) Mercy or free grace on God's part,
which mercy, (together with his justice satisfied by Christ, and his
faithfulness in keeping his Gospel promises,) is sometimes called " the
righteousness of God." (2.) Redemption on the Mediator's part. And,
(3.) Faith on the sinner's part. And if an interest in the"4* redemption
that is in Jesus Christ," namely, in his meritorious incarnation, birth,
life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, is what is commonly
called " Christ's imputed righteousness," I do not see why any Christian
should be offended at that Comprehensive phrase. In this Scriptural
sense of it, nothing can be more agreeable to the tenor of the Gospel
than to say, "All have sinned," and all sinners -who are received to
Divine favour, " are justified freely by God's grace" or mercy, through
Christ's merits and satisfaction; or (if you please) through his imputed
righteousness ; or to speak in St. Paul's language, " through the redemp
tion that is in Jesus Christ." For my part, far from finding fault with
this comfortable, evangelical doctrine, I solemnly declare, that to all
eternity I shall have nothing to plead for my justification as a sinner —
absolutely nothing, but, (1.) God's free grace in giving his only begotten
Son "to save sinners, of whom I am chief." (2.) Christ's meritorious
life, death, and intercession, which abundantly avail for the chief of
sinners. And, (3.) The Gospel charter, 'which graciously offers mercy
through Christ to the chief of sinners, and according to which I am
graciously endued with a power to forsake sin by repentance, and to
receive Christ and his salvation by faith. And therefore to all eternity
I must shout. Free grace ! and make my boast of imputed righteousness.*
* Some of my readers will possibly ask why I plead here for the good sense of.
that much controverted phrase, " The imputed righteousness of Christ," when, in
rny Second Check to Antinomianism, I have represented our Lord as highly
disapproving, in the day of judgment, not only the plea of a wicked Arminian,
who urges that " God is merciful, and that Christ died for all ;" but also the plea
of a wicked Solifidian, who begs to be justified merely by the imputed righteousness
of Christ, without any good works. I answer : (1.) I no more designed to ridicule
the above-stated doctrine of imputed righteousness, than to expose the doctrine of
God's mercy, or that of general redemption. And I am truly sorry, if by not
sufficiently explaining myself I have given to my readers any just occasion to
despise these precious doctrines of grace, or any one of them. (2.1 I only wanted
308 EQUAL CHECK. U'ART
And, indeed,
While Jesus' blood, through earth and skies,
Mercy, free, boundless mercy cries,
What believer can help singing,
" Jesus, thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress ;
'Midst flaming worlds, in these array'd,
With joy shall I lift up my head."
To return : the same grace which called Abraham, rather than Teraii
his father, or Lot his nephew ; this same distinguishing grace, I say,
chose and called Isaac to the covenant of peculiarity, from which
Ishmael, his elder brother, was reprobated : a special calling, which
had been fixed upon before the birth of Isaac, and therefore could no
ways be procured by his obedience. In full opposition to Isaac's design,
the same distinguishing grace called Jacob rather than Esau, to inherit
the promises of the peculiar covenant made with Abraham and Isaac.
" For the children not being yet born, neither having done any good or
evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, [to merely gratuitous
favours,] might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, [of arbitrary
and partial grace,] it was said, The elder shall serve the younger."
Nor can it be said that this partial preferring of Jacob had its rise in
God's foreseeing that Esau would sell his birthright, for the above-quoted
passage is flatly contrary to this notion : beside, Jacob himself, by Divine
appointment, transferred to Joseph's youngest son the blessing which
naturally belonged to the eldest. " Joseph said to his father, Not so,
my father :" be not partial to my younger son. " This is the first-bom,
put thy right hand upon his head :" he hath not sold his birthright like
Esau. « But his father refused, and said, I know it, my sou. He
[Manasses] shall be great ; but truly his [younger] brother [Ephraim]
shall be greater than he," Gen. xlviii, 18, 19. A clear proof this, that
the reprobation of grace is quite consistent with an election to inferior
blessings.
Nor was the calling of Moses less special than that of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Was it not God's free, predestinating grace which
to guard against the abuse of evangelical principles, and to point out the absurd
consequences of the spreading opinion, that " God will justify us in the great day
merely by Christ's imputed righteousness, without the works of faith, or without,
any regard to personal righteousness and inherent holiness." This tenet, which
is the very soul of speculative Antinornianism, leaves the doctrine of justice
neither root, nor branch. At this unscriptural notion only I levelled the blow,
which has given so much groundless offence to so many persons, whom I honour
for their piety, love for the resemblance they bear to the holy Jesus, and commend
for their zeal in maintaining the doctrines of grace, so far as they do it without
injuring the doctrines of godliness and justice. > And I am glad to have this
opportunity of explaining myself, and assuring my Calvinist brethren that I would
lose a thousand lives, if I had them, rather than asperse the blood and righteous
ness of my Saviour, or ridicule the Christian covenant, which is ordered in all
things and sure, and on the gracious terms of which (as well as on the Divine
mercy which fixed them, the infinitely meritorious obedience which procured
them, and the atoning blood which seals them) I entirely rest all my hopes of
salvation in time, in the da}' of judgment, and to all eternity. And that this is
Mr. Wesley's sentiment, as well as mine, is evident from his reconciling sermon
on imputed righteousness.
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 309
so wonderfully preserved him in his infancy, and so remarkably ordained
him at Mount Horeb to be the deliverer of the Israelites, and the visible
mediator of the Jewish covenant ? Can we help seeing some distin
guishing grace in the following declaration : " I will do what thou hast
spoken : for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by
name : I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will" proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee ?"
I cannot conceive with what eyes Pelagius cculd read the Scriptures.
For my part, I see a continued vein of distinguishing favour running
through the whole. Does the Lord want a man of peculiar endowments
to finish the tabernacle 1 He says to Moses, " See, I have called by
name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled
him with the Spirit of God," Exod. xxxi, 2, 3. Does he want a captain
for his people, and a man to be Moses' successor 1 Caleb himself is
reprobated from that honour, and the Lord says, " Take thee Joshua,
the son of Nun." The same distinguishing grace manifests itself in the
special calling of Barak, Gideon, Samson, Samuel, Saul, David, So-
lomon, Eiisha, Jehu, Daniel, Cyrus, Nehemiah, Esther, Esdras, Judas
Maccabeus, arid all the men whom the Lord, by his special grace and
power, raised up to instruct, rule, punish, or deliver his people.
I have observed that, in the very nature of things, a gratuitous and
personal reprobation follows the gratuitous and personal election which
I contend for. Is not this assertion incontestable 1 While Jacob and
the Israelites were peculiarly loved, were not Esau and the Edomites
comparatively hated ? When God will show a special, distinguishing
favour, can he show it to all 1 Does not reason dictate that if he showed
it to all, it would cease to be special and distinguishing ? If God had
made his covenants of peculiarity with all mankind, would they not have
ceased to be peculiar ?
Once more : if God could, without impropriety, show more favour to the
Jews than to the Gentiles, and to the Christians than to the Jews ; I ask,
Why cannot he also, without impropriety, show more favour to one Jew,
or to one Christian, than he does to another ? By what argument can
you prove that it is wrong in God to do personally, what it is granted
on all sides lie does nationally ? If you can, without injustice, give a
crown to an English beggar, while you give only sixpence to a poor
Irishman ; why may you not give ten shillings to another English
beggar, supposing your generosity prompts you to show him that special
favour ? And may not God, by the rule of proportion, give you ten
talents of grace to improve, while he gives your Christian brother only
five ; as well as he can bestow five talents upon your fellow Christian,
while he gives a poor Mohammedan one talent only ?
Can any tiling be more glaring than the partiality which our Lord
describes in these words : " Wo unto thee, Chorazin ; WTO unto thee,
Bethsaida ; for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
which have been done in thee, they had a great while ago repented,
sitting in sackcloth and ashes?" Luke x, 13. Who can read these
words with a grain of candid attention, and refuse his assent to the fol
lowing proposition? (1.) God was notoriously partial to Chorazin and
Bethsaida ; for he granted them more means of repentance, and more
oowerful means, and for a longer season, than he did to Tyre and
310 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Sidon. (2.) If God had been as gracious to the two heathenish cities
as he was to the two Jewish towns, Tyre and Sidon "would have
repented — a great while ago" — in the deepest and most solemn manner,
"sitting in sackcloth and ashes." And, (3.) The doctrine of necessity,
or irresistible grace, is unscriptural ; and the doctrines of impartial jus-
tice are never overthrown by the doctrines of partial grace ; for not
withstanding God's distinguishing favour, which wrought wonders to
bring Chorazin and Bethsaida to repentance, they repented not ; and
our Lord says in the next verse, " But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre
and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you," who have resisted
such distinguishing grace.
For want of understanding the partiality of Divine grace, and the
nature of the harmless reprobation, which flows from this harmless par
tiality, some of God's faithful servants, who have received but one or
two talents, are tempted to think themselves absolute reprobates ; as
often, at least, as they compare their case with that of their fellow ser
vants, who have received more talents than they : while others, who
have been indulged with peculiar favours, and have sinned, or idled them
away, consider themselves as peculiar favourites of Heaven, upon whom
God will never pass a sentence of judicial reprobation. Hence arise
the despairing fears of some believers, the presumptuous hopes of others,
and the spread of the mistaken doctrines of grace. By the same mis
take, rash preachers frequently set up God's peculiar grants to some of
his upper servants, as a general standard for all the classes of them,
arid pass a reprobating sentence upon every one who does not yet come
up to this standard ; to the great offence of the judicious, to the grief
of many sincere souls, whom God would not have thus grieved, and to
the countenancing of Calvinian reprobation.
A plain appeal to matter of fact will throw light upon all the preceu-
iag remarks. Are not many true Christians evidently reprobated, with
respect to some of the special favours which our Lord conferred on the
woman of Samaria, Zaccheus, Levi, (afterward St. Matthew,) and St.
Paul? How few have been called in so extraordinary, abrupt, and
cogent a manner as they were ! Nay, how many strumpets, extor
tioners, busy worldlings, and persecutors in all ages, have been hurried
into eternity, without having received the special favours, from which
we date the conversion of those four favourites of free grace !
Has not God in all ages shown the partiality of his grace, by giving
more of it to one man than to another 1 — to persecuting Saul, for exam
ple, than to thousands of other sincere persecutors, who thought, as well
as he, that they did God service in dragging his saints to prison and to
death ? Did not the Lord show less distinguishing mercy to Zimri and
Cosbi than to David and Bathsheba ? Less to Onan than to the inces
tuous Corinthian, and the woman caught in adultery? Less to the
forty-two children, who mocked the bald prophet, than to the more
guilty sons of Jacob, who went about to kill their pious brother, sold
him into Egypt, and covered their cruelty with hypocrisy and lies?
Did he not give less time to repent to drunken Belshazzar than he did
to proud Nebuchadnezzar ? Did he not hurry Ananias and Sapphira
into eternity^ with a severity which he did not display toward Cain,
Solomon, Peter, arid Judas ? Did he show as much long suffering to
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 311
Eli and his sons, or to King Saul and his unfortunate family, as he did
to David and his ungodly house ? Was he as gracious to the man who
gathered sticks on the Sabbath, or to him who conveyed the Babylonish
garment into his tent, as he was to Gehazi, and to King Ahab, whom
he spared for years after the commission of more atrocious crimes?
Did not Christ show less distinguishing love to Zebedee than to his
sons ? Less to the woman of Canaan than to Mary Magdalene ? Less
to Jude, Bartholomew, and Lebbeus, than to Peter, James, and John ?
How soon, how awfully did God destroy Nadab and Abihu, for offering
strange fire ? Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for resisting Moses ?
Uzzah, for touching the ark ? And the prophet of Judah, for eating
bread in Bethel ; when nevertheless he bore for months or years with
the wickedness of Pharaoh, the idolatry of Solomon, the witchcrafts of
bloody Manasses, and the hypocrisy of envious Caiaphas ? Is not this
unequal dealing of Divine patience too glaring to be denied by any
unprejudiced person ?
Does not this partiality extend itself even to places and cities ? Why
did God reprobate Jericho, and elect Jerusalem ? " Jerusalem, the city
which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name
there," 1 Kings xiv, 21. Do we read less than nineteen times this
partial sentence, " The place which the Lord shall choose," even in the
book of Deuteronomy ? Could not God have chosen Babylon, Bethle
hem, or Bethel, as well as the city of the Jebusites 1 Why did he make
" Mount Zion his holy hill ?" Why did he " love the gates of Zion,
more than all the dwellings of Jacob ?" • Is there neither election nor
reprobation in these words of the psalmist ? " Moreover he refused
[reprobated] the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not [passed by] the
tribe of Ephraim : but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which
he loved," Psa. Ixxviii, 67, 68. Again : why did the angel, who troubled
the pool of Bethesda, pass by all the other pools of Jerusalem 1 Why
did our Lord send the lepers to the pool of Siloarn, rather than to any
other 1 And why were Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus,
reprobated with respect to the power of healing Naaman's leprosy, when
Jordan was elected to it ? Was it not because God would convince the
Syrians of his partiality to his peculiar people, and to their country ?
But is this partiality confined to Judea and Syria 1 Or to Egypt and
Goshen ? May we not see the footsteps of an electing, partial provi
dence in this favoured island ? Why is it a temperate country 1 Could
not God have placed it under the heaps of snow which cover Iceland,
or in the hot climates, where the vertical sun darts his insufferable
beams upon barren sands ? Could he not have suffered it to be enslaved
by the Turks, as the once famous isle of Crete now is ? And to lie in
popish darkness, as Sicily does ? Or in heathenish* superstitions, as the
large islands of Madagascar and Borneo do ?
* Mr. Addison gives us this just view of our gratuitous election, in one of tho
Spectators. I shall transcribe the words of that judicious and pious writer : —
"The sublimest truths, which among the heathens only here and there one, of
brighter parts, and more leisure than ordinary, could attain to, are now grown
familiar to the meanest inhabitants of these nations. Whence came this sur
prising change: that regions formerly inhabited by ignorant and savage people,
should now outshine ancient Greece in the most elevated notions of theology and
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Who does not see the partiality of sovereign grace in the sparing of
some nations, cities, and Churches ? Did not God reprobate the dis
obedient Amalekites sooner than the disobedient Jews ? Why are the
former utterly destroyed, when the latter are yet so wonderfully pre
served ? Did not God bear less with Ai, Nineveh, and Carthage, than
he does with London, Paris, and Rome ? Less with the ten tribes, which
formed the kingdom of Israel, than with the two tribes which formed the
kingdom of Judah ? Why does the Lord bear longer with the Church
of Rome than he did with the Churches of Laodicea and Constantinople ?
Is it merely because the Church of Rome is less corrupted ? Nay, why
does he bear so long with this present evil world, when, comparatively
speaking, he destroyed the antediluvian world so soon ? And why are
the Europeans, in general, elected to the blessings of Christianity, from
which the rest of the world is generally reprobated ; most nations in
Asia, Africa, and America, being indulged with no higher religious
advantages than those which belong to the religions of Confucius,
Mohammed, or uncultivated nature ?
If God's partiality in our favour is so glaring, why do not all our
Gospel ministers try to affect us with a due sense of it ? May I ven
ture to offer a reason of this neglect? As the sins forbidden in the
seventh commandment by their odious nature frequently reflect a kind
of unjust shame upon a pure marriage bed, which, according to God's
own declaration, is truly honourable ; so the wanton election and horrid
reprobation, that form the modern" doctrines of grace, have, I fear,
poured an undeserved disgrace upon the pure election, and the wise
reprobation, which the Scriptures maintain. Hence it is, that even
judicious divines avoid touching upon these capital doctrines in public,
lest minds defiled with Antinomianism should substitute their own un
holy notions of election, for the holy notions which the Scriptures
convey. This evil shame is a remain of Pelagianism, or of false wis
dom. The abuse of God's favours ought not to make us renounce the
right use of them. Far then from being wise above what is written, let
us with the prophets of old make a peculiar use of the doctrine of partial
grace, to stir up ourselves and others to suitable gratitude. How
powerful is the following argument -of Moses ! « The Lord thy God
hath chosen thee, to be a special people to himself, above all peoole that
are upon the face of the earth. The Lord thy God did not set his love
upon thee, nor choose thee, because ye were more in number than any
people, (for ye were the fewest of all people,) but because the Lord
loved you, &c. He had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he
cnose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day,
&c. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, who hath done for thee these
great and wonderful things," Deut. vii, 6, &c ; x, 15, 21. "For what
nation is there so great, who have God so nigh unto them as the Lord
our God is in all things which we call upon him for ? Ask now of the
aays tnat are past : ask from the one side of heaven to the other, whe
morality ? Is it the effect of our own parts and industry ? Have our common
mechanics more refined understandings than the ancient philosophers ? It is
owing to the God of truth, who came down from heaven, and condescended to
be himself our teacher. It is as we are Christians, that we possess more excellent
a,nd Divine truths than the rest of mankind."
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 313
ther there hath been any such thing as this great thing is. Did ever
people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou
hast heard ? Or hath God assayed to take him a nation from the midst
c another nation, by signs and wonders, &c 1 Unto thee it was showed
hat thou mightest know [with peculiar certainty] that the Lord he is
God," Deut. iv, 7, 32, &c.
Does not the psalmist stir up the Lord's chosen nation to gratitude and
praise, by the same motive of which the anti-Calvinists are ashamed ?
" Pie showeth his word to Jacob, his statutes to Israel. He hath not
dealt so with any nation. As for his judgments, they [the heathen] have
not known them. Praise ye the Lord, O ye seed of Abraham, ye
children of Jacob his chosen," Psalm cxlii, 19, 20 ; cv, 6.
Nay, does not God himself stir up Jerusalem, (the holy city become
a harlot,) to repentance and faithfulness, by dwelling upon the greatness
of his distinguishing love toward her ? How strong is this expostulation !
How richly descriptive of God's partiality toward that faithless city !
" Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is
of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a
Hittite. Thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy
person in the day that thou wast born ; and when I passed by thee, and
saw thee polluted in thy blood, I said to thee, Live. I entered into a
covenant with thee : I put a beautiful crown upon thy head : thou didst
prosper into a kingdom, and thy renown went forth among the heathen
for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness which I had put
upon t-hee, saith the Lord," Ezek. xvi, 3, &c. If this could be said to
Jewish Jerusalem, how much more to Protestant London !
Should rigid Arminians still assert that there is absolutely no respect
of places and persons with God, I desire the opposers of God's gra
cious partiality to answer the following questions : — When the apostle
says, "The time of heathenish ignorance God winked at, but now
explicitly commandeth [by his evangelists] all men every where to
repent," Acts xvii, 30, does he not represent God as being partial to
all those men, to whom he sends apostles, or messengers, on purpose to
bid them repent ? And does not the Lord show us more distinguishing-
love, than he did to all the nations, which he " suffered to walk in their
own ways, without the Gospel of Christ, aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope,
[founded upon a special Gospel message,] and being without God in the
world? Acts xiv, 16 ; Eph. ii, 12.
Again : when St. Paul observes that " God spake in time past to the
fathers by the prophets ; but hath, in these last days, spoken to us by his
Son," Heb. i, 1, 2 ; is it not evident that he pleads for the partiality of
distinguishing grace ; intimating that God has favoured us more than
he did the fathers 1 And has not our Lord strongly asserted the same
thing, where he says, " Blessed are your eyes, for they see ; and your
ears, for they hear : for verily I say unto you, that many prophets and
righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have
not seen them ; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not
heard them?" Matt, xiii, 16, 17.
Once more : what is the Gospel of Christ, from first to last, but a
glorious blessing flowing from distinguishing grace ; a blessing from
314 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
which all mankind were reprobated for four thousand years, and from
which the generality of men are to this day cut off by awful, providen
tial decrees ? When the Pelagians, and rigid Arminians, therefore, are
ashamed to shout the partiality of God's free, distinguishing grace toward
us, (Christian's,) are they not " ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," and of
the election of peculiar grace, by which we are raised so far above the
dispensations of the Jews and heathens ? A precious and exalted election
or predestination, in which St. Paul and the primitive Christians could
never sufficiently glory, (as appears by Eph. i, ii, iii,) and of which it
is almost as wicked to be ashamed, as it is to be ashamed of Christ him
self. Nay, to slight our election of grace, — our election in Christ, is
to be ashamed of our evangelical crown, which is more inexcusable,
than to blush at our evangelical cross.
Hence it appe,ars that the genuine tendency of Pelagius' error, toward
which rigid Arminians lean too much, is to make us (Christians) fight
against God's distinguishing love to us ; or, at least, to hide from us
" the riches of the peculiar grace, wherein God hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery
of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him
self, when he predestinated us, according to the counsel of his grace,
and the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his pecu
liar grace, wherein he made us accepted in the Beloved, [and his dis
pensation,] that WE should be to the praise of his glory ;" that is, that
WE (Christians) should " show forth the praises" of his distinguishing
mercy, and glorify him for bestowing upon us those evangelical
favours, from which he still reprobates so many myriads of our fellow
creatures.
O Pelagianism, thou wretched levelling system, how can we, Chris
tians, sufficiently detest thee, for thus robbing us of the peculiar com
forts arising from the election of grace, which so eminently distinguishes
us from Jews, Turks, and heathens ! And how can we sufficiently
decry thee, for robbing, by this means, our sovereign Benefactor of "the
praise of the glory of his grace !" Were it not for Pelagian unbelief,
which makes us regardless of the comforts of our gratuitous election in
Christ, and for whims of Calvinian reprobation, which damp or destroy
these comforts, many Christians would triumph in Christ ; and, " re-
joicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory, in the vocation where
with they are called, they would thank God for his unspeakable gift."
They would shout electing love as loudly as Zelotes, but not in the
unnatural, unscriptural, barbarous, damnatory sense in which he does
it. They would not say, " Why me, Lord ? Why me 1 Why am I
absolutely appointed to eternal justification and finished salvation, while
most of my neighbours (poor creatures !) are absolutely appointed to
eternal wickedness, and finished damnation ?" But with charitable and
wondering gratitude, they would cry out, " Why us, Lord ? Why us 1
Why are we (Christians) predestinated and elected to the blessings of
the full Gospel of Christ, from which Enoch, the man who walked with
thee, Abraham, the man whom thou calledst thy friend, Moses, the
man who talked with thee face to face, David, the man after thy own
heart, Daniel, the man greatly beloved, and John the Baptist, the man
who excelled all the Jewish prophets, were every one reprobated ?
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 315
In such evangelical strains as these should Christians express before
God their peculiar gratitude for their peculiar election and calling : and
then running to each other, with hearts and mouths full of evangelical
congratulations, they should say as the apostle did to Timothy, " God
hath saved us [Christians] and called us with a holy [Christian] calling ;
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us [Christians] in Christ Jesus before the world
began, [when God planned the various dispensations of his grace,] but
is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light
through the Gospel of Christ — a precious, perfect Gospel, with which
God hath blessed us, as well as our neighbours, who are ungrateful
enough to " put it from them," 2 Tim. i, 9, 10. In a word, they should
all say to their brethren in the election of [Christian] grace, " Blessed
be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant
mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of
Christ, in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice ;
receiving the end of your [Christian] faith, even the [Christian] salva
tion of your souls : of which salvation the prophets inquired, and searched
diligently, who prophesied of the [Christian] grace that should come unto
you : unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us
[Christians] they did minister the things which are now reported unto
you, by them that have preached the Gospel unto you, with the Holy
Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things the angels desire to look
into," 1 Peter i, 8, &c. " Unto him," therefore, that so peculiarly " loved
us," as to elect and call us into his Christian reformed Church, " which
he hath purchased with his own blood ;" peculiarly redeeming it from
heathenish ignorance, Jewish bondage, and popish superstition — " unto
him," I say, that thus "loved us, [reformed Christians,] and washed us
from our sins," not by the blood of lambs and heifers, as Aaron washed the
Jews, " but by his own blood, and hath made us [who believe] kings
and priests to God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for
ever and ever !" Rev. i, 5, 6 ; Acts xx, 28.
But while reformed Christians express thus their joy and gratitude
for their election to this peculiar salvation, they should not forget to
guard this comfortable doctrine in as anti-Solifidian a manner as St.
Paul and St. Peter did, when they said to their fellows elect, " If every
transgression and disobedience [against the Gospel of Jewish salvation]
received a just recompense of reward ; how shall WE escape if WE
neglect so great salvation, as that which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord Jesus," and his apostles ! " Wherefore the rather, brethren,
partakers of the heavenly calling" in Christ, who is " the Apostle and
High Pri,est of our profession" or dispensation, " give diligence to make
your [high] calling and [distinguishing] election sure; for, if ye do
these things, ye shall never fall" into the aggravated ruin which awaits
the " neglecters of so great salvation," Hebrews ii, 2, 3 ; iii, 1 ; 2
Peter i, 10.
Should a rigid Arminian say, " I cannot reconcile your doctrine of
partial grace with Divine goodness and equity, and therefore I cannot
receive it ; why should not God bear with all men as long as he did
with Manasses? With all nations as long as he did with the Jews? And
316 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
with all Churches as long as he does with the Church of Rome ?" 1
answer : —
Mercy may lengthen out her cords on particular occasions to display
her boundless extent. But if she did so on all occasions, she would
countenance sin, and pour oil on the fire of wickedness. If God dis
played the same goodness and long suffering toward all sinners, Churches,
and nations, then all sinners would be spared till they had committed
as many atrocious crimes as Manasses, who filled Jerusalem with blood
and witchcraft. All fallen Churches would be tolerated, till they had
poisoned the Gospel truth with as many errors as the Church of Rome
imposes upon her votaries. And all corrupted nations would not only be
preserved till they had actually "sacrificed their sons and daughters
to devils ;" but also till they had an opportunity to " kill the Prince of
life," coming in person to " gather them as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings." So universal a mercy as this would be the greatest
cruelty to myriads of men, and instead of setting off Divine justice, would
for a time lay it under a total eclipse.
Beside, according to this impartial, this levelling scheme, God would
have been obliged to make all men kings, as Manasses ; all Churches
Christian, as the Church of Rome ; and all people his peculiar people,
as the Jewish nation. But even then distinguishing grace would not
have been abolished : unless God had made all men archangels, all
Churches like the triumphant Church, and all nations like the glorified
nation which inhabits the heavenly Canaan. So monstrous are the ab
surdities which result from the levelling scheme of the men who laugh at
the doctrine of the Gospel dispensations ; and of those who will not allow
Divine sovereignty and supreme wisdom to dispense unmerited favours
as they please ; and to deal out their talents with a variety which, upon
the whole, answers the most excellent 'ends ; as displaying best the. ex
cellency of a government, where sovereignty, mercy, and justice wisely
agree to sway their common sceptre !
Should a Pelagian leveller refuse to yield to these arguments, under
pretence that " they lead to the Calvinian doctrines of lawless grace, free
wrath, and absolute reprobation ;" I answer this capital objection five
different ways : —
1. The objector is greatly mistaken : for, holding forth the gratuitous
reprobation of partial grace, as the Scriptures do, is the only way to
open the eyes of candid Calvinists, to keep the simple from drinking
into their plausible error, and to rescue the multitude of passages, on
which they found their absolute, gratuitous predestination to eternal life
and eternal death. I say it again, rigid Calvinism is the child of con
fusion, and lives merely by sucking its mother's corrupted milk. Would
you destroy the brat, only kill its mother : destroy confusion : " divide
the word of God aright :" and thus lead the rigid Predestinarians to the
truth — the delightful truth, whence their error has been derived " by the
mistake or sleight of men, and by the cunning craftiness whereby the
spirit of error lies in wait to deceive," and you will destroy the Antino-
mian election, and the cruel reprobation which pass for Gospel. In
order to this, you strike at those serpents with the swords of your mouths,
and cry out, "Absurd! unscriptural ! horrible! diabolical!" But, by
this means, you will never kill one of them : there is fyit one method to
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVIXISM. 317
extirpate them : hold out the partial election and reprobation maintained
by the sacred writers. Throw your rod, like Moses, amidst the rods of
the magicians. Let it first become a serpent, which you can take up
with pleasure and safety : display the true partiality of Divine grace :
openly preach the Scripture election of grace ; and boldly assert the
gratuitous reprobation of inferior grace. So shall your harmless ser
pent swallow up the venomous serpent of your adversaries. The true
reprobation shall devour the false. Bigoted Calvinists will be confounded,
hide themselves for fear of the truth : and candid Calvinists will see the
linger of God, and acknowledge that your rod is superior to theirs, and
that the harmless reprobation of inferior grace, which we preach, has
fairly swallowed up the horrible reprobation of free wrath which they
contend for.
Be neither ashamed nor afraid of our serpent — our reprobation.
Like Christ, it has not only the " wisdom of the serpent," but also the
" innocency of the dove :" you may handle it without danger : nay, you
may put it into your bosom : and, instead of stinging you with despair,
and filling you with chilling horrors, it will warm your soul with admi
ration for the manifold wisdom and variegated goodness of God : it will
make you sharp sighted in the truth of the Gospel, and in the errors of
overdoing evangelists. In the light of this truth you will, every where,
see a glorious rainbow, where before you saw nothing but a dark cloud.
When our serpent has had this blessed effect, you may take it out of
your bosom for external use, and it will become a rod fit to chastise the
errors of Pelagius and Augustine — of Calvin and Socinus. But use it
with such gentleness and candour that all the spectators may see you do
not deal in free wrath, and that there is as much difference between the
gratuitous reprobation, which Calvin and Zanchius hold forth, and the
gratuitous reprobation, which our blessed Lord and St. Paul maintain, as
there is between the blasted dry rod of Korah, and the blossoming, fra
grant rod of Aaron ; between a fire which gently warms your apartment,
and one which rapidly consumes your house ; between the bright morn
ing star, inferior in light to the sun, and a horribly glaring comet, which
draws its fiery tail over the earth to smite it with an eternal curse, and
to drag, with merciless necessity, a majority of its frightened inhabitants
to everlasting burnings.
2. Our gratuitous reprobation is not a reprobation from all saving
grace, as that of the Calvinists, but only from the superior blessings of
saving grace. It is therefore as contrary to Calvinian reprobation, as
initial salvation is contrary to insured damnation. It is perfectly con
sistent with the " free gift which is to come," in various degrees, "upon
all men to justification." We steadily assert, with Christ and St. Paul,
that " the saving grace of God hath appeared to all men," and that all
the reprobates of superior grace, that is, 'all who are refused three, four,
or five talents of grace receive two, or at least one talent of true and
saving grace. There never was a spark of Calvinian free wrath in God
against them. They are all redeemed with a temporal redemption.
They have all an accepted time, and a day of initial salvation, with
sufficient means and helps to " work out their own eternal salvation,"
according to their Gospel dispensation. We grant that God does not
bestow upon them so many of his gratuitous favours as he does on his
<31» EQUAL CHECK. JPART
peculiar people. But if he give them less, he requires the less of them ;
for he is too just to insist upon the improvement of five talents from the
servants on whom he has bestowed but one talent.
To understand this perfectly, distinguish between the two Gospel
axioms, or, if you please, between the doctrines of grace, and the doc
trines of justice. According to the former, God, with a partial hand,
bestows upon us primary and merely gratuitous favours. And, accord
ing to the latter, he, with an impartial hand, imparts to us secondary
and remunerative favours. God's primary, and merely gratuitous favours,
depend entirely on his partial grace : so far all Christians should agree
with Calvin, and hold with him the doctrine of grace. But God's
secondary, remunerative favours depending on his rewarding grace,
conditional promise, and distributive justice, depend of consequence in
some degree on our free agency ; for our free will, by making a bad or
good use of God's primary favours, secures to us his righteous punish
ments, or gracious rewards, that is, his secondary favours. And herein
all Christians should agree with Arminius. By thus joining the peculiar
excellencies of Calvinism and Arminianism, we embrace the whole
Gospel, and keep together the doctrines of grace and justice, which the
partial ministers of the two modern gospels rashly tear asunder.
3. Many of the persons who have been reprobated from superior
/avours by partial grace, have been eternally saved by improving their
one talent of inferior favour ; while some of those who had a large share
in the election of distinguishing grace, are condemned for the non-
improvement or abuse of the five talents which that grace had richly
bestowed upon them. Who, for example, will dare say that Melchise-
dec, Esau, Jonathan, and Mephibosheth, are damned because they were
reprobated with respect to the peculiar favours which God bestowed
upon Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon ? Or that Judas, Ananias,
and Sapphira are saved, because they were all three chosen and called
to the highest blessings which distinguishing grace ever bestowed upon
mortals, — the blessings of the new covenant, which is the best covenant
of peculiarity ; and because Judas was even chosen and called to the
high dignity of the apostleship, in this excellent covenant ?
4. We all know how fatal Calvinian reprobation must prove to those
who are its miserable subjects. A man may be seized by the plague
and live. But if that fatal decree, as drawn by some mistaken theolo-
gists, seize on ten thousand souls, not one of them can escape : their
hopes of salvation are sacrificed for ever. But the gratuitous election
and reprobation, which the Scripture maintains, are attended with as
favourable circumstances, as the elections and reprobations mentioned
in the following illustrations : —
While the sun is alone elected to gild the day, the moon, though
reprobated from that honour, is nevertheless elected to silver the night,
in conjunction with stars of different brightness. The " holy place" of
the temple was reprobated, with respect to the glory of the " holy of
holies :" it contained neither the cherubim, nor the mercy seat, nor the
ark of the covenant ; but yet it was elected to the honour of containing
the golden altar, on which the incense was burned. The " court of the
priests" was reprobated from the honour of containing the golden altar,
but yet it was freely elected to the honour of containing the brazen altar,
THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 319
on which the sacrifices were offered. As for the " court of the Gen
tiles," though it was reprobated from all these honourable peculiarities,
yet it was elected to the advantage of leading to the brazen altar : and
the Gentiles, who worshipped in this court, not only heard at a distance
the music of the priest, and discovered the smoke, which ascended from
the burnt offerings ; but, when they looked through the open gates, they
had a distant view of the brazen altar, of the fire which descended
from heaven upon it, and of the lamb, which was daily consumed in that
fire. And therefore they were no more absolutely reprobated from all
interest in the daily sacrifice, than Caiaphas was absolutely elected to
an inamtssible interest in the daily oblation, in which his near attend,
ance at the altar gave him the first right. Once more : the tribe of Levi
was elected to the honour of doing the service of the sanctuary ; an
honour from which eleven tribes were reprobated. And, in that chosen
tribe, the family of Aaron was elected to the priesthood and high priest
hood : peculiar dignities, from which the sons of Moses himself were all
reprobated. Now if it would be absurd to deduce Calvinian reprobation,
and unavoidable damnation, from these elections ; is it reasonable to
deduce them, as the Calvinists.do, from a gratuitous election to the dis
tinguishing blessings of the Jewish and Christian covenant ?
5. The difference between the partial reprobation which the Holy
Ghost asserts, and that which Calvin maintains, is so important, that I
beg leave to make the reader sensible of it by one more illustration.
God's partial reprobation, which flows from his inferior favour, and not
from free wrath, may be compared, (1.) To the king's refusing a regi
ment of foot the advantage of riding on horseback — a free prerogative,
which he grants to a regiment of dragoons. And, (2.) To his denying
to common soldiers the rank of captains ; and to captains, the rank of
colonels. But Calvin's partial reprobation, which flows from free wrath,
and has nothing to do with any degree of saving grace, may be com
pared to the king's placing a whole regiment of marines in such dread
ful circumstances by sea and land, that all the soldiers, and officers,
shall be sooner or later necessitated to desert, and to have their brains
blown out for desertion ; a distinguishing severity this, which will set
off the distinguishing favour which his majesty bears to a company of
favourite grenadiers, on whom he has absolutely set his everlasting love,
and who cannot be shot for desertion, because they are tied to their
colours by necessity, — an adamantine chain, which either keeps them
from running away, or irresistibly pulls them back to their colours as
often as they desert. Thus all the marines wear the badge of absolute
free wrath ; not one of them can possibly escape being shot ; and the
grenadiers wear the badge of absolute free grace ; not one of them can
possibly be shot, let them behave in ever so treacherous a manner for
ever so long a time. But, alas ! my illustration fails in the main point.
When a soldier, who has been necessitated to desert, is shot, his punish
ment is over in a moment : but when a reprobate, who has been neces
sitated to continue in sin, is damned, he must go into a fire unquench
able, where "the smoke of his torment shall ascend for ever and
ever."
By these various answers candid Arminians will, I hope, be con
vinced, that, although Calvinian reprobation is unscriptural, irrational.
320 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
and cruel, the gratuitous election and reprobation maintained in the
preceding pages is truly evangelical, and, of consequence, perfectly
consistent with the dictates of sound reason and pure morality.
BIBLE ARMINIANISM.
ESSAY THE SECOND.
Displaying the doctrines of impartial justice, the capital error of the
Calvinists, and the excellence of Scripture Arminianism.
THE doctrines of impartial justice rest on these scriptures : — " I say
unto you, that to every one who hath [to a good purpose] more shall
be given : and from him [the slothful servant] who hath not [to a good
purpose] even that he hath shall be taken away from him," Luke xix,
'28. <; Cursed is he that perverteth judgment," Deut. xxvii, 19.
These awful doctrines subdivide themselves into an impartial election,
and an impartial reprobation ; both flowing from Divine justice, which
is always irrespective of persons.
The impartial election and reprobation of justice is the righteous and
wise choice, which God, as an equitable and unbribed JUDGE, makes, or
refuses to make, of some persons, Churches, cities, and nations, judi
cially to bestow upon them, for Christ's sake, gracious rewards accord
ing to his evangelical promises : or judicially to inflict upon them, for
righteousness' sake, condign punishments, according to his reasonable
threatenings; solemn promises and threatenings. these, which St. Paul
sums up in these words :— « God, in the revelation of his righteous judg
ment, will render to every man according to his deeds. To them who,
by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, &c, eternal life :
but to them that do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, he will
render indignation and wrath : tribulation and anguish, upon every soul
of man that doth evil, of the Jew [and Christian] first," as having re
ceived more talents than others ; " and also of the Gentile ; [or heathen :-l
is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without
the law, [of a peculiar covenant,] shall also perish without the law, [of
a peculiar covenant :] and as many as have sinned under the law, [of a
peculiar covenant,] shall be judged by the law," of the peculiar covenant
they were under, whether it were " the law of Moses, or the law of
Christ. For not the hearers, but the doers of the law shall be justified
in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my
Gospel." And lest some should object that the heathens, having neither
the law of Moses nor that of Christ, cannot be judged according to their
works, the apostle intimates that they are under the law of the human
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 821'
nature, which law is written upon every man's conscience, by a beam
of " the true light, that enlightens every man that comes into the world.
For when the heathens," says he, " which have not the law, do by
nature, [assisted by the general light above mentioned,] the things con
tained in the written law [of Moses or of Christ,] these, having not the
written law, are a law unto themselves ; and show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their
thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another," as a
pledge and earnest of the condemnation or justification which awaits
them before the throne of justice, Rom. ii, 5, 16.
And let none say that this is St. James' legal doctrine, into which St.
Paul had slided unawares, through " the legality which cleaves to our
nature ;" for the evangelical prophet is as deep in it as the herald of
free grace. Hear Isaiah : — " Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be
well with them ; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings : wo to the
wicked, it shall be ill with him ; for the reward of his hands shall be
given him," Isa. iii, 10, 11. If Isaiah be accused of having imbibed this
anti-Solindian doctrine, like legal Ezekiel, I reply, that our Lord himself
was as deep in it as Ezekiel arid St. James ; witness his last charge : —
" Behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give every
man according as his work shall be. Blessed are they that do his
commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may
enter into the heavenly city of God : tor without are dogs, &c, [all
manner of evil workers,] and whosoever loveth or maketh a lie," Rev.
xxii, 12, 15. The "few names in Sardis which have not defiled their
garments, shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy," Rev. iii,
4. " Watch ye, &c, that you may be counted worthy to escape ail
these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man,"
Luke xxi, 37.
The election of justice is then nothing but the impartiality with which
God makes choice of his good and faithful servants, rather than of his
wicked and slothful servants, to bestow upon them the temporal and
eternal rewards of goodness and faithfulness, according to their works ;
when he " corneth and reckoneth with them," about the talents which
his free grace hath bestowed upon them, Matt, xxv, 19. Nor is the
reprobation of justice any thing but the impartiality with which God, as
a righteous dispenser of his punishments, reprobates from his rewards
of grace and glory his wicked and unfaithful servants, who do not use,
or who vilely abuse the talents which his free grace hath entrusted
them with.
When God " commands the servants, to whom he hath given his
pounds, to be called to him, that he may know how much every man
has gained by trading," in order to bestow his evangelical rewards with
equity ; according to the election of justice, he makes choice of the
servants who have gained something with their pounds, rather than of
the servant who has slothfully '• laid up his pound in a napkin." And
according to the reprobation of justice, he reprobates from all rewards,
and appoints to a deserved punishment the unprofitable and slothful ser
vant, rather than the faithful and diligent servants, who have improved
their Lord's gifts. Once more: according to the election of justice,
God elec's and calls to a double reward his servants who have given
VOL. II. 21
322 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
double diligence to make their gratuitous election sure. Thus he elects
to the honour of " being ruler over TEN cities," the man whose pound
•" had gained TEN pounds," rather than the man whose pound had only
gained jive pounds, and who, by the rule of equitable proportion, is only
placed over five cities, Luke xix, 15, &c. And, according to the repro
bation of justice, in the day of judgment it shall be more intolerable for
unbelieving Chorazin and Bethsaida, than for Sodom and Gomorrah ;
and for unbelieving London and Edinburgh, than for Chorazin and
Bethsaida ; because they bury more talents, resist brighter light, and sin
against richer dispensations of Divine grace, Matt, x, 15.
With regard to the election and reprobation of justice, "there is abso
lutely no respect of persons with God :" and evangelical worthiness, which
dares not show its head before the throne of God's partial grace, may
lift it up with humble confidence before the throne of Christ's remunera
tive justice. Hence it is that St. Paul, who so strongly asserts in Rom.
is- that, before the throne of partial grace, " it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy," or favour,
when, and in what degree he pleases, does not scruple to say, when he
is going to appear before the mediatorial throne of Divine justice, "The
time of my departure is at hand : I have fought a good light, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
shall give me at that day : when he shall render eternal life to them who
seek tor glory, by patient continuance in well doing," 2 Tim. iv, 6, &c ;
Rom. ii, 7.
The doctrine of proper merit, or merit of condignity, is unscriptural,
irrational, and wild. The bare thought of it might make an innocent
angel blush before his Creator, and should fill a reprieved sinner with
the greatest detestation. And yet the doctrine of improper or evangelical
worthiness is of so great importance, that if you take it away, you eclipse
Ood's distributive justice ; you destroy the law of Christ, and all the
conditional promises and threatenings in the Bible ; you demolish all the
doctrines of personal rewards and punishments, together with the judg
ment seat of Christ ; and upon their ruins you raise an Antinomian
Babel, whose dreadful foundation is finished, or necessary damnation for
the millions of Calvin's absolute reprobates ; while its airy top is finished,
or necessary salvation for all his absolute elect.
Hence it appears that the mistake of heated Calvin is exactly contrary
to that of heated Pelagius. Pelagianism throws down the throne of
God's partial grace, and rigid Calvinism leaves no foundation for the
throne of his impartial justice. The former of these modern gospels
shackles God our Benefactor ; and the latter pours infamy upon God
our Judge. It fixes upon him the astonishing inconsistency of finally
judging men according to their works, and yet of finally justifying them
without any regard to their works ; and by this mean it indirectly gives
the lie to our Lord himself, who says, " In the day of judgment by thy
words thou shalt be justified or condemned."
Having thus described the impartial election and reprobation of justice.
for which the Calvinists substitute a partial election of lawless grace in
Christ, and a partial reprobation of free wrath in Adam ; I support the doc
trines of justice by the following appeals to Scripture and matter of fact : —
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 323
Search the Scriptures, for they bear testimony to the equity of God,
our rewarder and pimisher. If he praises and rewards one man rather
than another, this difference flows from the holiness of his nature, which
makes "his judicial ways equal." He "loves righteousness and hates
iniquity;" and therefore he judicially "chooses the man that is godly,''
while he judicially reprobates the man that is ungodly. If a veil, as
tliick as that which is upon the Jews, were not upon us when we read
the Scriptures, would we not confess that God's judicial reprobation
impartially turns upon our not receiving the truth, and not living up to
it, that is, upon our voluntary unbelief, and the unnecessitated disobe
dience which flows from it ?
Does not the experience of all ages confirm this assertion ? When
creating grace had gratuitously elected and called Adam to the enjoy,
ment of a paradisiacal kingdom, did not impartial and remunerative
justice put the stamp of Divine approbation upon his faith and obedience,
by equitably continuing him in that kingdom till he sinned ? And did
not impartial justice seal him with the seal of reprobation, when he had
sinned ? Hear the reprobating decree : — " BECAUSE thou hast hear-
kened to the voice of thy wife, &c, cursed is the ground for thy sake.
THEREFORE the Lord God sent him forth from the garden," Genesis iii,
17, 23.
When redeeming grace had reprieved him, and his posterity, did
Divine approbation and reprobation Calvinistically fasten upon their
children? Did not the judicial difference, which God made between
Cain and Abel, spring merely from the personal faith of Abel, and the
excellence of his sacrifice ? Hear Moses and St. Paul : — " The Lord
had respect to Abel and his offering : but to Cain and his offering he
had not respect. For by FAITH Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain." Thus the Lord had respect to Cornelius and his charity.
" His prayers and alms came up for a memorial before God :" But to the
Pharisees, their prayers and alms " he had not respect :" for, by faith
in his light, Cornelius offered more excellent prayers and alms than the
Pharisees. " By which he," like Abel, " obtained witness that he was
righteous and accepted :" God, by the angel, " testifying" of his gifts.
" And, by it, he, being dead, yet speaketh" to all Solifidians, who would
banish the election and reprobation of justice out of the world.
Righteous Seth succeeds righteous Abel : his children do the works
of God, and are, of consequence, the elect of his justice, as well as of
his grace. But as soon as these pious sons of God begin to draw back,
and to follow the worldly ways of the daughters of men, they begin to
rank among the reprobates of justice, and are involved in their dreadful
punishment. Through the apostasy of these sons of God, " the earth
was soon corrupt before God :" and yet "Noah was a just man, perfect in
his generation, and Noah walked with God." Therefore when a decree
of judicial reprobation went forth against "the world of the ungodly," a
decree of judicial election was made in his favour : " and the Lord said
to Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark ; for thce I have
seen righteous before me in this generation," Gen. vii,- 1. Ham, the
father of Canaan, shared in the election which saved Noah ; but, by his
flagrant violation of the fifth commandment, he soon brought upon him-
self a judicial reprobation.
324 EQUAL CHECK.
A degree of vindictive reprobation passes against Sodom, but the sacred
historian, who informs us of it, sets his pen, like a bar of brass, against
the Caivinian doctrine of free wrath : nay, God himself condescends to
speak in our language on that awful occasion. " The Lord said, Because
the cry of Sodom is great, I will go down now, and, [before I judicially
reprobate it,] I will see whether they have done altogether according to
the cry of it, and if not, I will know," Gen. xviii, 20. So far is the
Lord from judicially reprobating his creatures otherwise than according
to works, that is, according to evangelical worthiness or unworthiness.
Agreeably to the same doctrine of justice, God showed favour to
righteous Lot, rather than to the wicked inhabitants of Sodom. For " it
came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God
remembered Abraham," and his cogent plea : (" Wilt thou [reprobate
mid] destroy the righteous with the wicked ? That be far from thee,
to do after this manner ! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ?")
"Arid accordingly God sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow."
His wife shared in this election of justice, for the angels " laid hold
upon her hand," and extended to her the same favour which they did to
her husband. But as soon as she looked back, and broke the command,
ment, " Look not behind thee," she forfeited her election : reprobation
laid hold on her, and she became a monument of God's judicial impar
tiality.
Although God's distinguishing grace shines in his calling Abraham to
be a father of his peculiar people ; yet the election of justice soon goes
hand in hand with the election of grace. How striking are these anti
Solifidian passages ! " I will perform the oath which I sware to
Abraham thy father, &c, BECAUSE that Abraham obeyed rny voice, and
kept rny charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws," Gen
xxvi, 3, 5. Did not God judicially elect that faithful patriarch to the
re wards \>f grace, when he said, " By myself have I sworn ; BECAUSE
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thine only son, that in
blessing I will bless thee, because thou hast obeyed my voice?" Gen.
xxii, 16, 18. Do not these scriptures prove that if Abraham had not
made his election of peculiar favour sure, by obeying God's voice, he
would have forfeited that election as well as Saul and Judas ?
But to return to the election of justice : does not this election extend,
in some degree, even to the children of the godly 1 When God had
said to Abraham, according to the reprobation of inferior grace, " Cast
out the bond woman and her son" Ishmael, did he not say also, accord,
ing to the election of justice, " For Ishmael I have heard thee : behold, I
have blessed him — because he is thy seed ?" Gen. xvii, 20 ; xxi, 13. And
is not the decree of this remunerative election openly written by David,
where he says, " Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord : his seed
shall be mighty upon earth : the generation of the upright shall be
blessed?"
A striking instance of the impartial reprobation of justice we have in
the Amorites and Israelites, the two nations to which God, according to
the election of special favour, successively gave the good land of Canaan.
God's justice would not absolutely reprobate the Amorites from it, till
they had sinned out their day of national salvation, or squandered away
all the time which he had allotted them for national repentance. " I
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 325
brought thee out of Ur to give thee this land," said God to Abraham,
but thy posterity shall not immediately inherit it, " for the iniquity of
the Amorites is not yet full," Gen. xv, 16. And God was exactly as
equitable to the corrupted Israelites, as he had been to the corrupted
Canaanites ; for he would not drive the Jews out of the land of Canaan,
till they were quite ripe for that national reprobation. Hence it is, that
our Lord, by nationally sparing them, suffered them also to " fill up the
measure of their iniquities," Matt, xxiii, 32.
To return : God says to Abraham, " I will judge the oppressive nation,
whom the Israelites shall serve ;" and accordingly he judicially repro
bates Rahab and the dragon — Egypt and Pharaoh. But is Rahab struck
with any plague, is the river turned into blood, before its waters have
been mixed with the briny tears, and tinged with the innocent blood of
the children of God's people ? Is Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea, or
hardened, before he has hardened his own heart, by setting his seal to
the most cruel decrees, and by drowning the helpless posterity of Joseph,
who had been the deliverer of his kingdom ?
Proceed to the book of Numbers, and you see at large the awful
account, which St. Jude and St. Paul sum up in the ^e words : — " I will
put you in remembrance that the Lord having saved the people out of
the land of Egypt," through obedient faith, " afterward destroyed them
that believed not," Jude 5. For " our fathers did all drink of the spirit,
ual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ." But, because
they did not all secure the gracious rewards of justice, notwithstanding
their election of grace, " with many of them God was not well pleased,
for they were overthrown in the wilderness" by the plague, by serpents,
by the destroyer. " Now all these things happened to them," the elect
of distinguishing grace, " and they are written for our admonition," lest
we should not make our election of justice sure by the works of faith :
" Wherefore let him that thinketh he sufficiently standeth," by the elec
tion of partial grace, « take heed lest he fall" into sin, which draws after
it the reprobation of impartial justice, 1 Cor. x, 1, &c.
As a proof that, with respect to the election of justice, God is no
respecter of persons, I produce Moses and Aaron, the great prophet and
the high priest of the Jewish dispensation. They are both elected and
called to inherit the land of Canaan ; but not making this calling and
election sure, they are both reprobated with respect to that inheritance.
The adult Israelites share their reprobation. Of several hundred thou
sand, none but Caleb and Joshua make their election to that favour sure.
Joshua and a new generation of Israelites obey ; Jordan is parted :
Jericho and her wicked inhabitants are destroyed. But Rahab and her
friends, although they were Canaanites, are elected to partake of n
peculiar deliverance, because " she had received the messengers" with
hospitable kindness, James ii, 25. On the other hand, Achan, one of
those who were interested in the covenant of peculiarity, hides the wedge
of gold, and the reprobation which Rahab's hospitality had averted
lights on him for his covetousness. She is blessed as a daughter of
Abraham, and he is destroyed as a cursed Canaanite.
After Joshua's death, God's chosen people corrupted themselves.
" And the angel of the Lord came and said, I made you to go up out
of Egypt, and have brought you into the land, which I sware to youi
32fi EUUAL CHECK. [PART
fathers : and I said, I will never break my covenant with you." Here
is the election of grace ! " But ye have not obeyed my voice. Where
fore I also said, I will not drive out the inhabitants of the land before
you. They forsook the Lord, and served Baal. And the anger of the
Lord was hot against them : whithersoever they went out, the hand of
the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had sworn unto them,"
Judges ii, 1, 15. Here is the reprobation of justice !
I have already mentioned how Phinehas' zeal procured his election to
the highest dignity in the Church militant, and how Eli's remissness
caused his reprobation from that dignity, and entailed degradation and
wretchedness upon his family. As for Saul, " when he was little in his
own sight, God gratuitously made him the head of the tribes of Israel."
But when he grew proud and disobedient, " God judicially rejected
or reprobated him from being king." In his days the Kenites were
predestinated to be delivered from death, " because they showed kind-
ness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt :"
while the Amalekites, their neighbours, were appointed for utter destruc
tion, because " they laid wait for Israel in the way, when? he came up
from Egypt," 1 Sam. xv, 2, 6.
Although the Lord called David, rather than Jonathan, to the crown
of Israel, according to the election of grace ; he nevertheless preferred
David to his brother Eliab according to the election of justice ! " Samuel,"
says the historian, " looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord's anointed
is before him : but the Lord said, Look not on his countenance, or on
the height of his stature, because I have refused [reprobated] him : for
the Lord seem not as man seeth, for the Lord looketh on the heart ; to
this man will I look, who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trenibleth
at my word," 1 Sam. xvi, 6, 7, and Isa. Ixvi, 2. And therefore when
Saul was rejected, Samuel said to him, " God hath chosen a man after
his own heart ; a neighbour that is better than thou," 1 Sam. xv, 28.
" Solomon loved the Lord, and said to him, Thou hast showed unto
my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in upright,
ness of heart, &c, and now, O Lord, I am but a little child, &ct give
therefore thy servant an understanding heart. And the speech pleased
the Lord : and God said to him, BECAUSE thou hast asked this thing,
and not riches, &c, lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart,
and I have also given thee [or elected thee to receive] that which thou
hast not asked, both riches and honour," 1 Kings iii, 3, &c. Here we
see young Solomon, by the power of assisted free will, trading so wisely
with his one talent of initial wisdom, as to increase in wisdom above all
his contemporaries. And yet when he was old, and had got ten talents
of wisdom, he " hid them," not indeed " in a napkin," but in the lap of
the strange, idolatrous women whom he had collected. A demonstration
this, that man is endued with freedom of will, and that, as free grace did
not necessitate Solomon to choose wisdom in his youth, neither did free
wrath necessitate him to choose folly in his old age.
To return : Divine mercy gently holds out her sceptre to some men
whom the Calvinists generally consider as absolute reprobates, while
Divine justice awfully brandishes her sword against other men whom
the Calvinists consider as absolute elect. Take a proof or two of the
former part of this proposition.
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 327
Cain's countenance falls ; anger, the parent of murder, is conceived
in his envious heart : but God addresses him with the gentleness of a
father, and the mildness of a friend. The wretch, notwithstanding,
imbrues his hand in his brother's blood : but the goodness and patience
of God endure yet daily, and secure the frighted murderer a long day of
grace, by threatening a sevenfold punishment to the man that should
slay him. Wicked Ahab repents in part, and God in part reverses the
decree of his judicial reprobation. " The word of the Lord came to
Elijah, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me ? I
will not bring the evil in his days upon his house." What is such a
decree as this, but a judicial reprobation, tempered by a judicial election?
Take one or two proofs of the latter part of the proposition. David
numbers the people to indulge his vanity, and God gives him the choice
of the decrees of reprobation from his special favour. He sins in the
matter of Uriah : a decree of death goes forth against his child, and of
slaughter against his family. Hezekiah's heart is lifted up : he looks at
his wealth with self complacence, and a decree of poverty arid captivity
is made against his house.
What were these severe judgments, but the marks and effects of a
judicial reprobation from the peculiar favour which God had for these
pious kings ?
I have observed in the former Essay how partial grace favoured bloody
Manasseh, in lengthening out his day of grace : but his election of grace
did not hinder the election and reprobation of justice from having their
free course. Take first an account of this reprobation : " And the Lord
spake, &c, saying, Because Manasseh hath done these abominations,
&C, therefore behold I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem, that
whosoever heareth it, both his ears shall tingle," &c. Take next an
account of Manasseh's judicial election : " When he was in affliction, he
besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God
of his fathers, and prayed to him, and he heard his supplication, [reversed
in part the decree of his judicial reprobation,] and brought him again to
Jerusalem into his kingdom. His prayer also, and how God was
entreated of him, &c, behold they are written, &c. Amon did evil as
did Manasseh his father, but humbled not himself, as Manasseh had
humbled himself," 2 Chron. xxxiii, 12-23.
The New Testament gives us the same views of God's righteous
reprobation. Judas, one of those whom " the Father had given to
Christ," John xvii, 12, — Judas, whom Christ himself had chosen or elected,
John vi, 70, — Judas, for whom he designed one of the twelve brightest
thrones in glory, Matt, xix, 28, — Judas " by transgression fell," and was
lost, or to speak according to the Hebrew idiom, became a " son of
perdition," Acts i, 25 ; John xvii, 12. " He loved cursing more than
blessing," and it judicially " entered like oil" into his bones. The decree
of reprobation, which had prophetically gone forth, according to God's
foresight of his crime, now goes forth judicially. He is his own execu
tioner, and another fills his vacated throne. Herod does not give glory
to God. A decree of reprobation overtakes him, and worms eat him up.
Regardless of the starving poor, the rich farmer fills his barns, and the
rich glutton his belly, and a decree similar to that which sealed drunken
Belshazzar's doom is made against them. " The Jewish builders reject
EQ.UAL CHECK. [PART
the corner stone," and Christ says, « The kingdom of God shall be taken
from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." The
master of the vineyard comes three years to seek fruit on his fig tree :
but, finding none, he judicially reprobates the barren nuisance at last.
And patience, which suspends a year the execution of the sentence,
offers to seal herself the decree of reprobation, if the tree continues
barren to the end of the year of reprieve. The wicked servant beats
his fellow servants : the foolish virgins provide no supply of oil : the
uncharitable will not give drink to the thirsty ; and therefore they all
fall a righteous sacrifice to Divine justice. The Gospel feast is provided,
and " all things are now ready." Multitudes of men are chosen and
called to come to the feast, but their frivolous excuses engage the king
to reprobate them. Hear the decree of their judicial reprobation, taken
down by three sacred writers : — " I say unto you, that none of those
men which were bidden [and refused to come in time] shall taste of my
supper," Luke xiv, 24. " The wedding is ready, but they which were
bidden were not worthy," Matt, xxii, 8. "I was grieved with that
generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, &c. So I
sware in my wrath, They shall not 'enter into my rest," Heb. iii, 10.
These decrees breathe nothing but just wrath kindled by an obstinate
contempt of free grace. From these, and the like Scripture examples,
it is evident, that a personal reprobation of justice is an awful and true
doctrine ; and that a personal, Calvinian reprobation of free wrath is as
unscriptural as it is cruel and absurd.
Who can read the Scriptures without prejudice, and not see that the
election and reprobation of partial favour yield to the election and
reprobation of impartial justice? Although God chose and called
Abraham out of distinguishing grace, did he not extend his mercy far
beyond the little circle of that narrow calling and election ? Did he set
his love upon the father of the faithful and his posterity in such a manner
that there was nothing but blind mercy for the favoured seed of Abra
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, and nothing but free wrath, and Calvinian repro
bation, for all who were reprobated with respect to that election?
What shall we say of conscientious Abimelech, venerable Melchisedec,
patient Job, and his pious friends, for whom " God was entreated ?"
What of Bethuel, Rebekah's father ? What of Asenath, an Egyptian
woman, the wife of Joseph ? What of prudent Jethro, and his daughter,
the wife of Moses ? What of the submissive Gibeonites, whose part
God so eminently took, against the children of Israel and the house of
Saul ? What of loving Ruth, a daughter of Moab ? What of the
inquisitive queen of Sheba, and the Sidonian widow, who had charity
enough to share her last morsel with Elijah, a hungry and desolate
stranger ? What of grateful Naaman, the Syrian, whom the prophet
sent away in peace, when he entailed a curse upon Gehazi, the lying
Israelite ? What of humbled Nebuchadnezzar, who was restored to his
former greatness, in as wonderful a manner as patient Job, and penitent
Manasseh ? What of the wise men, who came from the east ; and the
treasurer of Queen Candace, who came from the south, to worship in
Judea? What of the importunate woman of Canaan, the zealous
woman of Samaria, and the charitable Samaritan, who had compassion
on the wounded man, the " poor creature," whom the elect priest had
TIIIItD.] BIBLE AR3IINIANISM. 329
reprobated, and whom the chosen Levite had passed by? Had God
absolutely no respect to their repentance, faith, and charity? Was
there never a " well done ! thou good and faithful servant," for any of
them ? Shall " a cup of cold water," given in Christ's name, have its
reward ; and shall not the oil and the wine of the non-elect Samaritan,
given in the name of humanity, divinity, mercy, love, truth, and right-
eousness, (six of Christ's sweetest names,) shall not, I say, that " wine
and oil" have their reward? Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
Hath he shut up his remunerative kindness in displeasure? Is there
nothing but vindictive free wrath for all that are not interested in the
peculiar "covenants of promise," made with Abraham, Moses, and
" the High Priest of our profession ?" And nothing but flaming love for
Nadab, Ahihu, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Demas, Hymeneus, Philetus,
Alexander, and Diotrephes, who so eminently shared in the Jewish and
Christian covenants of peculiarity ?
If you say, with St. Paul, "All are not true Israelites who are
of Israel," you grant what we contend for : you allow that all
are not the elect of God's impartial justice, who are the elect
of his partial favour ; and that finally the scale will turn for the
retribution of eternal life or eternal death, according to the elec
tion or reprobation of impartial justice, and not according to the
election of partial grace, and the reprobation of free wrath. Who
had ever a larger share in the election of partial grace than David ?
And yet, who ever maintained the election and reprobation of
justice more strongly than he ? Does he not still cry to all the world,
from the walls of Jerusalem, "Verily, there is a reward for the
righteous, [of whatever family, tribe, or religion he be :] doubtless there
is a God that judgeth the earth ?" Does not every body know, that to
judge the earth is to justify, or condemn all its inhabitants, according
to their works ? And when God finally justifies or condemns, what does
he do but declare that the godly are evangelically worthy of walking
with him in white, and of following him to fountains of living water ; and
that the ungodly are every \vay worthy to depart with the devil, and
follow him into the lake of fire ?
I have observed that the election of partial grace extends to cities and
nations ; and so does the reprobation of impartial justice. Take one or
two remarkable instances of it. According to the election of distin
guishing favour, God " chose Jerusalem to put his name there." But
when Jerusalem showed herself absolutely unworthy of his judicial elec
tion, he reprobated her in righteousness. Hear the awful decree : — " I
will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons. The houses of
Jerusalem shall be defiled as Tophet," Jer. ix, 11 ; xix, 13. The mild
Jesus, after a last effort to " gather her children, as a hen gathers her
brood," with a flood of tears, pronounces the final sentence of her judi
cial reprobation : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the pro
phets, — there shall not be left in thee one stone upon another, that shall
not be thrown down."
The gratuitous election, and the judicial reprobation of Jerusalem,
are typical of the gratuitous election of the Israelites, and of their judi
cial reprobation. An account of their gratuitous election is set before
the reader in the Essay on Scripture Calvinism. Here follows an
330 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
account of their righteous reprobation : — " And it shall come to pass,
if thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God, to
observe all his commandments, that the Lord will set thee on high : all
these blessings shall overtake thee ; the Lord shall establish thee a holy
people to himself, as he hath sworn to thee. But it shall come to
pass, if thou wilt not hearken, &c, that all these curses shall overtake
thee, &c. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, until thou be
destroyed, and until thou perish quickly, because of all the wickedness
of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me," Deut. xxviii, -'20.
Again : " See, I have set before thee life and good, and death ana evil,
in that I command thee to love the Lord thy God, that thou mayest live.
But if thine heart turn away, &c, I denounce unto you this day, that ye
shall surely perish," Deut. xxx, 15, &c. Here are the decrees of
God's judicial election and reprobation. According to these decrees,
David says to his elect son, " Solomon, my son, serve the God of thy
father with a willing mind. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee :
but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. Take heed now,
for the Lord hath chosen thee to build a house," &c, 1 Chron. xxviii, 9.
According to these decrees, " Because of all the provocations, dec, the
Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed
Israel, and I will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and
the house, of which I said, My name shall be there," 2 Kings xxiii,
26, 27.
It is only to defend the election and reprobation of justice that St.
Paul says, " God hath not cast away his [believing, obedient] people
whom he foreknew," that is, foreapproved as believing, and obedient :
for, as there were seven thousand believing and obedient Jews, upon
whom impartial justice smiled in the days of Jezebel, under the Jewish
election of partial grace ; " even so at this present time," adds the
apostle, " there is a remnant" of such Jews under the Christian election
of partial grace. That is, a number of Jews make their Christian elec
tion sure, not by the works of the Mosaic law, but by obedient faith in
Christ. And even these obedient believers, in conjunction with the con-
verted Gentiles, the apostle keeps in their duty by threatening them with
reprobation of impartial justice. " Because of unbelief," says he, "they
[the unbelieving Jews] were broken off, .[that is, judicially reprobated,]
and thou [Christian believer] standest by faith. Be not high minded, but
fear. For if God spared not the natural branches ; [so inflexible is his
justice !] take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold, therefore, the
goodness and severity of God : on them that fell [the Jews elected
through distinguishing grace] severity ; but. toward thee [a Christian,
elected by distinguishing favour] goodness, if thou continue in his good
ness, by continuing in the faith of Christ ; otherwise thou shalt also be
cut off," notwithstanding thy Christian election of distinguishing grace.
" And they," notwithstanding their present reprobation of justice, which
is occasioned by their unbelief, " if they abide not still in unbelief, shall
be grafted in :" that is, if they make their Christian calling and election
of grace sure by the obedience of faith, they shall be numbered among
the rewardable elect, the elect that do not perish, the elect of justice as
well as of grace, Rom. xi, 1-23.
The apostle frequently speaks the same anti-Calvinian language : take
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 331
one or two more instances of it : " The end of those things is death,"
that is, final reprobation from life. " But, &c, ye have your fruit unto
holiness, and the end [of this fruit is a judicial election to] everlasting
life : for the wages of sin is death," that is, a judicial reprobation from
life, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ:" an
invaluable gift, which the Redeemer has procured, and which shall be
judicially bestowed upon obedient, persevering believers, as the king's
purses and plates, which are the mere gifts of his majesty, are equitably
bestowed upon them that so run as to obtain the prize. And, therefore,
" so run," says the apostle, " that ye may obtain an incorruptible crown.
Be followers of me : I so run, &c, lest I myself should be cast away,"
according to the reprobation of justice, 1 Cor. ix, 24, &c.
The election and reprobation of partial grace depend entirely upon
.the wisdom and sovereignty of God. The great " Potter hath power over
the clay, to make of the same lump vessels to honour, or to comparative
dishonour," just as he pleases. As a supreme Benefactor, he had a
right to raise the Jews above all nations, by calling them at the third
hour into his enclosed vineyard. He could, without injustice, call the
Corinthians at the sixth hour, and the English at the ninth hour. And
if he call the Hottentots at the eleventh hour, they shall be entitled to the
blessings of the richest election of grace, which are represented by the
penny of the parable, as much as if they had been called as early as
Abraham was ; and had borne the burden and heat of the day as long
as St. Paul and Cranmer did. I repeat it, with respect to the privileges
of the covenants of promise made with the Jews and the Christians,
which privileges our Lord sometimes calls his pence, and sometimes
his talents ; they are ours as soon as we are called, if we do but answer
the call by going into the Lord's vineyard or field. This is what Christ
condescends to call our hire for going into his Church militant — our hire
bestowed according to the election of prevenient grace. But our eternal
reward shall be given according to a very different rule, namely, ac
cording to the election of impartial justice. To secure this reward, we
must not only go into the Lord's field, when we are called ; but we must
sow as we are directed. " Be not deceived," says the apostle when he
stands up for the doctrines of justice ; as God does not necessitate man
by Calvinian decrees of finished reprobation, and then mock him by Ar-
minian offers of salvation : so he " is not mocked : for whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh,
shall of the flesh [naturally and judicially] reap corruption and destruc
tion : [the word has this double meaning in the original.] But he that
soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting," both by
natural and judicial consequence. " For the moral earth, which bringeth
forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from
God :" (" Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom, &c, for I was hungry,
and ye gave me meat.") " But that which bearcth thorns and briers is
rejected [reprobated] arid is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be
burned," according to the fearful sentence, " Depart, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, for I was hungry and ye gave me no meat," &c, Gal.
vi, 7 ; Heb. vi, 7 ; Matt, xxv, 34, &c.
Well then might our Lord and St. Paul charge us to escape the repro
bation, and secure the election of justice. How awful and anti-Calvinian
332 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
are their directions ! " Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted
worthy to escape all these terrible things, and to stand rewardable before
the Son of man," Luke xxi, 36. " Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily,
as to the Lord : knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward
of the inheritance," Col. iii, 24.
From these and a multitude of such scriptures it appears, that when
the Calvinists overlook the impartial election and reprobation of distri
butive justice, they betray as much prejudice as the rigid Arminians do.
when they deny the partial election and reprobation of distinguishing
grace. There is, however, some difference between the extensiveness
of their errors. If rigid Arminianism rejects the partial election and
reprobation of distinguishing grace, it strenuously maintains the right
eous election and reprobation of impartial justice ; and, by this means,
it preserves one half of the doctrines of the Bible in all their purity,*
namely, the doctrines of justice. But rigid, downright Calvinism equally
spoils the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice : for it turns the
holy doctrines of special grace into Solifidian doctrines of lawless grace :
and, with respect to the doctrines of impartial justice, it totally de
molishes them by allowing but of one eternal, absolute, partial, and
personal election, which necessarily binds Christ's righteousness, and
finished salvation, upon some men ; and of one eternal, absolute, partial,
arid personal reprobation, which necessarily fastens Adam's unrighteous
ness, with finished damnation, upon all the rest of mankind. Now,
according to these doctrines of partial grace and free wrath, it is evident
that justice can no more be concerned in justifying or condemning,
rewarding or punishing men under such circumstances, than you could
be equitably concerned in crowning some men for swimming, and in
burning others for sinking ; supposing you had first bound the elected
swimmers fast to an immense piece of cork, and tied a huge mill stone
about the neck of the sinking reprobates. Hence it appears, that,
although a Bible Christian may hold Pelagius' election and reprobation
of justice, he can neither hold Calvin's one election of lawless grace,
nor his one reprobation of free wrath.
But, while I bear my plain testimony against rigid Calvinism, I beg
the reader to make a difference between that system and the good men
who have embraced it. With joy I acknowledge that many Calvinist
ministers have done much good in their generation. But whatever good
they have done, was not done by their errors, but by the Gospel truths
which they inconsistently mixed with their errors, and by God's over
ruling their mistakes. The doctrines of distributive justice belong no
more to rigid Calvinism, than to Nero's private system of policy : but
as good magistrates, even under Nero's authority, steadilv punished vice,
and rewarded virtue ; so good men, who have the misfortune to be
involved in rigid Calvinism, inconsistently deter men from sin by preach
ing the terrors of a sin-revenging God, and by pointing out the rewards
of grace and glory, which await the faithful. Add to this, that by still
holding out the law of God to the unawakened, though that kind of
preaching is absurd upon their system, yet they do good, because, so
far, they preach the doctrines of justice. And by preaching a " rule
of life" to believers, they now and then meet with professors ingenuous
enough to follow that rule. For, as there are even in Billingsgate per-
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 333
sons cleanly enough to wash their hands, although their neighbours
should constantly assure them that they can never get one speck of dirt
off ; that the king must do it all away himself in the day of his power ;
that, in the meantime, his majesty sees no dirt upon their hands, because
he looks at them only through the hands of the prince of Wales, which
are as white as snow, and the cleanness of which his majesty is pleased
to impute to their dirty hands ; and beside, that dirt will work for their
good ; will display the strength of their constitution ; will set off, by and
by, the cleansing virtue of soap and water ; and will make dirty people
sing louder at court, when the king's irresistible power, and their own
deadly sweats, shall have cleansed their hands : as there are cleanly
persons, I say, who would wash their hands notwithstanding such dirty
hints as these ; so there are some sincere souls among every denomina
tion of Christians, who hate sin, and depart from it, notwithstanding all
that some mistaken theologists may say, to make them continue in sin,
in order that the graces of humility and of faith in the atoning blood,
may be abundantly exercised.
Again : the rigid Arminians are greatly deficient in exalting God's
partial grace, and the rich election which flows to Christian believers
from this grace. Now when the Calvinists preach to Christians a gra
tuitous election of distinguishing grace, though they do not preach it
aright, yet they say many things which border upon the truth, and by
which God sometimes raises the gratitude and comforts of some of his
people ; overruling Calvin's mistakes to their consolation, as he over
ruled to our comfort the high priest's dreadful sentence : " Ye know
nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man
should die for the people." Never did a prophet preach the atonement
more clearly than Caiaphas does in these words. Just so do pious Cal
vinists preach the election of grace, and in the same manner is their
preaching overruled to the comfort of some.
But alas ! if this confused method of preaching election be indirectly
helpful to a few, is it not directly pernicious to multitudes, whom it
tempts to rise to the presumption of " Mr. Fulsome," or to sink to the
despair of Francis Spira? Beside, would not doubting Christians be
sufficiently cheered by the Scriptural doctrine of our election, as it is
held forth in the Essay on Scripture Calvinism 1 Are those liquors
best, which are made strong and heady by intoxicating and poisonous
ingredients ? Cannot the doctrine of our gratuitous election in Christ
be comfortable, unless it be adulterated with Antmomiunism, fatalism,
Manicheism, and a reprobation, which necessarily drags most of our
friends and neighbours into the bottomless pit ? And might we not so
preach our judicial election by Christ, and so point out the greatness
of the helps, which the Gospel affords us to make our election sure, as
to excite the careless to diligence without driving them upon the fatal
rocks, with which the Solifidian Babel is surrounded ?
From the preceding remarks it follows, that the error of rigid Cal
vinists centres in the denial of that evangelical liberty, whereby all men,
under various dispensations of grace, may, without necessity, choose life
in the day of their initial salvation. And the error of rigid Arminians
consists in not paying a cheerful homage to redeeming grace, for all the
liberty and power which we have to choose life, and to work righteous.
EQUAL CHECK. [PART
ness since the fall. Did the followers of Calvin see the necessary con-
nection there is between the freedom of our will, and the distributive
justice of God our Judge, they would instantly renounce the errors of
Calviniari necessity, and rigid bound will. And did the rigid followers
of Arminius discover the inseparable union there is, since the fall, be
tween our free agency to good, and the free redeeming grace of God
our Saviour, they would readily give up the errors of Pharisaical self
sufficiency and rigid free will.
To avoid equally these two extremes, we need only follow the Scrip
ture doctrine of free Avill restored and assisted by free grace. According
to this doctrine, in order to repent, believe, or obey, we stand in need of
a talent of power "to will and to do." God, of his good pleasure, gives
us this talent for Christ's sake ; and our liberty consists in not being
necessitated to make a good or bad use of this talent, to the end of our
life. But we must remember that, as this precious talent comes entirely
from redeeming grace, so the right use of it is first of redeeming grace,
and next of our own unnecessitated, though assisted free will ; whereas
the wrong use of it is of our own choice only ; an unnecessitated choice,
which constitutes us legally punishable, as our right, unnecessitated
choice of offered life (through God's gracious appointment) constitutes
us evangelically rewardable.
Hence it follows that our accepted time, or day of salvation begun,
has but one cause, namely, the mercy of God in Christ : whereas our
continued and eternal salvation has two causes. The first of which is a
primary and proper cause, namely, " the mercy of God in Christ ;"
the second is a secondary or improper cause, or, if you please, a con
dition, namely, " the works of faith." Nor do some Calvinists scruple,
any more than we, to call these works a cause, improperly speaking.
Only, like physicians, who write their prescriptions in Latin, to keep
their ignorant patients in the dark, they call it Causa sine qua non;
that is, in plain English, a cause, which, if it be absent, absolutely
hinders an effect from taking place. Thus a mother is not the primary
cause of her child's conception, but causa sine qua non ; that is, such a
cause as, if it had been wanting, would have absolutely prevented his
being conceived.
If the Calvinists will speak the truth in Latin, I will speak it in plain
English. And therefore, standing up still as a witness of the marriage
between prevenient free grace, and obedient free will ; (an evangelical
marriage this, which I have proved in the Scripture Scales ;) I assert,
upon the arguments contained in these two Essays, that our eternal sal
vation depends, first, on God's free grace, and secondly, on our practical
submission to the doctrines of grace and justice ; or, if you please, on
our making our election of grace and justice sure by faith and its works.
To be a little more explicit : our day of salvation begun is merely of
free grace, and prevents all faith and works ; since all saving faith, and
all good works, iiow from a beginning of free salvation. But this is not
the case with our continued and eternal salvation: for this salvation
depends upon the concurrence of two causes ; the first of which is pre
venient and assisting free grace, which I beg leave to call the father
cause ; and the second is submissive and obedient free will, which 1
take the liberty to call the mother cause. And I dare say that the PC-
THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 335
lagiaris will as soon find on earth an adult man who came into the world
without a father ; and that the Calvinists will as soon find one who was
born without a mother, as they will find an adult person in heaven, who
came there without the concurrence of free grace and free will, which I
beg leave to call the paternal and maternal causes of our eternal salva
tion. And therefore, wiiile the rigid Arminians and the rigid Calvinists
make two partial, solitary, barren gospels, by parting mercy and justice,
free grace and free will, let Bible Christians stand up, in theory and
practice, for the one entire Gospel of Christ. Let them marry pre
venting and assisting free grace with prevented and assisted free will ;
so shall they consistently hold the two Gospel axioms, and evangelically
maintain the doctrines of grace and justice, which are all suspended on
the partial election and reprobation of distinguishing grace, and on the
impartial election and reprobation of remunerative justice.
Till we do this, we shall spoil the Gospel, by confounding the dis
pensations of Divine grace ; we shall grieve those whom God has not
grieved, and comfort those whom God would not have comforted ; we shall
involve the truth in clouds of darkness ; and availing ourselves of that
darkness, we shall separate what God has joined, and join what he has
separated ; causing the most unnatural divisions and monstrous mixtures,
and doing in the doctrinal world what the fallen Corinthian did in the
moral, when he tore his mother from his father's bosom, and made her
his own incestuous wife. In a word, we shall tear the impartial elec
tion of justice from the partial election of grace ; and according to our
Pelagian or Augustinian taste, we shall espouse the one, and fight against
the other. If we embrace only the election of impartial justice, we
shall propagate proud, dull, and uncomfortable Pelagianism. And if we
embrace only the election of partial grace, we shall propagate wanton
Antinomianism, and wanton cruelty, or absolute election to, and absolute
reprobation from eternal life. We shall generate the conceits of
finished salvation and finished damnation, which are the upper and
lower parts of the doctrinal syren, whom Dr. Crisp mistook for the Gos
pel ; the head and the tail of the evangelical chimera, which Calvin
supposed to have sprung from " the Lion of the tribe of Judah." But,
if we equally receive the election of grace and that of justice, we shall have
the whole truth, as it is in Jesus — the chaste woman, who stands " in
heaven clothed with the sun, and having the moon [Pelagian changes
and Calviriian innovations] under her feet." Nor will candid Christians
be offended at her having two breasts, to give her children "the sincere'
milk of the word ;" and two arms, to defend herself against Pelagianism
and Calvinism, the obstinate errors which attack her on the right hand
and on the left. She has put forth her two arms in these two Essays ;
and, if her adversaries do not resist her, as the Jews did Stephen" by
stopping their ears, it is to be hoped that some of them will impartially
renounce the errors of heated Pelagius and heated Augustine, and will
honour Christ both as their Saviour and their Judge, by equally em
bracing the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice.
336 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
SECTION V.
Inferences from the two Essays.
IF the preceding Essays on Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism
are agreeable to Scripture and reason, I may sum up their contents in
some inferences, the justness of which will, I humbly hope, recommend
itself to the reader's good understanding and candour : —
I. The doctrine of a gratuitous, partial, and personal election and
reprobation is truly Scriptural. So far Calvinism is nothing but the
Gospel. On the other hand, the doctrine of a judicial, impartial, and
conditional election and reprobation is perfectly Scriptural also : and so
far Arminianism is nothing but the Gospel. For, as light flows from
the sun, so Bible Calvinism does from the first Gospel axiom, (our sal
vation is of God,) and as a river flows from its source, so Bible Arminian
ism does from the second Gospel axiom, (our destruction is of ourselves.)
Confounding these two axioms and elections, or denying one of them, has
greatly injured the doctrines of grace and justice, darkened all the Gos
pel dispensations, and bred the misunderstandings which formerly sub
sisted between the followers of Augustine and those of Pelagius, and
now subsist between the Calvinists and the Arminians.
II. It is absurd to ridicule the doctrine of a twofold election, under
pretence that it flows from what some people are pleased to call " the
flights of my romantic pen ;" since the full tide of Scripture evidently
flows in two channels ; an election of partial grace, according to which
God grants or denies his primary favours, as a SOVEREIGN BENEFACTOR ;
and an election of impartial justice, according to which he bestows
rewards or inflicts punishments, as a SUPREME JUDGE.
III. Nor does this doctrine deserve to be called new, since it is so
manifestly found in the oldest book in the world. An objection drawn
from the seeming novelty of these observations, would be peculiarly
unreasonable in the mouth of a member of the Church of England ; be
cause she indirectly points out the distinction which I contend for.
That our reformers had some insight into the doctrine of a partial
election of grace in Christ, and of an impartial election of justice through
Christ, appears, I think, from the standard writings of our Church.
The beginning of her seventeenth article evidently countenances our
unconditional election of grace in Christ, while the latter part secures the
doctrines of our conditional election of justice through Christ. Few
Calvinists will be so prejudiced as to deny that our Church guards the
doctrines, and consequently the election of justice in this important para
graph : — " Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise
as they are generally set forth in Holy Scripture." Now the pro
mises being generally set forth in a conditional manner in God's word,
it is evident that our Church, in giving us this caution and charge, intends
to secure the conditionally of the election of justice ; the conditionally
of this election being inseparably connected with the conditionally of
God's promises ; just as the conditionally of the reprobation of justice
is inseparably connected with the conditionally of God's threatenings.
In conformity to this doctrine our Church assures us, in her homily
on good works, " If he [the elected thief] had lived, and not regarded
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 337
faith and the works thereof, he would have lost his salvation again :" or,
which comes to the same thing, he would have forfeited his election of
partial grace, by losing the election of impartial justice. Our liturgy
speaks the same language ; witness that prayer in the office of baptism":
" Grant that these children [or persons] now to be baptized, &c, may
ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, through
Jesus Christ our Lord." That is, grant that these persons, who are now
admitted into thy Christian Church, according to the election of grace
in Christ, may so believe and obey, as never to forfeit the privileges of
this election, but may ever share in the privileges of thy faithful chil
dren who are elect in every sense of the word ; the obedient being
the only persons who keep their part in the election of grace, and
secure a share in the election of justice. Such complete elect are the
"sheep" which "hear Christ's voice, and follow his" steps. "None
shall pluck them out of his hands." The talent of their election of
grace shall never be taken from them : they shall all hear these cheer-
ing words : " Well done, thou good and faithful servant !" They shall
all " enter into the joy of their Lord," arid eternally share in the double
privileges of the election of grace and justice.
IV. The gratuitous, partial election and reprobation, which the Scrip
tures maintain, chiefly refer to the three grand covenants which God has
made with man, and to the greater or less blessings which belong to these
covenants. The first of these covenants takes in all mankind ; for it
was made with spared Adam after the fall, and confirmed to preserver/
Noah after the flood ; and every body knows that Adam and >Ioah are
the two general parents of all mankind. The second of these cove
nants was made with Abraham, ratified to Isaac and Jacob, ordained in
the hands of Moses, and ordered in all things, and peculiarly insured to
David. This covenant takes in the first peculiar people of God, or the
Jewish nation ; and includes more particularly David and his family,
of which' the Messiah was to be born. The third of these covenants
was made with Christ, as " the Captain of our salvation," and " ilie High
Priest of our profession," or dispensation ; and takes in God's " most
peculiar people," or the Christian Church. The first of these three
covenants is general. The other two are covenants of peculiarity, the
former of which is frequently called, in Scripture, the old covenant, or
the Old Testament, while the latter is spoken of by the name of the
new covenant, or New Testament. The two first of these covenants
were sealed with the blood of sacrificed beasts or circumcised mei],
but the last was sealed with the blood of the Lamb ef God. Hence our
Lord termed it " the new covenant in my blood," Luke xxii, 20,
calling his blood, " my blood of the New Testament," Matt, xxvi, 28.
Hence also the apostle observes, that " Jesus was made a surety of a
better Testament," and that " he is the Mediator of the New Testament,"
Which is far superior to that which " was ordained by angels in the hand
of Moses," the mediator of the Old Testament : see Heb. vii, 22 ; ix,
15 ; xii, 24 ; 2 Cor. iii, 6 ; Gal. iii, 19.
V. These three grand covenants give birth to Gentilism, Judaism, and
Christianity; three Divine religions, or dispensations of grace, from the
Confounding of which partial divines have formed the schemes of reli
gion, which I beg leave to call rigid Arminianism, and rigid Calvinism.
VOL. II. 22
S3 8 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
VI. The error of rigid Arminians, with respect to those three grand
covenants, consists in not sufficiently distinguishing them, and in not
maintaining, with sufficient plainness, that they are all covenants of
redeeming grace ; that Judaism is the old covenant of partial, redeem
ing grace ; and that Christianity is the new covenant of partial, redeem
ing grace.
Vil. The error of rigid Calvinists consists in confounding the cove
nants of creating and redeeming grace, and in reducing them all to
two : the one a covenant of non-redemption, which they call " the law ;"
arid the other a covenant of particular redemption, which they call " the
Gospel." To form the first of these unscriptural covenants, they jumble
the Creator's law, given to innocent man in paradise, with the Re
deemer's law, given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Nor do they see
that these two laws, or covenants, are as different from each other, as a,
covenant made with sinless man, without a priest, a sacrifice, and a
mediator, is different from a covenant made with sinful man, and
" ordained in the hand of a Mediator," with an interceding priest, and
atoning sacrifices, Gal. iii, 19. Secondly, they suppose that all men
ROW born into the world are under this imaginary law, that is, under
this unscriptural, confused mixture of the Adamic law of innocence, and
of the Mosaic law of Sinai : an error this, which is so much the more
glaring, as no man, except Chris!:, was ever placed under the covenant
of innocence, since the Lord entered into a mediatorial covenant with
fallen Adam : and no man has been put under the law, or covenant of
Moses, from the time that covenant was " abolished, and done away ia
Christ,"' 2 Cor. iii, 7, 14, which happened when Christ said, "It is
finished," and when " the veil of the temple," a type of the Jewish dis
pensation, "was rent from top to bottom.5'
So capital an error, as that of the rigid Calvinists about the law, could
not but be productive of a similar error about the Gospel. And there
fore when they had formed the merciless covenant which they call the
law, by confounding the precept and curse of the law of innocence, with
the precept and curse of the law of Moses, abstracted from all media-
torial promises ; when they had done this, I say, it was natural enough
for thorn to mistake and confound the promises of the three grand
covenants, which I have just mentioned ; I mean the one general
covenant of grace, made with Adam and Noah ; and the two particular
covenants of grace, the former of which was " ordained in the hands of
Moses, the servant of God ;" and the latter in the hands of " Christ, the
only begotten Son of -God." .Hence it is. that overlooking the promises
of the general covenant of grace, and considering only the promises of
Judaism and Christianity, which are two grand covenants of peculiar
grace, the rigid Calvinists fancy that there is but* one covenant of
grace : that this covenant is particular ; that it was made with Christ
only ; that it was a covenant of unchangeable favour on the part of the
* Zelotes will possibly laugh at the insinuation that there is more than one
covenant of grace. If he does, I will ask him if a covenant of grace is not the
same thing as a covenant of promise ; and if St. Paul does not expressly mention
"the covenants of promise," Eph. ii, 12, and a "better covenant," which was
"established upon better promises" than the first, [particular] covenant of pro
mise ? Heb. viii, 6, 7.
THIRD.] RECOXCILIATIOX. 339
Father, of eternal redemption on the part of the Son, and of irresistible
sanetification on the part of the Holy Ghost ; that some men, called the
elect, are absolutely and eternally interested in this covenant ; that other
men, called the reprobates, are absolutely and everlastingly excluded
from it ; that finished salvation, through Christ, is the unaAroidable lot
of the fortunate elect, who are supposed to be under the absolute bless-
ing of a lawless Gospel ; and that finished damnation, through Adam,
is the unavoidable portion of the unfortunate reprobates, who are sup.
posed to be, from their mother's womb, under the absolute, irreversible,
everlasting curse of a merciless law, and of an absolutely Christless
covenant.
VIII. We may say to rigid Calvinists, and rigid Arminians, what
God said once to the Jewish priests : " Ye have been partial in the
law," Mai. ii, 9. Nor is it possible to reduce their two partial systems
to the genuine and full standard of the Gospel, otherwise than by con-
sistently guarding the Calvinian doctrines of grace, by the Arminian
doctrines of justice ; and the Arminian doctrines of justice, by the
Calvinian doctrines of grace : when these two partial gospels arc joined
in a Scriptural mariner, they do not destroy, but balance and illustrate
each other. Take away from them human additions, or supply their
deficiencies, and you will restore them to their original importance.
They will again form the spiritual " weights of the sanctuary," which
are kept for public use in the sacred records, as I humbly hope I have
made appear in the Scripture Scales.
IX. To guard the Gospel against the errors of the rigid Calvinists,
and the rigid Arminians, we need then only show that God, as Creator,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier, has a right to be, and actually is partial in the
distribution of grace ; but that as Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge, he is,
and ever will be, impartial in the distribution of justice : or, which comes
to the same thing, we need only restore the doctrine of God's various
laws, or covenants of grace, to their Scripture lustre. Rigid Calvinism
will be lost in Bible Armimanism, and rigid Arminianism will be lost in
Bible Calvinism, as soon as Protestants will pay a due regard to the
following truths: (1.) God, for Christ's sake, dissolved, with respect to
us, the covenant of paradisiacal innocence, when he turned man out of
a forfeited paradise into this cursed world, for having broken thai
covenant. Then it was that man's Creator first became his Redeemer ;
then mankind were placed under the first mediatorial covenant of pro
mise. Then our Maker gave to Adam, and to all the human species,
which was in Adam's loins, a Saviour, who is called " the seed of the
woman, — the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," who was
to make the paradisiacal covenant honourable by his sinless obedience.
(2.) Accordingly, " Christ, by the grace of God. tasted death for everv
man ;" purchasing for all men the privileges of the general covenant of
grace, which God made with Adam, and ratified to Noah, the second
general parent of mankind. (3.) Christ, according to the peculiar pre
destination and election of God, peculiarly tasted death for the Jews, his
first chosen nation and peculiar people ; purchasing for them all the
privileges of the peculiar covenant of grace, which the Scriptures call
the old covenant of peculiarity. (4.) That Christ, according to the
most peculiar predestination and election of God, most peculiarly tasted
840 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
death for the Christians, his second chosen nation and most peculiar
people ; procuring for them the invaluable privileges of his own most
precious Gospel, "by which he has brought life and immortality to
meridian light ;" and has richly supplied the defects of the Noahic and
Mosaic dispensations ; the first of which is noted for its darkness ; and
the second for its veils and shadows. And lastly, that with respect to
these peculiar privileges, Christ is said to have peculiarly " given him
self for trie Christian Church, that he might cleanse it with the bap
tismal washing of water by the word," Eph. v, 26 ; peculiarly " pur
chasing it by his own blood," Acts xx, 28 ; and delivering it from
heathenish darkness, and Jewish shadows, that it might be " redeemed
from all iniquity," and that his Christian people might be a "peculiar
people to himself, zealous of good works," even above the Jews who
"fear God," and the Gentiles who "work righteousness," Tit. ii, 14.
X. As soon as we understand the nature of " the covenants of pro
mise," and the doctrine of the dispensations of Divine grace, we have a
key to open the mystery of God's gratuitous election and reprobation.
We can easily understand, that when a man is elected only to the general
blessings of Gentilism, he is reprobated from the blessings peculiar to
Judaism and Christianity ; and that when he is elected to the blessings
of Christianity, he is elected to inherit the substance of all the covenanted
blessings of God, because the highest dispensation takes in the inferior
ones ; as the authority of a colonel includes that of a lieutenant and a
captain : or as meridian light takes in the dawn of day and the morning
light.
XI. Our election from Gentilism or Judaism to the blessings of Chris-
tianity, is an election of peculiar grace. It is to be hoped, that few
Arminians are so unreasonable as to think that God might not have
deprived us of New Testament blessings, as he did Moses ; and of Old
Testament blessings, as he did Noah ; leaving us under the general
covenant of Gentilism, as he did that patriarch.
XII. When God gratuitously elected and called the Jews to be his
peculiar people, and chosen nation, he reprobated all the other nations,
that is, all the Gentiles, from that honour ; an unspeakable honour this,
which the Jews thought God had appropriated to them for ever. But
when Christ formed his Church, he elected to its privileges the Gentiles
as well as the Jews; insomuch that, to enter into actual possession of
all the blessings of Christianity, when a Jew or Gentile is called by the
preaching of the Gospel of Christ, nothing more is required of him, than
to " make his free calling and election sure," by " the obedience of
faith." That God had a right to extend his election of peculiar grace
to the believing Gentiles, and to reprobate the unbelieving Jews, is the
point which St. Paul chiefly labours in Rom. ix. And that the privileges
of this election, which God has extended to the Gentiles, are immensely
great, is what the apostle informs us of in the three first chapters of his
Epistle to the Ephesians.
XIII. Our election to Christianity, and its peculiar blessings, being
entirely gratuitous, and preceding every work of Christian obedience ;
nothing can be more absurd and unevangeiical, than to rest it upon
works of any sort. Hence it is, that when St. Paul maintains the par
tial election of richest grace, he says, speaking of the Jews, " There is
THIRD.] KECONCTLIATION. 341
[among them] a remnant according to the election of grace." That is,
" There is a considerable number of Jews, who, like myself, make their
gratuitous calling and election to the blessings of Christianity sure
through faith." For wherever there were Jews and Gentiles, the Jews
had the honour of the first call : so far was God from absolutely repro
bating them from his Christian " covenant of promise !" If you ask,
why the apostle calls this election to the blessings of Christianity " the
election of grace," I answer, that it peculiarly deserves this name,
because it is both peculiarly gracious, and amazingly gratuitous. And
therefore, adds the apostle, " if this election is by mere grace, then it is
no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more mere grace. But if it
be of works, then it is no more of mere grace : otherwise work is no
more work," Rom. xi, 5, 6.*
XIV. If the rigid Arminians are culpable for being ashamed of God's
evangelical partiality, for overlooking his distinguishing love, and for
casting a veil over his election of grace ; the rigid Calvinists are not less
blamable, for turning that holy election into an unscriptural and abso
lute election, which leaves no room for the propriety of making our
" election sure," and is attended with an unscriptural arid absolute repro
bation, as odious- as free wrath, and as dreadful as insured damnation.
This merciless and absolute reprobation is the fundamental error of
the rigid Papists, as well as of the rigid Calvinists. Take away this
popish principle, " There is no salvation out of the Church : a damning
reprobation rests upon all who die out of her pale ;" and down comes
persecuting popery. There is no pretext left to force popish errors upon
men by fire, faggots, or massacres ; and the burning of heretics gives
place to the charity which hopeth all things. Again : take away this
principle of the rigid Calvinists, " There is absolutely no redemption, no
salvation, but for a remnant according to the new covenant, and the
election of God's partial grace ; an absolute reprobation, and an un
avoidable damnation, rest upon all mankind beside ;" take away, I say,
this principle of the rigid Calvinists, and down comes unscriptural Cal
vinism, with all the contentions which it perpetually begets.
XV. The rigid Papists, who set up themselves as defenders of the
doctrines of justice, and yet hold popish reprobation, are full as incon
sistent as the rigid Calvinists, who come forward as defenders of the
doctrines of grace, and yet hold Calvinian reprobation : for popish and
Calvinian reprobation equally confound the Gospel dispensations, and
leave Divine justice and grace neither root nor branch, with respect to
all those who die unacquainted with Christianity, that is, with respect to
far the greatest part of mankind.
* My light and theological accuracy have, I hope, increased since I wrote the
sermon on these words. I did not then clearly see that the election of grace, of
which the apostle speaks in this verse, is our gratuitous election to the blessings
of Christianity as it is opposed to Judaism, and not merely as it is opposed to
the Adamic covenant of works. I had not then sufficiently considered these
words of St. John : — " The law [that is, the Jewish dispensation] came by Moses,
but grace and truth [that is, a more gracious and brighter dispensation] " came
by Jesus Christ." Hence it follows, that this expression, " the election of grace,"
when a sacred writer speaks of the Jewish and of the Christian dispensations,
which St. Paul does throughout this part of his Epistle to the Romans, means
our gratuitous election to Christianity, or to the peculiar blessings of the Gospel
of Christ.
342 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
XVI. To conclude: Milton says somewhere, "There is a certain
scale of duties, a certain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which
for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion."
What that great man said of the scale of duties and commands, may
with equal propriety be affirmed of the scale of evangelical truths, and
the hierarchy of upper and lower Gospel dispensations. For want of
studying them in right order, all the Church is in confusion. The most
effectual, not to say the only way of ending these theological disputes
of Christians, and destroying the errors of levelling Pelagianism, Anti-
nomian Calvinism, confused Arminianism, and reprobating popery, is to
restore primitive harmony and fulness to the partial gospels of the day ;
which can be done with ease, among candid and judicious inquirers
after truth, by placing the doctrine of the dispensations in its Scripture
light ; and by holding forth the doctrines of grace and justice in all their
evangelical brightness. This has been attempted in the two Essays from
which these inferences are drawn. Whether the well-meant, attempt
shall be successful with respect to one, is a question, which thy reason
and candour, gentle reader, are called upon to decide.
SECTION VI.
The plan of a general reconciliation and union between the moderate
Calvinists and the candid Armi?iians.
BY the junction of the doctrines of grace and justice, which, I hope,
is effected in the two Essays on Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism,
the Gospel of Christ recovers its original fulness and glory, and the two
Gospel axioms are equally secured : for, on the one hand, the absolute
sovereignty and partial goodness of our Great T and Redeemer shine as
the meridian blaze of day, without casting the -east shade upon his truth
and equity : you have an election of free grace, without a reprobation
of free wrath. And, on the other hand, the impartial justice of our
Governor and Judge appears like an unspotted sun, whose brightness is
perfectly consistent with the transcendent splendour of free grace and
distinguishing love. The elect receive " the reward of the inheritance"
with feelings of pleasing wonder and shouts of humble praise. Nor
have the reprobates the least ground to say, that the Judge of all the
earth does not do right, and that they are lost merely because irresistible
power necessitated them to sin by Adam without remedy, that they
might be damned by Christ without possibility of escape. Thus the
gracious and righteous ways of God with man are equally vindicated,
and the whole controversy terminates in the following conclusion, which
is the ground of the reconciliation, to which moderate Calvinists and
candid Arminians are invited.
Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism are two essential opposite
parts of the Gospel, which agree as perfectly together as two wings of
a palace, the opposite ramparts of a regular fortress, and the different
views of a fine face, considered by persons who stand, some on the
right and some on the left hand of the beauty who draws their attention.
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 343
Rigid Calvinists* and rigid Arminians* are both in the wrong ; the former
in obscuring the doctrines of impartial justice, and the latter in clouding
the doctrines of partial grace : but moderate Calvinists* and candid Armi
nians* are very near each other, and very near the truth ; the difference
there is between them being more owing to confusion, want of proper
explanation, and misapprehension of each other's sentiments, than to any
real, inimical opposition to the truth, or to one another. And therefore,
they have no more reason to fall out with each other, than masons who
build the opposite wings of the same building ; soldiers, who defend the
opposite sides of the same fortification ; painters, who take different views
of the same face ; or loyal subjects, who vindicate different, but equally
just claims of their royal master.
Since there is so immaterial a difference between the moderate Cal
vinists and the candid Arrninians, why do they keep at such distance
from each other ? Why do they not publicly give one another the right
hand of fellowship, and let all the world know that they are brethren,
and will henceforth own, love, help, and defend each other as such ?
* Rigid Calvinists are persons who hold the Manichean doctrine of absolute
necessity, and maintain both an unconditional election of free grace in Christ, and
an unconditional reprobation of free wrath in Adam. Moderate Calvinists are
men who renounce the doctrine of absolute necessity,- stand up for the election
of free grace, and are ashamed of the reprobation of free wrath. Rigid Arminians
are persons who will not hear of an unconditional election, make more of free
will than of free grace, oppose God's gracious sovereignty, deny his partiality, and
condemn Calvinism in an unscriptural manner. Candid Arrninians are people
who mildly contend for the doctrines of justice, and are willing to hear with
candour what the judicious Calvinists have to say in defence of the doctrines of
grace.
In my Preparatory Essay, I have expressed myself as one, who sometimes doubts
whether Arminius did see the doctrine of election in a clear light. It, may be
proper to account here for a degree of seeming inconsistency into which this
transient doubt has betrayed me. Having been long ill, and at a distance from
my books, I have not lately looked into Arrninius' Works ; nor did I over read
them carefully through, as every one should have done, who positively condemns
or clears him. And if I have somewhere positively said, that he was not clear
in the doctrine of election, I did it, (1.) Because I judged of Arminius' doctrine by
that of the Arminians, who seem to me to bo in general (as I had been for years)
unacquainted with the distinction between the election of grace and that of jus
tice. (2.) Because, at the synod of Dort, the Arminians absolutely refused to
debate h'rst the point of election, which the Calvinists wanted them to do. Whence
I concluded that Arminius had not placed that, point of doctr.-ne in a light strong
enough to expel the darkness which rigid Calvin ists had spread over it. And"
(3.) ik'cruise it is generally supposed that Arminius leaned to the error of Pelagius,
who did not do justice to the election of grace. Mr. Bayle, for ev-amr>k;, in his life
of Arminius, says, " Arminius condemned the Supralapsarian Beza, and afterward
acknowledged no other election than that which was grounded on the obedience
of sinners to the call of God by Jesus Christ." If this account of Mr. li.iyle bo
just, it k> evident that Arminius, as well as Pelagius, admitted only the election
of justice. However, a candid clergyman, who has read Arrninius, assures ino
that in some parts of his writings, he does justice to the unconditional election of
grace. And indeed this election is so conspicuous in the Scriptures, that it is
hard to conceive it should never have been discovered by so judicious a divine as
Arminius is said to have been. The difficulty in this matter is not to meet, and
salute the truth now and then, hut to hold her fast, and walk .steadily willi her,
across all the mazes of error. The light of evangelists should not break forth now
and then, as a flash of lightning does out of a dark cloud; but it should shine
constantly, and with increasing lustre, as the light of the eclipsed sun.
344 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
That no essential difference keeps them asunder, I prove by the follow,
ing argument : —
If candid Arminians will make no material objection to my Essay on
Bible Calvinism ; and if judicious Calvinists will not condemn my Essay
oa Bible Armiriianism as unscriptural, it is evident that the difference
between them is not capital, and that it arises rather from want of light
to see the whole truth clearly, than from an obstinate enmity to any ma
terial part of the truth.
Nor is this a sentiment peculiar to myself : I hold it in common with
some of the most public defenders of the doctrines of grace and justice.
The Arminians will not think that Mr. J. Wesley is partial to the Cal
vinists, and the professing world is no stranger to Mr. Rowland Hill's
zeal against the Arminians. Nothing can be more opposite than the
religious principles of these two gentlemen. Nevertheless, they both
agree to place the doctrines which distinguish pious Calvinists from pious
Arminians, among the opinions which are not essential to genuine, vital,
practical Christianity. Mr. Wesley, in his thirteenth Journal, page 115,
says, in a letter to a friend, " You have admirably well expressed what 1
mean by an opinion, contradistinguished from an essential doctrine.
Whatever is compatible with love to Christ, and a work of grace, I term
an opinion, and certainly the holding particular election and final perse
verance is compatible with these." What he adds in the next page is
perfectly agreeable to this candid concession : " Mr. H — and Mr. N —
hold this, and yet I believe these have real Christian experience. But
if so, this is only an opinion : it is not subversive [here is clear proof to
the contrary] of the very foundations of Christian experience. It is com
patible with love to Christ, and a genuine work of grace ; yea, many hold
it, at whose feet I desire to be found in the day of the Lord Jesus. If
then I oppose this with my whole strength, I am a mere bigot still." As
Mr. Wesley candidly grants here that persons may hold the Calvinian
opinions which Mr. Hill patronizes, and yet be full of love to Christ,
and have a genuine work of grace on their souls ; so Mr. Hill, in his
late publication, entitled, A Full Answer to the Rev. .7. Wesley's Remarks,
page 42, candidly acknowledges that it is possible to hold Mr. Wes
ley's Arminian principles, and yet to be serious, converted, and sound in
Christian experience. His words are : " As for the serious and con
verted part of Mr. Wesley's congregation, as I by no means think it
necessary for any to be what are commonly called Calvinists, in order
that they may be Christians, I can most solemnly declare, however they
may judge of me, that I love and honour them not a little ; as I am sat
isfied that many who are muddled in their judgments are sound in their
experience." These two quotations do honour to the moderation of the
popular preachers from whose writings they are extracted. May all
the pious Arminians and Calvinists abide by their decisions ! So shall
they find that nothing parts them but unessential opinions ; that they are
joined by their mutual belief of the essential doctrines of the Gospel ;
and therefore, that if they oppose each other with their whole strength,
they are " mere bigots still."
To conclude this reconciling argument : if there be numbers of holy
souls, who are utter strangers to the peculiarities of rigid Calvinism and
rigid Arminianism ; if both the Calvinists and the Arminians can pro.
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 345
ducc a cloud of witnesses, that their opinions are consistent with the
most genuine piety, and the most extensive usefulness ; if there have
been many excellent men on both sides of the question, who (their oppo
nents being judges) have lived in the work of faith, suffered with the
patience of hope, and died in the triumph of kwe ; and if, at this very
day, we can find, among the clergy and laity, Calvinists and Arminians,
who adorn their Christian profession by a blameless conduct, and by
constant labours for the conversion of sinners, or the edification of saints,
and who, the Lord being their helper, are ready to seal the truth of
Christianity with their blood ; if this, I say, has been, and is still the
case, is it not indubitable that people may be good Christians, whether
they embrace the opinions of Calvin, or those of Arminius ; and by con
sequence, that neither rigid Calvinism nor rigid Arminianism are any
essential part of Christianity ?
And shall we make so much of nonessentials, as, on their account,
to damp, and perhaps extinguish the flame of love, which is the most
important of all the essentials of Christianity ? Alas ! what is all faith
good for : yea, all faith adorned with the " knowledge of all doctrines
and mysteries," if it be not attended by charity ? It may indeed help
us to " speak with the tongues of men and angels," to preach like apos
tles, and talk like seraphs ; but, after all, it will leave us mere cyphers,
or at best a " sounding brass," a pompous nothing in the sight of the
God of love. And therefore, as we would not keep ourselves out of
the kingdom of God, which consists in "love, peace, and joy;" and as
we would not promote the interests of the kingdom of darkness, by
carrying the fire of discord in our bosoms, and filling our vessels with
the " waters of strife," which so many foolish virgins prefer to the " oil
of gladness," let us promote peace with all our might. Let us remem
ber, that, " in all Churches of the saints, God is the author of peace ;
that his Gospel is the Gospel of peace ;" that " he hath called us to
peace ; and that the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them
that make peace." Let us " study to be quiet ; following peace with
all men ;" and " pursuing especially those things which make for peace
in the household of faith :" nor let us turn from the blessed pursuit, till
we have attained the blessing offered to peace makers.
" The kingdom" of love, peace, and joy, " suffereth violence :" it
cannot be taken and kept, without great and constant endeavours. The
violent alone are able to conquer it ; for it is taken by the force of
earnest prayer to God, for his blessing upon our overtures of peace ;
and by the vehemence of importunate requests to our brethren, that
they would grant us an interest in their forgiving love, and admit us, for
Christ's sake, to the honour of union, and pleasure of communion with
them. It is an important part of " the good fight of faith working by
love," to attack the unloving prejudices of our brethren, with a meek
ness of wisdom which turneth away wrath ; with a patience of hope
which a thousand repulses cannot beat off; with a perseverance of
love which taketh no denial ; and with an ardour of love which floods
of contempt cannot abate. May God hasten the time when all the
soldiers of Christ shall so learn and practise this part of the Christian
exercise, as to overcome the bigotry of their brethren ! Nor let us
think that this is impossible : for if the love of Christ has conquered us,
846
EQUAL CHECK. [PAET
why should we despair of its conquering others ? And if the unjust
judge, who neither feared God, nor regarded man, was nevertheless
overcome by the importunity of a poor widow, why should we doubt of
overcoming, by the same means, our fellow Christians who fear God,
rejoice in Christ, regard men, and love their brethren ? Let us only
convince them by every Christian method, that we are their brethren
indeed, and we shall find most of them far more ready to return our
love, than we have found them ready to return our provocations or
indifference.
Should it be asked, What are those Christian methods, by which we
could persuade our Calvinian or Arminian brethren, that we are their
brethren indeed ? I answer, that all these methods centre in these few
Scriptural directions : — " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil
with good." Love your opponents, though they should " despitefully
use you." " Bless them," though they should " curse you." " Pray for
them," though they should "persecute you." Wait upon them, and
salute them as brethren, though they should keep at as great a distance
from you, as if you were their enemies : « for if ye show love to them
who show love to you, what reward have ye ? Do not even the publi
cans the' same ? And if ye salute your brethren only," who kindly
salute you, " what do ye more than others ? Do not even the publicans
so ?" But treat them as God treats us : so shall you " be the children
of your Father, who is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise, arid
sendeth his rain upon us all. Be ye therefore perfect, even as he is
perfect." No bigot ever observed these Gospel directions. And it is
only by observing them that we can break the bars of party spirit ; and
pass from the close confinement of bigotry, into the " glorious liberty"
/'•iiii O •/ * O J
01 brotherly love.
These scriptures were probably before the eyes of a laborious minis,
ter of Christ, when he drew up, some years ago, a plan of union among
the clergymen of the Established Church, who agree in these essentials :
" (1.) Original sin. (2.) Justification by faith. (3.) Holiness of heart
and life ; provided their life be answerable to their doctrines." This
plan is as follows : — " But what union would you desire among these ?
Not a union of opinions. They might agree or disagree, touching
absolute decrees on the one hand, and perfection on the other. Not a
union in expression. These may still speak of the imputed righteous
ness, and those of the merits of Christ. Not a union with regard to
outward order. Some may still remain quite regular ; some quite irre
gular ; and somo partly regular, and partly irregular." Not a union of
societies. Some who do not see the need of discipline, may still labour
without forming any society at all : others may have a society, whose
members are united by the bands of a lax discipline. And others, who
have learned by experience that professors can never be kept long
together without the help of a strict discipline, may strengthen their
union with those who are like minded, by agreeing to observe such
rules as appear to them most conducive to the purposes of Divine and
brotherly love. « But these things being as they are, as each is per
suaded in his own mind, is it not a most desirable thing that we should
first remove hinderances oat of the way ? Not judge one another, not
envy one another ? Not be displeased with one another's gifts or sue-
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 347
cess, even though greater than our own 1 Never wait for one another's
halting ; much less wish for it, or rejoice therein ? Never speak dis
respectfully, slightly, coldly, or unkindly of each other ? Never repeat
each other's faults, mistakes, or infirmities ; much less listen for and
gather them up ? Never say or do any thing to hinder each other's
usefulness, either directly or indirectly? Is it not a most desirable
thing, that we should, secondly, love as brethren 1 Think well of, and
honour one another 1 Wish all good, all grace, all gifts, all success,
yea, greater than our own, to each other ? Expect God will answer
our wish, rejoice in every appearance thereof, and praise him for it ?
Readily believe good of each other, as readily as we once believed evil?
Speak respectfully, honourably, kindly of each other ? Defend each
other's character : speak all the good we can of each other : recom
mend one another, where we have influence : each help the other on in
his work, and enlarge his influence by all the honest means we can ?"
I do not see why such a plan might not be, in some degree, admitted
by all the ministers of the Gospel, whether they belong to, or dissent
from, the Establishment. I would extend my brotherly love to all
Christians in general, but more particularly to all Protestants, and most
particularly to all the Protestants of the Established Church, with whom
I am joined by repeated subscriptions to the same articles of religion,
by oaths of canonical obedience, by the same religious rites, by the
use of the same liturgy, by the same prerogatives, and by the fullest
share of civil and religious liberty. But God forbid that I should
exclude from my brotherly affection, and occasional assistance, any true
minister of Christ, because he casts the Gospel net among the Presby
terians, the Independents, the Quakers, or the Baptists ! If they will
not wish me good lack in the name of the Lord, I will do it to them.
So far as they cordially aim at the conversion of sinners, I will oifer
them the right hand of fellowship, and communicate with them in spirit.
They may excommunicate me, if their prejudices prompt them to it :
they may build up a wall of partition between themselves and me ; but
" in the strength of my God," whose love is as boundless as his immensity,
and whose mercy is over all his works, "I will leap over the wall;"
being persuaded that it is only daubed with untempered mortar, and
made of Babel materials. Should not Christian meekness, and ardent
love bear down party spirit, and the prejudices of education ? The king-
tolerates and protects us all, the parliament makes laws to insure tole
ration and quietness, peace and mutual forbearance ; and shall we, who
make a peculiar profession of the " faith which works by love," and
binds upon us the new commandment of laying down our lives for the
brethren ; shall we, I say, be less charitable and more intolerant than
our civil governors, who, perhaps, make no such profession ? Let bigot
ed Jews mid ignorant Samaritans dispute whether God is to be wor
shipped on Mount Moriah, or on Mount Gerizim ; let rigid Churchmen
say, that a parish church is the only place where Divine worship ought
to be performed, while stiff dissenters suppose that their meeting houses
are the only bethels in the land ; but let us, who profess moderation and
charity, remember the reconciling words of our Lord, "The hour
cometh, and now is, when true worshippers shall worship God every
where, in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such catholic and
348 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
spiritual persons to worship him ;" and not such partial and formal de
votees as the Jews and Samaritans were in the days of our Lord.
But to return to our plan of reconciliation : might not some additions
be made to Mr. Wesley's draught ; for it is from a letter published in
his thirteenth Journal, that I have extracted the preceding sketch of
union. Might not good men and sincere ministers, who are bent upon
inheriting the seventh beatitude, form themselves into a society of
reconcilers, whatever be their denomination, and mode of worship ?
Interest brings daily to the royal exchange a multitude of merchants,
ready to deal with men of the most opposite customs, dresses, religions,
and countries ; and shall not the love of peace, and the pursuit of love,
have as great an effect upon the children of light, as the love of money,
and the pursuit of wealth have upon the men of the world ? There is a
society for promoting religious knowledge among the poor ; some of its
members are Churchmen, and others dissenters : some are Calvinists,
and others Arminians ; and yet it flourishes, and the design of it is hap
pily answered. Might not such a society be formed for promoting
peace and love among professors 1 Is not charity preferable to know
ledge ? And if it be well to associate, in order to distribute Bibles and
Testaments, which are but the letter of the Gospel, would it not be better
to associate, in order to diffuse peace and love, which are the spirit of
the Gospel ? There is another respectable society for promoting the
Christian faith among the heathen ; and why should there not be a
society for promoting unanimity and toleration among Christians ?
Ought not the welfare of our fellow Christians to lie as near our hearts
as that of the heathen ? There are in London, and other places, asso
ciations for the preventing and extinguishing of fires. As soon as the
mischief breaks out, and the alarm is given, the firemen run to their
fire engines ; and without considering whether the house on fire be
inhabited by Churchmen or dissenters, by Arminians or Calvinists, they
venture their lives to put out the flames ; and why should there not be
associations of peace makers, who, the moment the fire of discord breaks
out in any part of our Jerusalem, may be ready to put it out by all the
methods which the Gospel suggests ? Is not the fire of hell, which con
sumes souls, more to be guarded against than that fire which can only
destroy the body ?
Should it be asked what methods could be pursued to extinguish the
fire of discord, and kindle that of love ; I reply, that we need only be as
wise as the children of this world. Consider we then how they pro
ceed to gain their worldly ends ; and let us go, and do as much to gain
our spiritual ends.
Many gentlemen, some laymen and others clergymen, some Church
men and others dissenters, wanted lately to procure the repeal of our
articles of religion. Notwithstanding the diversity of their emplovments,
principles, and denominations, they united, wrote circular letters, drew
up petitions, and used all their interest with men in power to bring about
their design. Again : some warm men thought it proper to blow up the
fire of discontent in the breasts of our American fellow subjects. How
did they go about the dangerous work ? With what ardour did they
speak and write, preach and print, fast and pray, publish manifestoes and
make them circulate, associate, and strengthen their associations, arid at
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 349
last venture their fortunes, reputations, and lives, in the execution of
their warlike project ! Go, ye men of peace, and do at least half as
much to carry on your friendly design. Associate, pray, preach, and
print for the furtherance of peace. When ye meet, consult ahout the
means of removing what stands in the way of a fuller agreement in
principle and affection, among all those who love Christ in sincerity ;
and decide if the following queries contain any hint worthy of your
attention : —
Might not moderate Calvinists send with success circular letters to
their rigid Calvinian brethren ; and moderate Arminians to their rigid
Arminian brethren, to check rashness, and recommend meekness, and
moderation, and love 1 Might not the Calvinist ministers, who patronize
the doctrines of grace, display also the doctrines of justice, and open
their pulpits to those Arminian ministers who do it with caution ? And
might not the Arminian ministers who patronize the doctrines of justice,
make more of the doctrines of grace, preach as nearly as they can like
the judicious Calvinists, admit them into their pulpits, and rejoice at
every opportunity of showing them their esteem and confidence?
Might not such moderate Calvinists and Arminians as live in the same
towns, have from time to time a general sacrament, and invite one
another to it, to cement brotherly love, by publicly confessing the same
Christ, by jointly taking him for their common head, and by acknow
ledging one another as fellow members of his mystical body? Might
not some of the ministers, on these occasions, preach to edification on
such texts as these : — " Christ asked him, What was it that ye disputed
about among yourselves by the way ? But they held their peace ;" for
by the way they had disputed, " who should be the greatest :" and he
said unto them, " If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of
all, and servant of all. Know ye what I have done to you ? Ye call
me Master and Lord : and ye say well ; for so I am. If I then, your
Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one
another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as
I have done unto you. Receive ye one another as Christ also received
us. Yea, him that is weak in the faith receive you, but not to doubtful
disputations. Let us not judge one another any more : but judge this
rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his
brother's way. Let us follow after those things which make for peace,
and things wherewith one may edify another : holding the head, from
which all the body having nourishment, and knit together, increaseth
with the increase of God. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity ! It is like the precious ointment upon
Aaron's head, and like the dew upon Mount Sion : for there the Lord
commanded the blessing, and life for evermore." Could not the society
have corresponding members in various parts of the kingdom, to know
where the flame of discord begins to break out, that by means of those
mighty engines, the tongue, the pen, or the press, they might, with all
speed, direct streams of living water, floods of truth and kindness, to
quench the kindling fire of wrath, oppose the waters of strife, and
remove whatever stands in the way of the fire of love ? And if this
heavenly fire were once kindled, and began to spread, might it not, in a
few years, reach all orders of professors in Great Britain, as the
350 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
contrary fire has reached our brethren on the continent ? If we doubt
the possibility of it, do we not secretly suppose that Satan is stronger to
promote discord and contention, than Christ is to promote concord and
unity '! And, in this case, where is our faith ? And where the love
which " thinketh no evil," and " hopeth all things 1" If one or two
warm men have kindled on the continent so great a fire, that neither our
fleets nor our armies, neither the British nor the German forces em-
ployed in that service, have yet been able to put it out ; what will not
twenty or thirty men, burning with the love of God and of their neigh-
bour, be able to do in England ? We may judge of it by what twelve
fishermen did one thousand seven hundred years ago. Arise then, ye
sons of peace, ye sons of God, into whose hands these sheets may fall.
Our Captain is ready to lead you to the conquest of the kingdom of love.
Be not discouraged at the smallness of your number, nor at the multi
tude of the men of war, who are ready to oppose you. Jesus is on
your side : he is our Gideon. With his mighty cross he has smitten
the foundation of the altar of discord : pull it down. Break your nar
row pitchers of bigotry. Hold forth your burning lamps : let the light
of your love shine forth without a covering. Ye loving Calvinists, fall
upon the necks of your Arminian opponents : and ye loving Arminians,
be no more afraid to venture among your Calvinian antagonists. You
will not find them cruel Midianites, but loving Christians : methinks that
your mingled lights have already chased away the shades of the night
of partiality and ignorance. You see that you are brethren ; you feel
it : and, ashamed of your former distance, you now think you can never
make enough of each other, and testify too much your repentance, for
having offended the world by absurd contentions, and vexed each other
by inimical controversies. The first love of the Christians revives : you
are "all of one heart and of" — but I forgot myself: I antedate the
time of love, which I so ardently wish to see. The Jericho of bigotry,
which I desire to compass, is strong : the Babylon of confusion and
division, I would fain demolish, is guarded by a numerous garrison,
which thousands of good men think it their duty to reinforce. It may
not be improper therefore to make one more attack upon these accursed
cities, and to insure the success of it by proper directions.
SECTION VII.
Some directions how to secure the blessings of peace and brotherly love.
"Do all things without disputings," says St. Paul, " that ye may be blame
less and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke. Be at peace among
yourselves ; and if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably
with all men :" but especially with your brethren in Christ. "Nor quench
the Spirit," by destroying its most excellent fruits, which are peace and
love. And that we may not be guilty of this crime, the apostle exhorts us
to " avoid contentions," and assures us, that God will " render indignation to
them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth." It highly concerns
us, therefore, to inquire how we shall escape the curse denounced against
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 351
the contentious, and live peaceably with our fellow professors. And if
we ought to do " all that lieth in us," in order to obtain and keep the
blessing of peace ; surely we ought to follow such directions as are
agreeable to Scripture and reason. I humbly hope that the following
are of this number.
DIHECTION I. Let us endeavour to do justice to every part of the
Gospel ; carefully avoiding the example of those injudicious arid rash
men, who make a wide gap in the north hedge of the garden of truth,
in order to mend one in the east or south hedge. Let every evangelical
doctrine have its proper place in our creed, that it may have its due
effect on our conduct. Consideration, repentance, faith, hope, love, and
obedience, have each a place on the scale of Gospel truth. Let us not
breed quarrels by thrusting away any one of those graces, to make more
room for another. While the philosopher exalts consideration alone ;
the Carthusian, repentance ; the Solifidian, faith ; the mystic, love ;
and the moralist, obedience ; thou, man of God, embrace them nil
in their order, nor exalt one to the prejudice of the rest. Tear not
Christ's seamless garment, nor divide him against himself. He de
mands our reverential obedience as our King, as much as he re
quires our humble attention as our Prophet, and our full confidence as
our Priest. It is as unscriptural to magnify one of his offices at the
expense of the others, as it would be unconstitutional to honour George
III. as king of Ireland, and to insult him as king of England or Scotland.
And it is as provoking to the God of truth and order to see the stewards
of his Gospel mysteries make much of the dispensation of the Son, while
they overlook the dispensation of the Father, and take little notice of
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, as it would be provoking to a parent
to see the persons, whom he has entrusted with the care of his three
children, make away with the youngest, and starve the eldest, in order to
enrich and pamper his second son. Where moderation is wanting,
peace cannot subsist : and where partiality prevails, contention will soon
make its appearance.
II. Let us always make a proper distinction between essential and
circumstantial differences. The difference there is between the Chris
tians and the Mohammedans is essential : but the difference between us
and those who receive the Scriptures, and believe in the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, is in general about non-essentials : and therefore such
a difference ought not to hinder union ; although in some cases it may,
and should prevent a close communion. If we fancy that every diversity
of doctrine, discipline, or ceremony, is a sufficient reason to keep our
brethren at arm's length from us, we are not so much the followers of
the condescending Jesus, as of the stiff and implacable professors, men
tioned in the Gospel, who made much ado about mint, anise, and cummin ;
but shamefully neglected mercy, forbearance, and love.
III. Let us leave to the pope the wild conceit of infallibility ; and let
us abandon to bigoted Mohammedans the absurd notion that truth is
confined to our own party, that those who do not speak as we do are
blind, and that orthodoxy and salvation are plants, which will scarcely
grow any where but in our own garden. So long as we continue in this
error, we are unfit for union with all those who do not wear the badge
of our party. A Pharisaic pride taints our tempers, cools our love, and
S52 EQUAL CHECK. I PART
breeds a forbidding reserve, which says to our brethren, " Stand by ; I
a.m more orthodox than you."
IV. Let us be afraid of a sectarian spirit. We may indeed, and we
ought to be more familiar with the professors with whom we are more
particularly connected ; just as soldiers of the same regiment are more
familiar with one another, than with those who belong to other regiments.
But the moment this particular attachment grows to such a degree as
to make a party in the army of King Jesus, or of King George, it breaks
the harmony which ought to subsist between all the parts, and hinders
the general service which is expected from the whole body. In what a
deplorable condition would be the king's affairs, if each colonel in his
a.rmy refused to do duty with another colonel : and if, instead of mutu
ally supporting one another in a day of battle, each said to the rest, " I
will have nothing to do with you and your corps : you may fight yonder
by yourselves, if you please : I and my men will keep here by ourselves,
doing what seems good in our own eyes. As we expect no assistance
from you, so we promise you that you shall have none from us. And
you may think yourselves well off, if we do not join the common enemy,
and fire at you ; for your regimentals are different from ours, and there
fore you are no part of our army." If so absurd a behaviour were
excusable, it would be among the wild, cruel men, who compose an
army of Tartars or savages ; but it admits of no excuse from men who
call themselves believers, which is another 'name for the " followers of
Him" who laid down his life for his enemies, and perpetually exhorts
his soldiers to love one another, as brethren, — yea, as he has loved us.
Let us then peculiarly beware of inordinate self love. It is too often
the real source of our divisions ; when love to truth is their pretended
cause. If St. Paul could say of fallen believers in his time, " They all
seek their own ;" how much more may this be said of degenerate be
lievers in our days ? Who can tell all the mischief done by this ungene
rous and base temper ? Who can declare all the mysteries of error and
iniquity, which stand upon the despicable foundation of the little words,
I, me, and mine? Could we see the secret inscriptions which the
Searcher of hearts can read upon the first stones of our little Babels,
how often would we wonder at such expressions as these : — Mu church,
my chapel, my party, my congregation, my connections, my popularity,
my hope of being esteemed by my partisans, my fear of being suspected
by them, my jealousy of those who belong to the opposite party, my sys
tem, my favourite opinions, my influence, &c, &c ! To all those egotisms
let us constantly oppose those awful words of our Lord. " Except a man
deny himself, he cannot be my disciple." Till we cordially oppose our
inordinate attachment to our own interest, we " sacrifice to our own net,"
in our public duties ; and even when we " preach Christ," it is to be
feared that we do it more " out of contention," than out of a real concern
for his interest.
What Dr. Watts writes on this subject is striking : — « Have we never
observed what a mighty prevalence the applause of a party, and the
advance of self interest have over the hearts and tongues of men, arrd
inflame them with malice against their neighbours 1 They assault every
different opinion with rage and clamour : they rail at the persons of all
other parties, to ingratiate themselves with their own. When they put
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 353
to death [or bitter reproach] the ministers of the Gospel, they boast like
Jehu, when he slew the priests of Baal> ' Come and see my zeal for the
Lord.' And as he designed hereby to establish the kingdom in his own
hands ; so they to maintain the reputation they have acquired among
their own sect. But, ah ! how little do they think of the wounds that
Jesus the Lord receives by every bitter reproach they cast on his
followers !"
V. Let us be afraid of needless singularity. The love of it is very
common, and leads some men to the wildest extremes. The same
spirit which inclines one to wear a hat cocked in the height of the
fashion, and influences another to wear one in full contrariety to the
mode, may put one man upon minding only the first Gospel axiom, and
the blood of Christ, while another man fancies that it becomes him to
mind only the second Gospel axiom, and the law of Christ. Thus, out
of singularity, the former insists upon faith alone, and the latter recom
mends nothing but morality and works. May we detest a temper,
which makes men delight in an unnecessary opposition to each other !
And may we constantly follow the example of St. Paul, whose charitable
maxim was, to " please all men to their edification !" So shall " our
moderation be known to all men :" nor shall we absurdly break the
balance of the various truths which compose the Gospel system.
VI. Let us never blame our brethren but with reluctance. And
when love to truth, and the interest of religion, constrain us to show the
absurd or dangerous consequences of their mistakes, let us rather
underdo than overdo. Let us never hang unnecessary* or false conse
quences upon their principles : and when we prove that their doctrine
necessarily draws absurd and mischievous consequences after it, let us
do them the justice to believe that they do not see the necessary con
nection of such consequences with their principles. And let us can
didly hope that they detest those consequences.
VII. Let us, as far as we can, have a friendly intercourse with some
of the best men of the various denominations of Christians around us.
And if we have time for much reading, let us peruse their best writings,
to be edified by the devotion which breathes through their works. This
will be an effectual mean of breaking the bars of prejudice, contempt,
fear, and hard thinking, which want of acquaintance with them puts
between them and us. Why are savages frighted at the sight of civil
ized men 1 Why do they run away from us as if we were wild beasts ?
It is because they have no connection with us, are utter strangers to the
good will we bear them, and fancy we design to do them mischief.
Bigots are religious savages. By keeping to themselves, they contract
* I humbly hope that I have followed this part of the direction in my Checks.
To the best of my knowledge I have not fixed one consequence upon the princi
ples of my opponents, which does not fairly and necessarily flow from their doc
trine. And I have endeavoured to do justice to their piety, by declaring again
and again my full persuasion that they abhor such consequences. But whether
they have done so by my principles, may be seen in my Genuine Creed, where I
show that the absurd and wicked consequences, which my opponents fix upon the
doctrines that I maintain, have absolutely nothing to do with it. I do not how
ever say this to justify myself in all things : for I do not doubt, but if I had health
and strength to revise my Checks, I should find some things which might have
been said in a more guarded, humble, serious, and loving manner.
VOL. II. 23
354 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
a shyness toward their fellow Christians : they fancy that their brethren
are monsters ; they ask, with Nathanael, " Can any good thing come
out of Nazareth ?" By and by they get into the seats of the Pharisees,
and peremptorily say, that " out of Galilee there ariseth no prophet."
And it is well if they do not turn in a rage from the precious truths
delivered by some of the most favoured servants of God ; fondly sup-
posing, with Naaman, that the Jordan of their brethren is not to be com
pared with the rivers of their own favourite Damascus ; and uncha
ritably concluding, with the pope and Mohammed, that all waters are
poisonous except those of their own cistern. The best advice which
can be given to these prejudiced people, is that which Philip gave to
Nathanael, who fancied that Jesus was not a prophet : " Come and
see." I would say to Calvinian bigots, " Come and see" your Arminian
brethren ; and to Arminian bigots, " Come and see" pious Calvinists ;
and you will be ashamed to have so long forfeited the blessing annexed
to brotherly communion ; for " they that fear the Lord, speak often one
to another, and the Lord hearkens and hears it, and a book of remem
brance is written before him for them. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels."
VIII. Let our religion influence our hearts as well as our heads.
Let us mind the practice as well as the theory of Christianity. The
bare knowledge of Christ's doctrine " puffeth up, but charity edifieth."
" He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love," and would
have no to be loving and " merciful as he is." He receives us notwith
standing our manifold weaknesses and provocations ; and he says, by
his apostle, " Forgive one another, as God for Christ's sake hath for
given you ; that ye may with one mind, and with one mouth, glorify
God." How far from this religion are those, who, instead of receiving
one another, keep at the greatest distance from their brethren, and per
haps pronounce damnation against them ! The men who rashly con
demn their " weak brother to perish," cannot be close followers of our
" merciful High Priest," who " died for him," who " is touched with a
feeling of our infirmities, and has compassion on them that are ignorant
and out of the way. If any man say, I love God, — the love of Christ
constraineth me, — and yet hateth his brother," or shuns a reconciliation
with his fellow servants, " he is a liar ; for he who loveth not his
brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen ? This commandment have we from Christ, that he who loveth
God, love his brother," yea, his enemy also. And love is " pure, peace
able, gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of mercy. It suffereth long,
and is kind, it envieth not, is not puffed up, it does not behave itself
unseemly, it seeketh not its own, it beareth all things, it endureth all
things, it believeth and hopeth all things," and it attempteth many things,
that Christians may " be made perfect in one," and may " keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Where this love is not, the
practice of Christianity is absent. We may have the brain of a Chris
tian, but we want his tongue, his hands, and his heart. We may indeed
say many sweet things of Christ ; but we spoil them all if we speak
bitterly of his members ; for he who toucheth them, toucheth the apple
of his eye ; and he who wounds them, wounds him in the tenderest part.
Hence the severity of our Lord's declarations : " Whosoever offendeth
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 355
one of these little ones, who believe in me, it were better for him that
a mill stone were hanged about Kis neck, and that he were drowned in
the depth of the sea. And whosoever shall uncharitably say to his
brother, Thou fool ! shall be in danger of hell fire," as well as a mur
derer, Matt, xviii, 6 ; v, 22. So dreadful is the case of those who make
shipwreck of the faith which w^orks by charity, while they contend for
real or fancied orthodoxy.
We shall readily set our seals to the justice and propriety of these
terrible declarations, if we remember that when Christians offend against
the law of kindness, they stab their religion in her very vitals, because
Christianity is the religion of love. From first to last, it teaches us
love — free, distinguishing, matchless love. The Father so loved the
world as to give his only begotten Son that we might not perish. He
freely delivered him up to death for us all, and with him he gives us all
things ; forgiveness, grace, and glory. The Son, who, when he was in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with him, influenced
by obedient love to the Father and tender pity toward us, assumed our
nature, became a prophet to teach the religion of love, a king to enforce
the law of love, a priest and a victim dying for the breaches of the law
of love. He lived to keep and enforce the law of love : he wept, prayed,
and agonized, to show the force of sympathizing love : he died on the
cross to seal with the last drop of his vital blood the plan of redeeming
love. He sunk into the grave, and descended into hades, to show the
depth of love. He rose again to secure the triumph of love : he ascended
into heaven to carry on the schemes of love : from thence he sent, and
still sends, upon obedient believers, the spirit of burning ; baptizing them
with the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of love, which many waters
cannot quench ; and from thence he shall come again, to send the
unloving and contentious to their own place, and to crown loving souls
with honour, glory, and immortality. The office of the Holy Ghost
answers to the part which the Father and the Son bear in our redemption.
When we receive him according to the promise of the Father, we receive
him as the Spirit of love : he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts ;
he testifies to us the love of Christ ; and his fruit, in our hearts and lives,
is " love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, and meekness."
This loving spirit is so essential to Christianity, that if you ask St. Paul
and St. John an account of their religion, the former answers, The end.
of Christianity is " charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and
faith unfeigned :" and therefore if any Christian loveth not the Lord
Jesus in his person and in his mystical members, he is accursed.
Maranatha, the Lord cometh to cut in sunder that wicked servant, and
to appoint him his portion with hypocrites in outer darkness. As for
St. John, he thus describes Christianity : — " Beloved, let us love one
another : for love is of God : every one that loveth is born of God. We
love him because he first loved us. And every one that loveth God
who begat believers, loveth them also that are begotten of him : and
this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God love his
brother also." St. James' testimony to the religion of love will properly
close that of St. Paul and St. John. " Hearken, my beloved brethren.
If ye fulfil the royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye
do well : but if ye have respect to persons," much more if ye bite and
356 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
devour your brethren, " ye are convinced of the law as transgressors :
for whosoever shall keep the whole law [of love] and yet offend in one
point, he is guilty of all." He shows himself a bad Christian — a fallen
believer. Therefore, " Speak .not evil one of another, brethren, nor
grudge one against another, lest ye be condemned : behold, the Judge
standeth at the door." And Christ the Judge confirms thus the testi
mony of his apostles, in his awful account of the day of judgment : —
Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, " Come, ye blessed,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you, for" ye were kind and loving to
me. " The head of every man is Christ," and therefore, " inasmuch as
ye have done it [that is, inasmuch as ye have been kind and loving] unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me :" ye have
been kind and loving to me : and I will give you " the reward of the
inheritance. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed :" for ye were not kind and loving to me : and if
they plead " Not guilty" to the charge, he will " answer them, saying,
Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of
these, ye did it not unto me :" that is, inasmuch as ye were not kind to
one of these, ye were not kind and loving to me. And these unloving
men " shall go away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous,
[that is, the loving and merciful,] into life eternal." How plain is this
religion ! and how deplorable is it that it should be almost lost in clouds
of vain notions, wild opinions, unscriptural systems, empty professions,
and noisy contentions ! Were professors to embrace this practical
Christianity, what a revolution would take place in Christendom ! The
accuser of the brethren would fall as lightning from heaven, and genuine
orthodoxy would combine with humble charity to make the earth a
paradise again.
IX. Lastly : if we will attain the full power of godliness, and be
peaceable as the Prince of Peace, and merciful as our heavenly Father,
let us go on to the perfection and glory of Christianity ; let us enter the
full dispensation of the Spirit. Till we live in the pentecostal glory of
the Church : till we are baptized with the Holy Ghost : till the Spirit of
burning and the fire of Divine love have melted us down, and we have
been truly cast into the softest mould of the Gospel : till we can say
with St. Paul, " We have received the Spirit of love, of power, and of a
sound mind ;" till then we shall be carnal rather than spiritual believers ;
we shall divide into sects like the Jews, and at best we shall be like the
disciples of John and of Christ before they had received the gift of the
Holy Ghost. We shall have an envious spirit : we shall contend about
superiority, and be ready to stop those who do good, because they do it
not in our way, or because they follow not with us. And supposing we
once tasted the first love of the Church, and had really the love of God
and our neighbour " shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given
unto us ;" yet if this " love be grown cold," or if we " have left it," by
grieving or quenching the Spirit, we are fallen from pentecostal Chris,
tianity, and instead of continuing in disinterested fellowship, like the
primitive Christians, we shall " seek our own," as the fallen Philip pians ;
or we shall divide into parties like those Corinthians to whom St. Paul
wrote : — " Some of you have not the knowledge of the God of love ; I
speak this to your shame. I cannot speak to you as to spiritual, but as
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 357
to carnal believers, even as to babes in Christ. For ye are yet carnal :
for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye
not carnal, and walk as the men of the world ? Examine yourselves
therefore whether ye be in the faith : ipmve your own selves." Is Christ
in you ? Have ye the Spirit of power, or have ye obliged him to with-
draw ? And are ye shoni of your strength, as Samson was, when the
Spirit of the Lord was departed from him ? Alas ! Who can say how
many believers are in this deplorable case without suspecting it ? The
world knows that they are fallen, but they know it not themselves.
They make sport for the Philistines by their idle contentions, and they
dream that they are the champions of truth. O may they speedily
" awake to righteousness," and see their need of " righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost !" And may " power from on high" rest
again upon them ! So shall they break the pillars of the temple of
discord, rebuild the temple of peace, and be " continually in it, praising
and blessing God," instead of accusing and provoking their brethren.
SECTION VIII.
Farther motives to a speedy reconciliation — An exhortation to it.
I. " ABOVE all things," says St. Peter, " have fervent charity among
yourselves." "Little children," says St. John, "love one another."
Sweet precepts ! but how far are we from regarding them, while we
give to bitter zeal, or to indifference, the place allotted to the communion
of saints, and to burning love ! Had these apostolic injunctions a due
effect upon us, how would the fervent charity which victorious faith kin
dles, set fire to the chaff of our idle contentions, and make us ashamed
of having so departed from the Gospel as to give the world to understand
(if men may judge of our doctrine by our conduct,) that the Scriptures
exhort us to fall out one with another, and to mind charity less than
every thing ; whereas it enjoins us to mind it " above all things," above
all honour, pleasure, and profit, — yea, above all knowledge, orthodoxy,
and faith.
II. We are commanded to "glorify God with one heart and one
mouth." Our lips should be instruments of praise, ever tuned to cele
brate the Prince of Peace, — ever ready to invite all around us to the
Gospel feast ; the feast of Divine and brotherly love. To neglect this
labour of love is bad : but how much worse is it to be as " sounding
brass," as a " tinkling cymbal," as an infernal kettle drum, used by the
accuser of the brethren, to call professors from the good fight of faith,
to the detestable fight of needless or abusive controversy, and perhaps
to the bloody work of persecution ? Who can describe the injury done
to religion by the champions of bigotry ? An ingenious writer being one
day desired to draw in proper colours the figure of uncharitableness, the
monster which has so narrowed, disgraced, and murdered Christianity ;
" I will attempt it," said he "if you will furnish me with a sheet of large
paper, and that of the fairest kind, to represent the Christian Church in
this world. First, I will pare it round, and reduce it to a very small
compass : then with much ink will I .stain the whiteness of it, and
358 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
deform it with many a blot. At the next sitting I will stab it through
rudely with an iron pen : and when I put the last hand to complete the
likeness, it shall be besmeared with blood." And shall we lend our
common enemy iron pens, or ^>ngues sharpened like the murderer's
swords, that he may continue ^o wound the members of Christ, and
deform the Christian Church ? God forbid ! Let as many of us as have
turned our pens and tongues into instruments of idle contention, apply
them henceforth to the defence of peace and brotherly love.
III. If we refuse to do it, we practically renounce our baptism : for
in that solemn ordinance we profess to take God for our common Father,
Christ for our common Saviour, and the Spirit for our common Sanc-
tifier. When we receive the Lord's Supper in faith, we solemnly bind
this baptismal engagement upon ourselves, and tie faster the knot of
brotherly love, by which we are joined to " all those who in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours." Now can any
thing be more antichristian and diabolical, than for persons, who con
stantly communicate, to live in discord, and perhaps to insult one another
in a manner contrary to the first rules of heathen civility ? O ye, who
surround our altars, and there "humbly beseech almighty God con
tinually to inspire the universal Church with the spirit of unity and
concord, that all who confess his holy name may live in unity and godly
love ;" can any thing equal your sacrilegious guilt, if, after such a
solemn prayer, you not only refuse to live " in unity and godly love,"
with your pious Calvinian and Arminian brethren, but also breathe the
spirit of discord, and live in variance and ungodly contentions with them,
merely because they do not pronounce " Shibboleth" with all the em
phasis which our party puts upon some favourite words and phrases ? If
we continue to offer so excellent a prayer, and to indulge so detestable
a temper, are we not fit persons to fight under the banner of Judas ?
Do we not with a kiss betray the Son of man in his members 1 Do we
not go to the Lord's table to say, " Hail, Master !" and to deliver him for
less than thirty pieces of silver, for the poor satisfaction of pleasing the
bigots of a party, or for the mischievous pleasure of breaking the
balance of the Gospel axioms, and rending the doctrines of grace from
those of justice ?
IV. " God is love." Let us be like " our Father who is in heaven."
Satan is uncharitableness and variance : detest we his likeness, and let
not the faithful and true Witness be obliged to say to us one day, " Ye
are of your father the devil, whose works ye do," when you keep up
divisions. " The devil," says Archbishop Leighton, " being an apostate
spirit, revolted and separated from God, doth naturally project and work
division." This was his first exploit, and is still his grand design and
business in the world. He first divided our first parents from God, and
i\ie next we read of in their first child, was enmity against his brother.
The tempter wounded truth, in order to destroy love, and therefore he is
justly called by our Saviour " a liar, and a murderer from the begin
ning." He murdered our first parents by lying, and made them mur
derers by drawing them into his uncharitableness. God forbid that we
should any longer do the work of the father of lies and murders !
Heaven prevent our committing again two so great evils as those of
wounding truth and preventing love ! of wounding truth by attacking the
THIKD.l RECONCILIATION 359
Scripture doctrines of free grace and free agency ! and of preventing
love, by hindering the union of two such large bodies of professors, as the
Calvinists and the Arminians ! Nor let any lover of peace say, " I will
not hinder the reconciliation you speak -of;" for it is our bounden duty to
farther it by a speedy, constant exertion of all our interest with God, and
influence with men : otherwise we shall be found " unprofitable, slothful"
servants, and shall be judged according to this declaration of our Lord,
" He that gathereth not with me scatter eth." For he who, in so noble
a cause as that of truth and love, is " neither cold nor hot," pulls
down upon his own head the curse denounced against the lukewarm
Laodiceans.
V. The sin of the want of union with our pious Calvinian or Arminian
brethren, is attended with peculiar aggravations. We are not only
fellow creatures, but fellow subjects, fellow Christians, fellow Protestants,
and fellow sufferers (in reputation at least) for maintaining the capital
doctrines of salvation by faith in Christ, and of regeneration by the
Spirit of God. How absurd is it for persons who thus share in the
reproach, patience, and kingdom of Christ, to • imbitter each other's
comforts, and add to the load of contempt, which the men of the world
cast upon them ! Let Pagans, Mohammedans, Jews, Papists, and Deists,
do this work. We may reasonably expect it from them. But for such
Calvinists and Arminians as the world lumps together under the name
of Methodists on account of their peculiar profession of godliness, for
such " companions in tribulation," I say, to " bite and devour^' each other,
is highly unreasonable, and peculiarly scandalous.
VI. The great apostle of modern infidels, Mr. Voltaire, has, it is
supposed, caused myriads of men to be ashamed of their baptism, and
to renounce the profession of Christianity. His profane witticisms
have slain their thousands ; but the too cogent argument, 'which he
draws from our divisions, has destroyed its myriads. With what exulta
tion does he sing, —
Des Chretiens divises Ics wfames querettes
Ont, au nom du Seigneur, apporte plus dc manx, ef-c.
" The shameful quarrels of divided Christians have done more mischief
under religious pretences, made more bad blood, and shed more human
blood, than all the political contentions which have laid waste France
and Germany under pretence of maintaining the balance of Europe."
And shall we still make good his argument by our ridiculous quarrels ?
Shall we help him to make the world believe that the Gospel is an apple
of discord thrown among men, to make them dispute with an acrimony
and an obstinacy which have few precedents among men of the most
corrupt and detestable religions in the world 1 Shall we continue to
point the dagger with which that keen author stabs Christianity 1 Shall
we furnish him with new nails to crucify Christ afresh in the sight of
all Europe : or shall we continue to clinch those with which he has
already done the direful deed ? How will he triumph if he hears that
the men who distinguish themselves by their zeal for the Gospel in Eng
land, maintain an unabated contest about the doctrines of grace and
justice — a contest as absurd as that in which the whigs and tories would
be involved, if they perpetually debated whether the house of lords or
360 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
that of commons makes up the British parliament ; and whether England
or Scotland forms the island of Great Britain ! And with what self ap
plause will he apply to us what the apostle says of wicked heathens and
apostate Christians : " Because when they knew God, they glorified him
not as God" — the sovereign, righteous God of love and justice — " they
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves wise, they became fools : being filled with envy,
debate, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, despiteful, without understand,
ing, without brotherly affection, implacable ; having a form of 'godly ortho
doxy, but denying the power of" peaceable charity !
VII. Instead of continuing to give avowed infidels such room to laugh
at us and our religion, would it not become us to stop, by a speedy recon
ciliation, the offence given by our absurd debates ? Should we feel less
concern for the honour of Christianity, than Sir Robert Wai pole did for
the honour of the crown ? It is reported that when he stood at the helm
of the British empire, he was abused in parliament by some members of
the privy council. Soon after, meeting with them in the king's cabinet,
he proceeded to the despatch of business with his usual freedom, and
with a remarkable degjee of courtesy toward his enemies. And being
asked how he could do so, he replied, " The king's business requires
union. Why should my master's affairs suffer loss by the private quar
rels of his servants ?" May the time come, when the ministers of the
King of peace shall have as much regard for his interest, as that minister
showed for the interest of his royal master ! Do not circumstances in
Church and in state loudly call upon us to unite, in order to make head
against the enemy of Christ and our souls ? An enemy terrible as the
banded powers of earth and hell, headed by the prince of the air, whose
name is " Abaddon, Apollyon, Destroyer T
VIII. ¥e are no strangers to the craft and rage of that powerful adver
sary, O ye pious Calvinists and godly Arminians ! For " ye wrestle not
with flesh and blood only, but with the principalities and powers" of the
kingdom of darkness ! Cease then, cease to spend in wrestling one
against another, the precious talents of time, strength, and wisdom, with
which the Lord has entrusted you, to resist your infernal antagonist.
Let it not be said that Herod, a Jew, and Pilate, a heathen, became
friends, and united to pursue " the Lamb of God" to death ; and that
you, fellow Protestants, you, British believers, will not agree to " resist
the devil, who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may
devour."
You are astonished when you hear that some obstinate lawyers are so
versed in chicanery as to protract for years law suits which might be
ended in a few days. Your controversy has already lasted for ages ;
and the preceding pages show that it might be ended in a few hours :
should you then still refuse reasonable terms of accommodation, think,
O think of the astonishment of those who will see you protract the
needless contention, and entail the curse of discord upon the next gene
ration.
Our Lord bids us " agree quickly with our adversaries ;" and will ye
for ever dispute with your friends ? Joseph said to his brethren, " See
that ye fall not out by the way ;" and so far as we know, his direction
was faithfully observed. Christ says to us, Wear my badge : « By this
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 361
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another."
And will ye still fall out in the way to heaven, and exchange the Chris
tian badge of charity, for the Satanic badge of contention 1
Passionate Esau had vowed that he would- never be reconciled to his
brother. Nevertheless, he relented ; and as soon as Jacob was in sight,
" he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed
him : and they wept," Gen. xxxiii, 4. And shall it be said that Esau,
the hairy man, the fierce hunter, the savage who had resolved to imbrue
his hands in his own brother's blood, the implacable wretch, whom so many
people consider as an absolute reprobate — shall it be said that Esau was
sooner softened than you ? He was reconciled to his brother who had
deprived him of Isaac's blessing by a lie ; and they lived in peace ever
after. And will ye never be reconciled one to another, and live peacea
bly with your Calvinian or Arminian brethren, who, far from having
deprived you of any blessing, want you to share the blessing of holding
with them the doctrines of grace, or those of justice?
The Prince of life " died, that he might gather together in one the
children of God, who are scattered abroad," John xi, 52. And will ye
defeat this important end of his death ? He " would gather you as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings ;" and will ye pursue one another as
hawks pursue their prey ? Or keep at a distance from each other, as
lambs do from serpents ? Cannot Christ's blood, " by which you are
brought nigh to God," bring you nigh to each other ? Does it not " speak
better things than the blood of Abel ?" kinder things than your mutual
complaints'? Does it not whisper peace, mercy, gentleness, and joy?
" In Christ Jesus neither" rigid Calvinism " availeth any thing, nor"
rigid Arminianism, " but faith which worketh by love :" draw near with
faith to the Christian altar, which streams with that peace-speaking
blood. Behold the bleeding Lamb of God, and become gentle, merciful,
and loving ! See the antitype of the brazen serpent ! He hangs on
high and says, " When I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me :"
and in me they shall centre as the solar beams centre in the sun. And
will ye reply, " We will not be obedient to thy drawings : we will not
be concentrated in thee with our Calvinian or Arminian brethren ! Thy
Father may sacrifice thee to * slay the enmity, and so make peace :'
and thou mayest lay down thy life to make reconciliation ; but reconciled
to each other we will not be ; for the god of discord draws us asunder,
and his infernal drawings we will obey." If you shudder at the thought
of speaking such words, why should you so behave, that whoever sees
you, may see they are the language of your conduct, — a language which
is far more emphatical than that of your lips ?
Say then no longer, " Have us excused ;" but " come to the banquet,
ing house," — the temple of peace where " the Lord's banner over you
will be love," and his mercy " will comfort you on every side." " If
there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if
any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies ; fulfil ye the
joy" of all who wish Sion's prosperity : " be like minded, having the same
love, being of one accord, of one mind, submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of God. He is my record how greatly I long after
you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ, in whom there is neither Greek
nor Jew, neither bond nor free," neither Calvinist nor Arminian, " but
362 EQUAL CHECK. [PART
Christ is all in all. My heart is enlarged : for a recompense in the
same, be ye also enlarged," and grant me my humble, perhaps my dying
request : reject not my plea for peace. If it be not strong, it is earnest :
for (considering my bodily weakness) I write it at the hazard of my life.
Animamque in vutnere pono.
But why should I drop a hint about so insignificant a life, when I
can move you to accept of terms of reconciliation by the life and death,
by the resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ ? I recall
the frivolous hint ; and by the unknown agonies of Him whom you love ;
" who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications,
with strong crying and tears, unto him who was able to save him from
death ;" by his second coming ; and by our gathering together unto him,
I beseech you, " put on, as the [Protestant] elect of God, bowels of
mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering ; for-
bearing one another, and forgiving one another ; even as Christ loved
and forgave you, so also do ye." Instead of absurdly charging one
another with heresy, embrace one another, and triumph together in
Christ. " Come up out of the wilderness" of idle controversy 5 " lean
ing upon each other as brethren, holy and beloved :" and with your joint
forces attack your common enemies, Pharisaism, Antinomianism, and
infidelity. Bless God, ye Arminians, for raising such men as the pious
Calvinists, to make a firm stand against Pharisaic delusions, and to main-
tain with you the doctrines of man's fallen state, and of God's partial
grace, which the Pelagians attack with all their might. And ye Cal
vinists, rejoice, that Heaven has raised you such allies as the godly
Arminians, to oppose Manichean delusions, and to contend for the doc-
trines of holiness and justice, which the Antinomians seem sworn to
destroy.
Jerusalem is a city which is at unity in itself. As soon as ye will
cordially unite, the Protestant Jerusalem will become a praise in the
earth. The moment ye join creeds, hearts, and hands, our reproach is
rolled away : the apostasy is ended : the apostolic, pentecostal Church
returns from her long captivity in mystical Babylon. The two staves,
beauty arid bands, become one in the hand of the great Shepherd, who
writes upon it " Bible Calvinists reconciled to Bible Arminians :" see
Zech. xi, 7, and Ezek. xxxvii, 16, 17. Thus united, how happy are
ye among yourselves ! How formidable to your enemies ! The men
of the world are astonished, and say, « Who is she that looketh forth as
the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army
with banners T Surely it is a Church formed upon the model of the
primitive Church. These people are Christians indeed. See how they
" provoke one another to love and to good works !"
Such will be the fruit of your reconciliation, and such the glory of
" the Shulamite," the peaceful Church ! But, before I am aware, « my
longing soul makes me like the chariots of Aminadab," to go and admire
that truly reformed Church, whose members « are all of one heart and
of one soul." O ye pious Calvinists, and godly Arminians, if you desire
to see her glory, express your wish in Solomon's prophetic words,
" Return, return, O Shulamite : return, return, that we may look upon
thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite ? As it were the company
of two armies :" Cant, vi, 10, 12, 13 : the combined force of the good
THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 363
men who maintain the doctrines of grace and justice, and who, by their
union, will become strong enough to demolish modern Babel, and to bat-
ler down Pharisaism and Antinomianism, the two forts by which it is
defended. For Pharisaism will never yield, but to the power of Bible
Calvinism and the doctrines of grace. Nor can Antinomianism be con
quered, without the help of Bible Arminianism and the doctrines of justice.
And when Pharisaism and Antinomianism shall be destroyed, the Church
will be " sanctified, cleansed, and ready to be presented to Christ, — a
glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Then
shall we sing with truth, what we sing without propriety : —
" Love, like death, has all destroy'd,
Render'd all distinctions void :
Names, and sects, and parties fall,
Thou, O Christ, art all in all." *
In the meantime, let us rejoice in hope, and sing with the Christian
poet : —
" Giver of peace and unity,
Send down thy mild, pacific Dove ;
We all shall then in one agree,
And breathe the spirit of thy love.
We all shall think and speak the same
Delightful lesson of thy grace ;
One undivided Christ proclaim,
And jointly glory in thy praise.
Regard thine own eternal prayer,
And send a peaceful answer down :
To us thy Father's name declare ;
Unite and perfect us in one.
So shall the world believe and know,
That God has sent thee from above ;
When thou art seen in us below,
And every soul displays thy love."
* When I hear contending Calvinists and Arminians agree to print and sing
this verse, I am tempted to cry to them, "Be at peace among yourselves," or
sing at your love-feasts, —
Love has not our pride destroy'd,
Render'd our distinctions void ;
Names, and sects, and parties rise,
Peace retires, and mounts the skies
A REPLY
TO THE
PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS
BY WHICH
THE CALVINISTS AND THE FATALISTS
SUPPORT THE DOCTRINE OF
ABSOLUTE NECESSITY:
REMARKS
THE REV. MR, TOPLADY'S " SCHEME OP CHRISTIAN AND PHILQ.
SOPHICAL NECESSITY."
; Beware leat any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit," Col. ii, 8.
INTRODUCTION.
MR. VOLTAIRE at the head of the Deists abroad ; President Edwards
and Mr. Toplady at the head of the Calvinists in America and Great
Britain ; and Dr. Hartley, seconded by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Hume,
at the head of many ingenious philosophers, have of late years joined
their literary forces to bind man with what Mr. Toplady calls " ineluc-
tabilis ordo rerum" or " the extensive series of adamantine links," which
form the chain of " absolute necessity." An invisible chain this, by
which, if their scheme be true, God and nature inevitably bind upon us
all our thoughts and actions ; so that no good man can absolutely think
or do worse — no wicked man can at any time think or do better than he
does, each exactly filling up the measure of unavoidable virtue or vice which
God, as the first cause, or the predestinating and necessitating author
of all things, has allotted to him from all eternity.
Mr. Toplady triumphs in seeing the rapid progress which this doctrine
makes, by the help of the above-mentioned authors, who shine with
distinguished lustre in the learned world. " Mr. Wesley," says he,
" laments that necessity is * the scheme which is now adopted by not a
few of the most sensible men in the nation.' I agree with him as to the
fact : but I cannot deplore it as a calamity. The progress which that
doctrine has of late years made, and is still making in the kingdom, I
consider as a most happy and promising symptom," &c.
I flatter myself that I shall by and by show, upon theological prin
ciples, the mischievous absurdity of that spreading doctrine, in an
Answer to Mr. Topladifs Vindication of the Decrees. But as he has
lately published a book entitled, " The scheme of Christian and Philo
sophical Necessity, asserted in opposition to Mr. J. Weslev's Tract on
that Subject ;" and as he has advanced in that book some arguments
taken from philosophy and Scripture, I shall now take notice of them.
To defend truth effectually, error must be entirely demolished. There
fore, without any farther apology, I present the lovers of truth with the
following refutation of the grand error which supports the Calvinian and
Voltarian gospels.
A REPLY, &c.
A view of the doctrine of absolute necessity, as it is maintained by Mr.
Toplady and his adherents. This doctrine (as well as Manicheism)
makes God the author of every sin.
CONTROVERTISTS frequently accuse their opponents of holding detest-
able or absurd doctrines, which they never advanced, and which have
no necessary connection with their principles. That I may not be
guilty of so ungenerous a proceeding, I shall first present the reader
with an account of necessity and her pedigree, in Mr. Topladv's own
words.
Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity, (pages 13, 14 :) « If
we distinguish accurately, this seems to have been the order in whicl-
the most judicious of the ancients considered the whole matter. First,
God; then his will; then fate, or the solemn ratification of his will, by
passing and establishing it into an unchangeable decree ; then creation;
then necessity ; that, is, such an indissoluble concatenation of secondary
causes and effects as has a native tendency to secure the certainty of all
events, as one wave is impelled by another ;* then providence ; that is,
the omnipresent, omnivigilant, all-directing [he might have added all.
impelling} superintendency of Divine wisdom and power, carrying the
whole preconcerted scheme into actual execution, by the subservient
mediation of second causes, which were created for that end."
This is the full view of the doctrine which the Calvinists and the better
sort of fatalists defend. I would only ask a few questions upon it,
(1.) If all our actions, and consequently all our sin*, compose the
seventh link of the chain of Calvinism ;— if the first link is God ; the
second his will; the third his decree; the fourth creation; the fifth
necessity; the sixth providence; and the seventh sin; is it not as easy
to trace the pedigree of SIN through providence, necessity, creation,
God's decree, and God's will, up to God himself, as it is to trace back
the genealogy of the prince of Wales, from George III, by George II,
up to George I ? And upon this plan is it not clear that SIN is as much
the real offspring of God, as the prince of Wales is the real offsprin" of
George the First? (2.) If this is the case, does not Calvinism, or if
you please, fatalism or necessitarianism, absolutely make God the author
of sin by means of his will, his decree, his creation, his necessitetion
his impelling providence? And (horrible to think!) does it not un
avoidably follow, that the monster SIN is the offspring of God's provi
dence, of Goo's necesaitation, of God's creation, of God's- decree, of
God s will, of God himself? (3.) If this Manichean doctrine be true,
when Christ came to destroy sin, did he not come to destroy the work
God, rather than the work of the devil ? And when preachers
* Mr. T. puts this clause in Lalin : Velut undo, impellitur unda.
V OL. II. 24
370 REMARKS ON TOPLADtf S
attack sin, do they not attack God's providence, God's necessitation,
God's creation, God's decree, God's will, and 6od himself? (4.) To
do God and his oracles justice, ought we not to give the following
Scriptural genealogy of sin ? A sinful act is the offspring of a sinful
choice ; a sinful choice is the offspring of self perversion ; and self per
version may or may not follow from free will put in a state of probation,
or under a practical law. When you begin at sin, you can never
ascend higher than free will ; and when you begin at God, you can
never descend lower than free will. Thus, (i.) God ; (ii.) his will to
make free-willing, accountable creatures ; (iii.) his putting his will in
execution by the actual creation of such creatures ; (iv.) legislation on
God's part ; (v.) voluntary, unnecessitated obedience on the part of
those who make a good use of their free will ; and (vi.) voluntary, un-
neccssitated disobedience on the part of those who make a bad use of
it. Hence it is evident, that by substituting necessity for free will, and
absolute decrees for righteous legislation, Mr. Toplady breaks the golden
chain which our gracious Creator made, and helps Manes, Augustine,
Calvin, Hobbes, Voltaire, Hume, Dr. Hartley, and Dr. Priestley, to
hammer out the iron-clay chain by which they liang sin upon God
himself. (5.) If all our sins with all their circumstances and aggrava
tions, are only a part of " the whole preconcerted scheme" which
" Divine wisdom and power" absolutely and irresistibly " carry into
actual execution by the subservient mediation of second causes, which
were created for that end ;" who can rationally blame sinners for
answering the end for which they were absolutely created 1 Who can
refuse to exculpate and pity the reprobates, whom all-impelling omnipo
tence carries into sin, and into hell, as irresistibly as a floating cork is
carried toward the shore by tossing billows which necessarily impel one
another 1 And who will not be astonished at the erroneous notions
which the consistent fatalists have of their God ? A God this who
necessitates, yea, impels men to sin by his will, his decree, his necessi-
tation, and his providence : then gravely weeps and bleeds over them
for sinning. And after having necessitated and impelled the non-elect
to disbelieve and despise his blood, will set up a judgment seat to damn
them for "necessarily carrying his preconcerted scheme into actual
execution," as " second causes which were created for that end i"
" O ! but they do it voluntarily as well as necessarily, and therefore
they are accountable and judicable." This Calvinian salvo makes a
bad matter worse. For if all their sins are necessarily brought about
by God's all-impelling decree, their willing and bad choice are brought
about by the same preconcerted, irresistible means ; one of the ends of
God's necessitation, with respect to the reprobate, being to make them
sin with abundantly greater freedom and choice than if they were not
necessitated and impelled by God's predestinating, efficacious, irre
sistible decree. This Mr. Toplady indirectly asserts in the following
argument :—
Page 15. " They [man's actions — mail's sins^ may be, at one and the
same time, free and necessary too. When Mr. Wesley is very hungry
and tired, he is necessarily, and yet freely, disposed to food or rest. His
will is concerned in sitting down to dinner, or in courting repose, when
necessity impels to either. Necessarily biassed as he is to those
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 371
mediums of recruit, he has recourse to them as freely (that is, as volun
tarily, and with as much appetite, choice, desire, and relish) as if necessity
were quite out of the case ; nay, and with abundantly greater freedom
and choice than if he was not so necessitated and impelled."
Is not this as much as to say, " As nccessitation, the daughter of
God's decree, impels Mr. Wesley to eat, by giving him an appetite to
food : so it formerly impelled Adam, and now it impels all the reprobates
to sin, by giving them an appetite to wickedness. And necessarily
biassed as they are to adultery, robbery, and other crimes, they commit
t^hem as freely, i. e. with as much appetite and choice, as if necessity
were quite out of the case : nay, and with abundantly greater freedom
and choice than if they were not so necessitated and impelled." Is not
this reviving one of the most impious tenets of the Manichees ? Is it not
confounding the Lamb of God with the old dragon, and coupling the
celestial Dove with the infernal serpent 1
If you ask, " Where is the flaw of Mr. Toplady's argumentative illus
tration ?'' I answer, It has two capital defects : (1.) That God's will, his
decree, and his providence, iinpel Mr. Wesley to eat when he is hungry,
is very true ; because eating in such a case is, in general, Mr. Wesley's
duty ; and reminding him of his want of nourishment, by the sensation
which we call hunger, is a peculiar favour, worthy of the Parent of
good to bestow. But the question is, Whether God's will, decree, and
providence, imprtled Adam to choose the forbidden fruit rather than any
other, and excited David to go to Uriah's wife, rather than to his own
wives ? How illogical, how detestable is this conclusion ! God necessi
tates and impels us to do our duty ; and therefore he necessitates and
impels us to do wickedness! But, (2.) The greatest absurdity belonging
to Mr. Toplady's illustration is, his pretending to overthrow the doctrine
of free will by urging the hunger, which God gives to Mr. Wesley, in
order to necessitate and impel him to eat, according to the decree of
Calvinian necessitation, which is absolutely irresistible. Mr. T. saj^s,
(page 13,) " We call that necessary which cannot be otherwise than it
is.'' Now Mr. Wesley's eating when he is hungry is by no means
Calmnislically necessary : for he has a hundred times reversed the
decree of his hunger by fasting ; and if he were put to the sad alterna
tive of the woman who was to starve or to kill and eat her own child, he
both could and would go full against the necessitation of his hunger, and
never eat more. Mr. Toplady's illustration, therefore, far from proving
that God's necessitation irresistibly impels us to commit sin, indirectly
demonstrates that God's necessitation does not so much as absolutely
impel us to do those things which the very laws of our constitution and
nature themselves bind upon us, by the strong necessity of self preserva
tion. For some people have so far resisted the urgent calls of nature
and appetite, as not only to make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven's sake, but even literally to starve themselves to death.
I once saw a man who played the most amazing tricks with a pack
of cards. His skill consisted in so artfully shuffling them, and imper
ceptibly substituting one for another, that when you thought you had
fairly secured the king of hearts, you found yourself possessed only of
the knave of clubs. The defenders of the doctrine of necessity are not
less skilful. I shall show, in another tract, with what subtilty Mr. T
372 REMARKS ON TOPLADY^S
uses " permission" for efficacy, — no " salvation due," for eternal torments
insured ; " not enriching," for absolute reprobation ; and " passing by,"
for absolutely appointing to remediless sin and everlasting burnings* Let
us now consider the grand, logical substitution which deceives that
gentleman, and by which he misleads the admirers of his scheme.
Page 14. " I acquiesce in the old distinction of necessity [a distinction
adopted by Luther and others] into a necessity of compulsion, and a
necessity of infallible certainty. We say of the earth, for instance,
that it circuits the sun by compulsory necessity. The necessity of infalli
ble certainty is of a very different kind, and only renders the event
inevitably future, without any compulsory force on the will of the agent."
If Mr. T. had said, " The necessity of true prophecy considers an event
as certainly future, but puts no Calvinian, irresistible bias on the will of
the agent ;" I would have subscribed to his distinction. But instead of
the words truly certain, or certainly future, which would have perfectly
explained what may improperly be called necessity of true prophecy, and
what should be called certain futurity ; instead of those words, I say,
he artfully substitutes, first, "infallibly certain," and then "inevitably
future." The phrase infallibly certain may be admitted to pass, if you
understand by it that which does not fail to happen : but if you take it
in a rigid sense, and mean by it that which cannot absolutely fail to
happen, you get a step out of the way, and you may easily go on shuf
fling your logical cards, till you have imposed fatalism upon the simple,
by making them believe that certainly future, infallibly future, and
inevitably future, are three phrases of the same import ; whereas the
difference between the first and last phrase is as great as the difference
between Mr. Wesley's Scriptural doctrine of free will, and Mr. T.'s
Manichean doctrine of absolute necessity.
It is the property of error to be inconsistent. Accordingly we find
that Mr. T., after having told us, p. 14, that the "necessity of infallible
certainty," which renders the event inevitably future, lays " no compul
sory force on the will of the agent," tells us, in the very same page, that
his Calvinian necessity is " such an indissoluble concatenation of second
ary causes, [created for that end,] and of effects, as has a native tendency
to secure the certainty of events, [i. e. of all volitions, murders, adulte
ries, and incests,] sicut unda impellitur unda ;" as one wave impels
another; or as the first link of a chain, which you pull, draws the
second, the second the third, and so on. Now if all our volitions are
pushed forward by Cod through the means of his absolute will, his
irresistible decree, his efficacious creation, and his all-conquering ne-
eessitation, which is nothing but an adamantine chain of second causes
created by Providence in order to produce absolutely all the effects
which are produced, and to make them impel each other, " as one wave
impels another ;" we desire to know how our volitions can be thus irre
sistibly impelled upon us " without any compulsory force on our will."
I do not see how Mr. T. can get over this contradiction, otherwise than
by saying, that although Cod's necessitation is irresistibly impulsory,
yet it is not at all compulsory ; although it absolutely impels us to will,
yet it does not in the least compel us to be willing. But would so
frivolous, so absurd a distinction as this, wipe off the foul blot which the
scheme of necessity fixes on the Father of lights, when i; represent.61
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 373
him as the first cause, and the grand contriver of all our sinful
volitions 1
Mr. T., pp. 133, 134, among other pieces of Manicheism, gives us
the following account of that strange religion : — " There are two inde
pendent gods, or infinite principles, viz. light and darkness. The first
is the author of all good ; and the second of all evil. The evil god
made sin. The good god and the bad god wage implacable war against
each other ; and perpetually clog and disconcert one another's schemes
and operations. Hence men are impelled, <fyc, to good, or to evil, ac
cording as they come under the power of the good deity, or the bad
one." Or, to speak Calvinistically, they are necessarily made willing
to believe and obey, if they are the elected objects of everlasting love,
which is the good principle ; arid they are irresistibly made willing to
disbelieve and disobey, if they are the reprobated objects of everlasting
wrath, which is the evil principle. For free will has no more place in
Manicheism than it has in Calvinism. Hence it appears that, setting
aside the other peculiarities of each scheme, the grand difference be
tween Calvin and Manes consists in Calvin's making everlasting, elect
ing, necessitating love, and everlasting, reprobating, necessitating wrath,
to flow from the same Divine principle ; whereas Manes more reasona
bly supposed that they flow from two contrary principles. Whoever
therefore denies free will, and contends for necessity, embraces, before
he is aware, the capital error of the Manichees ; and it is well if he do
not hold it in a less reasonable manner than Manes himself did. " I
believe," adds Mr. Toplady, " it is absolutely impossible to trace quite
up to its source the antiquity of that hypothesis which absurdly affirms
the existence of two eternal, contrary, independent principles. What
led so many wise people, and for so great a series of ages, into such a
wretched mistake, were chiefly, I suppose, these two considerations :
(1.) That evil, both moral and physical, are positive things, and so must
have a positive cause. (2.) That a being, perfectly good, could not,
from the very nature of his existence, be the cause of such bad things."
Here Mr. Toplady reasons like a judicious divine. The misfortune
for his scheme is, that his " two considerations," like two mill stones,
grind Calvinism to dust; or, like two cogent arguments, force us to
embrace the doctrine of free will, or the error of Manes. Mr. Toplady
seerns aware of this ; and therefore to show that God can, upon the
Calvinian plan, absolutely predestinate, and effectually bring about sin,
by making men willing to sin in the day of his irresistible power ; and
that nevertheless he is not the author and first cause of sin ; to show
this, I say, Mr. Toplady asserts, " that evil, whether physical or moral,
does not, upon narrow inspection, appear to have so much of posilivity in
it, as it is probable those ancients supposed." Nay, he insinuates that
as " sickness is a privation of health ; so the sinfulness of any human
action is said to be a privation ;" being called avofxia, " illegality ;" and
he adds, that wonderful as the thing may appear, Dr. Watts, in his
Logic, "ventures to treat of sin under the title of not being"* WTien
* If the Calvinists, in their unguarded moments, represent sin as a kind of not
being or nonentity, that they may exculpate God for absolutely ordaining it, do
they not by this means exculpate the sinner also ? If the first cause of sin is
excusable, because sin is a privation, and has " not so much of positivity in it as
374
Mr. Toplady has thus cleared the way, and modestly intimated that
sin, being a kind of nonentity, can have no positive cause, he proposes
the grand question, " whether the great first cause, who is infinitely and
merely good, can be either efficiently or deficiently the author of them ?"
that is (according to the context) the author of iniquity, injustice, im
piety, and vice, as well as the author of the natural evil by which
God punishes sin?
Page 139, Mr. Toplady answers this question thus > — " In my opinion,
the single word permission solves the whole difficulty, as far as it can be
solved," &c. And page 141, he says, "We know scarce any of the
views which induced uncreated goodness to ordain (for, &c, I see no
great difference between permitting and ordaining") the introgression, or
more properly the intromission, of evil." Here Mr. Toplady goes as
far as he decently can. Rather than grant that we are endued with
free will, and that when God had made angels and men free-willing
creatures, in order to judge them according to their own works, he
could not, without inconsistency, rob them of free will by necessitating
them to be either good or wicked ; rather, I say, than admit this Scrip
tural doctrine, which perfectly clears the gracious Judge of all the
earth, Mr. Toplady first indirectly and decently extenuates sin, and
brings it down to almost nothing, and then he tells us that God ordained
it. Is not the openness of Manes preferable to this Calvinistic winding ?
When Mr. Toplady grants that God " ordained" sin, and when he
charges " the intromission of evil" upon God, does he not grant all that
Manes in this respect contended for? And have not the Manichean
necessitarians the advantage over Mr. Toplady, when they assert that a
principle, which absolutely ordains, yea, necessitates sin and all the
works of darkness, is a dark and evil principle ? Can we doubt of it,
if we believe these sayings of Christ ? " Out of the [evil] heart proceed
evil thoughts, &c. By their works you shall know them. The tree is
known by its fruit."
Again : if " sin," or rather the sinfulness of an action, may be pro
perly called a "not being," or a nonentity, as Mr. Toplady incon
sistently insinuates, page 137, it absurdly follows, that crookedness, or
the want of straightness in a line, is a mere privation also, or a not
being: whereas reason and feeling tell us that the crookedness of a
crooked line is something every way as positive as the straightness of a
straight line. To deny it is as ridiculous as to assert that a circle is a
not being, because it is not made of straight lines like a square ; or that
a murder is a species of nonentity, because it is not the legal execution
of a condemned malefactor. Nor can Mr. Toplady mend his error by
hiding it behind " Dr. W^atts' Logic ;" for the world knows that Dr.
Watts was a Calvinist when he wrote that book ; and therefore, judi
cious as he was, the veil of error prevented him from seeing then that
part of the truth which I contend for.
Once more : whether sin has a positive cause or not, (for Mr. Top-
lady insinuates both these doctrines with the inconsistency peculiar to
his system,) I beg leave to involve him in a dilemma, which will meet
him at the front or back door of his inconsistency. Either sin is a real
the ancients supposed," is not the second cause of sin much more excusable on
the same account ?
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 375
ihing, and has a positive cause ; or it is not a real thing, and has no
positive cause. If it is NOT a real thing, and has no positive cause, why
does God positively send the wicked to hell for a privation which they
have not positively caused 1 And if sin is a real thing, or a positive
moral crookedness of the will of a sinner, and as such has a positive
cause ; can that positive cause be any other than the self perversion of
free will, or the impelling decree of a sin-ordaining God ? If the posi
tive cause of sin is the self perversion of free will, is it not evident, that
so sure as there is sin in the world, the doctrine of free will is true '?
But if the positive cause of sin is the impelling decree of a sin-ordaining,
sin-necessitating God ; is it not incontestable that the capital doctrine
of the Manichees, the doctrine of absolute necessity is true ; and that
there is in the Godhead an evil principle, (it signifies little whether you
call it matter, darkness, everlasting free wratli, or devil,) which positively
ordains and irresistibly causes sin ? In a word, is it not clear that the
second Gospel axiom is overthrown by the doctrine of necessity ; and
that the damnation of sinners is of God, and not of themselves ?
While Mr. Toplady tries to extricate himself from this dilemma, I
shall produce one or two more passages of this book to prove that his
scheme makes God the author of sin, according to the most dangerous
error of Manes. The heathens imagined that Minerva, the goddess of
wisdom, was Jupiter's offspring in the most peculiar manner. Diana
was indeed Jupiter's daughter, but Latona, an earthly princess, was her
mother : whereas Jupiter was at once the father and mother of Minerva.
He begat her himself in the womb of his own brain, and when she was •
ripe for the birth, his forehead opened after a violent headache, which
answered to the pangs of child bearing, and out came the lovely female
deity. Mr. Toplady, alluding to this heathen fiction, represents his
Diana, necessity, as proceeding from God with her immense chain of
events, which has among its adamantine links all the follies, heresies,
murders, robberies, adulteries, incests, and rebellions, of which men and
devils have been, are, or ever shall be guilty. His own words, page 50,
are, " Necessity, in general, with all its extensive series of adamantine
links in particular, is, in reality, what the poets feigned of Minerva, the
issue of Divine wisdom : [he should have said the issue of the supreme
God, by his own wise brain,] deriving its whole existence from the free
will of God; and its whole effectuosity from his never-ceasing provi
dence." Is not this insinuating, as plainly as decency will allow, that
every sin, as a link of the adamantine chain of events, has been ham
mered in heaven, and that every crime " derives its whole existence from
the free will of God ?" Take one more instance of the same Manichean
doctrine : —
Page 64. Mr. Toplady having said that "he [God] casteth forth
his ice like morsels, and causeth his wind to blow," &c, adds, " Neither
is material nature alone bound fast in fate. All other things, the human
will itself not excepted, are not less tightly bound, i. e. effectually in
fluenced and determined." Hence it is evident, that if this Calvinism
is true, when sinners send forth volleys of unclean and profane words,
Calvin's God has as "tightly bound" them to cast forth Manichean
ribaldry, as the God of nature binds the clouds to " cast forth his ice
like morsels."
376 REMARKS ON TOPLADY*S
I would not be understood to demonstrate by the preceding quota.
tions, that Mr. Toplady designs to make God the author of sin. No :
on the contrary, I do him the justice to say, that he does all he can to
clear his doctrines of grace from this dreadful imputation. I only pro-
dace his own words to show that, notwithstanding all his endeavours,
this horrid Manichean consequence unavoidably flows from his Scheme
of Necessity.
SECTION II.
Mr. Toplady attempts to support his Scheme of Absolute Necessity by
philosophy — His philosophical error is overthrown by fourteen argu
ments — What truth comes nearest to his error.
WE have taken a view of the Scheme of Necessity, and seen how it
represents God, directly or indirectly, as the first cause of all sin and
damnation. Consider we now how Mr. T. defends this scheme by
rational arguments as a philosopher.
Page 22. " The soul is, in a very extensive degree, passive as matter
is." Here Mr. Toplady, in some 'degree, gives up the point. He is
about to prove that the soul is not self determined ; and that, as our
bodily organs are necessarily and irresistibly affected by the objects
which strike them ; so our souls are necessarily and irresistibly deter,
mined by our bodily organs, and by the ideas which those organs ne-
.cessarily raise in our minds, when they are so affected. Now, to prove
this, he should have proved that our souls are altogether as passive as
our bodies. But, far from proving it, he dares not assert it : for he
allows that the soul is passive as matter, only " in a very extensive de
gree ;" and therefore, by his own concession, the argument on which
he is going to rest the notion of the absolute passiveness of the soul
with respect to self determination, will be at least in some degree ground,
less. But let us consider this mighty argument, and see if Mr. T.'s
limitation frees him from the charge of countenancing materialism, « in
a very extensive degree."
Page 22. " The senses are necessarily impressed by every object,
from without, and as necessarily commove the fibres of the brain ; from
which nervous commotion, ideas are necessarily communicated to, or
excited in the soul ; and by the judgment, which the soul necessarily
frames of those ideas, the will is necessarily inclined to approve or dis.
approve, to act or not to act. If so, where is the boasted power of self
determination T'
This Mr. Toplady calls « a survey of the soul's dependence on the
body." Page 27. he enforces the same doctrine in these words : " The
human body is necessarily encompassed by a multitude of other bodies.
Which other surrounding bodies, animal, vegetable, &c, so far as we
come within their perceivable sphere, necessarily impress our nerves
with sensations correspondent to the objects themselves. These sensa
tions are necessarily, &c, propagated to the soul, which can no more
help receiving them, and being affected by them, than a tree can resist
a stroke of lightning.
"Now, (1.) If all the ideas in the soul derive their existence from
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 377
sensation ; and, (2.) If the soul depend absolutely on the body, for all
those sensations ; and, (3.) If the body be both primarily and continu
ally dependent on other extrinsic beings, for the very sensations which
it [the body] communicates to the soul ; the consequence seems to me
undeniable, that neither man's mental, nor his outward operations are
self determined ; but, on the contrary, determined by the views with
which an infinity of surrounding objects necessarily, and almost inces
santly impress his intellect."
These arguments bring to my mind St. Paul's caution : " Beware, lest
any man spoil you through philosophy, and vain deceit." That Mr.
T.'s scheme is founded on a vain philosophy, will, I hope, appear evi
dent to those who weigh the following remarks : —
I. This scheme is contrary to genuine philosophy, which has always
represented the soul as able to resist the strongest impressions of the
objects that surround the body ; and as capable of going against the
wind and tide of all the senses. Even Horace, an effeminate disciple
of Epicurus, could say, in his sober moments,
Justum et tenacem propositi virum, &c.
" Neither the clamours of a raging mob, nor the frowns of a threaten
ing tyrant ; neither furious storms, nor roaring thunders can move a
righteous man, who stands firm to his resolution. The wreck of the
world might crush his body to atoms, but could not shake his soul with
fear." But Mr. T.'s philosophy sinks as much below the poor hea
then's, as a man who is perpetually borne down and carried away by
every object of sense around him, is inferior to the steady man, whose
virtue triumphs over all the objects which strike his senses.
II. This doctrine unmans man. For reason, or a power morally to
regulate the appetites which we gratify by means of our senses, is what
chiefly distinguishes us from other animals. Now if outward objects
necessarily bias our senses, if our senses necessarily bias our judgment,
and if our judgment necessarily bias our will and practice, what ad
vantage have we over beasts ? May we not say of reason, what heated
Luther once said of free will ; that it is an empty name, a mere non
entity? Thus Mr. Toplady's "Scheme of Philosophical Necessity,"
by rendering reason useless, saps the very foundation of all moral phi
losophy, and hardly allows man the low principle of conduct which we
call instinct in brutes : nay, the very brutes are not so affected by the
objects which strike their senses ; but they often run away, hungry as
they are, from the food which tempts their eye, their nose, and their
belly, when they apprehend some danger, though their senses discover
none. Beasts frequently act in full opposition to the sight of their eyes ;
but the wretched scheme, which Mr. T. imposes upon us as Christian
philosophy, supposes that all men necessarily think, judge, and act, not
only « according to the sight of their eyes'," but according to the im
pressions made by matter, upon all their senses. How would heathen
ish fatalists themselves have exploded so carnal a philosophy !
III. As it sets aside reason, so it overthrows conscience, and " the
light which enlightens every man that comes into the world." For of
what use is conscience ? Of what use is the internal light of grace,
which enlightens conscience within, if man is necessarily determined
378 REMARKS ON TOPLADY »
from witliovt ; and if the objects which strike his senses, irresistibly turn
his judgment and his will ; insomuch that he can no more resist their
impression " than a tree can resist the stroke of lightning ?"
IV. As this scheme leaves no room for morality, so it robs us of the
very essence of God's natural image, which consists chiefly in self acti
vity and self motion. For, according to Mr. T.'s philosophy, we cannot
take one step, no, not in the affairs of common life, without an irresistible,
necessitating impulse. Yea, with respect to self activity, he represents
us as inferior to our watches : they have their spring of motion within
themselves, and they can go alone, if they are wound up once in twenty-
four hours. But, if we believe Mr. T., our spring of motion is without
us : nay, we have as many springs of motion as there are objects around
us ; and these objects necessarily wind up our will from moment to mo
ment. For, by necessarily moving our senses, they necessarily move
our understandings ; our understanding necessarily moves our will ; and
our will necessarily moves our tongues, hands, and feet. Thus our will
and our body, like the wheels and body of a coach, never move but as
they are moved, and cannot help moving when they are acted upon.
How different is this mechanical religion from the spiritual religion
which the learned and pious Dr. H. More inculcates in these words : —
" The first degree of the Divine image was self motion or self activity.
For mere passivity, or to be moved or acted by another, without a man's
will, &c, is the condition of such as are either dead or asleep ; as to go
of a man's self is a symptom of one alive or awake. Men that are dead
drunk may be haled, or disposed of where others please." To be irre
sistibly acted upon is then to be " deprived of that degree of life which
is self activity, or the doing of things from an inward principle of free
agency ; and therefore it is to be, so far, in a state of death."
Nor will Mr. T. mend the matter by urging tlmt our understanding
and our will are first necessarily moved and determined by the objects
which surround us. For the motion of a coach drawn by horses, and
driven by a coachman, is not the less mechanical, because the smooth
axletree, and the oiled wheels, being first set in motion, move the whole
coach by readily yielding to the impulse of the external mover. Were
such wheels as full of consciousness and willingness as the mystic wheels
of Ezekiel's vision ; yet, so long as they moved by absolute necessity, or
by an oil of willingness irresistibly applied to them from without, their
motion would not be more commendable than that of a well suspended
and oiled wheel, which the touch of your finger moves round its axis. It
turns indeed freely and (according to supposition) willingly : but yet, as
it wills and moves irresistibly and passively, its moving and willing are
merely mechanical. So easy and short is the transition from the scheme
of absolute necessity to that of universal mechanism !
V. If Mr. T.'s scheme of necessity be true, all sin may be justly
charged upon Providence, who, by the " surrounding objects which neces
sarily impress our intellect," causes sin as truly, and as irresistibly, as a
gunner causes the explosion of a loaded cannon, by the lighted match
which he applies to the touch hole. And Eve was unwise when she
said, " The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat ;" for she might have said,
" Lord, I have only followed the appointed law of my nature : for, pro
videntially coming within sight of the tree of knowledge, I perceived
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 379
that ' the fruit was good for food, and pleasant to the eye.' It necessa
rily impressed my nerves with correspondent sensations ; these sensa
tions were necessarily and instantaneously propagated to rny soul ; and
my soul could no more help receiving these forcible impressions, and
eating in consequence of them, than a tree can resist a stroke of light
ning." I should be glad to know with what justice Eve could have been
condemned after such a plea, if Mr. T.'s scheme be true 1 Especially if
ehe had urged, as Mr. T. does, p. 14, that God's necessitation gives
birth to " providence ;" that is, " to the all-directing superintendency of
Divine wisdom and power, carrying the whole preconcerted scheme into
actual execution, by the subservient mediation of second causes [such as
the fair colour of the fruit, and the eye of Eve] which were created for
that end." Can any man say, that if Mr. T. be right, Eve would have
" charged God foolishly?"
However, if Eve did not know how to exculpate herself properly,
according to the doctrine of Divine necessitation, Mr. Toplady knows
how to reduce his Gospel to practice ; and therefore, in a humorous
manner, he justifies his illiberal treatment of his opponent thus : p. 10,
" Mr. Wesley imagines that, upon my own principles, I can be no more
than a dock. And if so, how can I help striking ? He himself has
several times smarted for coming too near the pendulum." What a
sweet and profitable Gospel is this ! Who would wonder, if all who
love to " strike their fellow servants" should embrace Mr. Toplady 's
system, as a comfortable " doctrine of grace," by which sin may be
humourously palliated, and striking sinners completely justified ?
VI. It is contrary to Scripture : for, if man be necessarily affected,
and irresistibly wrought upon, or led by the forcible impressions of
external objects, Paul spake like a heretical free wilier when he said,
" All things [indifferent] are lawful for me ; but I will not be brought
under the power of any." How foolish was this saying, if he could "no
more help being brought under the irresistible power of the objects
which surrounded him, than a tree can help being struck by the light
ning ?"
VII. It is contrary to common sense : how can God reasonably set
life and death, water and fire before us, and bid us choose eternal life,
and living water, if surrounding objects work upon us, as the lightning
works upon a tree on which it falls ? And when the Lord commands
the reprobates to choose virtue, after having bound them over to vice by
the adamantine chain of necessitation, does he not insult over their misery,
as much as a sheriff would do, who, after having ordered the execu
tioner to bind a man's hands, to fasten his neck to the gallows, and abso
lutely to drive away the cart from under him, should gravely bid the
wretch to choose life and liberty, and bitterly exclaim against him for
" neglecting so great" a deliverance '.'
VIII. It is contrary to the sentiments of all the Churches of Christ,
except those of necessitarian Rome and Geneva : for they all reasonably
require us to renounce the pomps of the world, and the alluring, sinful
baits of the flesh. But if these pomps and baits work upon us by means
of our senses, as necessarily, and determine our will as irresistibly as
lightning shivers a tree, can any thing be more absurd than our baptis
mal engagements ? Might we not as well seriously vow never to be
380
struck by the lightning in a storm, as solemnly vow never to be led by,
or follow the vanities of the world and the sinful lusts of the flesh ?
IX. It represents the proceedings of the day of judgment, as the most
unrighteous, cruel, and hypocritical acts, that ever disgraced the tribunal
of a tyrant. For if God, by eternal, absolute, and necessitating decrees,
places the reprobates in the midst of a current of circumstances, which
carries them along as irresistibly as a rapid river wafts a feather ; if he
encompasses them with tempting objects, which strike their souls with
ideas, that cause sin in their hearts and lives, as inevitably as a stroke
of lightning raises splinters in the tree which it shatters ; and if we can
no more Jielp being determined by these objects, which God's providence
has placed around us on purpose to determine us, than a tree can resist
a stroke of lightning ; it unavoidably follows, that when God will judi
cially condemn the wicked, and send them to hell for their sins, he will
act with as much justice as the king would do, if he sent to the gallows
all his subjects who have had the misfortune of being struck with light-
ning. Nay, to make the case parallel, we must suppose that the king
has the absolute command of the lightning, and had previously struck
them with the fiery ball, that he might subsequently condemn them to
be hanged for having been struck, according to his absolute decree.
Should the reader, who is not yet initiated into the mystery of the
Calvinian decrees, ask, if it be possible that rigid bound willers should
fix so horrible a blot upon the character of " the Judge of all the earth ?"
I answer in the affirmative ; and I prove, by the following words of Mr.
Toplady, that, if Calvinism be true, the pretended sentence which the
Judge shall pass in the great day, will be only a publication or ratification
of the everlasting decrees, by which a Manichean deity absolutely
necessitates some men to repent and be saved, and others to sin and be
damned. " Christ," says Mr. Toplady, in his Zanch. p. 875 " will then
properly sit as a Judge ; and openly publish, and solemnly ratify his
everlasting decrees, by receiving the elect, &c, into glory ; and by
passing sentence on the non-elect, [&c,] for their wilful ignorance of
Divine things, and their obstinate unbelief," &c. It is true that after
the word non-elect Mr. T. adds in a parenthesis these words, " hot for
having done what they could not help." But it is equally true that he
had no more right to add this parenthesis, than I have to say that the
lightning is at my command : for, throughout his Scheme of Necessity,
he attempts to prove that man is not " self determined," but irresistibly
determined by some other being, viz. by God, who absolutely determines
him by " second causes created for that end ;" forcible causes these,
whose impressions are so strong, that we " can no more help receiving
them [and being determined by them] than a tree can resist a stroke of
lightning." Beside, if the non-elect are damned " for their obstinate
unbelief," as Mr. T. tells us in his quotation ; and if it be as impossible
for them to believe as to make a world, (an absurd maxim this, which is
inculcated by rigid bound wiliers,) it is evident that the non-elect can no
more help their unbelief, than they can help their incapacity to create
a world.
X. Mr. Toplady's Scheme of Necessity places matter and its impres
sions far above spirit and its influence. If his philosophy be true, every
material object around us, by making necessary, irresistible impressions
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 381
apon our minds, necessarily determines our will, and irresistibly impels
our actions. According to this system, therefore, we cannot resist the
powerful influence of matter : but, if we believe the Scriptures, we can
" resist the Holy Ghost, and do despite to the Spirit of grace." Now,
•what is this, but to represent matter, (which is the God of the materialists,
and the evil God of the Manichees,) as more active, quick, and powerful
than spirit ? Yea, than the Holy Spirit ?
Mr. Toplady may indeed say that the material objects, by which we
are absolutely determined, are only God's tools, by which God himself
determines us : but, though this salvo may so far reconcile the Scheme
of Necessity to itself; it will never reconcile it to such scriptures as
these : — " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did.
I would have gathered you, and ye would not." And, what is still worse,
it represents God as working Manichean iniquity by common adulterers
and robbers, as forcibly as a miller grinds his corn, by the use he makes
of a current of air or a stream of water.
• XI. The Scheme of Philosophical Necessity which I attack, supposes
that God, to maintain order in the universe, is obliged to necessitate all
events, from the wagging of a dog's tail, or the rise of a particle of dust,
to the murder of a king, or the rise of an empire. Thus Mr. T. tells us,
in his preface to ZancJiiiis, p. 4, " Bishop Hopkins did not go a jot too
far in asserting," that " not a dust flies on a beaten road, but God raiseth
it, conducts its uncertain motion, and, by his particular care, conveys it
to the certain place he had before appointed for it : nor shall the most
fierce and tempestuous wind hurry it any farther." I object to this
puerile system: (1.) Because it absurdly multiplies God's decrees;
rendering them not only as numerous as the sands on the sea shore, and
the particles of dust on beaten roads, but also as countless as all the
motions of each grain of sand and particle of dust in all ages. At this
rate, a large folio volume could not contain all the decrees of God
concerning the least particle of dust ; its rises and falls ; its stops and
hinderances ; its situations and modifications ; its whirlings to the right,
or to the left, &c, &c. And, (2.) Because it represents God as being
endued with less wisdom than a prudent king, who can maintain good
order in his kingdom without making particular laws or decrees to
necessitate every eructation of his drunken soldiers, or every puff of his
smoking subjects ; and without ordaining every filthy jest which is uttered
from the ale bench, appointing every loud invective which disturbs
Billingsgate, and predestinating every wry face which the lunatics make
in Bedlam.
XII. But what I chiefly dislike in this scheme, is its degrading all
human souls in such a manner as to make them receive their moral
excellence and depravity from the contexture of the brains by which
they work, and from the place of the bodies in which they dwell.
Insomuch, that all the difference there is between one who thinks loyally,
and one who thinks otherwise ; between one who believes that Christ is
God over all, and one who believes that he is a mere creature, consists
only in the make and position of their brains. Supposing, for example,
that a gentleman has honourable thoughts of his king and of his Saviour,
and is ready, from a principle of loyalty and faith, to defend the dignity
of George the Third, and the divimty of Jesus Christ : supposing also.
382
that another gentleman breaks, without ceremony, these two evangelical
precepts, " Honour the king, — Let all the angels of God worship him"
[Christ ;] I ask, Why is their moral and religious conduct so opposite ?
Is it because the first gentleman's free-willing soul has intrinsically more
reverence for the king and for our Lord ? Because he keeps his heart
more tender by faith and prayer, and his conscience more devoid of
prejudice, through a diligent improvement of his talent, or through a
more faithful use of his free agency, and a readier submission to the
light that enlightens every man ? No such thing ; if Mr. T.'s scheme
be true, the whole difference consists in " mud walls," and external
circumstances.
Page 33, " The soul of a monthly reviewer, if imprisoned within the
same mud walls which are tenanted by the soul of Mr. John Wesley,
would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act, (I verily think,) exactly
like the bishop of Moorfields." And, pp. 34, 35, he adds, " I just now
hinted the conjecture of some, that a human spirit incarcerated in the
brain of a cat, would probably both think and behave as that animal does.
But how would the soul of a cat acquit itself if inclosed in the brain of a
man ? We cannot resolve this question with certainty, any more than
the other." Admirable divinity ! So Mr. Toplady leaves the orthodox
in doubt : (1.) Whether when their souls, and the souls of cats, shall be
let out of their respective brains or prisons, the souls of cats will not be
equal to the souls of men. (2.) Whether, supposing the soul of a cat had
been put in the brain of St. Paul, or of a monthly reviewer, the soul of
" puss" would not have made as great an apostle as the soul of Saul of
Tarsus ; as good a critic as the soul of the most sensible reviewer.
And, (3.) Whether, in case the " human spirit" [of Isaiah] " were shut
up in the skull of a cat, puss would not, notwithstanding, move prone on
all four, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice be
her darling objects of pursuit," p. 34. Is not this a pretty large stride,
for the first, toward the doctrine of the sameness of the souls of men
with the souls of cats and frogs? Wretched Calvinism, new-fangled
doctrines of grace, where are you leading your deluded admirers 1 your
principal vindicators ? Is it not enough that you have spoiled the fountain
of living waters, by turning it into the muddy streams of Zeno's errors ?
Are ye also going to poison it by the absurdities of Pythagoras' philosophy ?
What a side stroke is here inadvertently given to these capital doctrines :
God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living
soul," — a soul made " in the image of God," and not in the image of a
cat : " the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth : but the spirit
of man goeth upward : it returns to God who gave it," with an intention
to judge and reward it according to its moral works.
But I must do Mr. Toplady justice : he does not yet recommend this
doctrine as absolutely certain. However, from his capital doctrine, that
human souls have no free will, no inward principle of self determination ;
and from his avowed opinion, that the soul of one man, placed in the
body of another man, " would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act
exactly like" the man in whose mud watts it is lodged ; it evidently fol
lows : (1.) That had the human soul of Christ been placed in the body
and circumstances of Nero, it would have been exactly as wicked and
atrocious as the soul of that bloody monster was. And, (2.) That if
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 383
Nero's soul had been placed in Christ's body, and in his trying circum
stances, it would have been exactly as virtuous and immaculate as that
of the Redeemer : the consequence is undeniable. Thus, the merit of
the man Christ did not in the least spring from his righteous soul, but
from his " mud walls," and from the happiness which his soul had of
being lodged in a " brain peculiarly modified." Nor did the demerit
of Nero flow from his free agency and self perversion ; but only from
his " mud walls," and from the infelicity which his necessitated soul
had of being lodged in an " iLL-constructed vehicle," and placed on that
throne on which Titus soon after deserved to be called the darling of
mankind. See, O ye engrossers of orthodoxy, to what absurd lengths
your aversion to the liberty of the will, and to evangelical worthiness,
leads your unwary souls ! And yet, if we believe Mr. Toplady, your
scheme, which is big with these inevitable consequences, is Christian
philosophy, and our doctrine of free will is "philosophy run mad!"
XIII. If our thoughts and actions necessarily flowed from the modifi
cations of our brains, and from the impressions of the objects around us,
it would necessarily follow, that as most men, throughout the whole
world, see the sun bright, snow white, and scarlet red : or as most men
taste aloes bitter, vinegar sour, and honey sweet ; so most men would
think, speak, and act nearly with the same moral uniformity which is
perceivable in their bodily organs, and in the objects which affect those
organs : and it would be as impossible to improve in virtue, by a proper
exertion of our powers, and by a diligent use of our talents, as it is im
possible to improve the whiteness of the snow, or our power to see it
white, by a diligent use of our sight. At this rate too, conversion would
not be so much a reformation of our spiritual habits as a reformation of
our brains.
XIV. But the worst consequences are yet behind : for if God works
upon our souls in the same manner in which he works upon matter ; if
he raises our ideas, volitions, and passions, as necessarily as a strong-
wind raises the waves of the sea, with their roar, their foam, and their
other accidents ; in a word, if he works as absolutely and irresistibly
upon spirit as he does upon matter ; it follows that spirit and matter,
being governed upon the same principles, are of the same nature ; and
that if there be any difference between the soul and the body, it is only
such a difference as there is between the tallow which composes a
lighted candle, and the flame which arises out of it. The light flame is
as really matter as the heavy tallow and the ponderous candlestick ;
and all are equally passive and subject to the laws of absolute necessity.
Again : —
If virtue and vice necessarily depend on tire modification of our brains,
and the objects which surround us ; it follows that the effect will cease
with the cause, and that bodily dissolution will consign our virtue or vice
to the dust, into which our brains and bodily organs will soon be turned ;
and that when the souls of the righteous, and the souls of the wicked,
shall be removed from their « mud walls," and from the objects which
surround those mud walls, they will be (nearly at least) on a level with
each other, if they are not on a level with the souls of cats and dogs.
Lest Mr. Toplady's admirers should think that prejudice makes me
place his mistakes in too strong a light, I shall close these arguments by
834 REMARKS ON TOPLADY's
the judgment of the monthly reviewers. In their Review for 1775, they
give us the following abridged account of Mr. Toplady's Scheme of
Necessity : —
"The old controversy concerning liberty and necessity has lately
been renewed : Mr. Toplady avows himself a strenuous and very posi
tive champion on the side of necessity, and revives those arguments
which were long since urged by Spinoza, Hobbes, &c, [two noted infi
dels, or rather Atheistical materialists.] It is somewhat singular in the
history of this dispute, that those who profess themselves the friends of
revelation, should so earnestly contend for a system which unbelievers
have very generally adopted and maintained. This appears the more
strange, when we consider that the present asserters of necessity mani
fest a very visible tendency to materialism. Fate and universal me
chanism seem to be so nearly allied, that they have been usually defended
on the same ground, and by the same advocates. Mr. Toplady indeed
admits that the two component principles of man, body and soul, < are
not only distinct but essentially different from each Bother.' But it
appears, in the sequel of his reasoning, that he has no high opinion of
the nature and powers of the latter, [the soul.] ' An idea,' he observes,
' is that image, form, or conception of any thing which the soul is im
pressed with from without ;' and he expressly denies that the soul has
any power of framing new ideas, different from or superior to those
which are forced upon it by the bodily senses. « The soul,' he affirms,
'is, in a very extensive degree, passive as matter itself.' On «his
scheme, the limitation, with which he guards this assertion, is needless
arid futile."
While this Monthly Review is before me, I cannot help transcribing
from it two other remarkable passages. The one occurs four pages
after the preceding quotation. The correspondents of the reviewers
give them an account of an absurd and mischievous book, written by
some wild Atheistical philosopher abroad, who thinks that all matter is
alive, that the earth is a huge animal, and that we feed upon it, as some
diminutive insects do upon the back of an ass. " His moral doctrine,"
say the reviewers, « is of a piece with the rest : the result of his reason
ing on this subject is, in his own words, « Man, in every instant of his
duration, is a passive instrument in the hands of necessity.' Then let
us drink and drive care away, drink, and be merry, as the old song says ;
which is the practical application." I would not be understood" to
charge this application upon Mr. Toplady ; I only mention it, after the
reviewers, as a natural consequence of his system of necessity.
The other passage is taken from the Review of Dr. Hartley's* Theory
of the Human Mind, published by Dr. Priestley, who pleads as strongly
for necessity as Mr. Toplady himself.
"Materialism," say the reviewers, "has been, from early ages, con.
sidered as one of the chief bulwarks of Atheism. Accordingly, while
Epicurus, and Hobbes, and their disciples, have endeavoured to defend
it, Theists and Christians have pointed their batteries against it. But
we learn from Dr. Priestley that perception, and all the mental powers
* Mr. Toplady, page 148, intimates to his readers that Dr. Hartley has written
an "eminent defence of necessity," and promises himself "a frast of pleasure
and insli action" in reading his book.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 395
of man, are the result of such an organical structure as that of the
brain. How would Epicurus, how would Collins have triumphed, had
they lived to see this point [that the mental powers of man result from
such an organical structure as that of the brain] given up to them, even
by a Christian divine ! Another discovery, very consonant to the first,
is, that the whole man becomes extinct at death. For this concession
Atheists will likewise thank him, as it has been one of the chief articles
of their creed from the beginning of the world. Let us suppose, with
Dr. Priestley, that all the mental powers of Julius Cesar result from the
organical structure of his brain. This organical structure is dissolved,
and the whole man, Julius Cesar, becomes extinct ; the matter of this
brain, however, remains, biit it is not Julius Cesar ; for he (ex hypotliesi)
is wholly extinct."
Having produced a variety of arguments, which, I trust, will altogether
have weight enough to sink Mr. Toplady's Scheme of Necessity to the
bottom of the sea of error, where a vain philosophy begat it on a mon
strous body of corrupted divinity, I shall conclude this section by setting
my seal to the truths which border most upon Mr. Toplady's error, and
by which he is deceived, according to the old saying, Dccipimur specie
recti, " We embrace falsehood under the deceitful appearance of some
truth."
Mr. Toplady is certainly in the right, when he asserts that there is
a close connection between our soul and body ; and that each has a
reciprocal influence on the other. We readily grant that a cheerful
mind is conducive to bodily health, and that
Corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animuin quoque prosgravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinse particulain auroe. — IIoR.
" The soul, which dwells in a body oppressed with last night's excess,
is clogged with the load which disorders the body." Nor do we deny
that, in a thousand cases, our bodies and our circumstances may prevent
the full exertion of our spiritual powers, as the lameness of a horse, or
its natural sluggishness, added to the badness of the road, may prevent
the speed which a good rider could make if he had a better horse and
a better road. But to carry this consideration as far as Mr. Toplady
does, is as absurd as to suppose that the skill and expedition of a rider
depend entirely on his beast, and on the goodness of the road. We like
wise allow, that sometimes the soul may be as much overpowered by a
disordered, dying body, as a rider, who is irresistibly carried away by a
mad horse, or lies helpless under the weight of a dying horse. But,' in
such casf3s, we do not consider the soul as accountable ; as neither
delirious persons, nor those who are dying of a paralytic stroke, are
answerable for their actions and omissions in such peculiar circum
stances.
In all other cases history furnishes us with a variety of examples of
men, who, through a faithful use of their talents, have overcome the
infelicity of their constitution and circumstances ; while others, by a
contrary conduct, have perverted the most happy constitution, and the
most fortunate circumstances in life. Thus Socrates, by improving his
light, mastered an unhappy constitution, which in his youth carried him
VtiL. II. 25
386 REMARKS ON TOPLADY's
to violent anger, and an undue gratification of bodily appetites. And
thus Solomon, by not improving his light, in his old age made shipwreck
of the wisdom, temperance, and piety, that distinguished him in his
youth. So Nero outlived the happy dispositions which made him shine
in the former part of his life. And Manasses, by " humbling himself
before the God of his fathers," overcame in his old age the horrid and
abominable propensities which constituted him a monster of iniquity in
his youthful days.
Likewise, with respect to the circumstances in which we are placed
by Providence, I grant they have a considerable weight in the turn of
our affections. Nevertheless, this weight is by no means such as Mr. T.
supposes. Diogenes might be as proud in his tub, as Alexander in his
magnificent palace. A gown and a band may cover a revengeful clergy
man, while a star and garter shine on a benevolent courtier. Cornelius
turned to God in the army ; arid the sons of Eli went after Satan in the
temple. Domitian and Marcus Antoninus filled the same throne ;
where the one astonished the universe by his wickedness, as the other
did by his virtue. Abraham and Agathocles were humble in the midst of
riches ; and too many beggars are proud in the depth of poverty. Some
men are content in a sordid cottage ; while others murmur in the most
splendid palaces. The treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia was (it
seems) converted in the vanity of a heathen court ; while Judas was
perverted in the company of Christ and his fellow apostles. In short,
while thousands, like Absalom, have turned out bad, notwithstanding the
best instructions ; numbers, like the Philippian jailer, have turned out
well, maugre the worst education. Such is the power of free grace and
free will. To lay therefore so much stress upon external circumstances
is to undo by overdoing, and to wiredraw the truth till it is refined into
error.
Upon the whole, we have Scripture and experience on our side when
we assert that reason, conscience, the "light which [in 'various degrees]
enlightens every man," the general assistance of Divine grace, and
the peculiar or providential helps of God our Saviour, are more
than sufficient savingly to overrule the infelicity of our bodily constitu
tion, and our circumstances in life, if we are not wilfully and perversely
wanting to ourselves ; for " of them to whom less is given, less will be
required :" and the advantages or disadvantages under which we labour,
shall all be taken into the account of our evangelical worthiness or
unworthiness, in the day when God shall judge us according to the
several editions of his everlasting Gospel, and according to the good or
bad use which we make of his talents of nature and grace.
SECTION III.
Remarks upon the manner in which Mr. T. attempts to support Ids Scheme
of Necessity from Scripture — Twelve keys to open the scriptures on
which he founds ihat scheme.
WE have seen how Mr. T. has propped up his system by philosophi
cal arguments; let us now see how he does it by Scriptural proofs.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 387
Page 54, he says, " No man can consistently acknowledge the Divine
authority of the Scriptures, without — being an absolute necessitarian."
To demonstrate this strange proposition, he produces, among many
more, the passages which mention the case of Joseph and his brethren,
the Lord and Pharaoh, Eli and his sons, Absalom and his father's wives,
Shimci and David, Christ and his crucifiers, &c. As I have shown, in
other publications, that these scriptures, when taken in connection with
the context and the tenor of the Bible, perfectly agree with the doctrines
of justice, which are inseparably connected with the doctrine of free
will ia man, and just wrath in God ; I shall not swell this tract by vain
repetition, especially as Mr. T. does not support by argument the sense
which he fixes on these passages. However, that the public may see
what method he follows in trying to vindicate his error from Scripture, I
shall present my readers with some keys, by which they will easily open
the scriptures which he misapplies, and discover the rotten foundation
of Calvinism.
FIRST KEY. Detaching a passage of Scripture from the context,
that what God does for particular reasons may appear to be done
absolutely, and from mere sovereignty, is a polemical stratagem, com
monly used by the Calvimsts. The first passage which Mr. T. produces
draws all its apparent conclusiveness from this artful method : —
Page 56. u I withheld thee from sinning against me" Gen. xx, 6. By
quoting this detached clause, Mr. T. would insinuate that while God
absolutely ordains some men to sin, he absolutely withholds other men
from sin. To see that his conclusion is unscriptural, we need only read
the whole verse : " God said to him [Abimelech] in a dream, Yea,, I
know that thou didst this in the INTEGRITY OF THY HEART, for I also
withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore I suffered thee not to
touch her." Now, who that adverts to the words in capitals, does not
see that God's keeping Abimelech from sinning, that is, from marrying
Abraham's wife, was a REWARD of Abimelech's INTEGRITY, as well as
of Abraham's piety? Therefore, this very text proves, that God
rewards upright free will with restraining grace, as well as with glory ;
and not that man has no free will, and that he is made willing to work
righteousness, or to commit sin, as necessarily as puppets are made to
move to the right or to the left by the show man, who absolutely causes
and manages their steps. Take another instance of the same stratagem, —
Page 66. " The Lord of hosts hath sworn, i. e. hath solemnly and
immutably decreed, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to
pass ; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand'." Here Mr. Toplady
breaks off the quotation, and leaves out what follows', " that I will break
the Assyrian," that is, the wicked in general, but particularly Sennache
rib, the proud, blaspheming king of Assyria, whose immense army was
cut off in one night by an angel ; " and upon my mountains tread him
under foot," &c. By this means Mr. T. makes his hasty readers
believe that God speaks of a Calvinian, absolute decree, founded upon
Antinomian grace and free wrath ; and not of a judicial, retributive
decree, founded upon the humility of the righteous, and the desert of
the wicked; though, verse 13, &,c, the decree, and its cause, are thus
expressly mentioned : — " Thou hast said in thy heart, / will ascend into
heaven, fyc, I will be like the Most High, <fyc. Yet thou shalt be
388 REMARKS OX TOPLADY*S
brought down to hell." When Mr. T. has hidden these keys to the
doctrine of justice which we defend, it is easy for him to apply to his
doctrine of free wrath the peremptoriness of God's decree, and accord
ingly he triumphs much in these words : — " This is the purpose which
is purposed upon all the earth, &c. For the Lord of hosts hath pur
posed, and who shall disannul it ? And his hand is stretched out, and
who shall turn it back T' Isa. xiv, 24, &c. " Who shall disannul God's
purpose'/" (adds Mr. T.) "Why, human free will to be sure! Who
shall turn back God's hand ? Human self determination can do it with
as much ease as our breath can repel the down of a feather !" This
argument is full fraught with absurdity. Did we ever assert that when
free will has obstinately sinned, it can reverse an absolute decree of
punishment ? Do we not, on the contrary, maintain the proper exertion
of justice in opposition to the Calvinian dreams of absolute election and
reprobation, according to which the salvation of some notorious im-
penitent sinners is now actually finished, and the damnation of some
unborn infants is now absolutely secured?
Page 67. By a similar method Mr. T. tries to prove the doctrine of
necessitating free wrath, thus : — " I have smitten you with blasting and
mildew. I have sent you the pestilence. Your young men have I
slain with the sword !" Amos iv, 7-10. But he forgets to tell us that
this severity is not Calvinistical and diabolical, but righteous and judi
cially retributive ; for the persons thus punished are said, just before,
to be wicked men, " who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who
say to their masters, Bring [strong drink] and let us drink," Amos iv, 1.
Therefore all that can be inferred from these, and a thousand such
scriptures, is, that when free agents have obstinately sinned, punishment
overtakes them whetJier they will or not. And when the Calvinists ground
their Manichean notions of a wrathful, absolute sovereignty in God upon
such conclusions, they expose their good sense as much as I should
expose my reason, if I said, " I can demonstrate that all robbers are
absolutely necessitated to go on the highway, because, when they are
caught arid condemned, they are absolutely necessitated to go to the
gallows."
SECOXD KEY. Because God can do a thing, and does it on particu
lar occasions, Mr. T. and his adherents infer that he does it always.
Thus, to prove that God necessarily turns the hearts of all men, at all
times, and in all places, to sin or to righteousness, Mr. T. produces the
following text : —
Page 05. "Even the* king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as 1he
rivers of water : and lie iurneth it whithersoever he uill, Prov. xxi, 1.
Odd sort of self determination this !" We never denied the supreme
power, which God has even over the hearts of proud kings, who gene
rally are the most imperious of men. When he will absolutely turn
their will for the accomplishment of some providential design, his wis
dom and omnipotence can undoubtedly do it. Thus, by letting the Phi
listines loose uppn Saul's dominions, God turned his heart, and made
him change his design of immediately surrounding and destroying David.
Thus he turned the heart of Ahasuerus from his purpose of destroying
the Jews, by the providential reading of the records, which reminded
the king of the obligation he was under to Mordecai. Thus he turned
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 389
the heart Df Pharaoh toward Joseph, by giving Joseph wisdom to explain
his prophetic dream. Thus, again, he turned the heart of Nebuchad
nezzar from his purpose of destroying Daniel and all the wise men in
Babylon, by enabling Daniel to tell and open the king's mysterious vision.
And when the king of Assyria was bent upon making war against the
Israelites and the Ammonites, and cast lots to know which he should
destroy first, Kabbah or Jerusalem, God providentially ordered the lot
to fall upon guilty Jerusalem, Isa. x, 6, 7 ; Ezek. xy.i, 21, &c. For,
in such cases, " the lot is cast into the lap" without an eye to the Lord,
"but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord," Prov. xvi, 33. But
these peculiar interpositions of Providence no more prove that God
absolutely turns the hearts of all kings, and of all men in all things, and
on all occasions, as Mr. T.'s system supposes, than a farrier's drench
ing now and then a horse, in peculiar circumstances, proves that all
horses throughout the world never drink but when they are drenched.
THIRD KEY. The necessitarians confound our inability to do some
or all things, with an inability to do any thing. Thus Mr. T. attempts
to prove that we can do nothing but what we are necessitated to do, and
that " Christ himself was an absolute necessitarian," by the following
argument : —
Page 71. " Thou canst not make one hair -while or black. Your
Father, $c, makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and the unjust. Surely, man can neither promote nor
hinder the rising of the sun, nor the falling of the rain." But to con
clude that all things are absolutely necessary, because we cannot alter
the colour of our hair, command the clouds, and hasten sun rising, is as
absurd as to conclude that a dyer cannot absolutely alter the colour of
the silks which he dyes, because he cannot change the colour of his
own hair, or eyes. It is as ridiculous as to infer that we cannot move
a pebble, because we cannot stir a mountain ; that we cannot turn our
eyes like men, because we cannot turn our ears like horses ; and that
we have no immediate command of our thoughts and hands, because
we have no immediate command of the clouds and the sun. When
Mr. T. imposes such a philosophy upon us, is he not as grossly mis
taken as Mons. Voltaire, his companion in necessitarianism, who gives
us to understand, that because pear trees can bear no fruit but pears,
men can bear no moral fruit but such as they actually produce, and that
fate fixes our thoughts in our brains, as necessarily as nature fixes our
teeth in our jaw bones 1 How absurd is a system of philosophy, which
a Voltaire and a Toplady are obliged to prop up by such weak argu
ments as these !
FOURTH KEY. The Calvinists suck Scriptural metaphors, till they im
bibe the blood of error instead of "the sincere milk of the word i" And,
if I might compare Scripture comparisons to rational animals, I would
say, that Mr. T. makes them go upon all four. Hence it is that he says, —
Page 58, " Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward, Job
v, 7 : and I am apt to think, sparks ascend by necessity." By this me
thod of arguing, I can demonstrate that Christ was clothed with feathers ;
for he says, / would have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood. " And
I am apt to think" that a hen is covered with feathers. However, 1
grant to Mr. T. that there is a necessity of fallen nature : according
390 REMARKS ON TOPLADY*S
to this necessity, man is born to die, and in the meantime he is exposed
to the troubles which naturally accompany mortality. But there are a
thousand troubles which flow from immorality, and which God puts it
in man's power to avoid. To deny this, is to deny the following scrip,
tures : — " He that will love his life, and see good days, let him refrain
his tongue from evil. Let him eschew evil, and do good ; let him seek
peace and ensue it, 1 Pet. iii, 10, 11. Whoso keepeth his mouth and
his tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles," Prov. xxi, 2f3. It is there-
fore absurd and unscriptural to suppose, that, because we cannot avoid
every trouble in life, all canting gossips are absolutely bound to bring
upon themselves all the troubles which their slanderous, lying tongues
pull down upon their own heads.
FIFTH KEY. If there occur in the Bible a poetical expression,
founded upon some common, though erroneous opinion, to which the
sacred penmen accommodate their language in condescension to the
vulgar, Calvinism fixes upon that expression, and produces it as a
demonstration of what she calls ORTHODOXY. Thus Mr. T., p. 57,
builds his scheme on the following texts : —
The stars in their courses fought against Siser a, Judges v, 20. It is
as absurd to prove fatalism from these words, as it would be to prove
that the earth is the fixed centre of our planetary system, by quoting
the above-mentioned words of our blessed Lord, " Your Father makes
his sun to rise on the just." The best philosophers, as well as Christ,
to be understood by the common people, say, agreeably to a false philo
sophy, The sun rises, though they know that it is the earth which turns
round on her axis toward the fixed sun. As we say the crown, when
we mean "the reigning king ;" and put heaven for " the King of heaven :"
so Deborah poetically said in her song, The stars in their courses, for
"the providential power which keeps the planets in their courses."
Herein she, probably, adapted her language to some false notions of
astrology, which the Israelites had received from the Egyptians. And
all that she meant was that God had peculiarly assisted the Israelites in
their battle with Sisera.
SIXTH KEY. As the necessitarians build their doctrine upon poetical
expressions, so they do upon proverbial sayings. Thus, p. 88, Mr.
Toplady endeavours to support the doctrine of absolute necessity, or of
the Calvinian decrees, by these words of our Lord: —
" There shall not a hair of your head perish, Luke xxi, 18, i. e.
before the appointed time." But this scripture does not prove that God
from all eternity made particular decrees, to appoint that men should
shave so many limes every week, and that such and such a hair of our
head or beard should be spared so long, or should be cut off after hav
ing grown just so many days. This text is only a proverbial phrase, like
that which is sometimes used among us : "I will not give way to error
a hair's breadlh." As this expression means only, " I will fully resist
error ;" so the other only means, " You shall be fully protected." There
fore to build Calvinian necessity upon such a scripture, is to render the
pillars of Calvinism as contemptible as the hairs which the barber wipes
off his razor, when he shaves my mistaken opponent.
"SEVENTH KEY. The word shall frequently implies a kind of neces-
sitv, and a forcible authority : thus a master says to his arguing ser
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 391
vant, " You shall do such a thing : I will make you do it, whether you
will or not." Mr. Toplady avails himself of this idea, to impose his
scheme of necessity upon the ignorant. I say upon the ignorant, be-
cause he quotes again and again passages, where the word shall has
absolutely no place in the original. For example : —
Pages 84, 87, 92, he tries to prove that Christ was « an absolute
necessitarian," by the following texts : — I send unto you prophets, fyc,
and some of them ye SHALL kill, and some of them SHALL ye scourge.
One of you, <fyc, SHALL betray me. Ye all SHALL be offended because
of me. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold ; them also [from a
principle of superior kindness, or of remunerative favour] / MUST bring ;
and they SHALL hear my voice. I MUST, and they SHALL : what is this
but double necessity ?" In these, and in many such scriptures, the word
yp shall kill, fyc, in the original is a BAKE future tense. And for want
of such a tense in English, we are obliged to render the words which
are in that tense by means of the words shall or will. These auxiliary
words are often used indiscriminately by our translators, who might as
well, in the preceding texts, have rendered the Greek verbs WILL kill,
WILL scourge, WILL betray, WILL be offended, WILL hear my voice.
Therefore, to rest Calvinism upon such vague proofs is to rest it upon
a defect in the English language, and upon the presumption that the
reader is perfectly unacquainted with the original.
EIGHTH KEY. As Mr. T.'s scheme partly rests upon a supposition
that his readers are unacquainted with the Greek grammar ; so it sup
poses that they are perfect strangers to ancient geography.
Hence it is that he says, p. 89, " Our Lord knew her [the woman of
Samaria] to be one of his elect : and that she might be converted pre
cisely at the very time appointed, he must needs go through the territory
of Samaria, John iv, 4." Mr. Whitefield builds his peculiar orthodoxy
on the same slender foundations, where he says, " Why must Christ
needs go through Samaria 1 Because there was a" woman to be converted
there." (See his Works, vol. iv, p. 356.) Now the plain reason why our
Lord went through Samaria was, that he went from Jerusalem to Galilee ;
and as Samaria lies exactly between Judea and Galilee, he must needs
go through Samaria, or go a great many miles out of his way. Absurdity
itself, therefore, could hardly have framed a more absurd argument.
^ NINTH KEY. One of the most common mistakes on which the Cal-
vimsts found their doctrine is, confounding a necessity of consequence
with an absolute necessity. A necessity of consequence is the necessary
connection which immediate causes have with their effects, immediate
effects with their causes, and unavoidable consequences with {heir pre
mises. Thus, if you run a man through the heart with a sword, by
necessity of NATURAL consequence he must die : and if you are caught,
and convicted of having done it like an assassin, by necessity of LEGAL
consequence you must die. Thus again : if I hold that God, from all
eternity, absolutely fixed his everlasting wrath upon others, without any re
spect to their works ; by necessity of LOGICAL consequence I must hold that
the former were never children of wraih, and must continue God's plea-
sant children while they commit the most atrocious crimes ; and- that
the latter were children of wrath while they scrninally existed, together
<vith the man Christ, in the loins of sinless Adarn, before the fall. '
Now these three strong necessities of consequence do not amount to one
grain of Calvinian, absolute necessity; because, though the above-men-
tioned effects and consequences necessarily follow from their causes and
premises, yet those causes and premises are not absolutely necessary. To
be more plain : though a man, whom you run through the heart to rob
him without opposition, must die ; and though you must suffer as a
murderer for your crime, yet this double necessity does not prove that
you were absolutely necessitated to go on the highway, and to murder
the man. Again : though you must (indirectly at least) propagate the
most detestable errors of Manes, (i. e. the worship of a double-principled
Deity,) if you preach a God made up of absolute, everlasting love to some,
and of absolute everlasting wrath to others ; yet you are not necessi
tated to do this black work ; because you are by no means necessitated
to embrace and propagate this black principle of Calvin. Once more :
by necessity of consequence, a weak man who drinks to excess is
drunk ; yet his drunkenness is not Calvinistically necessary ; because,
though the man cannot help being drunk if he drinks to excess, yet he
can help drinking to excess : or, to speak in general terms, though he
cannot prevent the effect, when he has admitted the cause ; yet he can
prevent the effect by not admitting the cause. However, Mr. Toplady,
without adverting to this obvious and important distinction, takes it for
granted that his readers will subscribe to his doctrine of absolute
necessity, because a variety of scriptures assert such necessity of con-
sequence as I have just explained. Take the following instances : —
Page 83. " How can ye escape the damnation of hell V These words
of Christ do not prove Calvinian reprobation and absolute necessity ;
but only that those who will obstinately go on in sin, shall (by necessity
of consequence) infallibly meet with the damnation of hell. Page 91.
" If the Son shall make you free, [and he shall make us free, if we will
continue in his word,] ye shall [by necessity of consequence] be free
indeed." Again, p. 92, " Why do ye not understand my speech 1 Even
because [while you hug your prejudices] ye cannot hear my word" [with
the least degree of candour.] This passage does not prove Calvinian
necessity ; it declares only that while the Jews were biassed by the love
of honour, rather than by the love of truth, by necessity of consequence,
they could not candidly hear, and cordially receive Christ's humbling
doctrine. Thus he said to them, " How can ye believe, who receive
honour one of another?" (Ibid.) "He that is of God heareth God's
words ; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." Here
is no Calvinism, but only a plain declaration, that by necessity of conse
quence no man can serve two masters ; no man can gladly receive the
truths of God, who gladly receives the lies of Satan. (Ibid.) " Ye believe
not, because ye are not of my sheep :" that is, you eagerly follow the
prince of darkness. " The works of your father, the devil, ye will* do ;"
and therefore, by necessity of consequence, ye cannot do the works of
God ; ye cannot follow me ; ye cannot rank among my sheep. Again : —
Page 93. " I give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish,
* Our Lord, when he spake these words, did not use a bare future, xoinccrc, which
Mr. T. would perhaps have triumphantly translated, ye SHALL do ; putting the
word SHALL in large capitals ; but faXere noiciv, a phrase this, which is peculiarly
expressive of the obstinate choice of the free-willing Jews.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 393
John x, 28 ; i. e. their salvation is necessary, and cannot be hindered."
True : it is necessary, but it is only so by necessity of consequence : for
damnation follows unbelief and disobedience, as punishment does sin ;
and eternal salvation follows faith and obedience,- as rewards follow
good works. But this no more proves that God necessitates men to sin
or to obey, than hanging a deserter, and rewarding a courageous soldier,
prove that the former was absolutely necessitated to desert, and the
latter to play the hero. Once more : —
Page 94. "1 will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter, — whom the world CANXOT receive" [as a comforter without
a proper preparation.] Now this no more proves that the world can
not absolutely receive the Comforter, than my asserting that Mr. Top
lady could not take a degree at the university, before he had learned
grammar, proves that he was for ever absolutely debarred from that
literary honour. If the reader be pleased to advert to this distinction,
between necessity of consequence and absolute necessity, he will be able
to steer safe through a thousand Calvinian rocks.
TENTH KEY. The preceding remarks lead us to the detection of
another capital mistake of the orthodox, so called. They perpetually
confound natural necessity with what may (improperly speaking) be
called moral necessity. By natural necessity, infants are born naked,
and colts are foaled with a coat on ; men have two legs, horses four,
and some insects sixteen. And by moral necessity, servants are bound
to obey their masters, children their parents, and subjects their king.
Now can any thing be more unreasonable than to infer that servants can
no more help obeying their masters, than children can help being born
with two hands ? Is it not absurd thus to confound natural and moral
necessity ? This however Mr. T. frequently does ; witness the follow
ing scriptures, which he produces in defence of absolute necessity : —
Page 62, &c. " He [the Lord] made a decree for the rain, and a
way for the lightning of the thunder. By the breath of God frost is
given, Job. He maketh grass to grow. He giveth snow like wool : he
scattereth the hoar frost like ashes. Who can stand before his cold 1
He causes his wind to blow. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, <fyc, fulfil
Ji'is word" Psalms. From these and the like circumstances, Mr. T.
infers that all things happen " by a necessity resulting from the will and
providence of the supreme First Cause."
That nothing happens independently on that cause, and on the provi
dential laws which God has established, we grant. But this does not
prove at all the Calvinian necessity of all our actions. Nor does it
prove that man, who is made in God's image, cannot, within his narrow
sphere, frequently exert his delegated power at his own option, by
making and executing his own decrees.
If Mr. T. denies it, I appeal to his own experience and candour.
Can he not, by a good fire, reverse in his apartment God's decree of
frost in winter ; and by a candle can he not in his room reverse God's
decree of darkness at midnight ? Can he not, by icy, cooling draughts,
elude the decree of heat in summer? Nay, cannot a gardener, by
skilfully distributing heat to vegetables in a hot house, force a pine apple
to ripen to perfection in the midst of winter? And by means of a
watering pot can he not command an artificial rain to water his drooping
394 REMARKS ON TOPLADY S
plants in the greatest drought of summer ? Again : cannot a philoso
pher, acquainted with the secret laws of nature, imitate, as often as he
pleases, most decrees of the God of nature ? Can he not form and
collect dews, by raising artificial vapours in an alembic ? Can he not,
when he has a mind, cause diminutive thunder and lightning by means
of an electrical machine ? Can he not create ice, snow, and hoar frost,
by nitrous salts ? Can he not produce little earthquakes, by burying in
the ground iron filings and sulphur mixed with water? And while he
raises a wind by managing a communication of rarified air with con
densed air, cannot a smith do it without half the trouble by working his
bellows ? Once more : cannot a physician do in the little world within
you, what a philosopher does without you in the world of nature 1 By
availing himself of some natural law, is it not in general as much in his
power, if you submit to his decrees, to raise an artificial blister on your
back, as it is in your gardener's to raise a sallad in your garden 1 By
skilfully setting the powers of nature at work, can he not cleanse your
intestines, as yonder farmer scours his ditches ? Can he not, in general,
assuage his pains by lenitives, or lull them asleep by opiates ? Can he
not, through his acquaintance with the means by which God preserves
the animal world, often promote the secretion of your fluids, and supply
the want of those which are exhausted ? Nay, can you not do it your
self by using that cheap medicine, exercise, and by taking those agreeable
boluses and pleasant draughts which you call meat and drink ? To say
that nature cannot be, in many respects, assisted, and even improved by
art, is to say that there are neither houses nor cities in the wrorld ; neither
shoes on our feet, nor clothes on our back. And to affirm that the works
of art are as absolutely necessary as the works of nature, is to confound
nature and art, and to advance one of the most monstrous paradoxes
that ever disgraced human reason.
ELEVENTH KEY. Confusion reigns in every corner of Babel.
Another capital mistake of the necessitarians consists in their confound
ing prophetic certainty with absolute necessity. An illustration will
explain my meaning : —
Mr. Toplady discovers a boy who is absolutely bent upon theft
From his knowledge of the force of indulged habits, he foresees and
foretels that the boy will one day come to the gallows ; and his predic
tion is fulfilled. The question is, Did Mr. T.'s foresight, or his prophecy,
necessitate the thievish boy to indulge his wicked habit ; and might not-
that boy have done like many more ? Might he not have reformed, and
died in his bed ? Calvinism answers in the negative ; but reason and
Scripture agree to declare that a clear foresight, and a bare prophecy,
are not of an absolutely necessitating nature ; and that, of consequence,
it is as absurd to confound absolute necessity with certainty of prophecy,
[if I may use this expression,] as it is to confound the free abode of the
keepers in Newgate, with the necessary abode of the felons who are
confined there under bars and locks : in a word, it is as absurd as to
confound the necessity of an event with the certainty of it. Your
awkward servant has, at various times, b >ken you a number of china
plates : that the plates are broken is cer in ; but that they were Cal-
vinistically broken, that is, that your servaii. could no waijs avoid break
ing them all, precisely in the manner, place, and instant m which they
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 395
were broken, is a proposition as absurd as the proof which Mr. T.,
page 83, draws from the following sentences of the Scriptures, to de
monstrate that our Lord was Calvinistically necessitated to lay down
his life for us : — " How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus
it must be ? Matt, xxvi, 54. All this was done that the Scriptures of
the prophets might be fulfilled," verse 56. To do these passages jus
tice, we should consider three things : —
1. The necessity of fulfilling the Scriptures with respect to our Lord,
could never amount to the least degree of absolute, Calvinian necessity;
for our Lord was no more obliged to give us the Scriptures in order to
fulfil them, than Mr. T. is bound to give me a thousand pounds in order
to get my thanks.
2. When we meet with such sayings as these, " This that is written
must yet be accomplished in me : the Scripture must be fulfilled," dec,
if they relate to Christ, they only indicate a necessity of resolution, if I
may use this expression. Now, a necessity of resolution is the very
reverse of absolute necessity ; because a resolution is the offspring of
free will, and may be altered by free will ; whereas Calvinian necessity
never admits of a liberty or power to do a thing otherwise than it is
done. / resolve to go out this evening, and I write my resolution ; but
this does not imply any absolute necessity : FIRST, because I am at per
fect liberty not to make such a resolution ; and, SECONDLY, because I
am at perfect liberty to break it, and I shall certainly do it, if some
sufficient reason detains me at home.
Take a nobler example : God resolved to give Abraham and his seed
the land of Canaan " for an everlasting possession ;" and the Divine
resolution is written, Gen. xvii, 8, and xlviii, 4. But this does not imply
the least degree of Calvinian necessity: for, (1.) Reason dictates that
God was no ways obliged to form such a resolution; and, (2.) Expe
rience teaches us, that the obstinacy of the Jews has obliged him to
make them " know the breach" of his written resolution, Num. xiv, 34.
Accordingly, they are scattered over all the world, instead of enjoying
the promised land " for an everlasting possession."
3. When prophetical sayings refer to the wicked, as in the following
texts, This cometli to pass, that the word might be fulfilled, which is
written in the law, They hated me without a cause : the son of perdition
is lost ; that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. They believe not on him,
that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled, Lord, who has believed our
report 1 These and the like passages denote only a prophetic necessity,
founded upon God's bare foresight of what will be, but might as well
(nay, better) have been otherwise. Thus I prophesy that through logi
cal necessity I shall (in full opposition to orthographical necessity) put a
colon, instead of a full point, at the end of the paragraph I am now
writing : but this double necessity of prophecy arid logic is so far from
absolutely necessitating me, that I have almost a mind to follow the
rules of punctuation, and to show, by this mean, that I am as much at
liberty to reverse my prophetic, logical decree, as God was to reverse
his prophetic, vindictive decree, " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
destroyed" (:)
However, my decree is accomplished. What was an hour ago a
future contingency, is now matter of fact. The preceding period is
396 REMARKS ON TOPLADY's
concluded without a full point as certainly as God exists. Should Mr.
T. object that I could foresee this contingent event, because I had a
mind to bring it about : I reply, That this does not invalidate my proof:
for, (1.) I foresaw this little event as contingent, and depending on my
liberty, and of consequence I could not foresee it as absolutely neces
sary. (2.) I have a clear foresight of many things, in which I have no
hand at all. Thus I foresee that a man, condemned to be hanged for
murder, shall certainly -be hanged, whether I do the executioner's office
or not. Though the murderer might be reprieved ; though he might
make his escape, or poison himself before the day of execution ; yet,
from my knowledge of the law, of the king's aversion to murder, of the
strength of the prison, and of the particular care taken of condemned
criminals, my foreknowledge that the condemned murderer shall be
hanged, amounts to a very high degree of certainty. Now, if I, whose
foreknowledge, compared to the foreknowledge of God, is no more than
a point to the infinity of space ; if I,, who am so short sighted, can,
with such a degree of certainty, foresee an event which is not absolutely
necessary ; is it not absurd, I had almost said impious, to suppose that
God's foreknowledge of events, which are not absolutely necessary,
may amount to absolute necessity 1 Cannot God foresee future events
without necessitating them, a thousand times more clearly than I can
foresee what I am sure I shall not ordain, much less necessitate, namely,
that Mr. T.'s prejudice will hinder him from treating Mr. W. with the
respect due to an aged, laborious minister of Christ 1
To deny that God's certain knowledge of future events is consistent
with our liberty, because we cannot understand how God can certainly
foresee the variations of our free will ; to deny this, I say, is to deny
the existence of all the things which we cannot fully comprehend. And
at this rate, what is it that we shall not deny ? What is it that we per-
fectly understand ? Is there one man in ten thousand that understands
how astronomers can certainly foretel the very instant in which an
eclipse will begin ? But does this ignorance of the vulgar render astro
nomical calculations less real or certain ? And may not God (by the
good leave of the necessitarians) surpass all men in his foreknowledge
of the actions of free agents, as much as Sir Isaac Newton surpassed
all the Hottentots in his foreknowledge of eclipses ?
From these remarks it appears, that all the difficulties which the
Calvinists have raised, with respect to the consistency of Divine fore
knowledge and human free will, arise from two mistakes : the FIRST of
which consists in supposing that the simple, certain knowledge of an
event, whether past, present, or future, is necessarily connected with a
peculiar influence on that event ; and the SECOND consists in measuring
God's foreknowledge by our own, and supposing that because we can
not prophesy with absolute certainty, what free-willing creatures will do
to-morrow, therefore God cannot do it. A conclusion this, which is as
absurd as the following argument : — " We cannot create a grain of sand,
nor comprehend how God could create it, and therefore God could nei
ther create a grain of sand, nor comprehend how it was to be created."
I have dwelt so long upon this head, because it is the strong hold of
the Calvinists, from which Mr. T. seems to bid defiance to every argu
ment ; witness his assertion, p. 80, " Foreknowledge, undarkened by the
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 397
least shadow of ignorance, and superior to all possibility of mistake, is a
link which draws invincible necessity after it." To the preceding argu
ments, which, I trust, fully prove the contrary, I shall add one more,
which is founded on the plain words of Scripture.
So sure as the Bible is true, Mr. T. is mistaken ; and God's fore-
knowledge, far from being connected with " invincible necessity," may
exist, not only with respect to an event which is not necessary, but also
with respect to an event which is so contingent, that it never comes to
pass. Take a proof of it : —
We read, 1 Sam. xxiii, 10-12, that David, while he was in the city
of Keilah, heard that Saul designed to come and surprise him there.
" Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, <fyc, will Saul come down
as thy servant has heard 1 And the Lord said, HE WILL COME DOWN.
Then David said, Will the men of Keilah deliver me into the hand of
Saul ? And the Lord said, THEY WILL DELIVER THEE UP." When
David had received this double information he went out of Keilah, and
when Saul heard it he did not come to Keilah, neither did the men of
Keilah deliver him to Saul. From this remarkable occurrence we learn,
(1.) That future, contingent events are clearly seen of God. (2.) That
this foresight of God has not the least influence on such events. (3. ) That
God can foretel such events as contingent. And, (4.) That neither
Scripture prophecy, nor Divine foreknowledge, has the least connection
with Mr. T.'s scheme of absolute, invincible necessity ; since God fore
knew that, if David stayed in Keilah, Saul would come down, and the
men of Keilah would deliver David into his hands. But so far were this
clear foreknowledge and peremptory prophecy of God from " drawing
invincible necessity after" them, that Saul did not come to Keilah ; nei
ther did the men of Keilah deliver David into his hands. I flatter
myself, that if the reader attend to these arguments, he will see that
Mr. T.'s doctrine of an absolute connection between the certain fore
knowledge of events, and their invincible necessity, is contradicted by
experience, reason, and Scripture.
TWELFTH KEY. Because no child can help being born, when the
last pang of his mother forces him into the light ; and because no man
can possibly live when the last pang of death forces his soul into eternity,
the necessitarians conclude that our every intermediate action, from our
birth to our death, is irresistibly brought about by the iron hand of ne
cessity. But is not their conclusion as absurd as the following argu
ment : "John the Baptist could not speak when he was newly born, nor
could he do it when the executioner had cut off his head ; absolute
necessity hindered him from forming articulate sounds in the moment
of his birth, and at the instant of his death ; and therefore all the days
of his life absolute necessity made him move his tongue when he spake ?"
Let us see how Mr. T. handles this wonderful argument.
Pages 102, 118. " Birth and death are the era and the period, whose
interval constitutes the thread of man's visible existence on earth. Let
us examine whether those important extremes be or be not unalterably
fixed by the necessitating providence of God." And by and by we are
asked, <; if the initial point from whence we start, and the ultimate goal
which terminates our race, be Divinely and unchangeably fixed ; is it
reasonable to suppose that any free will,, but the free will of Deity alone,
398 REMARKS ON TOPLADY*S
may fabricate the intermediate links of the chain ?" That is, in plaiw
English, " Does not God alone fabricate our every action, good or baa,
from our cradle to our grave ?"
Page 107, &c. Mr. T. produces such scriptures as these, to prove
that the free will of Deity alone fabricates the link of our birth : — " He,
[Jacob] said, Am I in God's stead to give [a barren woman] children ?
They are my sons, whom Gad has given me. Thy hands have made me
and fashioned me. Thou art he that took me out of the womb. Lo,
children are a heritage of the Lord. Thou hast covered me, <fyc, in my
mothers womb. In thy book all my members were written. God has
fixed an exact point of time, for the accomplishment of all his decrees :
among which fixed and exact points of time, are a lime to be born, and
a time to die."
All these passages prove only, (1.) That when a woman is naturally
barren, like Rachel or Sarah, an extraordinary interposition of God's
providence is necessary to render her fruitful. (2.) That the fruitful-
ness of woman, as that of our fields, is a gift of God. (3.) That children
grow in the womb, and come to the birth, according to the peculiar energy
of those laws, which God, as the God of nature, has made for the pro
pagation of animals in general, and of man in particular,. And, (4.)
That as there is a, time to be born, namely, in general nine months after
conception ; so there is a time to die, which, in the present state of the
world, is seventy or eighty years after our nativity, if no peculiar event
or circumstance hastens or retards our birth and our death.
That this is the genuine meaning of the scriptures produced by Mr.
T., I prove by the following arguments : —
1. God could never Calvinistically appoint the birth of all children,
without Calvinistically appointing their conception, and every mean con-
ducive thereto : whence it undeniably follows, that (if Calvinism is true)
he absolutely appointed, yea, necessitated all the adulteries and whore-
doms, with all the criminal intrigues and sinful lusts of the flesh, which
are inseparably connected with the birth of base-born children. Now
this doctrine makes God the grand author of all those crimes, and repre
sents him as the most inconsistent of all lawgivers ; since, by his moral
decrees he forbids, and by his Calvinian decrees he enjoins, whoredom
and adultery, in order to fabricate the link of the birth of every bastard
child.
2. The experience of thousands of virgins shows, that, by keeping
themselves single, they may prevent the birth of a multitude of children ;
and their parents may do' it too. for St. Paul says, " He that standeth
steadfast in his heart, having no [moral] necessity, [from his daughter's
constitution, or his own low circumstances] but hath power over his
own will, and hath so decreed in his heart, that he will keep his virgin,
doth well."
3. If women have conceived, by their carelessness or cruelty they
frequently may so oppose one law of nature to another, as to reverse
the decree of nature concerning the maturity of the fruit of the womb :
nor can Mr. T. avoid the force of this conclusion otherwise than by
saying that God necessitates such cruel mothers to destroy their unborn
children, to fulfil the absolute decree which condemns their unhappy
embryos never to come to birth.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 399
When Mr. T. has tried to prove that God has Calvinistically ap
pointed the birth of all children, he tries to demonstate that the manner,
moment, and circumstances of every body's death are so absolutely
fixed, that no man can possibly live longer or shorter than he does.
These are some of his arguments : —
Page 110. "The time drew near that Israel MUST die, Gen. xlvii,
20." Yes, he must die by necessity of consequence : for he was quite
worn out ; his age, which is mentioned in the preceding verse, being
one hundred and forty-seven years. We never dream that old decrepit
men are immortal. Again :—
Pages 111,113. "Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth ?
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing ? Man's days are de
termined ; the number of his months is with thee : thou hast appointed
his bounds, which he cannot pass. All the days of my appointed time
will I wait till my change come, Job vii, 1 ; xiv, 5-14. Which of you
by taking thought can add one cubit to his term of life ? Matt, vi, 27."
None of these scriptures proves that the free will of Deity alone has
absolutely fabricated the link of every man's death. They only indicate,
(1.) That God has fixed general bounds to the life of vegetables and
animals ; for as the aloe vegetates a hundred years, so wheat vegetates
scarce twelve months : and as men in general lived seven or eight
hundred years before the flood ; so now " the days of our life are
three score years and ten ; arid if, by reason of strength, they are four
score years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow, so soon
passeth it away, and we are gone," Psa. xc, 10. (2.) That as no man
lived a thousand years before the flood ; so no man lives two hundred
years now. And, (3.) That when we are about to die by necessity of
consequence, &c, we cannot, without an extraordinary interposition of
Providence, suspend the effect of this general decree, " Dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return." But to infer from such passages that
we cannot in general shorten our days by not taking a proper care of our
selves, or by running headlong into danger, is acting over again the part
of the old deceiver, who said, " Cast thyself down, [from the pinnacle
of the temple,] for it is written," &c. From such Turkish philosophy,
and murderous conclusions, God deliver weak, unwary readers !
Two arguments will, I hope, abundantly prove the falsity of this doc
trine : the FIRST is, God does not so fabricate the link of our death, but
we may, in general, prolong our days by choosing wisdom, and shorten
them by choosing folly. Is not the truth of this proposition immovably
founded upon such scriptures as these ? "If thou seekest her [wisdom]
as silver, then shalt thou understand every good path : length of days is
in her hand," while untimely death is in the hand of fool hardiness, Prov.
ii, 4, 9 ; iii, 16. " Keep my commandments, for length of days, and
long life, and peace shall they add unto thee, Prov. iii, 1, 2. Honour
thy father and mother, that thou mayest live long on the earth, Eph. vi,
3. If thou wilt walk in my ways, then will I lengthen thy days, 1 Kings
iii, 14. Their feet run to evil : they lay wait for their own 'blood, and
lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is
greedy of gain ; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof, Prov.
i, 16, &c. A sound heart is [in many cases] the life of the flesh ; but
envy, the rottenness of the bones," Prc«r. xiv, 30. Hence so many per-
400 REMARKS ON TOFLADY'S
sons shorten their days by obstinate grief; for "the sorrow of the world
worketh death." What numbers of men put an untimely end to their
lives by intemperance, murder, and robbery, and make good that awful
saying of David, " Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their
days," Psalm Iv, 23. What multitudes verify this doctrine of the wise
man, "The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the
wicked shall be shortened," Prov. x, 27. Does not the psalmist pray,
" O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days ?" Psalm cii, 24.
Does he not say, " As a snail which melteth, so let the wicked pass
away like the untimely fruit of a woman ?" And was not this the case
of the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness, who committed " the sin
unto bodily death ?" Is not this evident from 1 Cor. x, " Neither let
us commit fornication, as some of them also committed, and fell in one
day three and twenty thousand ?" &c. Nay, was not this the case of many
of the Corinthians themselves ? " For this cause [because he that
receiveth the Lord's Supper unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment
to himself,] many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep,"
[i. e. die,] 1 Cor." xi, 30.
My SECOND argument is taken from reason. If God has absolutely
appointed the untimely death of all, who shorten their own days, or the
days of others, by intemperance, filthy diseases, adultery, murder, robbery,
treason, &c, &c, he has also absolutely appointed all the crimes by which
their days are shortened ; and has contrived all the wars and massacres,
by which this earth is become a field of blood. I have heard of some
Indians who worship a horned grinning idol, with a huge mouth split
from ear to ear. But the preaching a God, who has planned and neces
sitated all the crimes that ever turned the world into an Aceldama, and
a common sewer of debauchery, is an honour that the Manichees and the
orthodox, so called, may claim to themselves.
Should Mr. T. answer, that although "the free will of the Deity alone
may fabricate" adultery, murder, and every intermediate link of the chain
of necessity ; and that although the generation and death of a child con-
ceived in adultery, and cut off by murder, is " Divinely and unchangeably
fixed;" yet God is not at all the author of the adultery and murder; I
desire to know how we can cut the Gordian knot, and divide between
adultery and the generation or conception of a child born in adultery ; and
between the murder of such a child, and its untimely death caused by the
cruelty of its unnatural mother.
From the whole, if I am not mistaken, we may safely conclude, (1.)
That the birth and death of all mankind take place according to some
providential laws. (2.) That God, in a peculiar manner, interposes in
the execution or suspension of these laws, with respect to the birth of
some men : witness the birth of Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist, &c.
(3.) That he does the same with respect to the untimely death of some,
and the wonderful preservation of others, as appears by the awful
destruction of Ananias, Sapphira, Herod, and by the miraculous preser
vation of Moses in the Nile, of Daniel in the den of lions, of Jonah in
the whale's belly, and of Peter in the prison. (4.) That if neither the
first nor the last link of the chain of human life is, in general, fabricated
by the absolute will of God, it is unreasonable to suppose that " the free
will of Deity alone fabricates the intermediate links." (5.) That to carry
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 40 1
the doctrine of providence so far as to make God absolutely appoint the
birth and death of all mankind, with all their circumstances, is to excul
pate adulterers and murderers, and to charge God with being the princi
pal contriver, and grand abettor of all the atrocious crimes, and of all the
filthy, bloody circumstances which have accompanied the birth and
death of countless myriads of men : and therefore, (G.) That the doctrine
of the absolute necessity of all events, which is commonly called absolute
predestination, is to be exploded as unscriptural, irrational, immoral, and
big with the most impious consequences. However, Mr. T. seems ready
to conclude that the death of every man is absolutely predestinated,
because the " fall of a sparrow" is not beneath the notice of our heavenly
Father : and that he thinks so, appears from his producing the following
texts in defence of absolute necessity : —
Pages 81-87. " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one
of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father, Matt, x, 29.
Not one of them, &c, is forgotten before God, Luke xii, 6." These, and
the like scriptures, do not prove that God made particular decrees from
all eternity, concerning the number of times that a sparrow should chirp,
the number of seeds that it should eat, and the peculiar time and man
ner of its death. They prove only that God's providence extends to
their preservation ; and that they rise into existence or fall according to
some law of God's making, the effect of which he can suspend, whenever
he pleases. If you shoot a sparrow, it falls indeed according to this
natural law of our Father, " that an animal mortally wounded shall fall ;"
but it by no means follows that you were necessitated thus to wound it.
When the Emperor Domitian spent his time in catching and killing flies,
those insects fell a sacrifice to his childish and cruel sport, according to
this general decree of Providence, " In such circumstances a man shall
have power to kill a feebler animal." But to suppose that from ail eternity
God made absolute decrees that Domitian should lock himself up in his
apartment, and kill twenty-three flies on such a day, and forty-six the
next day — that he should wring off the head of one which was six weeks
old, and with a pin impale another which was three months, six hours,
and fifteen minutes old ; or to imagine that before the foundation of the
world, the Almighty decreed that three idle boys should play the truant
such an afternoon, in order to seek birds' nests ; that they should find
a sparrow's nest with five young ones ; that they should torment one to
death, that they should let another fly away, that they should starve the
third, feed the fourth, and give the fifth to a cat, after having put its eyes
out, and plucked so many feathers out of its tender wings ; to suppose
this, I say, is to undo all by overdoing. It is absurd to ascribe to God
the cruelty of Nero, and the childishness of Domitian, for fear lie should
not have all the glory of St. John's love, and Solomon's wisdom. In a
word, it is to make " the Father of lights" exactly like the prince of
darkness — the evil principle of the Manichees, who is the first cause of
all iniquity and wo. Who can sufficiently wonder that any good man
should be so dreadfully mistaken as to call such a scheme a Christian
scheme ! a doctrine according to godliness ! a Gospel ! and the genuine
Gospel too ! And when Mr. T. charges us with Atheism, because we
cannot bow to the first cause of all evil, does he not betray as much
prejudice as the heathens did, when they called the primitive Christians
VOL. II. 26
402
Atheists, merely because the disciples of Christ bore their testimony
against idol gods ?
Mr. T. produces many passages of Scripture beside those which I
have animadverted upon in this section ; but as they are equally mis
applied, one or another of the twelve keys with which I have presented
the public, will easily rescue all of them from Calvinian bondage.
SECTION IV.
An answer to ike capital objections of the necessitarians against the
doctrine of liberty.
IF I have broken the unphilosophical and unscriptural pillars on which
Mr. T. builds his. temple of philosophical and Christian necessity, I have
nothing to do now but to answer some plausible objections, by which the
necessitarians puzzle those who embrace the doctrine of liberty.
OBJECTION FIEST. Arid first, they say, that " if God had not secured
every link of the chain of events, it would fall to pieces ; and the events
which God wants absolutely to bring about, could not be brought about
at all ; while those which he designs absolutely to hinder, would take
place in full opposition to his decrees."
ANSWER. But we deny these consequences : for, 1. Nothing that
God determines absolutely to hinder shall ever come to pass. Thus he
has absolutely decreed that the gates of hell shall never totally prevail
against or destroy his Church, that is, all true Christians ; and therefore,
there will always be some true Christians upon earth. It is his absolute
will that all who " by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory,"
shall have eternal life ; and that all who finally neglect so great salvation
shall feel his wrathful indignation ; and therefore none shall pluck the
former out of the hands of his remunerative mercy, and none shall pluck
the latter out of the hands of his vindictive justice.
2. God has ten thousand strings to his providential bow, and ten
thousand bridles in his providential hand, to curb and manage free agents,
which way soever they please to go : and therefore, to suppose that he
has tightly bound all his creatures with cords of absolute necessity, for
fear he should not be able to manage them if they had their liberty ; to
suppose this, I say, is to pour upon Divine Providence the same contempt
which a timorous gentleman brings upon himself when he dares not ride
a spirited horse any longer than a groom leads him by the bridle, that
he may not run away with his unskilful rider.
3. If things had not happened one way, they might have happened
another way. Supposing, for example, God had absolutely ordered that
Solomon should be David's son by Bathsheba ; this event might have
taken place without his necessitating David to commit adultery and
murder. For Providence might have found out means for marrying
Bathsheba to David before she was married to Uriah : or God might
have taken Uriah to heaven by a fever, and David could legally have
married his widow. Again : if neither Caiaphas nor Pilate had con-
demned our Lord, he could have made his life an offering for sin, by
commanding the clouds to shoot a thousand lightnings upon his devoted
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 403
nead, and to consume him as Elijah's sacrifice was consumed on Mount
Carmel.
4. The pious author of Ecclesiasticus says, with great truth, that
" God has no need of the sinful man." To suppose that the chain of
God's providence would have been absolutely broken if Manasseh or
Nero had committed one murder less than they did, is to ascribe to the
old murderer and his servants an importance of which Manes himself
might have been ashamed. Although God used Nebuchadnezzar,
Alexander, and Attila, to scourge guilty nations, and to exercise thb
patience of his righteous servants, he was by no means obliged to use
them. For he might have obtained the same ends by the plague, the
famine, or the dreadful ministry of the angel who cut off the first bom
of the Egyptians, and the numerous army of Sennacherib. I natter
myselfohat these four answers fully set aside the first objection of the
necessitarians : pass we on to another.
OBJECTION SECOND. " If God had not necessitated the fall of Adam,
and secured his sin, Adam might have continued innocent ; and then
there would have been no need of Christ and of Christianity. Had
Adam stood, we should have been without Christ to all eternity : but
believers had rather be born in sin, than be Christless : they had rather
be sick, than have nothing to do with their heavenly Physician, arid with
the cordials of his sanctifying Spirit."*
ANSWER. It is absurd to insinuate that the Father necessitated Adam
to sin, in order to make way for the indwelling of his Word and Spirit
in the hearts of believers. For if Adam was made in the image of God ;
if God is that mysterious, adorable, Supreme Being, whom the Scriptures
call Father, Word, and Holy Ghost ; if the Father gave his Word and
light to Adam in paradise, and shed abroad Divine love in his heart by
the Holy Ghost given unto him ; Adam was full of the Word and Spirit
of God by creation. And although the eternal Word was not Adam's
Redeemer, yet he was Adam's life and light ; for Christ, considered as
the Word of God, was the wisdom and power of sinless man, just as he
is the wisdom and power of holy believers. The reason why man
needed not the atoning blood of the Lamb in a state of innocence was
because the holy Lamb of God lived in his heart, and, jointly with the
Spirit of love, maintained there the mystical kingdom of righteousness,
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. To suppose, therefore, that if Adarn
had not smned he would have had nothing to do with the Word and
Spirit of the Father, is as absurd as to fancy that if people did not poison
themselves, they would have had nothing to do with health and cheer-
fulness. And to intimate that God necessarily brought about the sin of
Adam, in order to make way for the murder of his incarnate Son, is as
impious as to insinuate that our Lord impelled the Jews to despise the
day of their visitation, in order to secure the opportunity of weeping over
the hardness of their hearts. If God necessitated the mischief, in order
to remedy it, the gratitude of the redeemed is partly at an end ; and the
thanks they owe him are only of the same kind with such as Mr. Toplady
* Mr. Toplady dares not produce this objection in all its force : he only hints
at it. His own words are, p. 130, " Let me give our free willers a very momentous
hint : viz. that the entrance of original sin was one of those essential Ii7iks, on
which the Messiah's incarnation and crucifixion were suspended."
404 REMARKS ON TOPLADY^S
would owe me, if I wantonly caused him to break his legs, and then
procured him a good surgeon to set them. But what shall we say of
the non-redeemed? Those unfortunate creatures whom Mr. Toplady
calls " the reprobate ?" Are there not countless myriads of these,
according to his unscriptural gospel? And what thanks do these owe
the evil Manichean God, who absolutely necessitates them to sin, and
absolutely debars them from any saving interest in a Redeemer, that he
may send them without fail to everlasting burnings ? How strangely
perverted is the rational taste of Mr. T., who calls the doctrine of
absolute necessity, which is big with absolute reprobation, absolute
wickedness, and absolute damnation, a comfortable doctrine ! a doctrine
of grace ! May we not expect next to hear him cry up midnight gloom
as meridian brightness ?
But to return : if it was necessary that Adam should sin in ftrder to
glorify the Father, by making way for the crucifixion of the Lamb of
God ; is it not also necessary that believers should sin in order to glorify
God more abundantly by " crucifying Christ afresh, and putting him
again to open shame ?" Will they not, by this means, have greater
need of their Physician, make a fuller trial of the virtue of his blood,
and sing louder in heaven ? O, how perilous is a doctrine, which, at
every turn, transforms itself into a doctrine of light, to support the most
subtle and pernicious tenet of the Antinomians, " Let us sin that grace
may abound !"
Mr. Toplady, who has only hinted at the two preceding objections,
triumphs much in that which follows : it shall therefore appear clothed
in his own words. In the contents of his book he says, " Methodists,
[he gives this name to all who oppose his Scheme of Necessity,]
Methodists, more gross Manicheans than Manes himself." The proof
occurs, page 144, in the followings words : —
OBJECTION THIRD. " The old Manicheism was a gentle impiety, and
a slender absurdity, when contrasted with the modern Arminian improve
ments on that system. For, which is worse ? To assert the existence
of two independent beings, and no more ; or, to assert the existence of
about one hundred and fifty millions of independent beings, all living at
one time, and most of them waging successful war on the designs of
him that made them ? Even confining ourselves to our own world, it
will follow that Arminian Manicheism exceeds the paltry oriental quality,
at the immense rate of 150,000,000 to two — without reckoning the adult
self determiners of past generations."
ANSWER. This argument, cast into a logical mould, will yield the
following syllogism : —
Every being, able to determine himself, is an independent being, and
of consequence a god.
According to the doctrine of free will, every accountable man is a
being able to determine himself.
Therefore, according to the doctrine of free will, every accountable
man is an independent being, and consequently a god. Hence it follows,
that if Manes erred by believing there were two gods, those who
espouse the doctrine of free will are more gross Manicheans than Manes
himself; since they believe that every man is a god.
Observe Mr. Toplady's consistency ! Indeed, when he attacks Mr.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 405
W. and Arminianism, no charges (be they ever so contradictory) come
amiss to him. In his Historic Proof, Arminianism is Atheism ; and in
his Scheme of Necessity, Arminianism is a system which supposes
countless myriads of gods ! But, letting this pass, I observe that the
preceding syllogism is a mere sophism ; the first proposition, on which
all the others depend, being absolutely false ; witness the following
appeals to common sense : —
Is a horse independent on his master, because he can determine him
self to range or lie down in his pasture ? Is Mr. Toplady independent
on his bishop, because he can determine himself to preach twice next
Sunday, or only once, or not at all ? Is a captain independent on his
general, because he can determine himself to stand his ground, or to run
away in an engagement ? Are soldiers independent on their colonel,
because they determined themselves to list in such a company ? Is a
negro slave independent on his master, or is he a little god, because,
when he lies down, he can determine himself to do it on the left side, or
on the right 1 Is a highwayman a god, because he can determine himself
to rob a traveller, or to let him pass without molestation ? In a word,
are subjects independent on their sovereign, because they can determine
themselves to break or to keep the laws of the land ?
Every one of the preceding questions pours light upon the absurdity
of Mr. Toplady's argument. But that absurdity will appear doubly
glaring if you consider three things : (1.) All free agents have received
their life and free agency from God, as precious talents, for the good
or bad use of which they are accountable to his distributive justice.
(2.) All free agents are every moment dependent upon God, for the pre
servation of their life and free agency; there being no instant in which
God may not resume all his temporary talents, by requiring their souls
of them. (3.) He has appointed a day in which he will judge the
world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ : then shall he publicly convince
all moral agents of their dependence on his goodness and justice, by
graciously rewarding the righteous, and justly punishing the wicked,
according to their works. (4.) In the meantime, he makes them
sensible of their dependence, by keeping in his providential hand the
" staff* of their bread," and the thread of life ; saying to the greatest of
them, " Ye are gods, [in authority over others,] but ye shall die like
men : and after death comes judgment." It is as ridiculous, therefore,
to suppose that, upon the scheme of free will, men are independent
beings, as to assert that prisoners, who are going to the bar to meet
their lawgiver and judge, are independent upon his supreme authority,
because those who are going to be condemned for robbery or murder,
determined themselves to rob or murder, without any Antinomian, im
pulsive decree made by their judge ; and because those who are going
to be rewarded for their obedience, were not necessitated to obey as a
wave is necessitated to roll along, when it is irresistibly impelled by
another wave.
However, Mr. Toplady sings the song of victory, as if he had proved
that, upon the Arminian scheme of free will, eveiy man is an inde
pendent being, and a god. " Poor Manes !" says he, " with how excel
lent a grace do Arminians call thee a heretic ! And, above all, such
Arminians, (whereof Mr. J. Wesley is one,) as agree with thee in
406 REMARKS ON TOPLADT S
believing the attainability of sinless perfection here below : or, to use the
good old Manichean phrase, who assert that the evil principle may be
totally separated from man in this present life!"
The reader will permit me to make a concluding remark upon this
triumphant exclamation of Mr. Toplady. I have observed, that Manes
believed there are in the Godhead two co-eternal principles: (1.) The
absolute sovereignty of free grace, which necessitates men to good.
And, (2.) The absolute sovereignty of free wrath, which necessitates
them to evil. Nevertheless, Manes was not so mistaken as to suppose
that the good principle in his Deity was weaker than the bad principle ;
and that the latter could never be dislodged by the former from the
breast of one single elect person. Manes had faith enough to believe
that now is the day of salvation, and that Christ (and not death or a
temporary hell) saves good Christians from their sins. Accordingly he
asserted that nothing unholy or wicked can dwell with the good-prin
cipled God ; and that none shall inherit eternal life, but such as so concur
with the heavenly light, as to have the works of darkness destroyed in
their souls. And therefore he maintained, with St. Paul, that we must
be " sanctified throughout," and that our souls must be found at death
"blameless and without spot or wrinkle" of sin; and he held, with
St. John, that he who is " fully born of God [the good principle] sinneth
not, but keepeth himself, and the wicked principle toucheth him not,"
so as to lead him into iniquity. Now, if Mr. Toplady so firmly believes
in the evil principle, as to assert, that though believers are ever so will
ing to have no other Lord but the good-principled God, yet this God
can never destroy before death the works of the sin-predestinating God
in their hearts ; and if, on the other hand, the wicked principle com-
pletely destroys all good in all reprobates, even in this life ; is it not
evident that Mr. Toplady's charge may be justly retorted ;* and that, as
he ascribes so much more power to the evil principle than to the good,
he carries the sovereignty of the evil principle farther than Manes him-
self did ; and is (to use his own expression) a " more gross Manichean
than Manes himself?"
OBJECTION FOURTH. "Your scheme of free will labours under a
greater difficulty than that with which you clog the Scheme of Neces
sity ; because if it did not represent the sin-necessitating principle as
* Page 154, Mr. Toplady produces the following objection :— "'Tis curious to
behold Arminians themselves forced to take refuge in the harbour of necessity.
It is necessary, say they, that man's will should be free : for without freedom, the
will were no will at all," [i. e. no free will — no such will as constitutes a man
a moral and accountable agent.] " Free agency, themselves being judges, is only
a ramification of necessity."
This is playing upon words, and shuffling logical cards in order to delude the
simple. I have granted again and again that there is a necessity of nature, a
necessity of consequence, a necessity of duty, a necessity of decency, a necessity
of convenience, &c, &c, but all these sorts of necessity do no more amount to the
Calvinian, absolute necessity of all events, than my granting that the king has a
variety of officers about his person by necessity of decency, of office, of custom,
&c, implies rny granting that lie has a certain officer, who absolutely necessitates
him to move just as he does, insomuch that he cannot turn his eyes, or stir one
finder, otherwise than this imaginary officer directs or impels him. This objec
tion of Mr. Toplady is so excessively trifling, that I almost blame myself for taking
notice of it, even in a note.
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 407
more powerful than the good principle, yet it represents created spirits
as stronger than the God who made them : an impotent, disappointed
God this, who says, — / would, and ye would not."
ANSWER. 1. These words were actually spoken by incarnate Om
nipotence : nor do they prove that man is stronger than God, but only
that when God deals with free agents about those things concerning
which he will call them to an account, he does not necessitate their will
by an irresistible exertion of his power, (propter justum Dei judicium,)
" that he may leave room for the display of his justice," as the fathers
said : for his perfections, and our probationary circumstances require,
that he should maintain the character of Lawgiver and Judge, as well
as that of Creator and Sovereign. And, therefore, when we say that
free agents are not necessarily determined by God to those actions, for
which God is going to punish or reward them, we do not represent free
agents as stronger or greater than God. We only place them (sub
justo Dei judicio) " under God's righteous government," as said the
fathers, equally subjected to the legislative wisdom, and executive power
of their omnipotent Lawgiver.
2. Whether free agents are rewarded or punished, saved or damned,
God our Saviour will never be disappointed : for, (1.) He will pronounce
the sentence ; and what he will do himself will not disappoint his
expectation. (2.) It is as much God's righteous, eternal design to
punish wicked, obstinate free agents, as to reward yielding and obedient
free agents. (3.) Every Gospel dispensation yields a savour of life or
death. The sword of the Lord is a two-edged sword : if it do not cut
down a man's sin, it will cut down his person. And though God, as
Creator and Redeemer, does not in the day of salvation Calvinistically
desire the death of a sinner ; yet, as a holy Lawgiver, a covenant-keeping
God, and a righteous Judge, he is determined to " render unto every
man according to his deeds : eternal life to them who, by patient con
tinuance in well doing, seek for glory ; but indignation and wrath to
them who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness :" and
God will do this, " in the day when he shall judge the secrets of men
according to the Gospel," Rom. ii, 6-16. Hence it is evident that the
bow of Divine justice has two strings, that each string will shoot its
peculiar arrow, and although God leaves it to free agents to choose
which they will have, the arrow which is winged with remunerative life,
or that which carries vindictive death ; yet he can never be disappointed :
he will most infallibly hit the judicial mark which he has set up : witness
the awful declaration which is engraven upon that mark : — " These
[obstinate free agents] shall go away into everlasting punishment ; but
the righteous into life eternal," Matt, xxv, 46.
Upon the whole, I humbly hope, that whether candid readers con
sider the inconclusiveness of Mr. T.'s • philosophical arguments, the
injudicious manner in which he has pressed the Scriptures into the
service of absolute necessity, or the weakness of his objections, which
he directly or indirectly makes against the doctrine of liberty ; they will
see that his scheme is as contrary to true philosophy and to well-applied
Scripture, as the absolute necessity of adultery and murder is contrary'
to good morals, and the absolute reprobation of some of our unborn chil
dren, and perhaps of our own souls, is contrary to evangelical comfort.
408 REMARKS ON TOPLADY's
SECTION V.
The doctrine of necessity is the capital error of the Calvinists, and the
foundation of the most wretched schemes of philosophy and divinity —
How nearly Mr. Toplady. agrees with Mr. Hobbes, the apostle of the
materialists in England, with respect to the doctrine of necessity —
Conclusion.
WE have seen on what philosophical and Scriptural proofs Mr.
Toplady founds the doctrine of necessity ; and, if I am not mistaken,
the inconclusiveness of his arguments has been fairly pointed out. I
shall now subjoin some remarks, which I hope are not unworthy of the
reader's attention.
1. It is not without reason that Mr. T. borrows from false philosophy
and misapplied passages of Scripture, whatever seems to countenance
his doctrine of necessity ; for that doctrine is the very soul of Calvinism ;
and Calvinism is, in his account, the marrow of the Gospel. If the
doctrine of absolute necessity be true, Calvinian election and reprobation
are true also : if it be false, Calvinism, so far as we oppose it, is left
without either prop or foundation. Take away necessity from the
modern doctrines of grace, and you reduce them to the Scripture
standard which we follow, and of which Arminius was too much
afraid.
2. Those who would see at once the bar which separates us from
the Calvinists, need only consider the following questions : — Are all
those who shall be damned absolutely necessitated to continue in sin and
perish ? And are all those who shall be saved absolutely necessitated to
work righteousness and be eternally saved ? Or, to unite both questions
in one, Shall men be judged, that is, shall they be justified or condemned
in the last day, as bound a-gerits, according to the unavoidable conse
quences of Christ's work, or of Adam's work? Or, shall they be
justified or condemned, according to THEIR OWN worJcs, as the Scripture
declares ? I lay a peculiar stress upon the words their own, because
works, which absolute decrees necessitate us to do, are no longer,
properly speaking, our own works, but the works of Him who necessi
tates us to do them.
3. There is but one case in which we can Scripturally admit the
Caivinian doctrine of necessity, and that is, the salvation of infants who
die before they have committed actual sin. These, we grant, are
necessarily or Calvinistically saved. But they will not be "judged
according to THEIR works," seeing they died before they wrought either
iniquity or righteousness. Their salvation will depend only on the
irresistible work of Christ, and his Spirit. As they were never called
personally to " work out their own salvation ;" and as they never per
sonally wrought out their own damnation, they will all be saved by the
superabounding grace of God, through the meritorious infancy and death
of the holy child Jesus. But it is an abomination to suppose that
because God can justly force holiness and salvation upon some infants,
he can justly force continued sin and eternal damnation upon myriads
of people, by putting them in such circumstances as absolutely necessitate
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 409
them to continue in sin and be damned. I repeat, God may bestow
eternal favours upon persons whom his decrees necessitate to be
righteous. But he can never inflict eternal punishments upon persons
whom his decrees, according to Mr. Toplady's doctrine, necessitate to
be wicked from first to last.
4. The moderate Calvinists say, indeed, that Adam was endued with
free will, arid that God did not necessitate him to sin. But if necessity
has nothing to do with the first man's obedience and first transgres
sion, why should it be supposed that it has so much to do with us, as
absolutely to beget all our good and bad works ? And if it be not
unreasonable to say " that God endued one man with a power to deter
mine himself;" why should we be considered as enemies to the Gospel,
because we assert that he has made all men in some degree capable
of determining themselves ; the Scriptures declaring that he treats all
adult persons as free agents, or persons endued with the power of self
determination ?
5. Mr. Toplady and all the rigid Calvinists suppose, indeed, that
God's necessitation extended to the commission of Adam's sin ; and yet
they tell us that God is not the author, but only the permitter of sin.
But they do not consider that their doctrine of absolute necessity leaves
no more room for permission, than the absolute decree that a pound
shall always exactly weigh sixteen ounces, leaves room for a permission
of its weighing sometimes fifteen ounces and sometimes seventeen.
Should Mr. Toplady reply that " such a decree, however, leaves room
for the permission that a pound shall always exactly weigh sixteen
ounces," I reply, that this is playing upon words, it being evident that
the word permission, in such a case, is artfully put for the plainer word
necessity or absolute decree. It is evident, therefore, that although
Mr. Toplady aims at being more consistent than the moderate Calvinists,
he is in fact as inconsistent as they, if he denies that, upon the scheme
of the absolute decrees preached by Calvin, and of the absolute neces
sity which he himself maintains, God is properly the contriver and author
of all sin and wickedness.
6. It is dreadful to lay, directly or indirectly, all sin at the door of an
omnipotent Being, who is " fearful in holiness, and glorious in praises."
Nor is it less dangerous to make poor, deluded Christians swallow down,
as Gospel, some of the most dangerous errors that were ever propagated
by ancient or modern infidels. We have already seen that the capital
error of Manes was the doctrine of necessity. This doctrine was also
the grand engine with which Spinosa in Holland, and Hobbes in Eng
land, attempted to overthrow Christianity in the last century. Those
two men, who may be called the apostles of modern materialists and
Atheists, tried to destroy the Lord's vineyard, by letting loose upon it
the very error which Mr. T. recommends to us as the capital doctrine
of grace. " Spinosa," says a modern author, " will allow no governor
of the universe but necessity." As for Mr. Hobbes, he built his mate
rialism upon the ruins of free will, and the foundation of necessity : hear
the above-quoted author giving us an account of the monstrous system
of religion known by Hobbism : — " Freedom of will it was impossible
that Mr. Hobbes should assert to be a property of matter ; but he finds
a very unexpected way to extricate himself out of the difficulty. Tho
410 REMARKS ON TOPLADY^S
proposition against him stands thus : * Freedom of will cannot be a
property of matter ; but there are beings which have freedom of will ;
therefore there are substances which are not material.' He answers
this at once by saying the most strange thing, and the most contradictory
to our knowledge of what passes within ourselves, that perhaps was
ever advanced, namely, that there is no freedom of will. * Every effect,'
he says, [and this is exactly the doctrine of Mr. Toplady, as the quota
tions I have produced from his book abundantly prove,] l Every effect
must be owing to some cause, and that cause must produce the effect
necessarily. Thus, whatever body is moved, is moved by some other
body, and that by a third, and so on without end.' In the same manner
he [Mr. Hobbes] concludes, ( The will of a voluntary agent must be
determined by some other external to it, and so on without end : there-
fore, that the will is not determined by any power of determining itself,
inherent in itself; that is, it is not free, nor is there any such thing as
freedom of will, but that all is the act of necessity.'" This is part of
the account which the author of the Answer to Lord BolingbroJee's
Philosophy gives us of Mr. Hobbes' detestable scheme of necessity :
and it behooves Mr. Toplady and the Calvinists to see if, while they
contend for their absolute decrees, and for the doctrine of the absolute
necessity and passiveness of all our willings and motions, they do not
inadvertently confound matter and spirit, and make way for Hobbes'
materialism, as well as for his scheme of necessity.
7. The moment the doctrine of necessity is overthrown, Manicheism,
Spinosisrn, Hobbism, and the spreading religion of Mr. Voltaire, are
left without foundation ; as well as that part of Calvin's system which
we object against. And we beseech Mr. Toplady, and the contenders
for Calvinian decrees, to consider, that if we oppose their doctrine, it is
not from any prejudice against their persons, much less against God's
free grace ; but from the same motive which would make us bear our
testimony against Manes, Spinosa, Hobbes, and Voltaire, if they would
impose their errors upon us as " doctrines of grace." Mr. Wesley and
I are ready to testify upon oath that we humbly submit to God's sove
reignty, and joyfully glory in the freeness of Gospel grace, which has
mercifully distinguished us from countless myriads of our fellow crea
tures, by gratuitously bestowing upon us numberless favours, of a spiritual
and temporal nature, which he has thought proper absolutely to withhold
from our fellow creatures. To meet the Calvinists on their own ground,
we go so far as to allow there is a partial, gratuitous election and repro
bation. By this election, Christians are admitted to the enjoyment of
privileges far superior to those of the Jews : and, according to this
reprobation, myriads of heathens are absolutely cut off from all the
prerogatives which accompany God's covenants of peculiar grace. In
a word, we grant to the Calvinists every thing they contend for, except
the doctrine of absolute necessity : nay, we even grant the necessary,
unavoidable salvation of all that die in their infancy. And our love to
peace would make us go farther to meet Mr. Toplady, if we could do it
without giving up the justice, mercy, truth, and wisdom of God, together
with the truth of the Scriptures, the equity of God's paradisiacal and medi
atorial laws, the propriety of the day of judgment, arid the reasonableness
of the sentences of absolution and condemnation which the righteous
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 411
.Judge will then pronounce. We hope, therefore, that the prejudices of
our Calvinian brethren will subside, and that, instead of accounting us
inveterate enemies to truth, they will do us the justice to say that we
have done our best to hinder them from inadvertently betraying some
of the greatest truths of Christianity into the hands of the Manichees,
materialists, infidels, and Antinomians of the age. May the Lord hasten
the happy day in which we shall no more waste our time in attacking
or defending the truths of our holy religion ; but bestow every moment
in the sweetest exercises of Divine and brotherly love ! In the mean-
time, if we must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, let
us do it with a plainness that may effectually detect error ; and with a
mildness that may soften our most violent opponents. Lest I should
transgress against this rule, I beg leave once more to observe, that
though I have made it appear that Mr. Toplady's Scheme, of Necessity
is inseparably connected with the most horrid errors of Manicheism,
materialism, and Hobbism, yet I am far from accusing him of wilfully
countenancing any of those errors. I am persuaded he does it unde-
signedly. The badness of his cause obliges him to collect, from all
quarters, every shadow of argument to support his favourite opinion.
And I make no doubt but, when he shall candidly review our contro
versy, it will be his grief to find that, in his hurry, he has contended for
a scheme which gives up Christianity into the hands of her greatest
enemies, and has poured floods of undeserved contempt upon Mr. Wes
ley who is one of her best defenders.
AN ANSWER
TO THE
REV. MR. TOPLADY'S
"VINDICATION OF THE DECREES," &c.
BY THE AUTHOR OF THE CHECKS.
'The [absolute] predestination of some to LIFE, &c, cannot be maintained without admitting1
the [absolute] reprobation of some others to DEATH, &c; and all who have subscribed the
said article [the seventeenth, in a Calvinian sense] are bound in honour, conscience, and
law to defend [Calvinian, absolute] reprobation, were it only to keep the seventeenth
article [taken in a Calvinian sense] upon its legs." (Rev. Mr. TOPLADY'S Historic
Proof of Calvinism, p. 574.)
INTRODUCTION.
WHEN the author of Pietas Oxoniensis took his temporary leave of
me in his Finishing Stroke, he recommended to the public the book
which I am going to answer. His recommendation runs thus : — " Who.
soever will consult the Rev. Mr. Toplady's last publication, entitled,
More Work for Mr. J. Wesley, [or, A Vindication of the Decrees, &c,]
will there find a full answer to all those cavils which Papists, Socinians,
Pelagians, Arminians, and Perfectionists bring against those doctrines
commonly called CALVOIST, as if they tended to promote licentiousness,
or to make God cruel, unjust, and unmerciful, and will see every one of
their objections retorted upon themselves in a most masterly manner."
(Finishing Stroke, p. 33.) Soon after Mr. Hill had thus extolled Mr.
Toplady's performance, I was informed that many of the Calvinists
said that it was an unanswerable defence of their doctrines. This
raised in me a desire to judge for myself; and when I had sent for, and
read this admired book, I was so far from being of Mr. Hill's senti
ment, that I promised my readers to demonstrate, from that very book,
the inconclusiveness of the strongest arguments by which Calvinism is
supported. Mr. Hill, by unexpectedly entering the lists again, caused
me to delay the fulfilling of my promise. But having now completed
my answer to his fictitious creed, I hasten to complete also my Logica
Generensis.
Did I write a book entitled Charitas Gcnevensis, I might easily show,
from Mr. Toplady's performance, that the " doctrines of grace" (so
called) are closely connected with " the doctrines of free wrath." But
if that gentleman, in his controversial heat, has forgotten what he owed
to Mr. Wesley and to himself, this is no reason why I should forget the
title of my book, which calls me to point out the bad arguments of our
opponents, and not their ill hinnour. If I absurdly spent my time in
passing a censure upon Mr. Toplady's spirit, he would with reason say,
as he does in the introduction to his Historic Proof, page 35, " After
all, what has my pride or my humility to do with the argument in hand ?
Whether I am haughty or meek is of no more consequence either to
that or to the public, than whether I am tall or short." Beside, having
again and again, myself, requested our opponents not to withdraw the
controversy by personal reflections, but to weigh with candour the argu
ments which are offered, I should be inexcusable if I did not set them
416 INTRODUCTION.
the example. Should it be said that Mr. Wesley's character, which
Mr. Toplady has so severely attacked, is at stake, arid that I ought pur
posely to stand up in his defence, I reply, that the personal charges
which Mr. Toplady interweaves with his arguments, have been already
fully answered* by Mr. Olivers ; and that these charges being chiefly
founded upon Mr. Toplady's logical mistakes, they will, of their own
accord, fall to the ground, as soon as the mistakes on which they rest
shall be exposed. If Logica Genevensis is disarmed, Charitas Gene,
vensis will not be able to keep the field. If good sense take the former
prisoner, the latter will be obliged to surrender to good nature. Should
this be the case, how great a blessing will our controversy prove to
both parties ! The conquerors shall have the glory of vindicating truth ;
and the conquered shall have the profit of retiring from the field with
their judgments better informed, and their tempers bettor regulated !
May the God of truth and love grant, that if Mr. Toplady have the
honour of producing the best arguments, I (for one) may have the
advantage of yielding to them ! To be conquered by truth and love, is to
prove conqueror over our two greatest enemies, error and sin.
MADELEY, Oct. 1775.
* See "A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady," by Mr. Olivers.
AN ANSWER
TO THE
REV. MR. TOPLADY'S "VINDICATION OF THE DECREES," &c.
SECTION I.
Showing that, upon the Calvinian scheme, it is an indubitable truth that
some men shall be saved, do what they mil, till the efficacious decree
of Calvinian election necessitate them to repent and be saved : and
that others shall be damned, do what they can, till the efficacious
decree of Calvinian reprobation necessitate them to draw back, and
be damned.
THE doctrinal part of the controversy between Mr. Wesley and Mr
Toplady may, in a great degree, be reduced to this question : If God,
from all eternity, absolutely predestinated a fixed number of men, called
the elect, to eternal life, and absolutely predestinated a fixed number of
men, called the reprobate, to eternal death, does it not unavoidably follow
that "the elect shall be saved, do what they will ;" and that " the repro
bate shall be damned, do what they can ?" Mr. Wesley thinks that the
consequence is undeniably true : Mr. Toplady says that it is absolutely
false, and charges Mr. Wesley with « coining blasphemous proposi
tions," yea, with " hatching blasphemy, and then fathering it on others,"
pages 7, 8 ; and, in a note upon the word blasphemous, he savs, « This
epithet is not too strong." To say that any shall be saved, do what they
will, and others damned, do what they can', is, in the first instance, blas
phemy against the holiness of God ; and, in the second, blasphemy
against his goodness : ^ and again, p. 34, after repeating the latter clause
of the consequence, viz. " the reprobate shall be damned, do wliat they
can," he expresses himself thus : — « One would imagine that none but a
reprobate could be capable of advancing a position so execrably shocking.'
Surely it must have cost even Mr. Wesley much, both of time and pains',
to invent the idea, &c. Few men's invention ever sunk deeper into
the despicable, launched wider into the horrid, and went farther in the
profane. The Satanic guilt of the person who could excogitate, and
publish to the world a position like that, baffles all power of description,
and is only to be exceeded (if exceedable) by the Satanic shamelessness
which dares to lay the black position at the door of other men. Let us
examine whether any thing occurring in Zauchius could justly furnish
this wretched defamer with materials for a deduction so truly infernal."
Agreeably to those spirited complaints, Mr. Toplady calls his book, not
only " M^-e Work for Mr. J. Wesley," but also "A Vindication of the
Decrees and Providence of God, from the defamations of a late printed
paper, ensiled, 'The Consequence Proved.' " I side with Mr. Wesley
for the consequence ; guarding it against cavils by a clause, which his
love of brevity made him think needless. And the guarded consequence,
VOL. IJ. 27
418 ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
which I undertake to defend, runs thus :— From the doctrine of the abso
lute and unconditional predestination of some men to eternal life, and of
all others to eternal death, it necessarily follows, that some men shall be
SAVED, do what they will, till the absolute and efficacious decree of elec
tion actually necessitate them to obey, and be sa.ved ; and that all the
rest of mankind shall be DAMNED, do what they can, till the absolute
and efficacious decree of reprobation necessitate them to sin, and be
damned.
An illustration will at once show the justness of this consequence to
an unprejudiced reader. Fifty fishes sport in a muddy pond, where
they have received life. The skilful and almighty Owner of the pond
has absolutely decreed that ten of these fishes, properly marked with a
shining mark, called election, shall absolutely be caught in a certain net,
called «a Gospel net, on a certain day, called the day of his power; and
that they shall, every one, be cast into a delightful river, where he has
engaged himself, by an eternal covenant of particular redemption, to
bring them without fail. The same omnipotent Proprietor of the pond
has likewise absolutely decreed that all the rest of the fishes, namely,
forty, which are properly distinguished by a black mark, called repro.
haiion, shall never be caught in the Gospel net ; or that if they are
entangled in it at any time, they shall always be drawn out of it, and s
shall necessarily continue in the muddy pond, till, on a certain day, called
the day of his uraih, he shall sweep the pond with a certain net, called a
law net, catch them all, and cast them into a lake of fire and brimstone,
where he has engaged himself, by an everlasting covenant of non-redemp
tion, to brino- them all without fail, that they may answer the end of their
predestination to death, which is to show the goodness of his law net, and
to destroy them for having been bred in the muddy pond, and lor not hav
ing been caught in the Gospel net. The Owner of the pond is wise as
well as powerful. He knows that, absolutely to secure the end to which
bis fishes are absolutely predestinated, he must absolutely secure the
means which conduced to that end ; and therefore, that none may escape
their happy or their unfortunate predestination, he keeps night and day
his hold of them all, by a strong hook, called necessity, and by an invisible
line, culled Divine decrees. By means of this line and hook it happens,
that if the fishes, which bear the mark election, are ever so loath to come
into the Gospel net, or to stay therein, they are always drawn into it in a
day of powerful love ; and if the fishes which bear the mam of repro-
bation, are, for a time, ever so desirous to wrap themselves in the Gos
pel net, they are always drawn out of it in a day of powerful wrath.
For, thouo-h the fishes seem to swim ever so freely, yet their motions
are all absolutely fixed by the Owner of the pond, and determined by
means of the above-mentioned line and hook. If this is the case, says
Mr Wesley, ten fishes shall go into the delightful river, let them do
what they will, let them plunge in the mud of their pond ever so briskly,
or leap toward the lake of fire ever so often, while they have any liberty
to plunge or to leap. And all the rest of the fishes, forty m number,
shall o-o into the lake of fire, let them do what they can, let them in
volve "themselves ever so long in the Gospel net, and leap ever so ofte
toward the fine river, before they are absolute y necessitated, to go,
through the mud of their own pond, into the sulphureous pool.
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES.
consequence is undeniable, and I make no doubt that all unprejudiced
persons see it as well as myself: as sure as two and two make four, or,
if you please, as sure as ten and forty make fifty, so sure ten fishes
shall be finally caught in the Gospel net, and forty in the law net.
Should Mr. Toplady say that this is only an illustration, I drop it,
and roundly assert that if two men, suppose Solomon and Absalom, are
absolutely predestinated to eternal life ; while two other men, suppose
Mr. Baxter arid Mr. Wesley, are absolutely predestinated to eternal
death ; the two elect shall be saved, do what they will, and the two
reprobates shall be damned, do what they can. That is, let Solomon
and Absalom worship the abomination of the Zidonians, and of the
Moabites, in ever so public a manner; let them, for years, indulge
themselves with heathenish women, collected from all countries ; "if
they have a mind, let them murder their brothers, defile their sisters,
and imitate the incestuous Corinthian, who took his own father's wife ;
yet they can never really endanger their finished salvation. The indelu
ble mark of unconditional election to life is upon them ; and forcible,
victorious grace shall, in their last moments, if not before, draw them
irresistibly and infallibly from iniquity to repentance. Death shall una
voidably make an end of their indwelling sin ; and to heaven they shall
unavoidably go. On the other hand, let a Baxter and a Wesley astonish
the world by their ministerial labours : let them write, speak, and live
in such a manner as to stem the torrent of iniquity, and turn thousands
to righteousness : with St. Paul let them take up their cross daily, and
preach and pray, riot only with tears, but "with the demonstration of
the Spirit and with power:" let unwearied patience and matchless
diligence carry them with increasing fortitude through all the persecu
tions, danger, and trials, which they meet with from the men of the
world, and from false brethren : let them hold on this wonderful way to
their dying day ; yet, if the indelible mark of unconditional reprobation
to death is upon them, necessitating, victorious wrath shall, in their last
iftoments, if not before, make them necessarily turn from righteousness,
and unavoidably draw back to perdition ; so shall they be fitted for the
lake of fire, the end to which, if God Calvinistically passed them by,
they were absolutely ordained through the predestinated medium of
remediless sin and final apostasy.
This is the true state of the case : to spend time in proving it would
be offering the judicious reader as great an insult, as if I detained him
to prove that the north is opposed to the south. But what does Mr.
Toplady say against this consequence, " If Calvinism is true, the repro
bates shall be damned, do what they can ?" He advances the following
warm argument : —
ARGUMENT I. Page 55. " Can Mr. Wesley produce a single instance
of any one man, who did all he could to be saved, and yet was lost ?
If he can, let him tell us who that man was, where he lived, when he
died, what he did, and how it came to pass he laboured in vain. If he
cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue to be posted
for a shameless traducer."
I answer : 1. To require Mr. Wesley to show a man who did all he
could, and yet was lost, is requiring him to prove that Calvinian repro
bation is true ; a thing this, which he can no more do, than he can
4!£0 ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
prove that God is false. Mr. Wesley never said that any man was
damned after doing his best to be saved : he only says that if Calvinism
is true, the reprobates shall all be damned, though they should all do
their best to be saved, till the efficacious decree of their absolute repro
bation necessitates them to draw back and be damned.
2. As Mr. Toplady's bold request may impose upon his inattentive
readers, I beg leave to point out its absurdity by a short illustration.
Mr. Wesley says, If there is a mountain of gold, it is heavier than a
handful of feathers ; and his consequence passes for true in England.
But a gentleman who teaches logic in mystic Geneva thinks that it is
absolutely false, and that Mr. Wesley's " forehead must be petrified, and
quite impervious to a blush," for advancing it. Can Mr. Wesley, says
he, show us a mountain of gold, which is really heavier than a handful
of feathers ? If he can, let him tell us what mountain it is, where it
lies, in what latitude, how high it is, and who did ever ascend to the top
of it. If he cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue
,o be posted for a shameless traducer.
Equally conclusive is Mr. Toplady's challenge ! By such cogent
arguments as these, thousands of professors are bound to the chariot
wheels of modern orthodoxy, and blindly follow the warm men, who
" drive as furiously" over a part of the body of Scripture divinity, as
the son of Nimshi did over the body of cursed Jezebel.
SECTION II.
Calvinism upo?i its legs, or a full view of the arguments by which Mr.
Toplady altempls to reconcile Calvinism with God's holiness ; — a note
upon a letter to an Arminian teacher.
SENSIBLE that Calvinism can never rank among the doctrines of holi
ness, if "the elect shall be saved, do what, they will," and if the " repro
bate shall be damned, do what they can ;" Mr. Toplady tries to throw
off, from his doctrines of grace, the deadly weight of Mr. Wesley's con
sequence. In order to this, he proves that Calvinism insures the holi
ness of th<; elect, as the necessary means of their predestinated salvation :
but he is too judicious to tell us that it insures also the wickedness of the
reprobate as the necessary means of their predestinated damnation. To
make us in love with his orthodoxy, he presents her to our view with
one leg, on which she contrives to stand, by artfully leaning upon her
faithful maid, Logica Genevensis. Her other leg is prudently kept out
of sight, so long as the trial about her holiness lasts. This deserves
explanation.
The most distinguishing and fundamental doctrines of Calvinism are
two ; and therefore they may with propriety be called the legs of that
doctrinal system. The FIRST of these fundamental doctrines is, the per
sonal, unconditional, absolute predestination, or election, of some men to
eternal life ; and the SECOND is, the personal, unconditional, absolute
predestination, or reprobation, of some men to eternal death. Nor can
Mr. Toplady find fault with my making his doctrine of grace stand upon
her legs, Calvinian election and Calvinian reprobation : for, supposing
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 4'21
that our Church speaks in her seventeenth article of Calvinian, absolute
predestination to eternal life, he says himself, in his Historic Proof 9
page 574, « The predestination of some to life, asserted in the seven-
teenth article, cannot be maintained without admitting the reprobation*
* Our opponents are greatly embarrassed about the doctrine of absolute, un
conditional reprobation. Though in a happy moment, where candour prevailed
over shame, Mr. Toplady stood up so boldly for Calvinian reprobation ; the reader,
.s he goes on, will smile when he sees the variegated wisdom with which that
gentleman disguises, exculpates, or conceals, what he so rationally and so can
didly grants here.
The truth is, that as Scriptural election is necessarily attended with an answer
able reprobation ; so absolute, Calvinian election unavoidably drags after it abso
lute, Calvinian reprobation : a black reprobation this, which necessitates all who
are personally written in the book of death to sin on, and to be damned. But
some Calvmists are afraid to see this doctrine, and well they may, for it is horri
ble : others are ashamed to acknowledge it ; and not a few, for want of rational
sight, obstinately deny that it is the main pillar of their Gospel ; and with tho
right leg of their system they unmercifully kick the left. Among the person*
who are guily of this absurd conduct, we may rank the author of A Letter to ar
Arrmman readier: an imperfect copy of which appeared in the Gospel Maeazint
of August, 1775, under the following title : A Predestinanan's real thoughts oj
flection and Reprobation, <f c. This writer is so inconsistent as to attempt cut
ting off the left leg of Calvinism. He, at first, gives us reprobation. « The wort
reprobation," says he, "is never mentioned in all the Scripture, [no more is the
word predestination,] nor is the Scriptural word reprobate ever mentioned as the
continuance of election, or as [its] opposite." This is a great mistake, as appears
from the two first passages quoted by this author, Jer. vi, 30, and Rom. i 28
where reprobate silver is evidently opposed to choice silver, and where a reprobate
mind is indubitably opposed to the mind which is after God's own heart— that is,
to the mind which God approves and chooses to crown with evangelical praises
and rewards. Our author goes on :—
" Thsre is no immediate connection between election to salvation, and repro-
>ation to damnation." What an argument is this ! Did we ever say that there is
any immediate connection between two things which are as contrary as ChrH
and Belial ? ! but we mean that " they have no necessary dependence on each
ler. i he question is not whether they have a necessary dependence on each
-it whether they have not a necessary opposition to each other ; and that
taey have, is as clear as that light is opposed to darkness. " They proceed from
very different causes." True : for election proceeded from free grace, and Cal
vnnan reprobation from free wrath. " The sole cause of election is God's free
love, (Sec. 1 he sole cause of damnation is only sin." Our author wants candour
or attention. Had he argued like a candid logician, he would have said « The
Die cause of the reprobation which ends in unavoidable damnation, is onl'v sin •"
>ut i he had fairly argued thus, he would have given up Calvinism, withstands
or fulls with absolute reprobation; and therefore he thought proper to substitute
tho word damnation for the word reprobation, which the argument absolutely
juires. These tricks may pass in Geneva; but in England they appear incon
sistent with fair reasoning. It is a common stratagem of the Calvinists to say
flection depends upon God's love only, but damnation depends upon our sin
only ; break the thin shell of this sophism, and you will find this bitter kernel :
God s distinguishing love elects some to unavoidable holiness and finished salva-
lon; and his distinguishing wrath reprobates all the rest of mankind to rernedi-
ss sin and eternal damnation. For the moment the sin of reprobates is neces
sary remediless, and insured by the decree of the means, it follows that absolute
reprobation to necessary, remediless sin, is the same thing as absolute reprobation
beCaUSG SUch a damnatio* is the unavoidable consequence
When the letter writer has absurdly denied Calvinian reprobation, he insinuates,
p. 5, that everlasting torments and being unavoidably damned, are not the neces
sary consequences of the decree of Calvinian election ; « nor," says he, " can they
o tairly deduced from the decree of reprobation » So now the secret is out '
422 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
of some others to death, &c, and all who have subscribed to the said
article are bound in honour, conscience, and law to defend reprobation,
were it only to keep the seventeenth article [or rather, the Calvinian
sense which Mr. Toplady fixes to that article] upon its legs."
Agreeably to Mr. Toplady's charge, Calvinism shall stand upon ite
legs° He takes care to show the right leg, in order to vindicate God's
holiness upon the Calvinian plan ; and I shall set forth the left leg, in
order to show that the honour of God's holiness is as incompatible with
Calvinism, as light with darkness. Mr. Toplady's arguments are pro-
duced under No. 1, with the number of the page in his book where he
advances them. In the opposite column, under No. 2, the reader will
find my answer, which is nothing but Mr. Toplady's own arguments,
retorted in such a manner as to defend the second Gospel axiom, which
Calvinism entirely overthrows. No. 1 displays the unguarded manner m
which Mr. Toplady defends the first Gospel axiom. To form No. 2, I
only make his arguments stand upon the other leg ; and by this simple
method, I show the lameness of Calvinism, and the infamy which she
pours upon God's holiness and goodness, under fair shows of regard for
these adorable attributes.
The right leg of Calvinism, or the The left leg of Calvinism, or the
Calvinian doctrine of election and Calvinian doctrine of reproba-
necessary holiness. tion and necessary wickedness.
ARGUMENT II. No. 1. Page 17. ANSWER. No. 2. I affirm, with
« I affirm, with Scripture, that they Calvinism, that the reprobates can-
[the elect] cannot be saved without not be damned without wickedness
Our author, after denying reprobation, informs us that there is a Calvinian decree of
reprobation. But if there be such a decree, why did he oppose it, p. 2 ? And it there
is no such a decree, why does he mention it, p. 5; where he hints that insured
damnation cannot be fairly deduced from it? Now, if he or any Calvimst in the
world can prove that, upon the Calvinian plan, among the thousands of Calvin s
reprobates, who are yet in their mothers' wombs, one of them can, any how, a.void
finished damnation, I solemnly engage myself before the public, to get my Checks
burnt, at Charing Cross, by the common hangman, on any day which Mr. Hill,
Mr Toplady and Mr. M'Gowan will please to appoint. But if the Calvimsts
cannot do this, and if the Calvinian decree of reprobation insures the necessary,
remediless sin, and the unavoidable, finished damnation of one and all the repro
bates of Calvin, born or unborn ; Mr. M'Gowan, and Dr. Gill, whom he quotes,
insult common sense, when they intimate that insured damnation cannot be
fairly deduced from the decree of reprobation. How much less candid are the
letter writer and Dr. Gill, than Mr. Toplady and Zanchius, who fairly tell us, p.
75, "The condemnation (that is, the damnation) of the reprobate is necessary
and irresistible .'" . ,
The letter writer tells us, p. 6, "What insures holiness, must insure glory;
election (that is, Calvinian election) doth so, and glory must follow." I his is
the right leg of Calvinism ; let her stand upon the left leg, and you have this
doctrine of grace : what insures remediless sin, must insure damnation ; Calvinian
reprobation doth so, and damnation must follow. I would as soon bow to Dagon
as to this doctrine of remediless sin and insured wickedness. Ye controversial
writers of the Gospel Magazine, if you will confirm Anmnian teachers in their
attachment to the holy election and righteous reprobation preached by bt. 1 aul,
and in their detestation for the Antinomian election and barbarous repruo.uon,
which suoport your doctrinal peculiarities, only vindicate your election as incon
sistently as Mr: M'Gowan, and your reprobation as openly as Mr loplady. (oee
Uvo other notes on the same performance ; the one under the Arg. xxxvm, and
the other under the Arg. Ixvii.)
-VINDICATION OF THE DECREES.
4-23
RIGHT LEG.
sanctifcation and obedience. Yet
is not their salvation precarious ;
for that very decree of election, by
which they were nominated and
ordained to eternal life, ordained
LEFT LEG.
and disobedience. Yet is not their
damnation precarious ; for that very
decree of reprobation, by which they
were nominated and ordained to eter
nal deatk,oi'dained their intermediate
their intermediate renewal after the conformity to the image of the devil
in sin and true wickedness. Nay,
that conformity is itself the dawn
image of God, in righteousness and
true holiness. Nay, that renewal
is itself the dawn and beginning of
actual salvation."
ARC. III. No. 1. Page 17. « The
elect could no more be saved with-
out personal holiness, than they
and beginning of actual damnation.
ANSWER. No. 2. The repro
bates could no more be damned
without personal wickedness, than
could be saved without personal they could be damned without per-
sonal existence. And why ? Be
cause God's own decree secures
the means as well as the end, and
accomplishes the end by the means.
The same gratuitous predestination The same gratuitous predestination
existence. And why 1 Because
God's own decree secures the
means as well as the end, and
accomplishes the end by the means.
which ordained the existence of the
elect as men, ordained their purifi
cation
which ordained the existence of the
reprobate as men, ordained their
as saints ; and they were pollution as sinners ; and they wrere
ordained to both, in order to their ordained to both, in order to their
being finally and completely saved being finally and completely damned
in Christ with eternal glory" in Adam with eternal shame.
Before I produce the next argument, I think it is proper to observe
that " the election of grace," which St. Paul defends, is not, as Calvin
supposes, an absolute election to eternal life, through necessitated holi
ness : an election this, which, in the very nature of things, drags after it
an absolute reprobation to eternal death, through remediless sin. But
the apostle means a gratuitous election to the privileges of the best
covenant of peculiarity, — a most gracious covenant this, which is known
under the name of " Christianity, the Gospel of Christ," or simply " the
Gospel," by way of eminence. For as, by a partial election of distin-
rospel dispensation of reprieved
Adam and spared Noah,) so, when the Jews provoked God to reject
them from being his peculiar people, he elected the Gentiles, to whom
he sent « the Gospel of Christ :" he elected them, I say, and called
them to believe this precious Gospel, and " to be holy in all manner of
conversation, as becomes Christians." But far from absolutely electing
those Gentiles to eternal salvation through unavoidable holiness, Calvin"
messeners to
„ ,.-.-• , should
be cut off," as the Jews had been, for not " making their Jewish calling
and election sure." In short, « the election of grace" mentioned in the
Scriptures, is a gratuitous election to run the Christian race with Paul
Peter, and James ; rather than the Jewish race with Moses, David, and
Daniel ; or the race of Gcntilism with Adam, Enoch, and Noah. It is
i«i»u Beanies lu eternal suivaiion tnrougn unavoidable holme
istically imposed upon them, he charged them by his mcs:
make " their Christian calling and election sure, lest they a
424
ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
a gracious election, which implies no merciless, absolute reprobation of
the rest of mankind. And the Calvinists are greatly mistaken when
they confound this election with our judicial election to receive the
crown of life, a rewarding crown this, the receiving of which depends,
(1.) On the grace of God in Christ ; and, (2.) On the voluntary obedience
of faith ; and will be judicially bestowed according to the impartiality of
justice ; and not according to the partiality of grace. This will be
demonstrated in an Essay on the Election of Grace and the Election of
Justice, where the reader will see the true meaning of the passages
which Mr. Toplady has so plausibly pressed into the service of the
following arguments : —
KIGIIT LEG.
AEG. IV. No. 1. Page 18. "God
the Father hath chosen us in Christ,
before the foundation of the world,
that we should [not « be saved, do
what we will ;' but] « be holy and
without blame before him
Eph. i, 4. Election is alway
LEFT LEG.
ANSWER. No. 2. God the Fa-
ther hath reprobated us in Adam,
before the foundation of the world,
that we should [not be " damned,
do what we will ;" but] be unholy
iii love,' and full of blame before him in
-ays fol- malice. Reprobation is always fol
lowed by apostasy ; and apostasy is
the source of all bad works.
ANSWER. No. 2. We [the re-
lowed by regeneration, and regene
ration is the source of all good
works."
ARG.V. No. 1. Page 18. "We
[the elect] are his subsequent work- probates] are his subsequent work
manship, created anew in Christ manship, created anew in Adam
Jesus unto good works, which God unto bad works, which God hath
hath foreordained, that we should foreordained, that we should walk
walk in them. Consequently, '^ ^~
in tnem. consequently, it
does not follow from the doctrine
of absolute predestination that the
* elect shall be saved, do what they
will.' On the contrary, they are
chosen as much to holiness as to
heaven ; and are foreordained to
walk in good works, by virtue of
their election from eternity, and of
their conversion in time."
AR«. VI. No. 1. Pages 18, 19.
" Yet again, God hath from the
beginning, [that is, from everlasting,
&c,] ' chosen you to salvation,
through sanctification of the Spirit,
and belief of the truth,' 2 Thess.
ii, 13. All, therefore, wh6 are cho
sen to salvation, are no less unalter-
in them. Consequently, it does not
follow from the doctrine of absolute
predestination that " the reprobates
shall be damned, do what they will."
On the contrary, they are reprobated
as much to wickedness as to hell;
and are foreordained to walk in bad
works, by virtue of their reprobation
from eternity, and of their perversion
in time.
ANSWER. No. 2. Yet again,
God hath from the beginning, [that
is, from everlasting,] reprobated you
to damnation, through pollution of
the Spirit, and disbelief of the truth.
All, therefore, who are reprobated
to damnation, are no less unalter
ably destined to wickedness and un-
ably destined to holiness and faith belief m the meanwhile. And if so,
in the meanwhile. And if so, it is it is giving God himself the lie to
giving God himself the lie to say say that " the reprobate shall be
that ' the elect shall be saved, do damned, do what they will." For
what they will.' For the elect, like the reprobate, like the blessed per-
the blessed person who redeemed son who rejected them, come into
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 425
RIGHT LEG. LEFT LEG.
them, come into the world not to do the world not to do their own will,
their own will, but the will of Him but the will of Him that sent them :
that sent them : and this is the will and this is the will of God concern,
of God concerning them, even their ing them, even their wickedness,
sanctification. Hence they are ex- Hence they are expressly said to
pressly said to be elect unto obe- be reprobated unto disobedience,
die-nee. Not indeed chosen because Not indeed reprobated because of
of obedience, but chosen unto it : disobedience, but reprobated unto
for works are not the foundation of it : for works are not the foundation
grace, but streams flowing from it. of wrath, but streams flowing from it.
Election does not depend upon holi- Reprobation does not depend upon
ness, bat holiness depends upon elec- wickedness, but wickedness depends
tion. So far, therefore, is predes- upon reprobation. So far, therefore,
tination from being subversive of is predestination from being stibver-
good works, that predestination is sive of bad works, that predestina-
the primary cause of all the good tion to death is the primary cause
works which have been and shall of all the bad works which have
be wrought from the beginning to been and shall be wrought from the
the end of time." beginning to the end of time.
Dreadfully crooked as the left leg of Mr. Toplady's system is, it per
fectly agrees with the right leg ; that is, with his crooked election, and
his bandy predestination. He may deny it as absolutely as prisoners
at the bar deny what is laid to their charge : but their denial goes for
nothing : the witnesses are called in, and I produce two, who are
capital, and to whom I suppose Mr. Toplady will hardly object. The
first is Zanchius, and the second is his ingenious translator, who says in
his translation, page 50, " He [man] fell in consequence of the Divine
decree." (Observ. p. 7.) " Whatever comes to pass, comes to pass
by virtue of this absolute, omnipotent will of God. Whatever things
come to pass, come to pass necessarily." (Ibid.) " Whatever man
does, he does necessarily," page 15. "All things turn out according
to Divine predestination ; not only the works we do outwardly, but even
the thoughts we think inwardly," page 7. " The will of God is the
primary and supreme cause of all things," page 11. " The sole cause
why some are saved and others perish, proceeds from his willing the
salvation of the former, and the perdition of the latter," page 15. " WTc
can only do what God from eternity willed and foreknew we should"
page 7. " No free will of the creature can resist the will of God,"
page 19. "The purpose or decree of God signifies his everlasting
appointment of some men to life, and of others to death : which appoint
ment flows entirely from his own free and sovereign will," page 57.
" If between the elect and the reprobate there was not a great gulf fixed,
so that neither can be otherwise tlian they are, then the will of God
(which is the alone cause why some are chosen and others not) would
be rendered of no effect," page 56. " Nor would his word be true with
regard to the non-elect, if it was possible for them to be saved," page 15.
"The condemnation of the reprobate is necessary and irresistible"
page 25. " God worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the
wicked."
On these propositions, the most unguarded words of which I have
426
ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
leave
/ the
produced in Italics, I rest the left leg of Calvinism, and taking my
of the translation of Zanchius, I return to the Vindication or
Decrees ; and continue to make Mr. Toplady's doctrine of grace 'stand
" on its legs," that is, on absolute reprobation to death, as well as on
absolute election to life.
RIGHT LEG.
AEG. VII. No. 1. Page 19.
" Reason also joins with Scripture
in asserting the indispensable ne
cessity of SANCTIFICATION, Upon the
footing of the most absolute and
irrespective election : or, in other
words, that the certainty of the end
does not supersede, but insure the
intervention of the means."
AUG. VIII. No. 1. Pages 21, 22.
" It was necessary that, as sinners,
they [the elect] should not only be
redeemed from punishment, and
entitled to heaven, but endued more-
over with an internal meetness for
that inheritance. This internal
meetness for heaven can only be
wrought by the restoring agency
of God the Holy Ghost, who gra
ciously engaged and took upon him
self, in the covenant of peace, to
renew and sanctify all the elect peo
ple of God ; saying, 'I will put my
law in their minds. Elect, &c,
through sanctification of the Spirit
unto obedience.' Election, though
productive of good works, is not
founded upon them : on the con
trary, they are one of the glorious
ends to which they are chosen.
Saints do not bear the root, but the
root tJiem. Elect unto obedience.
They who have been ejected, &c,
shall experience the Holy Spirit's
sanctification, in beginning, ad
vancing, and perfecting the work
of grace in their souls. The elect,
&c, are made to obey the command
ments of God, and to imitate Christ,
<fyc. I said, made to obey. Here
perhaps the unblushing Mr. Wesley
may ask, ' Are the elect then mere
machines T I answer, No : they
LEFT LEG.
ANSWER. No. 2. Reason also
joins with Scripture in asserting
the indispensable necessity of WICK
EDNESS, upon the footing of the
most absolute and irrespective re
probation : or, in other words, that
the certainty of the end does not
supersede, but insure the interven
tion of the means.
ANSWER. No. 2. It was neces
sary that, as holy, they [the repro
bate] should not only be appointed
to punishment, and entitled to hell,
but endued moreover with an in
ternal meetness for that inheritance.
This internal meetness for hell, can
only be wrought by the perverting
agency of [the Manichean] god the
unholy ghost, who officiously en
gaged and took upon himself, in the
covenant of wrath, to pervert and
defde all the reprobate people of
God ; saying, " I will put my law
in their minds. Reprobate, &c,
through pollution of the spirit unto
disobedience." Reprobation, though
productive of bad works, is not
founded upon them : on the con
trary, they are one of the inglori
ous ends to which they are repro
bated. Sinners do not bear the
root, but the root them. Reprobate
unto disobedience. They who have
been reprobated, &c, shall experi
ence the nicked spirit's pollution,
in beginning, advancing, and per
fecting the work of sin in their
souls. The reprobates, &c, are
made to disobey the commandments
of God, and to imitate Satan, &c.
I said, made to disobey. Here per
haps the blushing Mr. Wesley may
ask, "Are the reprobates then mere
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES.
427
RIGHT LEG.
are made 'willing in the day of
God's power."*
ARG. IX. No. 1. Pages 23, 24.
'' God decreed to bring his elect to
glory, in a way of sanctijication,
and in no other way but that. If so,
cries Mr. Wesley, 'they shall be
saved, whether they are sanctified
or no.' What, notwithstanding
their sanctijication, is itself an es
sential branch of the decree con
cerning them ? The man may as
well affirm that Abraham might
have been the progenitor of nations,
though he had died in infancy, &c.
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley's
impudent slander, that 'the elect
shall be saved, do what they will,'
that is, whether they be holy or
not."
ARG. X. No. 1. Page 20. " Paul's
travelling, and Paul's utterance,
were as certainly and as neces
sarily included in the decree of the
means as his preaching was deter
mined by the decree of the end."
ARG. XI. No. 1. Pages 28, 29.
" Love, when [Calvinistically] pre
dicated of God, signifies his eternal
benevolence ; that is, his everlasting
will, purpose, and determination, to
deliver, bless, and save his [elect]
people. In order to the eventual
accomplishment of that salvation in
the next world, grace is given them
in this, to preserve them (and pre
serve them it does) from doing the
evil they otherwise would. This
is all the election which Calvinism,
&c, contends for ; even a predesti
nation to holiness and heaven."
ARG. XII. No. 1. Page 33.
LEFT LEG.
machines ?" I answer, No : they
are made willing in the day of
God's power.
ANSWER. No. 2. God decreed
to bring his reprobate to hell in a
way of sinning, and in no oilier
way but that. If so, cries Mr.
Wesley, "they shall be damned,
whether they sin or no." What,
notwithstanding their sinning is it
self an essential branch of the de
cree concerning them ? " The man
may as well affirm that Paul might
have preached the Gospel, viva
voce, in fifty different regions, with
out travelling a step !" page 23.
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley's
impudent slander, that " the repro
bate shall be damned, do what they
will," that is, whether they be
wicked or not.
ANSWER. No. 2. The rich glut
ton's gluttony, and his unmerciful -
ness, were as certainly and as ne
cessarily included in the decree of
the means as his being tormented in
hell was determined by the decree
of the end.
ANSWER. No. 2. Hate, when
Calvinistically predicated of God,
signifies his eternal ill will ; that is,
his everlasting will, purpose, and
determination, to enthral, curse, and
damn his [reprobated] people. In
order to the eventual accomplish
ment of that damnation in the next
world, wickedness is given them in
this, to preserve them (and pre
serve them it does) from doing the
good they otherwise would. This
is all the reprobation which Cal
vinism contends for ; even a pre
destination to wickedness and hell.
ANSWER. No. 2. Now, if it be the
* Here Mr. Toplady adds, And, I believe, nobody over yet heard of a willing
machine. But he is mistaken : for all moral philosophers call machine whatever
is fitted for free motions, and yet has no power to begin and determine its own
motions,
it is ne.cessarili
engine, and of consequence it is (morally speaking) as a mere machine.
Now willing being the motion of a spirit, if a spirit cannot icill but as
wily made to will, it is as void of a self-determining principle as a fire
428
EIGHT LEG. LEFT LEG.
•« Now, if it be the Father's will that Father's will that Satan should lose
Christ should lose none of his elect ; none of his reprobate ; if Satan
if Christ himself, in consequence of himself, in consequence of their
their covenant donation to him, does covenant donation to him, does ac-
actually give unto them eternal life, tually give unto them eternal death,
and solemnly avers that they shall and solemnly avers that they shall
never perish ; if God be so for never escape ; if God be so against
them that none can hinder their them that none can hinder their
salvation, &c ; if they cannot be damnation, &c ; if they cannot be
condemned, and naught shall sepa- justified, and naught shall separate
rate them from the love of Christ ; them from the hate of Christ ; it
it clearly and inevitably follows, clearly and inevitably follows, that
that not one of the elect can perish ; not one of the reprobate can escape ;
but they must all necessarily be but they must all necessarily be
saved. Which salvation consists damned. Which damnation con-
as much in the recovery of moral sists as much in the being stripped
rectitude beloii', as in the enjoyment of moral rectitude on earth, as in the
of eternal blessedness above." enduring of eternal torments in hell.
By such wrested texts, and delusive arguments as these, it is, that Mr.
Toplady has vindicated God's holiness upon Calvinian principles. Now
as he requests that Calvinism may stand " upon its legs," that is, upon
absolute election and absolute reprobation ; I appeal to all the unpreju
diced world, have I not made the Diana of the Calvinists stand straight ?
Have I not suffered her to rest upon her left leg, as well as upon the
right ? If that leg terminates in a horribly cloven foot, is it Mr. Wes
ley's fault, or mine ? Have we formed the doctrinal image, which is set
up in mystical Geneva ? Is the quotation produced in my motto forged ?
Is not absolute reprobation one of " the doctrines of grace" (so called) as
well as absolute election 1 May I not show the full face of Calvinism,
as well as her side face ? If a man pay me a guinea, have I not a right
to suspect that it is false, and to turn it, if he that wants to pass it will
never let me see the reverse of it in a clear light ? Can Mr. Toplady
blame me for holding forth Calvinian reprobation ? Can he find fault
with me for showing what he says I am " not only bound to show, but
to defend ?" If Calvinism be " the doctrine of grace," which I must
engage sinners to espouse, why should I serve her as the soldiers did
the thieves on tho cross 1 Why, at least, should I break one of her
legs ? If ever I bring her into the pulpit, she shall come up on both
" her legs." The chariot of my Diana shall be drawn by the biting
serpent, as well as by the silly dove ; I will preach Calvinian. reproba
tion, as well as Calvinian election. I will be a man of " conscience
and honour."
And now, reader, may I not address thy conscience and reason, and
ask, If all the fallen angels had laid their heads together a thousand
years to contrive an artful way of " reproaching the living God — the
Holy One of Israel," could they have done it more effectually than by
getting myriads of Protestants (even all the Calvinists) and myriads of
Papists (even all the Dominicans, Jansenists, &c,) to pass the false
coin of absolute election and absolute reprobation, with this deceitful,
alluring inscription : " Necessary holiness unto the Lord," and this
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 429
detestable Manichean motto on the reverse : " Necessary wickedness
unto the Lord 1" And has not Mr. Toplady presumed too much upon
thy credulity, in supposing that thou wouldst never have wisdom enough
to look at the black reverse of the shining medal by which he wants
to bribe thee into Calvinism ?
SECTION III.
An answer to some appeals to Scripture and reason, by which Mr. Top-
lady attempts to support the absoluteness and holiness of the Calvinian
decrees.
LET us see if Mr. Toplady is happier in the choice of his Scriptural
and rational illustrations, than in that of his arguments. To show that
God's decrees respecting man's life and salvation are absolute, or (which
is all one) to show that the decree of the end necessarily includes the
decree of the means, he appeals to the case of Hezekiah, thus : —
ARG. XIII. Page 20. " God resolved that Hezekiah should live
fifteen years longer than Hezekiah expected, &c. It was as much
comprised in God's decree that Hezekiah should eat, drink, and sleep,
during those fifteen years, and that he should not jump into the sea, &c,
as that fifteen years should be added to his life." From this quotation
it is evident that Mr. Toplady would have us believe that none of God's
decrees are conditional ; that when God decrees the end, he does it
always in such a manner as to insure the means necessary in order to
bring about the end ; and that Hezekiah is applied to as a proof of this
doctrine. Unfortunate appeal ! If I had wanted to prove just the con
trary, I do not know where I should have found an example more
demonstrative of Mr. Toplady 's mistake. Witness the following
account : " Hezekiah was sick unto death, and Isaiah came to him and
said, Thus saith [thus decrees] the Lord, Set thy house in order ; for
thou shalt die, and not live," Isaiah xxxviii, 1. Here is an explicit,
peremptory decree ; a decree where no condition is expressed ; a decree
which wears a negative aspect, " Thou shalt not live," and a positive
form, " Thou shalt die." The means of executing the decree was
already upon Hezekiah : he was " sick unto death." And yet, so far
was he from thinking that the .decree of the end absolutely included that
of the means, that he set himself upon praying for life and health ; yea,
upon doing it as a Jewish perfectionist. " Then Hezekiah turned his
face toward the wall, and prayed, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech
thee, how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart, &c ; and Heze
kiah wept sore. Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying,
Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith [thus decrecth] the Lord, I have
heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears ; behold, I will add unto thy days
Jiftecn years," verses 2, 5. From this account it is evident that Heze
kiah might as easily have reversed the decree about his LIFE, by stabbing
or drowning himself, as he reversed the decree about his DEATH, by
weeping and praying ; and that Mr. Toplady has forgotten himself as
much in producing the case of Hezekiah in support of Calvinism, as if
he had appealed to our Lord's sermon on the mount in defence of the
lawless gospel of the day.
430
ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
A kind of infatuation attends the wisest men who openly fight the
battles of error. In the end, their swords, like that of the champion of
the Philistines, do their cause more mischief than service. Mr. Toplady
will perhaps afford us another instance of it. After producing Heze-
kiah to establish the absoluteness of God's decrees, he calls in the first
Jewish hero ; Joshua is brought to demonstrate that the decree of the
end always binds upon us an unavoidable submission to the decree of the
means ; or, to speak more intelligibly, that God's decrees to bless or to
curse, are always absolute, and necessitate us to use the means leading
to his blessing or his curse.
AEG. XIV. Page 23. "Prior to the taking of Jericho, it was
revealed to Joshua that he should certainly be master of the place.
Nay, so peremptory was the decree, and so express the revelation of it,
that it was predicted as if it had already taken effect : ' I have given
into thy hand Jericho,' &c. This assurance, than which nothing could
be more absolute, did not tie up Joshua's hands from action, and make
him sit down without using the means, which were no less appointed
than the end. On the contrary," &c. Here we are given to under
stand that Joshua and the Israelites could never cross any of God's
gracious decrees by neglecting the means of their accomplishment ;
because they were necessitated to use those means. Thus is Joshua
pressed into the service of Calvinian necessity, and the absoluteness of
God's decrees ; Joshua, who, of all men in the world, is most unlikely
to support the tottering ark of Calvinian necessity. For when he saw
in the wilderness the carcasses of several hundred thousand persons, to
whom God had promised the good land of Canaan with an oath, and
who nevertheless " entered not in because of unbelief," he saw several
hundred thousand proofs that God's promises are not absolute, and that
when he deals with rewardable and punishable agents, the decree of the
end is not unconditional, and does by no means include an irresistible
decree which binds upon them the 'unavoidable use of the means.
But, consider the peculiar case of Joshua himself: " The Lord spake
unto Joshua, saying, There shall not any man be able to stand before
thee all the days of thy life : I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,"
Josh, i, 5. Now this peremptory decree of the end, far from necessa
rily including the means, actually failed by a single flaw in the use of
the means. The disobedience of Achan reversed the decree ; for he
disregarded the means or condition which God had appointed : " Turn
not to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whither
soever thou goest," Josh, i, 7. Hence it is, that when Achan had
" turned to the left," the decree failed, and we find Joshua " prostrate
before the ark a whole day with his clothes rent, and dust upon his
head," lamenting the flight of Israel before Ai, and wishing that " he
had been content, and had dwelt on the other side Jordan." Nor do I
see, in God's answer to him, the least hint of Mr. Toplady's doctrine.
" Why licst thou upon thy face ? Israel hath sinned, and they have
also transgressed my covenant : for they have even taken of the ac
cursed thing. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before
their enemies, because they were accursed : neither will I be with you
any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing," Josh, vii, 1, 13.
Hence it appears that when Mr. Toplady appeals to Joshua in de.
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 431
fence of the absoluteness of God's decrees, he displays his skill in the
art of logic, as much as if he appealed to the peremptoriness of the
famous decree, " Yet forty days, and [ungodly] Nineveh shall be de
stroyed :" and yet penitent Nineveh was spared. So unscriptural is
the assertion, that the decree of the end insures the use of the means,
when God tries moral agents in the day of salvation, in order to punish
or reward them according to their works in the day of judgment !
Mr. Toplady supports these unfortunate appeals to Scripture, by the
following appeal to reason : —
ARG. XV. Page 24. " Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an
army, or to any single individual, that the former should certainly gain
such a battle, and the latter certainly win such a race, would not the
army be mad to say, Then we will not fight a stroke ? Would not the
racer be insane to add, Nor will 1 move so much as one of my feet, &c ?
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley's impudent slander, that the elect shall
be saved, do what they will, fyc. Either he is absolutely unacquainted
with the first principles of reasoning, or he offers up the knowledge he
has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the altar of malice, calumny, and
falsehood."
This severe censure will appear Calviriistically gratuitous, if we cori-
sider that it is entirely founded upon the impropriety of the illustrations
produced by Mr. Toplady. If he had exactly represented the case, he
would have said, " Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an army that
they should certainly gain such a battle ; that they could do nothing
toward the victory by their own fighting ; that the battle was fought,
and absolutely won for them seventeen hundred years ago ; that if they
refused to fight to-day, or if they ran away, or were taken prisoners,
their triumph would not be less certain ; and that putting their bottle to
their neighbours' mouths, and defiling their wives, instead of fighting,
would only make them sing VICTORY louder, on a certain day called a
day of power, when Omnipotence would sovereignly exert itself in their
be-half, and put all their enemies to flight : suppose again it were re
vealed to a racer that he should certainly win such a race, and receive
the prize, whether he ran to-day backward or forward ; because his
winning the race did not at all depend upon his own swift running, but
upon the swiftness of a great racer, who yesterday ran the race for him,
arid who absolutely imputes to him his swift running, even while he gets
out of the course to chase an ewe lamb, or visit a Delilah ; that the
covenant, which secures him the prize, is unconditionally ordered in all
things and sure ; that though he may be unwilling to run now, yet in a
day of irresistible power he shall be made willing to f.y and receive
the prize ; and that his former loitering will only set off the greatness
of the power which is absolutely engaged to carry him, and all elect
racers, quite from Egypt to Canaan in one hour, if they have loitered
till the eleventh hour ;" suppose, I say, Mr. Toplady had given us such
a just view of the case, who could charge the soldiers with " madness,"
and the racer with " being insane," if they agreed to say, " We will
neither fight nor run, but take our ease, and indulge ourselves, till the
day of power come, in which we shall irresistibly be made to gain the
battle, and to win the race ?"
From these rectified illustrations it appears, if I am not mistaken, (1.)
432 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
That, when Mr. Wesley advanced his consequence, he neither " showed
himself ahsolutely unacquainted with the first principles of reasoning,"
nor " offered up the knowledge he has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the
altar of malice, calumny, and falsehood." And, (2.) That, when Mr.
Toplady's appeals to Scripture and reason are made fairly to stand
" upon their legs," they do his doctrine as little service as his limping
SECTION IV.
An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady endeavours to recon
cile Calvinian reprobation with Divine JUSTICE.
WE have seen how unhappily the translator of Zanchius has recon
ciled his doctrines of grace and absolute election with God's holiness :
let us now see if he has been more successful in reconciling his doc.
trines of wrath and absolute reprobation with Divine justice.
ARG. XVI. Page 35. " Justice consists in rendering to every man
his due." Mr. Toplady gives us this narrow definition of justice to
make way for this .argument : God owes us no blessing, and therefore
he may gratuitously give us an everlasting curse. He does not owe us
heaven, and therefore he may justly appoint that eternal sin and damna
tion shall be our unavoidable portion. But is not a king unjust when
he punishes an unavoidable fault with uninterrupted torture, as well as
when he refuses to pay his just debts ?
ARG. XVII. (Ibid.) " God is not a debtor to any man," True,
(strictly speaking;) but, (1.) Does not God owe to himself, to behave
like himself, that, is, like a gracious and just Creator toward every man ?
(2.) When God, by his promise, has engaged himself judicially to render
to every man " according to his works," is it just in him to necessitate
some men to work righteousness, arid others to work iniquity, that ho
may reward the former, and punish the latter, according to arbitrary
decrees of absolute election to life, and of absolute reprobation to death ?
And, (3.) Do not the sacred writers observe, that God has conde
scended to make himself a debtor to his creatures by his gracious
promises? Did Mr. Toplady never read, « He that hath pity upon the
poor lendeth to the Lord, and," look, " what he layeth out it shall be
paid again?" Prov. xix, 17. When evangelical Paul hath "fought a
good fight," does he not look for a crown from the "just Judge," and
declare that "God is not unrighteous to forget our labour of love ;" and,
" if we confess our sins," is not God bound by his justice, as well as by
his faithfulness, « to forgive, and cleanse us ?" 1 John i, 9.
ARG. XVIII. (Ibid.) " If it can be proved that he [God] owes salva
tion to every rational being he has made, then, and then only will it
follow that God is unjust in not paying this debt of salvation to each,
&c. What shadow of injustice can be fastened on his conduct for, in
some cases, withholding what he does not owe?" This argument is
introduced by Mr. Topiady in a variety of dresses. The flaw of it
consists in supposing that there can be no medium between eternal sal
vation, and appointing to eternal damnation ; and that, because God may
absolutely elect as many of his creatures as he pleases to a crown of
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 433
g ory, he may absolutely reprobate as many as Calvinism pleases to
eternal sin and everlasting burnings. The absurdity of this conclusion
will be discovered by the reader, if he look at it through the glass of
the following illustrations : — Mri Toplady is not obliged, by any rule of
justice, to give Mr. Wesley a hundred pounds, because he owes him no
money ; and therefore Mr. T. may give Mr. Wesley a hundred gra
tuitous stripes, without breaking any rule of justice. The king may,
without injustice, gratuitously give a thousand pounds to one man, ten
thousand to another, a hundred to a third, and nothing to a fourth ; and
therefore the king may also, without injustice, gratuitously give a hun
dred 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.
ARG. XIX. Page 30. , " I defy any man to show in what single
respect the actual limitation of happiness itself is a jot more just and
equitable (in a Being possessed of infinite power) than the decretive
limitation of the persons who shall enjoy that happiness." The question
is not whether God can justly limitaie the happiness of man ; or the
number of the men, whom he will raise to such and such heights of
happiness. This we 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 fee talents to
one man, or to five thousand men ; and two talents to two men, or to twn
millions of men. Wherein then does the fallacy of Mr. Toplady 's argu
ment consist ? In this most irrational and unjust conclusion : God may,
without injustice, " limit the happiness" of his human creatures, and ilie
number of those who shall enjoy such and such a degree of happiness:
and therefore 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 neces
sary 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 lo do with the premises than
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 Arminianism] God is bound to make his 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 thought, which he was not abso
lutely 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. T. had staled the case in this plain
manner, all his readers would have seen his doctrine of wrath without a
veil, iiuu would have, shuddered at the sight.
VOL. II. 2R
434
AEG. XXL (Ibid.) " If God owe 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, that
is, 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 mav infallibly punish them with
eternal damnation. And we assert, 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 propagate his fallen race, unless the
second Adam had extended the blessings of redemption so far as to save
from eternal misery all who die in their infancy, and to put all who live
long enough 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 ovr doctrine of grace, as leading to gross
iniquity, indirectly owns that the conditiona-lily of the promise of eternal
salvation guards our Gospel a gainst the charge of Antmomianism, — 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 conditionally of eternal salvation out of the way, he attempts
to do it by the following dilemma : —
AUG. XXII. Page 138. " 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 conditions, it will follow that
man's own performances are meritorious of salvation, and bring God
himself into debt."
We answer, 1. To show the tares of Calvinism, Mr. Toplady raises
an artificial night by confounding the sparing salvation of the Father,
the atoning salvation of the Sou, the convincing, converting, and per-
fecting salvation of the Spirit. Yea, he confounds actual salvation from
a thousand temporal evils ; temporary salvation from death arid hell ;
initial salvation from the guilt and power of sin ; present salvation into
the blessings of Christianity, Judaism, Heathenism ; continued salvation
into these blessings ; eternal salvation from death and hell ; and eternal
salvation into glory and heaven : 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
bhufUcd his cards, and played the dangerous game of confusion, what
wonder is it if he wins it, and makes his 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.
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 435
2. Distinguishing what Mr. Toplady confounds, we do not scruple to
maintain, that though God is not bound to give existence, much less hea
venly glory, to any creature ; yet all his creatures, who never personally
offended him, have a right to expect at his hands salvation from ever
lasting fire, till they have deserved his eternal and 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 fire
ship. For, in order to make us lose sight of absolute reprobation, reme
diless 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 repro
bation due ! Whereas it is evident that there is the medium of non-crea
tion, 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 par
doned ; and five hundred of the soldiers, who, by the overbearing influ
ence of their colonel's disobedience, were necessitated to move to the left,
are appointed to be hanged for not going to the right. The general
wends to Geneva for a Tertullus, who vindicates the JUSTICE of the
execution by the following speech: — "Preferment is not due to obe
dient soldiers, much less to soldiers who have necessarily disobeyed
orders ; and therefore your gracious general acts consistently with JUS
TICE in appointing tkese 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' 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 repro-
hater 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 doctrines 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 counted
worthy to escape, and to stand rewardable before the Son of man.
Whatever 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,
436 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
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 reward-
able obedience we honour, 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, 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, accord,
ing to what he has 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, accord
ing to his gracious promises, will " render you eternal life : for he is
not" untrue to break his evangelical promises, nor " unrighteous to for
get your work that $>roceedeth from love." Your persevering obedience
shall be graciously rewarded by " a crown of righteousness, 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 crown of life. My sheep follow me, and
I will 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 men ; 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 necessary, remediless sin, and to unavoidable, eternal damna
tion ;" 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
principle of Manes, as 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 show, by a simile, the vast differ-
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 437
ence 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
them an alms, throw them into the mire ; or if their parents have cast
them into the mire, keep them there : then let the second captain follow
with his men, and take all the dirty beggars who have thus been passed
by, and throw them, for being dirty, into a furnace hotter than that of
Nebuchadnezzar : suppose, I say, the king passed his little indigent sub
jects by in this manner, would not his decree of prcterition 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 necessi
tates them to go to everlasting burnings.
AUG. XXIV. Page 39. Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile Cai-
vinian reprobation with Divine justice by an appeal " to God's provi
dential 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 sons 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 tor
ments." The flaw of this argument is in the first proposition, and con
sists 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 wickedness and eternal damna
tion. 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 lofid.
To produce such absurd consequences without a mask, is sufficiently to
answer them : see farther what is said upon page 42.
AUG. XXV. Page 40. Mr. Toplady is, if possible, still more abun
dantly mistaken, while, to prove the justice of Calvinian reprobation, he
appeals to " the real inequality of providential distributions below."
We cannot " pronounce the great Father of all unjust, because he does
not make all his offspring equally rich, good, and happy ;" and there
fore 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,
438 ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
injustice," &c. Indeed, if Dr. Gill, whom Mr. Toplady quotes, insin
uated that God had absolutely predestinated myriads of angels to ever-
lasting 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.
AEG. XXVII. Page 41. "The king of Great Britain has unlimited
right of peerage, &c. Will any one 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 commonalty, 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. had cast a
veil over it, it is a sign that he is not destitute of the feeling 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 precipitancy with
which he would start back from the abomination of the Moabites, or
from the grim idol to which 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 lifetime, than he can cease
to be just for a century, or for ever. By the same rule that he can, and
dogs, without impeachment of his moral attributes, permit an)^ 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 there
fore 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 order 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 t)iana, his good nature sug
gested that she is too horrible to be looked at without a veil. But could
he not have borrowed the language of mother Church, without borrow
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 439
ing a maxim which might shock any inquisitor, and might have put
Bonncr himself to a stand ?
AEG. 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
hrought 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
everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched," Matt, xxv, 46 ; Mark ix, 48.
ARC. XXX. (Ibid.) " But still the old difficulty, [a difficulty which
Arminianism will never solve,] &c, the old difficulty survives. How
came moral evil to be permitted, when it might as easily have been hin
dered, by a Being of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom?" Page 39,
Mr. T. speaks partly the same language, giving us to understand, ca
openly as he dares, that God worketh all things in all men, even wick
edness in the wicked. His pernicious, though guarded insinuation,
runs thus : — " You will find it extremely difficult (may I not say impos
sible ?) 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 show wherein
the difference lies" between God's permitting sin, and his designing, or
decreeing sin, or (to speak writh 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 forbade him to do it. Is it right then in Mr. Toplady 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
Calvinistic world believe that forbidding and threatening is one and The
same thing with permitting and giving leave ; or, at least, that the differ
ence 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 show, by the following
illustration, that there is a prodigious difference between not hindering
and design, in the case of 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 gallant)/ keep the field in such an important
440
engagement, shall be made captains ; and that all those who shall go over
to the enemy shall he shot. I suppose him endued with infinite wisdom,
knowledge, and power. By his omniscience he sees that some will
desert ; by bis 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 tmd 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 designi: g, is as dis
cernible 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 difference 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 duplicity.
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 be granted, it necessarily follows that this world
was very perfect, calculated 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 free agents to keep the law they are
under?"
Yes, says Calvinism, for he is endued with infinite power : but Scrip,
ture, good sense, and matter of fact say, No : because, although 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. Beside, (I repeat it,) God's
distributive justice could never be displayed, nor would free obedience
be paid by rationals, and crowned by the Rewarder and " Judge of all
the earth," unless rationals were free-willing creatures, and therefore,
the moment you absolutely necessitate them, you destroy them as <ree
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 441
agents, and you rob God of two of his most glorious titles, that of
Rewarder, and that of Judge. Thus we account for the origin of evil
in a Scriptural and rational manner, without the help of fatalism, Mani-
cheism, or Calvinism. Mr. Toplady replies : —
AUG. XXXI. Pages 44, 45. " O, 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 glorious
souls of saints departed, &c, and so might Adam have been, had God
pleased to have so created him."
This is the grand objection of President Edwards, which I have
answered in the Scripture Scales, page 196. I shall, however, make
here a few remarks upon it. (1.) 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 prin
ciple, 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
aet of injustice and barbarity : for he might, if he would, absolutely
doom myriads of unborn infants to remediless wickedness and ever
lasting fire, before they have deserved this dreadful doom, so much as
by the awkward motion of their little finger. Nor need I tell Mr. Top-
lady this, who believes that God has actually done so.
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
" reader 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 free agency. 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. Tims David, who was
no doubt as chaste and loving once as Joseph, overcame his strong
.1 version 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 probatwn, stand far above the reach of temptation, and have "hence
forth 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
442 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
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 ana
men have suffered, and may yet suffer, is most true, because they are
voluntary beings (Mr. Toplady says, "involuntary beings") and freo
agents (Mr. Toplady would say, necessary agents) who personally de
serve 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 ab
solutely ordaining " involuntary beings" to sin and be damned, is wha,
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 ex-
clamation : —
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 pro
ducing arguments which equally shock reason and conscience, and which
are crowned with this new paradox : — " Fallen angels, and fallen mer
are involuntary beings." So that the last subterfuge of moderate Cal
vinists 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. Top-
lady informs us that they are damned as " involuntary beings," that is,
as excusable beings ; and might I not add, as sinless beings ? For (evan
gelically speaking) is it possible that an " involuntary being" should be
sinful ? Why is the murderer's sword sinjess ? Why is the candle by
which an incendiary fires your Chouse an innocent flame 1 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 carL When, therefore, Mr. Toplady asserts that
we " are involuntary beings," and insinuates that God is just in abso
lutely predestinating us to sin necessarily, and to be damned eternally,
he proves absurdum per absurdius — injustum per injvMius — crudcle per
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 443
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 recon
cile Calvinian REPROBATION with Divine MERCY.
IF it is impossible to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with Divine JUS
TICE, 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 for
bearing 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 reme
diless sin and everlasting burnings." The difference between theso
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 argu
ment, 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 neces
sitate 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 rnercy." So far the argument is conclusive. But if by
not raising soldiers I artfully mean absolutely appointing and necessitat
ing 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
444 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
glorious as he could ; and therefore he is infinitely merciful, though he
absolutely appoints millions of unborn creatures to remediless sin and
everlasting tire." 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 1 " 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 furrface,
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.
AUG. 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 non-
exertion of a peculiar mercy displayed toward some ; whereas it is a
positive act of barbarity. We readily grant that God is infinitely mer
ciful, 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 verbmn, qvum Deo in Scripturis tribuitur, non solum, PER-
MISSIONEM (ut volunt diluti quidam moderatores sed) Divincz quoque IRJ3
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.'
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 445
Beside, something negative amounts, in a thousand cases, to some-
thing positive. A general, for example, denies gunpowder to some of
his soldiers, to whom he owes a grudge ; he hangs them for not fring,
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
drain 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 tJie Gospel and exalting Christ 1
But Mr. Toplacly replies : —
AUG. XXX VIII. 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 wratli reprobated from all eternity, and consequently
before tho law was either broken or given. " Therefore condemnation did not
take place before a law was given and broken." This author trifles ; for if Cal
vinian reprobation took place before the creation of Adam, and if it necessarily
draws after it the uninterrupted breach of the law, and the condemnation con
sequent upon that breach, Calvinian reprobation differs no more from everlast
ing damnation, than condemning and necessitating a man to commit mtfrder,
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 par
don ten, he is not the cause of the other ten being executed. It was his cle
mency that pardoned any : it was their breaking the laws of the kingdom that
condemned them, and riot his majesty." Indeed, it was his majesty who con
demned 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 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 damna
tion 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 Calvin,
ism, the more I see that the decree of absolute reprobation, which is insepara
ble 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 >
446 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
the case now in debate. Ever since the fall of Adam, mankind are by
nature spiritually poor."
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 Calvin-
ism " 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
Diviite MEECY, are as inconclusive as those by which he tries to recon
cile it with Divine JUSTICE: ; both sorts of arguments drawing all their
plausibility from the skill with which Logica Generensis tucks up the
left kg 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 con
veyed 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 effi
cacious 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."
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 447
SECTION VI.
A view of the SCRIPTURE PROOFS by which Mr. T. attempts to demon
strate the truth of Calvinian reprobation.
THAT the Old and New Testament hold forth a PARTIAL REPROBATION
of distinguishing grace, and an IMPARTIAL REPROBATION of retributive
justice, is a capital truth of the Gospel. One of the leading errors of
the Calviriists consists in confounding these two reprobations, and the
.elections which they draw after them. By the impetuous blast of
prejudice, and the fire of a heated imagination, modern Aarons melt the
partial election of grace, and the impartial election of justice ; and,
casting them in the mould of confusion, they make their one partial
election of unscriptural, necessitating, Antinomian FREE GRACE, to which
they are obliged to oppose their one partial reprobation of necessitating,
Manichcan FREE WRATH. Now, as the Scriptures frequently speak of
the harmless reprobation of grace, and of the awful reprobation of justice,
it would be surprising, indeed, if out of so large a book as the Bible,
Logica Gencvensis could not extract a few passages 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 :—
ARC;. XXXIX. Page 19. After transcribing Rom. ix, 20-23, Mr.
Toplady says, •' Now are these the words of Scripture, or are they not ?
If not, prov.e 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 gratuitously 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 peculiar 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 unbe
lievers) 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, sec. 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 jus. ice, are as different from Calvinian, damning reprobation, as
appointing a soldier to continue a soldier, arid to be a captain, or a wilful
deserter to be shot, is different from appointing a soldier necessarily to
desert, that he may be unavoidably shot for desertion.
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 CONDITIONALITVT of the reward of the inheritance,
and the FREEDOM of the will ; and, retorting Mr. T.'s argument, we say,
" Now, are these the words of Script are, or are they not 1 If not, prove
448 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
the forgery. If they be, you cannot fight against [the conditional'] repro
bation [which we defend.] without fighting against God." You cannot
fight for Calvinian reprobation without fighting for free wrath and the
evil-principled Deity worshipped by the Manichees.
ARC. XL. Page 51. Mr. T. supports absolute reprobation by quoting
1 Sam. ii, 25 : " They [the Sons of Eli] hearkened not to the Voice of
their father, because the Lord would slay them," 1 Sam. ii, 25. Here
we are given to understand, that by the decree of the means, the Lord
secured the disobedience of these wicked men, in order to accomplish
his decree of Ike end, that is, their absolute destruction.
To this truly Calvinian insinuation we answer, (1.) The sons of Eli,
who had turned the tabernacle into a 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 partaking 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 -o, which is rendered in our translation
" because," means also " therefore :" and so our translators themselves
have rendered it after St. Paul, and the Septuagint, Psa. cxvi, 10,
" I believed, ^, 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 sec. ii.)
ARC. XLI. Page 51. Mr. T. tries to prove absolute reprobation by
quoting these words of our Lord : " Thou Capernaum, which art exalted
to heaven, shall 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 expostula
tion 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 shown to the
fiercest tiger the kindness which I have shown 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 Sodom, demonstrates that Sodom was never reprobated in
the Calvinian sense of the word : for if it had been absolutely reprobated
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 449
from all eternity, no works done in her by Christ and his apostles could
have overcome her unbelief. But our Lord observes that her strong
unbelief could have been overcome by the extraordinary means of faith,
which could not conquer the unbelief of Capernaum. Mr. T. goes on :
ARC. XLII. (Ibid.) « But though God knew the citizens of Sodom
would [or might] have reformed their conduct, had his providence made
use of effectual [Mr. T. should say of every effectual] means to that end ;
still these effectual [Mr. T. should say,' all these extraordinary and
peculiar] means were not vouchsafed." True : because, according to
the election of grace, God uses more means and more powerful means to
convert some cities than he does to convert others : witness the case of
Nineveh, compared with that of Jericho. This is strongly maintained
in my Essay on the Partial Reprobation of Distinguishing Grace, where
this very passage is produced. But still we affirm two things : (1.) God
always uses means sufficient to demonstrate that his goodness, patience,
and mercy, are over all his works, (though in different degrees,) and to
testify that he is unwilling that sinners should die, unless they have first
obstinately, and without necessity, refused to « work out their own eternal
salvation" with the talent of temporary salvation, which is given to all,
for the sake of Him whose « saving grace has appeared to all men," and
who "enlightens [in various degrees] every man that comes into the
world." (2.) As the men of Sodom were not absolutely lost, though
they had but one talent of means, no more were the men of Capernaum*
absolutely saved, though God favoured them with so many more talents
of means than he did the men of Sodom. Hence it appears that Mr. T.
has run upon the point of his own sword ; the passage which he appeals
to proving that God does not work so irresistibly upon either Jews or
Gentiles as to secure his absolute approbation of some, and his absolute
reprobation of others.
ARG. XLIII. Page 52. Mr. T., to prop up Calvhiian reprobation,
quotes these words of Christ : " Fill ye up the measure of your fathers,"
Matt, xxiii, 32, and he takes care to produce the words, "" Fill ye up,"
in capitals ; as if he would give us to understand that Christ is extremely
busy in getting reprobates to sin and be damned. For my part, as
I believe that Christ never preached up sin and wickedness, I am per-
suaded that this expression is nothing but a strong, ironical reproof of
sin, like that in the Revelation, " Let him that is unjust, be unjust still ;'
or that in the Gospel, « Sleep on now and take your rest ;" or that in
the book of Ecclesiastes, " Rejoice, O young rnan, in thy youth, and
walk in the ways of thy heart, &c, but know," &c. I shudder when I
consider "doctrines of grace," so called, which support themselves bv
representing Christ as a preacher of wickedness. Calvinism may bo
compared to that insect which feeds on putrefying carcasses, lights only
upon real or apparent sores, and delights chiefly in the smell of cor-
ruption. If there be a fault in our translation, Calvinism will pnss over
a hundred plain passages well translated, and will eagerly light* upon tho
error. Thus, pp. 53 and 57, Mr. Toplady quotes, "being disobedient,
whereunto they were appointed," 1 Pet. if, 8. He had rather take it
for granted that the God of Manes absolutely predestinates some people
to be disobedient, than do the holy God the justice to admit this godly
sense, which the original bears, "Being disobedient, whereunto they
v OL. II. 09
450 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
have set, or disposed themselves." (See the proofs, Scales, pages
78, 104.)
ARG. XLIV. Page 52. Mr. T., still pleading for the "horrible
decree" of Calviniaii reprobation, says, " St. Matthew, if possible,
expresses it still more strongly : * It is given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; but to them it is not given,' Matt,
xiii, 11." I answer: (1.) If by "the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven," you understand tJie mysteries of Christianity, it is absurd to
say that all who are not blessed with the knowledge of these mysteries
are Calvinistically reprobated. This I demonstrate by verses 16, 17,
and by the parallel place in St. Luke : " All things are delivered to me
of my Father ; and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father ;
and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal
him. [That is, the mystery of a relative personality of Father and Son
in the Godhead has not been expressly revealed to others, as 1 choose
to reveal it to you, my Christian friends :] and [to show that this was
his meaning] he turned him unto his disciples, and said, privately,
Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see : for I tell
you that many prophets [such as Samuel. Isaiah, Daniel, &c,] and
kings [such as David, Solomon, Josiah, Hezekiah, &c, St. Matthew
adds, ' and righteous men,' such as Noah, Abraham, &c,] have desired
to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them ; and to hear
the things which ye hear, and have not heard them," Luke x, 22-24;
Matt, xiii, 17. Is not Mr. T. excessively fond of reprobating people to
death, if ho supposes that because " it was not given to those prophets,
kings, and righteous men, to know the mysteries of the" Christian dis
pensation, they were all absolutely doomed to continue in sin, and be
damned ?
But, (2.) Should it be asserted, that by "the mysteries of the king,
dom," we are to understand here every degree of saving light, then the
reprobation mentioned in Matt, xiii, 11, is not the partial reprobation of
grace, but the impartial reprobation of justice : and, in this case, to
appeal to this verse in support of a chimerical reprobation of free wrath,
argues great inattention to the context ; for the very next verse fixes the
reason of the reprobation of the Jews, who heard the Gospel of Christ
without being benefited by it : a reason this, which saps the foundation
of absolute reprobation. " But unto them it is not given :" for they are
Calvinistically reprobated ! No : " Unto them it is not given : for,
whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abun
dance : but whosoever hath not, [to purpose] from him shall be taken
away, even that he hath," Matt, xiii, 12. This anti-Calvinian sense is
strongly confirmed by our Lord's words two verses below : " To them
it is not given, &c, for this people's heart is waxed gross : [NOTI: : it is
icaxcd gross, therefore it was not so gross at first as it is now :] and their
ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest at any
time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should
understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them," Matt, xiii, 15. To produce, therefore, Matt, xiii, 1 1, as a capital
proof of Calviniaii reprobation, is as daring an imposition upon the cre
dulity of the simple, as to produce Exodus xx, in defence of adultery
and murder. However, such arguments will not only be swallowed
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 451
down in Geneva as tolerable, but the author of P. O. will cry them up
as " most masterly."
ARG. XLV. Page 53. Mr. T. concludes his Scripture proofs of
Calviriian reprobation by these words : " Now I leave it to the decision
of any unprejudiced, capable man upon earth, whether it be not evident,
from these passages, &c, that God hath determined to leave some men to
perish in their sins and to be justly punished for them ? In affirminf
which, I only give the scripture as I found it." That the scriptures
produced by Mr. T. prove this, is true ; we maintain it as well as he :
and if he will impose no other reprobation upon us, we are ready to
shake hands with him. Nor needs he call his book, " More Work for
Mr. Wesley," but, A Reconciliation with Mr. Wesley : for, when we
speak of the reprobation of JUSTICE, we assert that « God hath deter-
mined to leave some men, [namely, the wise and prudent in their own
eyes, the proud and disobedient, who do despite to the Spirit of grace to
the end of their day of salvation] to perish in their sins, and to be justly
punished for them." But, according to Mr. T.'s system, the men " left
to perish in their sins," are not the men whom the scriptures which he
has quoted describe ; but poor creatures absolutely sentenced to neces
sary, remediless sin, arid to unavoidable, eternal damnation, long before
they had an existence in their mother's womb. And, in this case, we
affirm that their endless torments can never be just : and, of conse
quence, that the Calvinian reprobation of unborn men, which Mr. T.
has tried to dress up in Scripture phrases, is as contrary to the Scripture
reprobation of stubborn offenders, as Herod's ordering the barbarous
destruction of the holy innocents, is different from his ordering the
righteous execution of bloody murderers.
SECTION VII.
An answer to 1.7ie arguments by which Mr. T. tries to reconcile Calvinism
with the doctrine of a future judgment, and ABSOLUTE necessity with
MORAL agency.
THEY who indirectly set aside the day of judgment, do the cause of
religion as much mischief as they who indirectly set aside the immor
tality of the soul. Mr. Wesley asserts that the Calvinists are the men.
His words are : " On the principle of absolute predestination, there can
be no future judgment. It requires more pains than all the men upon
earth, than all the devils in hell will ever be able to take, to reconcile
the doctrine of [Calvinian] reprobation, with the doctrine of a iudo-ment
day." Mr. T. answers :-—
ARG. XLVI. Page 82. " The consequence is false ; for absolute
predestination is the very thing that renders the future judgment certain:
' God hath APPOINTED a day in which he will judge the world in right
eousness by the man whom he hath ORDAINED.' " If Mr. T. had put
the words " in righteousness" in capitals, instead of the words "appointed"
and "ordained," (which he fondly hopes will convey the idea of the
Calvinian decrees,) he would have touched the knot of the difficulty :
for the question is not, whether there will be a day of judgment ; but
45:2 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
whether, on the principle of absolute predestination, there can be a day
of judgment, consistently with Divine equity, justice, wisdom, and sin
cerity : and that there can, Mr. T. attempts to prove by the following
reasoning : —
AUG. XLVII. Page 83. " The most flagrant sinners sin voluntarily,
notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment of God's effective and
permissive decrees. Now they who sin voluntarily are accountable :
and accountable sinners are judicable : and if judicable, they are
punishable."
Mr. T. has told us, p. 45, that " fallen men are involuntary beings ;"
and in this page he tells us that they sin voluntarily. Now we, who
never learned Mr. T.'s logic, cannot understand how " involuntary
beings" can sin voluntarily. But, letting this contradiction pass, and
granting that sinners offend voluntarily, I ask, Is their will at liberty to
choose otherwise than it does, or is it not ? If you say it is at liberty to
choose otherwise than it does, you renounce necessitating predestina
tion, and you will allow the doctrine of free will, which is the bulwark of
the second Gospel axiom, and the Scripture engine which batters down
Calvinian reprobation ; and, upon this Scriptural plan, it is most certain
that God can " judge the world in righteousness," that is, in a manner
which reflects praise upon his essential justice and wisdom. But if you
insinuate that the will of sinners is absolutely bound by " the efficacious
purposes of Heaven," and by the " effective decrees" of Him who
" worketh all things in all men, and even wickedness in the wicked ;"
if you say that God's decree concerning every man is irreversible, whe
ther it be a decree of absolute election to life, or of absolute reprobation
to death, " because God's own decree secures the means as well as the
end, and accomplishes the end by the means ;" (p. 17 ;) or, which
comes to the same thing, if you assert that the reprobate always sin
necessarily, having no power, no liberty to will righteousness, you an
swer like a consistent Calvinist, and pour your shame, folly, and un
righteousness upon the tribunal where Christ will judge the world in
righteousness.
A just illustration will convince the unprejudiced reader, that this is
really the case. By the king's " efficacious permission," a certain
strong man, called Adam, binds the hands of a thousand children behind
their backs with a chain of brass, and a strong lock, of which the king
himself keeps the key. When the children are thus chained, the king
commands them all, upon pain of death, to put their hands upon their
breasts, and promises ample rewards to those who will do it. Now, as
the king is absolute, he passes by seven hundred of the bound children,
and as he passes them by he hangs about their necks a black stone, with
this inscription, " Unconditional reprobation to death :" but being merci
ful too, he graciously fixes his love upon the rest of the children, just
three hundred in number, and he ordains them to finished salvation by
hanging about their necks a white stone, with this inscription, " Uncon
ditional election to life." And, that they may not miss their reward by
non-performance of the above-mentioaed condition, he gives the key of
the locks to another strong man, named Christ, who, in a day of irre
sistible power, looses the hands of the three hundred elect children, and
chains them upon their breasts, as strongly as they were before chained
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 453
behind their backs. When all the elect are properly bound, agreeably
to orders, the king proceeds to judge the children according to their
works, that is, according to their having put their hands behind their
backs, or upon their breasts. In the meantime a question arises in the
court : Can the king judge the children concerning the position of their
hands, without rendering himself ridiculous ? Can he wisely reward the
elect favourites with life according to their works, when he has abso
lutely done the rewardable work for them by the stronger man 1 And
can he justly punish the reprobate with eternal death, for not putting
their hands upon their breasts, when the strong man has, according to
a royal decree, absolutely bound them behind their backs ? " Yes, he
can ;" says a counsellor, who has learned logic in mystic Geneva ; " for
the children have hands, notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment
of the king's effective and permissive decrees : now children who have
hands, and do not place them as they are bid, are accountable, and ac
countable children are judicable ; and if judicable, they are punishable."
This argument would be excellent, if the counsellor did not speak of
hands which are absolutely tied. But it is not barely the having hands,
but the having hands free, which makes us accountable for not placing
them properly.
Apply this plain observation to the case in hand, and you will see,
(1.) That it is not barely the having a will, but the having free will,
which constitutes us accountable, judicable, and punishable. (2.) That,
of consequence, Mr. Toplady's grand argument is as inconclusive as
that of the counsellor. (3.) That both arguments are as contrary to
good sense, as the state of hands at liberty is contrary to the state of
hands absolutely tied; as contrary to reason, as free will is contrary to
a will absolutely bound. And, (4.) That, of consequence, the doctrine
of the day of judgment is as incompatible with Calvinian predestination,
as sense with nonsense, and Christ with Belial.
However, if Mr. T. cannot carry his point by reason, he will do it by
Scripture ; arid therefore he raises such an argument as this : — We
often read in the Bible that there will be a day of judgment ; we often
meet also in the Bible with the words " must" and " necessity ;" and,
therefore, according to the Bible, the doctrine of a day of judgment is
consistent with the doctrine of the absolute necessity of human actions :
just as if, in a thousand cases, a decree of necessity, or a must, were not
as different from absolute necessity, as the want of an apartment in the
king's palace is different from the absolute want of a room in any house
in the kingdom. The absurdity of this argument will be better under
stood by considering the passages which Mr. T. produces, to prove that
when men do good or evil, God's absolute decree of predestination ne
cessitates them to do it.
ARG. XLVIII. Page 60. "It must needs be that offences come.
There must be heresies among you. Such things [wars, fyc,] must needs
be." When Mr. T. builds Calvinian necessity upon these scriptures, he
is as much mistaken as if he fancied that Mr. Wesley and I were fatal
ists, because we say, " Considering the course and wickedness of the
world, it cannot but be Christendom will be distracted by heresies, law
suits, wars, and murders : for so long as men will follow worldly maxims,
rather than evangelical precepts, such things must come to pass."
454
Again : — Would not the reader think that I trifled, if I attempted t6
prove absolute necessity from such Scriptural expressions as these :
" Seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. New wine must be put
into new bottles. He must needs go through Samaria. I have bought
a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. How can I sin
. against God ? I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
The multitude must needs come together [to mob Paul,] (Acts xxi, 22.)
A bishop must be blameless. Ye must needs be subject [to rulers] not
only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake ?"
Once more : who does not see that there is what the poverty of Ian
guage obliges me to call, (1.) A necessity of duty: "I must pay my
debts : I must preach next Sunday." (2.) A necessity of civility: "I
must pay such a visit." (3.) A necessity of circumstance: "in going
from Jerusalem to Galilee, 'I must needs pass through Samaria,'
because the high way lies directly through Samaria." (4.) A necessity
of convenience: "I am tired with writing, I must leave off." (5.) A
necessity of decency : " I must not go naked." (6.) A necessity of pru
dence : " I must look before I leap, &c." Now, all these sorts of neces
sity, and a hundred more of the like stamp, do not amount to one single
grain of Calvinian, absolute, insuperable necessity. However, a rigid
Predestinarian (such is the force of prejudice !) sees his imaginary neces
sity in almost every must; just as a jealous man sees adultery in almost
every look which his virtuous wife casts upon the man whom he fancies
to be his rival.
AUG. XLIX. Page 61. "Absolute necessity, then, is perfectly con
sistent with willingness and freedom in good agency, no less than in
bad. For it is a true maxim, Ubi voluntas,ibi libertas ;" that is, where
there is a will, there is liberty. This maxim, which has led many
good men into Calvinism, I have already exposed. (See Scales, page
186.) To what is there advanced, I add the following remark : — As
there may be liberty, where there is not a will, so there may be a witt,
where there is not liberty. The first idle school boy whom you meet
will convince you of it. I ask him, " When you are at school, and have
a will, or (as you call it) a mind to go and play, have you liberty, or
freedom to do it?" He answers, " No." Here is then a will without
liberty. I ask him again : " When you are at school, where you have
freedom or liberty to ply your book, have you a will to do it ?" He
honestly answers, " No," again. Here is then liberty without a will.
How false therefore is this proposition, that " where there is a will there
is liberty !" Did judicious Calvinists consider this, they would no more
say, "If all men were redeemed, they would all come out of the
dungeon of sin." For there may be a freedom to come out consequent
upon redemption, where there is no will exercised. " O, but God
makes us willing in the day of his power." True : in the day of
salvation he restores to us the faculty of choosing moral good with some
degree of ease ; and, from time to time, he peculiarly helps us to make
acts of willingness. But to suppose that he absolutely wills for us, is as
absurd as to say, that when, after a quinsy, his gracious providence
restores us a degree of liberty to swallow, he necessitates us to eat and
drink, or actually swallows for us.
AUG. L. Page 61. In his refusal to dismiss the Israelites, &c,
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 455
*' he [Pharaoh] could will no otherwise than he did, Exod. vii, 3, 4."
Is not this a mistake 1 When Pharaoh considered, did he not alter his
mind ? Did he not say to Moses, " Be gone, and bless me also ?" If
Omnipotence had absolutely hardened him, could he have complied at
last ? Do the unchangeable decrees change as the will of Pharaoh
changed ?
ARG. LI. Pages 61, 62. "So when Saul went home to Gibeah, it
is said, ' There went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had
touched.' In like manner, God is said to have * stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus. Then rose up, &c, the Levites, with all them whose spirit God
had raised up.' Will any man say that these did not \vi\\freety, only
because they willed necessarily ?"
1. I (for one) say, that while they willed necessarily, (in the Calvinian
sense of the word " necessary,") they could not will freely in the moral
sense of the word free. Mr. Toplady is not morally free to will, so long
as he is absolutely bound to will one thing, any more than a man is
free to look to the left, who is absolutely bound to look to the right, let
the object he looks at engage his heart and eye ever so pleasingly.
God's Spirit prevents, accompanies, and follows us in every good thing :
all our good works are «« begun, continued, and ended in him ;" but they
are not necessary, in the Calvinian sense of the word. In moral cases,
God does not absolutely necessitate us, though he may do it in propJietic
and political cases. Thus, he necessitated Balaam, when he blessed
Israel by the mouth of that covetous prophet ; and thus he necessitated
Balaam's ass, when the dumb animal reproved his rider's madness.
But then, whatever we do under such necessitating impulses, will not be
rewarded as our own work, any more than Balaam's good prophecy,
and his ass' good reproof, were rewarded as their own works.
2. From the above-mentioned passages, Mr. Toplady would make us
believe, that upon the whole, the touches of God's grace act necessarily
like charms : but what says the stream of the Scriptures ? God
" touched the hearis" of all the Israelites, and stirred them up to faith :
but the effect of that touch was so far from being absolutely forcible,
that their hearts soon " started aside like a broken bow ;" and, after
having been " saved in Egypt through faith, they perished in the wilder-
ness through unbelief." " God gave King Saul a new heart ;" and yet
Saul cast away the heavenly gift. " God gave Solomon a wise and
understanding heart;" and yet Solomon, in his old age, "made himself
a foolish heart, darkened" by the love of heathenish women. God
stirred up the heart of Peter to confess Christ, and to walk upon the
sea ; and yet, by and by, Peter sunk, cursed, swore, and denied his
Lord. Awful demonstrations these, that, where Divine grace works
most powerfully, when its first grand impulse is over, there is an end of
the overbearing power; and the soul, returning to its free agency,
chooses without necessity the good which constitutes her rewardable ; or
the evil which constitutes her punishable. Of this Mr. Toplady himself
produces a remarkable instance, 2 Cor. viii, 16, 17, " Thanks be to
God," says the apostle, " who put the same earnest care into the heart
of Titus for you ; of his own accord he went unto you."
If a gentleman, who delights to be in houses of ill fame, more than
in the house of God, sees, in a circle of ladies, one whom he suspects
456 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
of being immodest, he singles her out as one that may suit his purpose :
and to her he makes his bold addresses. I am sorry to observe that
this is exactly the case with Calvinism unmasked. We find, in the
Scriptures, a few places where God's suffering some men to do a lesser
evil, in order to prevent, or to punish a greater evil, is expressed in a
strong, figurative manner, which seems to ascribe sin to him. just as, in
other places, jealousy, repentance, wrath, and fury, together with hands,
feet, ears, and a nose, are figuratively attributed to him. Now as popish
idolatry screens herself behind these metaphors, so Calvinian Anti-
nomianism perpetually singles out those metaphorical expressions which
seem to make God the author of sin. Accordingly, —
ARG. LIL Page 61, &c. Mr. Toplady produces these words of
Joseph : "It was not you that sent me hither, but God;" these word&
of David : " The Lord said to him, [Shimei,] Curse David ;" these
words of the sacred historian : " God had appointed to defeat the good
counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon
Absalom ;" and these words of the prophet : " Howbeit, he [the Assy
rian king, turned loose upon Israel to avenge God's righteous quarrel
with that hypocritical people] meaneth not so, neither does his heart
think so : but it is in his heart to destroy ;" these words in the Revela
tion : " God hath put it into their hearts [the hearts of the kings who
shall hate the mystic harlot and destroy her, and burn her with fire] to
fulfil his will, and to agree, and to give their kingdom to the beast, till
the words of God shall be fulfilled ;" and the words of Peter : " They
[the accomplishes of the crucifixion of Christ] were gathered together
to do whatsoever God's hand, and God's counsel had predestinated to be
done," &c.
With respect to the last text, if it be rightly* translated, it is ex
plained by these words of Peter, Acts ii, 23 : " Christ was delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God :" by his gracious
"counsel," that Christ should lay down his life as a ransom for all;
and by his clear " foreknowledge" of the disposition of the Jews to take
* With Episcopius, and some other learned critics, I doubt it is not. Why
should it not be read thus ? Acts iv, 26-28, " The rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child
Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, (both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gen
tiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,) for to do whatsoever thy
hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." By putting the clause
" Both Herod," &c, in a parenthesis, you have this evangelical sense which gives
no handle to the pleaders for sin : " Both Herod and Pilate, &c, were gathered toge
ther against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed to do whatsoever
thy hand and counsel determined before to be done." I prefer this reading to the
common one, for the following reasons : (1.) It is perfectly agreeable to the
Greek; and the peculiar construction of the sentence is expressive of the peculiar
earnestness with which the apostles prayed. (2.) It is attended with no Manichean
inconveniency. (3.) It is more agreeable to the context : for if the sanhedrim
was "gathered by God's direction and decree," in order to threaten the apostles,
with what propriety could they say, verse 29, "Now, Lord, behold their threaten-
I«gs? ' And, (4.) It is strongly supported by verse 30, where Peter (after having
observed, verses 27, 28, according to our reading, that God had anointed his holy
child Jesus to do all the miracles which he did on earth) prays, that now
Christ is gone to heaven, the effects of this powerful anointing may continue,
and "signs and wonders may still be done by the name of his holy child
Jesus."
VINDICATION OP THE DECREES. 457
that precious life away. This passage then, and all those which Mr. T.
has produced, or may yet produce, only prove : —
(1.) That God foresees the evil which is in the hearts of the wicked,
and their future steps in peculiar circumstances, with ten thousand times
more clearness* and certainty, than a good huntsmen foresees all the
windings, doublings, and shifts of a hunted fox ; and that be overrules
their wicked counsels to the execution of his own wise and holy designs,
as a good rider overrules the mad prancings of a vicious horse, to the
display of his perfect skill in horsemanship, and to the treading down of
the enemy in a day of battle. (2.) That God " catches the wise in
their own craftiness," and that, to punish the wicked, he permits their
wicked counsels to be defeated, and their best-concerted schemes to
prove abortive. (3.) That he frequently tries the faith, and exercises
the patience of good men, by letting loose the wicked upon them, as in
the case of Job and of Christ. (4.) That he often punishes the wicked
ness of one man by letting loose upon him the wickedness of another.;
and that he frequently avenges himself of one wicked nation by letting
loose upon it the wickedness of another nation. Thus he let Absalom
and Shimei loose upon David. Thus a parable spoken by the Prophet
Micaiah informs us that God, after having let a lying spirit loose upon
Zedekiah, the false prophet, let Zedekiah loose upon wicked Ahab.
Thus the Lord let loose the Philistines upon disobedient Israel, and the
Romans upon the obdurate Jews, and their accursed city ; using those
wicked heathen as his vindictive scourge, just as he used swarms of
frogs and locusts when he punished rebellious Egypt with his plagues.
(5.) That he sometimes let a wicked man loose upon himself, as in the
case of Ahithophel, Nabal, and Judas, who became their own executioners.
(6.) That, when wicked men are going to commit atrocious wickedness,
he sometimes inclines their hearts so to relent, that they commit a less
crime than they intended. For instance : when Joseph's brethren were
going to starve him to death, by providential circumstances God inclined
their hearts to spare his life : thus instead of destroying him, they only
sold him into Egypt. (7.) With respect to Rev. xvii, 17, the context,
and the full stream of the Scripture require that it should be understood
thus : — " As God, by providential circumstances, which seemed to favour
their worldly views, suffered wicked kings to agree, and give their king,
dom unto the beast, to help the beast to execute God's judgments upon
corrupted Churches and wicked states ; so he will peculiarly let those
kings loose upon the whore, and they shall agree to hate her, and shall
make her desolate and naked."
Upon the whole, it is contrary to all the rules of criticism, decency,
and piety, to take advantage of the dark construction of a sentence, or
to avail one's self of a parable, a hyperbole, a bold metaphor, or an un
guarded saying of a good man, interwoven with the thread of Scripture
history, in order to make appear, (so far as Calvinism can,) that " God
worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked." Such
a method of wresting the oracles of God, to make them speak the lan
guage of Belial and Moloch, is as ungenerous, as our inferring from
these words, " I do not condemn thee," that Christ does not condemn
adulterers, that Christianity encourages adultery, and that this single
sentence, taken in a filthy, Antinomian sense, outweighs all the sermon
458 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
upon the mount, as well as the holy meaning of the context : for these
words being spoken to an adulteress, whom the magistrates had not con-
demned to die, and whom the Pharisees wanted Christ to " condemn to
be stoned according to the law of Moses ;" it is evident that our Lord's
words, when taken in connection with the context, carry this edifying
meaning : — " I am come to act the part of a Saviour, and not that of a
magistrate : if the magistrates have riot « condemned thee to be stoned,'
neither do I condemn thee to that dreadful kind of death ; avail thyself
of thy undeserved reprieve : ' Go and' repent, and evidence the sincerity
of thy repentance by ' sinning no more.' " Hence I conclude that all
the texts quoted by the fatalists prove that God necessitates men to sin
by his decrees, just as John viii, 11, proves that Christ countenances the
filthy sin of adultery.
ARG. LIII. Page 64. Mr. T. thinks to demonstrate that the doctrine
of the absolute necessity of all our actions, and consequently of all our
sins is true, by producing " St. Paul's case as a preacher. * Though 1
preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon
me, yea, wo is me if I preach not the Gospel,' 1 Cor. ix, 16. Yet he
preached the Gospel freely, &c ; necessity, therefore, and freedom,
are very good friends, notwithstanding all the efforts of Arminianism to
set them at variance." The apostle evidently speaks here of a necessity
of precept on God's part, and of duty on his own part : and such a necessity,
being perfectly consistent with the alternative of obedience or of disobe
dience, is also perfectly consistent with freedom and with a day of judg
ment : and Mr. T. trifles when he speaks of" all the efforts of Arminianism,
to set such a necessity at variance with freedom ;" for it is the distin
guishing glory of our doctrine to maintain both the freedom of the will,
and the indispensable necessity of cordial obedience. But, in the name
of candour and common sense, I ask, What has a necessity of precept
and duty to do with Calvinian necessity, which, in the day of God's
power, absolutely necessitates the elect to obey and the reprobate to dis
obey ; entirely debarring the former from the alternative of disobedience,
and the latter from the alternative of obedience ? That the apostle, in the
text before us, does not mean a Calvinian, absolute necessity, is evident
from the last clause of the verse, where he mentions the possibility of
his disobeying, and the punishment that awaited him in case of disobe
dience : " Wo is me," says he, " if I preach not the Gospel." A necessity
of precept was laid on Jonah to preach the Gospel to the Ninevites ; but
THIS necessity was so far from Calvinistically binding him to preach, that,
(like Demas and the clergy, who fleece a flock which they do not feed,)
he ran away from his appointed work, and incurred the " wo" mentioned
by the apostle. Therefore, St. Paul's words, candidly taken together,
far from establishing absolute necessity, which admits of no alternative,
are evidently subversive of this dangerous error, which exculpates the
sinner, and makes God the author of sin.
Hence Mr. Wesley says, with great truth, that if the doctrines of
absolute predestination and Calvinian necessity are true, there can be
no sin ; seeing " it cannot be a sin in a spark to rise, or in a stone to
fall." And therefore " the reprobate [tending to evil by the irresistible
power of Divine predestination, as unavoidably as stones tend to the
centre, by the irresistible force of natural gravitation] can have no sia
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 459
at all." This is a just observation, taken from the absurdity of an
absolute necessity, originally brought on by God's absolute and irresisti
ble decrees. Let us see how Mr. T. shows his wit on this occasion.
ARC. LIV. Pages 71, 72. "The reprobate can have no sin at all.
Indeed ? They are quite sinless, are they ? As perfect as Mr. Wesley
himself? O excellent reprobation ! &c. What then must the elect be?
&c. Beside : if reprobates be sinless — nay, immutably perfect, so that
they can have no sin at all, will it not follow that Mr. Wesley's own
perfectionists are reprobates ? For surely if reprobates may be sinless,
the sinless may be reprobates. Did not Mr. John's malice outrun his
craft, when he advanced an objection, &c, so easily retortible ?"
This illogical, not to say illiberal answer, is of a piece with the chal
lenge, which the reader may see illustrated, at the end of sec. i, by my
remarks upon a consequence as just as that of Mr. Wesley : for it is
as evident that if the reprobate are " involuntary beings ;" beings abso
lutely necessitated by efficacious, irresistible predestination to act as
they do ; they are as really sinless, as a mountain of gold is really
heavier than a handful of feathers. And Mr. Wesley may believe that
both consequences are just, without believing either that " the wicked
are sinless," or that " there is a mountain of gold." On what a slender
foundation does Logica Genevensis rest her charges of craft and malice !
And yet this foundation is as solid as that on which she raises her doc
trines of unscriptural grace and free wrath. But Mr. T. advances other
arguments : — •
AEG. LV. Pages 69, 70. " The holy Baptist, without any ceremony
or scruple, compared some of his unregenerate hearers to stones ; say-
ing, « God is able even of these stones to raise up children to Abraham,
&c. Ye therefore, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, &c.
They [the elect] shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts — in the day
when I make up my jewels :' now, unless I am vehemently mistaken,
jewels are but another name for precious stones." Hence the reader is
given to understand that when Mr. Wesley opposes the doctrine of
absolute necessity, by saying, that " it cannot be a sin in a stone to fall,"
he turns " the Bible's own artillery against itself, and gives us too much
room to fear, that it is as natural to him to pervert, as it is for a stone
to sink."
By such arguments as these, I could prove transubstantiation : for
Christ said of a bit of bread, « This is my body." Nay, I could prove
any other absurdity : I could prove that Christ could not " think," and
that his disciples could not " walk :" for he says, " I am the vine, and
ye are the branches ;" and a vine can no more think, than branches can
walk. I could prove that he was a " hen," and the Jews " chickens :"
for he says that he " would have gathered them, as a hen gathers her
chickens under her wings." Nay, I could prove that Christ had no
more hand in our redemption, than we are supposed bv Calvinists to
have in our conversion ; that his " poor free will," (to use Mr. Toplady's
expressions, page 70, with respect to us,) " had no employ," that he was
" absolutely passive, and that [redemption] is as totally the operation of
[the Father] as the severing of stones from their native quarry, and the
erecting them into an elegant building, are the effects of human agency."
If the astonished reader ask, How I can prove a proposition so subver-
460 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
sive of the gratitude which we owe to Christ for our redemption ? 1
reply, By the very same argument by which Mr. T. proves that we are
" absolutely passive" in the work of conversion, and that " conversion is
totally the operation of God :" that is, by producing passages where Christ
is metaphorically called a " stone ;" and of these there are not a few.
" Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a
precious corner stone, a sure foundation, Isa. xxviii, 16. Whosoever
shall fall on this stone, shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall,
it will grind him to powder. Matt, xxi, 34. The stone which the build-
ers rejected is become the head of the corner, Acts iv, 11. To whom
corning as to a living stone," &c, 1 Pet. ii, 4. If to these texts we
add those in which he is compared to a " foundation," to a " rock," and
to "jewels," or precious " stones," I could demonstrate, (in the Calvinian
way,) that Christ was once as " absolutely passive" in the work of our
redemption as a stone. When I consider such arguments as these, I
cannot help wondering at the gross impositions of Pagan, popishf and
Calvinian doctors. I find myself again in the midst of Ovid's Meta
morphoses. Jupiter, if we believe the poet, turned Niobe into a rock.
The tempter wanted Christ to turn a "stone" into "bread." Logica
Romana turns " bread" into Christ. But Logica Genevensis carries
the bell ; for she can, even without the hocus pocus of a massing priest,
turn Christ into a stone. Mr. Toplady, far from recanting his argu
ment a lapide, confirms it by the following : —
ARG. LVI. Page 71. "A stone has the advantage of you: mans
rebellious heart is, by nature, and so far as spiritual things are concerned,
more intractable and unyielding than a stone itself. I may take up a
stone, and throw it this way or that, and it obeys the impulse of my arm.
Whereas, in the sinner's heart, there is every species of hatred and
opposition to God : nor can any thing, but omnipotent power, slay its
enmity."
I am glad Mr. T. vouchsafes, in this place, to grant that " omnipo
tent power can slay the enmity." I hope he will remember this con
cession, and no more turn from the Prince of life, and preach up the
monster death, as the slayer of the enmity. But to come to the argu
ment : would Mr. T. think me in earnest, if I attempted to prove that a
stone " had [once] the advantage" of him, with respect to getting learn
ing, and that there was more omnipotence required to make him a
scholar, than to make the stone he stands upon fit to take a degree in
the university ? However, I shall attempt to do it : displaying my skill
in orthodox logic, I personate the school master, who taught Mr. Top-
lady grammar, and probably found him once at play, when he should
have been at his book, and I say, " Indeed, master, a stone has the ad.
vantage of you. A boy's playful heart is by nature, so far as grammar
is concerned, more intractable and unyielding than a stone itself." [Now
for the proof!] " I may take up a stone, and throw it this way or that,
and it instantly, and without the least degree of resistance, obeys the im
pulse of my arm : whereas you resist my orders ; you run away from your
book ; or you look off from it. In your playful heart there is every species
of hatred and opposition to your accidence ; and therefore more power is
required to make you a scholar, than to make that stone a grammarian."
.Mr. Toplady 's "voluntary humility" claps this argument as excellent; but
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 461
his good sense hisses it as absurd, and says with St. Paul, " When 1 was
a child, I spake as a child : but when I became a man, I put away
childish things."
ARG. LV1I. Page 71. Ah, but "God's gracious promise to renew
his people runs in this remarkable style : — / will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh." And does this prove Calvinian bound will, any
more than these gracious commands to renew our own hearts prove
Pelagian free will '/ " Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no
more stiff necked. Make you a new heart and a new spirit. Turn
yourselves, and live ye." Who does not see that the evangelical union
of such passages gives birth to the Scripture doctrine of assisted free
will, which stands at an equal distance from Calvinian necessity, and
from Pelagian, self-sufficient exertion 1
ARG. LVIII. Page 73. But God " worketh ALL things according to
the counsel of his own will, Eph. i, 11." By putting the word " all"
in very large capitals, Mr. T. seems willing to insinuate that God's
decree causes all things ; and, of consequence, that God absolutely
works the good actions of the righteous, and the bad deeds of the
wicked. Whereas the apostle means only, that all the things which
God works, he works them " according to the counsel of his own" most
wise, gracious, and righteous " will." But the things which God works
are, in many cases, as different from the things which we work, as light
is different from darkness. This passage, therefore, does not prove
Calvinian necessity : for, when God made man " according to the
counsel of his own will," he made him a free agent, and " set before
him life arid death ;" bidding him choose life. Now, to include Adam's
eating of the forbidden fruit, and choosing death, among " the things
which God worketh," is to turn Mariichee wiih a witness : it is to con
found Christ and Belial ; the acts of God, and the deeds of sinners. It
is to suppose (horrible to think !) that God will send the reprobates to
hell for his own deeds ; or, if you please, for what he has wrought
absolutely in them, and by them, " according to the counsel of his own
necessitating will." This dreadful doctrine is that capital part of Cal
vinism which is called absolute predestination to death. If Mr. T.
denies that it is the second pillar of his doctrine of grace, he may turn
to section ii, where he will find his peculiar gospel " upon its legs."
.1 hope I need say no more upon this head, to convince the unpreju
diced reader that Mr. T.'s arguments in favour of Calvinian necessity
are frivolous, and that Mr. Wesley advances a glaring truth when he
asserts that, on the principle of absolute predes ination, there can be
no future judgment, (upon any known principle of wisdom, equity, and
justice,) and that it requires more pains than all rational creatures will
be ever able to take, to reconcile the doctrine of (Calvinian) reproba
tion, with the doctrine of a judgment day.
462
SECTION VIII.
An answer to the argument taken from God's PRESCIENCE, whereby Mr.
Toplady tries to prove that the VERY CRUELTY which Mr. Wesley
charges on Calvinism, is really chargeable on the doctrine of general
grace.
MR. Toplady is a spirited writer. He not only tries to reconcile
Calvinian reprobation with Divine mercy, but he attempts to retort upon
us the charge of holding a cruel doctrine.
ARG. LIX. Page 47. " But what if, after all, that very cruelty which
Mr. Wesley pretends to charge on Calvinism, be found really charge
able on Arminianism ? I pledge myself to prove this before I conclude
this tract." And, accordingly, pp. 86, 87, Mr. Toplady, after observing
in his way that, according to Mr. Wesley's doctrine, God offers his
grace to many who " put it from them," and gives it to many who " re
ceive it in vain," and who, on this account are condemned ; Mr. Top-
lady, 1 say, sums up his argument in these w6rds : — " If God knows
that the offered grace will be rejected, it would be mercy to forbear the
offer. Prove the contrary if you are able."
I have answered this objection at large, Scripture Scales, section vi.
However, I shall say something upon it here. (1.) God's perfec
tions shine in such a manner as not to eclipse one another. W'isdom,
justice, mercy, and truth, are the adorable and well-proportioned fea
tures of God's moral face, if I may venture upon that expression. Now,
if, in order to magnify his mercy, I thrust out his wisdom and justice,
as I should do if I held a lawless, Calvinian election ; or if, in order to
magnify his justice, I thrust out his mercy and wisdom, as I should.do
if I consistently held Calvinian reprobation ; should I not disfigure God's
moral face, as much as I should spoil Mr. Toplady 's natural face, if I
swelled his eyes or cheeks to such a degree as to leave absolutely no
room for his other features? The Calvinists forget, that as human
beauty does not consist in the monstrous bigness of one or two features,
but in the harmonious and symmetrical proportion of all; so Divine
glory does not consist in displaying a mercy and a justice, which would
absolutely swallow up each other, together with wisdom, holiness, and
truth. This would, however, be the case, if God, after having wisely
decreed to make free agents, in order to display his holiness, justice,
and truth, by "judging them according to their works," necessitated
them lo be good or wicked, by decrees of absolute predestination to life
and heaven, or of absolute reprobation to hell and damnation.
2. Do but allow that God made rational creatures in order to rule
them as rational, namely, by laws adapted to their nature ; do but admit
this truth, I say, which stands or falls with the Bible, and it necessarily
follows that such creatures were made with an eye to " a day of judg
ment :" and the moment this is granted, Mr. Toplady's argument
vanishes into smoke. For, supposing that God had displayed more
mercy toward those who die in their sins, by forbearing to give them
grace, and to offer them more grace ; or, in other words, supposing that
God had shown the wicked more mercy, by showing them no mercy at
all) (which, by the by, is a contradiction in terms,) yet such a merciless
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 463
mercy (if I may use the expression) would have blackened his wisdom,
overthrown his truth, and destroyed his justice. What a poor figure,
for instance, would his justice have made among his other attributes, if
he had said that he would judicially cast his unprofitable servants into
outer darkness, for burying a taJent which they never had, or for not
receiving a Saviour who was always kept from them? And what
rationals would not have wondered at a Governor who, after having
made moral agents in order to rule them according to their free nature,
and to judge them " in righteousness according to their works," should
nevertheless show himself, (i.) so inconsistent as to rule them by effica
cious decrees, which should absolutely necessitate some of them to work
iniquity, and others to work righteousness, (ii.) So unjust as to judge
them according to the works which his own binding decrees had neces
sitated them to do. And, (iii.) So cruel and unwise as to punish them
with eternal death, according to a sentence of absolute reprobation to
death, or of absolute election to life, which he passed beforehand, without
any respect to their works, thousands of years before most of them were
born ? By what art could so strange a conduct have been reconciled
with the titles of Lawgiver, and " Judge of all the earth," which God
assumes ; or with his repeated declarations that justice and equity are
the basis of his throne, and that, in point of judgment, his ways are
perfectly equal ?
If Mr. T. should try to vindicate so strange a proceeding, by saying
that God could justly reprobate to eternal death myriads of unborn
infants for the sin of Adam ; would he not make a bad matter worse,
since, upon the plan of the absolute predestination of all events, Adam's
sin was necessarily brought about by the decree of the means, which
decree, if Calvinism be true, God made in order to secure and accomplish
the two grand decrees of the end, namely, the eternal decree of finished
damnation by Adam, and the eternal decree of finished salvation bv
Christ ?
The absurdity of Mr. Toplady's argument may be placed in a clearer
light by an illustration: — The king, to display" his royal benevolence,
equity, and^ justice; to maintain good order in his army, and excite his
troopers to military diligence, promises to give a reward to all the men
of a regiment of light horse who shall ride so many miles without dis
mounting to plunder : and he engages himself to punish severely those
who shall be guilty of that offence. He foresees, indeed, that many will
slight his offered rewards, and incur his threatened punishment : never
theless, for the above-mentioned reasons, he proceeds. Some men are
promoted, and others are punished. A Calvinist highly blames the king's
conduct. He says that his majesty would have shown himself more
gracious, and would have asserted his sovereignty much better, if he had
refused horses to the plunderers, and had punished them for lighting off
horses which they never had : and that, on the other hand, it became his
free grace to tie the rewardable dragoons fast to their saddles, and by
this means to necessitate them to keep on horseback, and deserve the
promised reward. Would not such a conduct have marked his majesty's
reputation with the stamp of disingenuity, cruelty, and folly? And yet,
astonishing ! because we do not approve of such a judicial distribution
of the rewards of eternal life, and the punishments of eternal death,
464 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
Mr. Toplady fixes the charge of CRUELTY upon the Gospel which we
preach ! He goes on : —
ARG. LX. Page 85. " According to Mr. Wesley's own fundamental
principle of universal grace, grace itself, or the saving influence of the
Holy Spirit on the hearts of men, does and must become the ministration
of eternal death to thousands and millions." Page 89 : " Level therefore
your tragical exclamations, about unmercifulness, at your own scheme,
which truly arid properly deserves them."
The flaw of this argument consists in the words " does and must,"
which Mr. T. puts in Italics. (1.) In the word " does ;" it is a great
mistake to say that, upon Mr. W.'s principles, grace itself does become
the ministration of eternal death to any soul. It is not for grace, but for
the abuse or neglect of grace and its saving light, that men are condemned.
" This is the condemnation," says Christ himself, « that light [the light
of grace] is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than
light." And St. Paul adds, that the « grace of God, which bringeth
salvation, hath [in different degrees] appeared to all men," John hi, 19 ;
Tit. ii, 11. There is no medium between condemning men for riot using
a talent of grace which they had, or for not using a talent of grace which
they NEVER had. The former sentiment, which is perfectly agreeable to
reason, Scripture, and conscience, is that of Mr. Wesley ; the latter
sentiment, which contradicts one half of the Bible, shocks reason, and
demolishes the doctrines of justice, is that of Mr. Toplady. (2.) When
this geirleman says that God's grace, upon Mr. Wesley's principles,
must become the ministration of death to millions, he advances as
groundless a proposition as I would do if I said that the grace of creation,
the grace of preservation, and the grace of a preached Gospel, absolutely
destroy millions ; because millions, by wilfully abusing their created and
preserved powers, or by neglecting so great salvation as the Gospel brings,
pull down upon themselves an unnecessary, and therefore a just destruc
tion. (3.) We oppose the doctrine of absolute necessity, or the Calvinian
must, as being inseparable from Manicheism : and we assert that there
is no needs must in the eternal death of any man, because Christ imparts
a degree of temporary salvation to all, with power to obey, and a promise
to bestow eternal salvation upon all that will obey. How ungenerous
is it then to charge upon us the very doctrine which we detest, when it
has no necessary connection with any of our principles ! How irrational
to say, that if our doctrine of grace be true, God's grace must become
the ministration of death to millions ! Ten men have a mortal disorder :
a physician prepares a sovereign remedy for them all : five take it
properly, and recover ; and five, who will not follow his prescriptions,
die of their disorder. Now, who but a prejudiced person would infer
from thence that the physician's sovereign remedy is " become the
ministration of death" to the patients who die, because they would not
take it ? Is it right thus to confound a remedy with the obstinate neglect
of it ? A man wilfully starves himself to death with good food before
him. I say that his w'ilfulness is the cause of his death : " No," replies
a decretist, " it is the good food which you desire him to take." This
absurd conclusion is all of a piece with that of Mr. Toplady.
AR«. LXI. Page 89. " The Arminian system represents the Father
of mercies as offering grace to them, who, he knows, will only add sin
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 465
to sin, and make themselves twofold more the children of hell by refusing
it." Indeed, it is not the Arminian system only that says this : (1.) All
the Calvinists who allow that God gave angelic grace to angels, though
he knew that many of them would fall from that grace, and would fall
deeper than if they had fallen from a less exalted station. (2.) Jesus
Christ who gave Judas the grace of apostleship, and represents God as
giving a pound to his servants who squander it, as well as to those who
use it properly. And, (3.) Mr. Toplady himself, who (notwithstanding
his pretended horror for so Scriptural a doctrine) dares not deny that
God gave the grace of creation to those who shall perish. Now the
grace of creation implies spotless holiness ; and if God could once
graciously give spotless holiness to Judas in the loins of Adam, why
could lie not graciously restore to that apostle a degree of free agency
to good, that he might be judged according to " his own works," and not
according to Caltinian decrees of " finished wickedness" and " finished
damnation" in Adam ? But, (4.) What is still more surprising, Mr. T.
himself, p. 51, quotes these words, which so abundantly decide the
question : " Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven [by the
peculiar favours and Gospel privileges bestowed upon thee] shalt be
brought down to hell : for if the mighty works which have been done in
thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day,"
Matt, xi, 23. Now, I ask, Why were these " mighty works" done in
Capernaum 1 Was it out of love — to bring Capernaum to repentance ?
Or, was it out of urath — that it might be " more tolerable in the day of
judgment for Sodom than Capernaum ?" There is no medium : Mr.
Toplady must recant this part of the Bible, ajid of his book ; or he must.
answer one of these two questions in the affirmative. If he say (as wo
do) that these " mighty works," which might have converted Tyre, Sidon,
and Sodom, were primarily wrought to bring Capernaum to repentance,
he gives up Calvinism, which stands or falls with' the doctrine of necessi
tating means used in order to bring about a necessary end. If he say
(as Calvinism docs) that these mighty works were primarily wrought to
sink Capernaum into hell — into a deeper hell than Sodom, because the
end always shows what the means were used for ; he runs upon the
point of his own objection ; he pulls upon his doctrines of grace the very
unmercifulncss which he charges upon ours ; and he shows, to every
unprejudiced reader, that the difficulty arising from the prescience of
God, with which the Calvinists think to demolish the doctrine of general
grace, falls upon Calvinism with a double weight. Mr. Toplady is
sensible that God could never have appeared good and just, unless the
wicked had been absolutely inexcusable ; and that they could never have
been inexcusable if God had condemned them for burying a talent of
grace which they never had : and therefore Mr. T. tries to overthrow
this easy solution of the difficulty by saying, —
ARG. LXII. Page 88. " Be it so," that the wicked are made inex
cusable by a day of grace and temporary salvation, " yet, surely, God
can never be thought knowingly to render a man more inexcusable, by
taking such measures as will certainly load him with accumulated con
demnation, out of mere love to that man?" We grant it ; and therefore
we assert that it is not out of " mere love" that God puts us in a gracious
state of probation, or temporary salvation ; but out of wisdom, truth, and
VOL. II. 30
466
distributive justice, as well as out of mercy and love. If God, therefore,
were endued with no other perfection than that of merciful love, we
would give up the doctrine of judicial reprobation ; for a God devoid of
distributive justice could and would save all sinners in the Calvinian way,
that is, with a salvation perfectly finished, without any of their works.
But then he would neither judge them, nor bestow eternal salvation upon
them by way of reward for their works, as the Scriptures say he will.
O ! how much more reasonable and Scriptural is it to allow the doctrine
of free grace, and free will, established in the Scripture Scales ; and to
maintain the reprobation of justice — an avoidable reprobation this, which
is perpetually asserted in the Gospel, and will leave the wicked entirely
inexcusable, and God perfectly righteous : how much better is it, I sajr,
to hold such a reprobation, than to admit Calvinian reprobation, which
renders the wicked excusable and pitiable, as being condemned for doing
what Omnipotence necessitated them to do ; a reprobation this, which
stigmatizes Christ as a shuffler, for offering to all a salvation from which
most are absolutely debarred ; a cruel reprobation, which represents the
Father of mercies as an unjust sovereign, who takes such measures as
will unavoidably load myriads of unborn men with accumulated con
demnation, out of free wrath to their unformed souls !
Should Mr. Toplady say, " That according to the Gospel which we
preach, the wicked shall certainly be damned ; and therefore the differ-
once between us is but trifling after all ; seeing the Calvinists assert
that some men, namely, those who are eternally reprobated by Divine
sovereignty, shall certainly and unavoidably be damned ; and the anti-
Calvinists say that some men, namely, those who are finally reprobated
by Divine justice, shall be certainly though avoidably damned :" I
reply, that, frivolous as the difference between these two doctrines may
appear to those who judge according to the APPEARANCE of words, it is
as capital as the difference between avoidable ruin and unavoidable
destruction ; between justice and injustice ; between initial election and
finished reprobation ; between saying that GOD is the first cause of the
damniition of the wicked, and asserting that THEY are the first cause
of their own damnation. In a word, it is as great as the difference
between the north and the south ; between a Gospel made up of Anti-
noinian free grace and barbarian free wrath, and a Gospel made up ot
Scriptural free grace, and impartial, retributive justice.
Upon the whole, from the preceding answers it is evident, if I am not
mistaken, that, though the grand Calvinian objection, taken from God's
foreknowledge, may, at first sight, puzzle the simple ; yet it can bear
neither the light of Scripture, nor that of reason ; and it recoils upon
Calvinism, with all the force with which it is supposed to attack " the
saving grace which has appeared to all men."
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES.
467
SECTION IX.
An answer to the charges of robbing the trinity, and encouraging Deism,
which charges Jir. T. brings against the doctrine of the anti-Cal-
vinists.
MR. T. thinks his cause so good, that he supposes himself able, not
only to stand on the defensive, but also to attack the Gospel which we
preach. From his Babel, therefore, (his strong tower of confusion,} he
makes a bold sally, and charges us thus : —
ARG. LXIII. Page 91. " Arminianism robs the Father of his
sovereignty." This is a mistake : Arminianism dares not attribute to
him the grim sovereignty of a Nero ; but if it does not humbly allow
him all the sovereignty which Scripture and reason ascribe to him, so far
it is wrong, and so far we oppose Pelagian Arminianism as well as
Manichean Calvinism. It " robs the Father of his decrees." This is a
mistake : it reverences all his righteous, Scriptural decrees ; though it
shudders at the thought of imputing to him unscriptural, Calvinian
decrees, more wicked and absurd than the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar
and Darius. It " robs the Father of his providence." Another mis
take ! Our doctrine only refuses to make God the author of sin, and to
lead men to the Pagan error of fatalism, or to the Manichean error of
a two -principled God, who absolutely works all things in all men, as a
showman works all things in his puppets ; fixing his necessary virtue on
the good, and necessary wickedness on the wicked, to the subversion of
all the Divine perfections, and to the entire overthrow of the second
Gospel axiom, of Christ's tribunal, and of the wisdom and justice which
the Scriptures ascribe to God, as " Judge of the whole earth."
ARCS. LXIV. (Ibid.) "It [Arminianism] robs the Son of his efficacy
as a Saviour." Another mistake ! It only dares not pour upon him
the shame of being the absolute reprobater of myriads of unborn crea.
tures, whose nature he assumed wLh a gracious design to be absolutely
their temporary Saviour ; promising to prove their eternal Saviour upon
Gospel terms : and, accordingly, he sares aU mankind with a temporary
salvation; and those who obey him with an eternal salvation. The
EFFICACY of his blood is then complete, so far as he absolutely designed
it should be.
ARG. LXV. (Ibid.) " It [Arminianism] robs the Spirit of his efficacy
as a Sanctifier." By no means ; for it maintains that the Spirit, which
is the grace and light of Christ, " enlightens every man that comes into
the world," and leads the worst of men to some temporary good, or at
least restrains them from the commission of a thousand crimes. So far
the Spirit's grace is efficacious in all ; and, if it is not completely and
eternally efficacious in those who " harden their hearts, and by their
wilful hardness treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of
wrath," it is because " the day of wrath," for which the wicked were*
* All angels and men were PRIMARILY made to enjoy an " accepted time," and
a temporary " day of salvation." Those angels and men, who know and improve
their day of salvation, were SECONDARILY made for the day of remunerative love,
and for a kingdom " prepared for them from the beginning of the world." But
those angels and men, who do not know and improve their day of salvation, were
SECONDAR.ILY made for "the day of retributive wrath," and for the "fire prepared
for the devil and his angels."
468 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
secondarily made, is to be " the day of the righteous judgment of God
who will render to every man according to his deeds," Rom. ii, 5, 6 ;
and not the day of the unrighteous judgment of Calvin, who (doctrinally]
renders to every man according to a finished salvation in Christ, pro.
ductive of necessary goodness ; and according to a finished damnation
in Adam, productive of remediless wickedness, and all its dreadful
consequences.
Aim. LXVI. Page 92. Mr. Toplady produces a long quotation from
Mr. Sloss, which, being divested of the verbose dress in which error
generally appears, amounts to this plain abridged argument : " If the
doctrine of Calviniaii election be false, because all mankind are not the
objects of that election, and because all men have an equal right to the
Divine favour, it follows that infidels are right when they say that the
Jewish and the Christian revelations are false : for all mankind are not
elected to the favour of having the Old and New Testament ; and there,
fore Arminianism encourages infidelity."
This argument is good to convince Pelagian levellers that God is
partial in the distribution of his talents, and that he indulges Jews and
Christians with a holy, peculiar election and calling, of which those
who never heard of the Bible are utterly deprived. I have myself made
this remark in the Essay on the gratuitous election, and partial reproba
tion which St. Paul frequently preaches : but the argument does not
affect our anti-Calvinian Gospel. For, 1. WE do riot say that the
Calvmian election is false, because it supposes that God is peculiarly
gracious to some men ; (for this we strongly assert, as well as the
Calvinists ;) but because it supposes that God is so PECULIARLY gra
cious to some men, as to be ABSOLUTELY MERCILESS and unjust to all the
rest of mankind.
2. That very revelation, which Mr. Sloss thinks we betray to the
Deists, informs us, that though all men are not indulged with the peculiar
blessings of Judaism and Christianity, yet they are all chosen and called
to be righteous, at least, according to the covenants made with fallen
Adam and spared Noah. Hence St. Peter says, that. " in every nation,
he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness [according to his light,
though it should be only the lowest degree of that light, which enlightens
every man that cometh into the world] is accepted of him :" and St. Paul
speaks of some " Gentiles, who, though they have not the law of Moses
or the law of Christ, do by nature [in its state of initial restoration
through the seed of life given to fallen Adam in the promise] the things
contained in the law, and are a law unto themselves ; showing the work
of the law, written in their hearts." Therefore, though there is a gra
tuitous election, which draws af er it a gratuitous reprobation from the
blessings peculiar to Judaism and Christianity ; there is no Calvinian
election, which draws after it a gratuitous reprobation from all saving
grace, and necessarily involves the greatest part of mankind in unavoid.
able damnation. Hence, if I mistake not, it appears that when Mr. Sloss
charges us with " having contributed to the prevailing Deism of the
present time, by furnishing the adversaries of Divine revelation with
arguments against Christianity," he (as well as Mr. Toplady) gratui-
tously imputes to our doctrine, what really belongs to Calvinism. For
there is a perfect agreement between the absolute necessity of events,
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 469
wk.ch is asserted by Calvinian bound willers ; and that which is main-
taii-^d by Deistical fatalists : and it is well known that the horrors of the
absolute reprobation which the Calvinists fancy they see in Romans ix,
have tempted many moralists, who read that chapter with the reprobating
glosses of Calvin and his followers, to bid adieu to revelation ; it being
impossible that a scheme of doctrine, which represents God as the abso
lute reprobater of myriads of unborn infants, should have the Parent of
good, and the God of love for its author.
SECTION X.
An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady attempts to retort tlie
charge of Antinomianism, and to show that Calvinism is more con
ducive to holiness than the opposite doctrine.
MR. HILL asserts that Mr. T. " retorts all our objections upon ns in
a most masterly manner." Let us see how he retorts the objection
which we make to absolute predestination — a doctrine this, by which
necessary holiness is imposed upon the elect, and necessary wickedness
upon the reprobates. How the fixing unavoidable holiness upon a
minority, and unavoidable wickedness upon a majority of mankind, is
reconcilable with the glory of Divine holiness, Mr. Toplady informs us
in the following argument : —
ARG. LXVII. Pages 93, 94. Calvinian* " election insures holiness
to a very great part of mankind : whereas precarious grace, deriving all
its efficacy from the caprice of free will, could not insure holiness to any
one individual of the whole species." Had Mr. T. stated the case pro-
perly, he would have said, Calvinian election, which insures necessary
holiness to a minority of mankind ; and Calvinian reprobation, which
insures necessary wickedness to a majority of mankind, promote human
sanctity more than tJie partial election of grace, which formerly afforded
the Jews, and now affords the Christians abundant helps to be peculiarly
holy under their dispensations of peculiar grace : yea, more than the
impartial election of justice, which, under all the dispensations of Divine
grace, " chooses the man that is godly" to rewards of grace and glory :
and more than the reprobation of justice, which is extended to none but
such as bury their talent of grace by wilful unbelief and voluntary dis
obedience.
If Mr. T. had thus stated the case, according to his real sentiments
and ours, every candid reader would have seen that our doctrines of
* The author of A Letter to an Armenian Teacher, (a letter this which I have
quoted in a preceding note,) advances the same argument in these words, p. 5 :
"The doctrine of eternal [he means Calvinian] election," for we believe the right,
godly, eternal election maintained in the Scriptures, " concludes God more mer
ciful than the Arminian doctrine of supposed universal redemption, because that
doctrine which absolutely ascertains the regeneration, effectually calling, the
sanctincation, &c, as well as the eternal salvation of an innumerable company,
&c, Rev. vii, 9, must represent God more merciful than the Arminian scheme,
which cannot ascertain the eternal salvation of one man now living," &c. As
it is possible to kill two birds with one stone, I hope that my answer to Mr. Top
lady will satisfy Mr. M'Gowan.
470 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
grace arc far more conducive to human sanctity than those of Calvin •
(1.) Because Calvinism insures human sanctity to none of the elect: for
a sanctity which is as necessary to a creature, as motion is to a moved
puppet, is not the sanctity of a free agent ; and, of consequence, it is not
human sanctity. (2.) Because Calvinism insures remediless mckednest
to all the reprobate, and remediless wickedness can never be " human
sanctity."
With respect to what Mr. T. says, that our doctrines of grace do
"not insure holiness to any one individual of the whole species;" if by
insured holiness, he means a certain salvation without any work of faith
and labour of love, he is greatly mistaken : for our Gospel absolutely
insures such a salvation, and of consequence infant holiness, to that
numerous part of mankind who die in their infancy. Nay, it absolutely
insures a seed of redeeming, sanctifying grace to all mankind, so long
as the day of grace or initial salvation lasts ; for we maintain, as well as
St. Paul, that " the free gift is come upon all men to justification of life,"
Rom. v, 18 ; and we assert, as well as our Lord, that "of such [of
infants] is the kingdom of heaven," and therefore some capacity to enjoy
it, which capacity we believe to be inseparably connected with a seed of
holiness. Add to this, that our Gospel, as well as Calvinism, insures eter
nal salvation to all the adult who are " faithful unto death." According to
our doctrine, " these sheep shall never perish :" to these elect of justice,
who " make their election of grace sure" by obedience, Christ " gives
eternal life" in the fullest sense of the word : and " none shall pluck
them out of his hand." If Mr. T. had placed our Gospel in this true
light, his objection would have appeared as just as the rhodomontade of
Goliah, when he was going to despatch David.
ARG. LXVIII. Page 94. Mr. T. tries to make up the Antinomian
gap, by doing that which borders upon giving up Calvinism. " No man
(says he) according to our system, has a right to look upon himself
as elected, till sanctifying grace has converted him to faith and good
works."
This flimsy salvo has quieted the fears of many godly Calvinists, when
the Antinomianism of their system stared them in the face. To show
the absurdity of this evasion, I need only ask, Has not every man a right
to believe truth ? If I am absolutely elected to eternal life, while I com
mit adultery and murder, while I defile my father's wife, and deny my
Saviour with oaths and curses ; why may not I believe it ? Is there one
sentence of Scripture which commands me to believe a lie, or forbids
me to believe the truth ? " O, but you have no right to believe yourself
elected, till sanctifying grace has converted you to faith and good works."
Then it follows, that, as an adult sinner, I am not elected to the reward
of the inheritance, or to eternal life in glory, till I believe and do good
works : or it follows that I have no right to believe the truth. If Mr.
T. affirm that I have no right to believe the truth, he makes himself
ridiculous before all the world : and if he say that I am not absolutely
elected till I am converted to faith and good works, it follows that every
time I am perverted from faith and good works, I forfeit my election of
justice. Thus, under the guidance of Mr. T. himself, I escape the fatal
rock of Calvinian election, and find myself in the safe harbour of old,
practical Christianity : " Ye know that no whoremonger, nor unclean
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 471
person, nor covetous man. hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ
and of God : let no man deceive you with vain words." For if I have
no right to believe myself an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ,
while I turn whoremonger ; it is evident that whoredom deprives me of
my right ; much more adultery and murder. Hence it appears that Mr.
T. cannot prop up the Calvinian ark, but by flatly contradicting St. Paul,
which is a piece of impiety ; and by asserting that elect whoremongers
have no right to believe the truth while they commit whoredom, which
is a glaring absurdity.
ARG. LXIX. Page 95. After having made up the Aritinomian gap,
by giving up either Calvinian election, or the incontestable right which
every man has to believe the truth, Mr. Toplady tries to retort the
charge of Antinomianism upon our doctrines of grace ; and he does it
by producing one " Thomson, who, when he was in a fit of intemper
ance, if any one reminded him of the wrath of God, threatened against
such courses, would answer, I am a child of the devil to-day ; but I have
free will ; and to-morrow I will make myself a child of God."
To this I answer: (1.) The man spoke like a person "in a fit of
intemperance," and there is no reasoning with such, any more than with
mad men. But Dr. Crisp, when he was sober, and in the pulpit too,
could say, " A believer may be assured of pardon as soon as he commits
any sin, even adultery and murder. Sins are but scarescrows and bug
bears to frighten ignorant children, but men of understanding see they
are counterfeit things :" and indeed it must be so, if, as Mr. Toplady
tells us, Whatever is, is right, and necessarily flows from the pre
destinating will of Him who does all things well.
2. This Thomson (as appears by his speech) was a rigid free wilier;
one who discarded the first Gospel axiom, and the doctrine of free grace ;
and therefore his error does not afl'ect our Gospel. Nay, we oppose
such free willers as much as we do the rigid bound willers who discard
the second Gospel axiom, and the necessity of sincere obedience in
order to our judicial justification, and eternal salvation.
3. If Thomson had been sober and reasonable, Mr. Wesley might
easily have made up the pretended Antinomian gap of Arminianism five
different ways : (1.) By showing him, that although free will may reject
a good motion, yet it cannot raise one without free grace ; and there
fore, to say, " To-morrow I will make myself a child of God," is as
absurd in a man, as it would be in a woman, to say, " To-morrow I
will conceive alone." It is as impious as to say, " To-morrow I will abso
lutely command God, and he shall obey me." (2.) By showing him
his imminent danger, and the horror of his present state, which he him
self acknowledged when he said, " I am a child of the devil to-day."
(3.) By arguing the uncertain length of the day of salvation. Grace
gives us no room to depend upon to-morrow ; its constant language being,
" Now is the accepted time." (4.) By pressing the hardening nature
of presumptuous sin. And, (5.) By displaying the terrors of just
wrath, which frequently sa^s, "Take the talent from him. Because ye
refused, I will be avenged. I give thee up to thy own heart's lusts, to a
reprobate mind. Thou fool ! this night shall thy soul be required of thee."
These are five rational and Scriptural ways of making up the supposed
Antinomian gap of our Gospel. But if Mr. Thomson had been a Calvinist.
472
and hid 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, arid 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 V 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, repre
sents 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 presen.
Mr. Toplady with the following queries : —
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 473
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 pre
destination 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 f ' 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 incon-
sistence 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 frst principle of the Bible" — An
answer to his challenge about folding 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 wicked
ness 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 there
fore 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.
474
" O ! but God permitted it, and will get himself glory by displaying hia
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 condemna
tion in glory !"
In what respect is sin right ? Can it be right in respect of God, if it
brings him less glory than righteousness 1 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 wrrong 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
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 475
shall overtake the ungodly ; and though the consciences of the ungodly
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
ilis 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 justifica
tion 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 per
haps prove it by an illustration. I want to demonstrate that cheating,
extortion, litigiousness, breaking the peace, robberies, and murders, are
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 \he 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
476 ANSWER TO TOPLADY S
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 sin-
fulness, 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 Cal
vinian 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 1 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
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 477
latter appears to us the worse ; seeing it is better to represent God as
doing nothing, than to represent him as doing wickedness. The truth
lies between these two opinions ; God's providence is peculiarly con
cerned about sin, but it does by no means necessarily bring it about. By
this reasonable doctrine we answer Mr. T.'s challenge, and strike out,
the middle way between his error, and that of Epicurus.
If you ask how far God's providence is concerned about sin, we
reply, that it is concerned about it four ways. First, In MORALLY hin
dering the internal commission of it before it is committed. Secondly,
In PROVIDENTIALLY hindering (at times) the external commission of it,
when it has been intentionally committed. Thirdly, In making, bound
ing, and overruling it, while it is committed. And, Fourthly, In bring
ing about means of properly pardoning, or exemplarily punishing it,
after it has been committed. Dwell we a moment upon each of these
particulars.
1. Before sin is committed, Divine providence is engaged in morally
hindering the internal commission of it. In order to this, God does two
things : first, he forbids sin by natural, verbal, or written laws. And,
secondly, he keeps up our powers of body and soul ; enduing us with
liberty, whereby we may abstain, like moral agents, from the commission
of sin ; furnishing us beside with a variety of motives and helps to
resist every temptation to sin : a great variety this, which includes all
God's threatenings and promises ; all his exhortations and warnings ;
all the checks of our consciences, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit;
all the counsels of good men and the exemplary punishments of the
wicked, together with the tears and blood of Christ, and the other 'pe
culiar means of grace, which God has appointed to keep Christians
from sin, and to strengthen them in the performance of their duty.
2. When sin is committed in the intention, God frequently prevents
the outward commission, or the full completion of it, by peculiar inter
positions of his providence. Thus he hindered the men of Sodom from
injuring Lot, by striking them with blindness : he hindered Pharaoh from
enslaving the Israelites, by drowning him in the Red Sea : he hindered
Balaam from cursing Israel, by putting a bridle in his mouth : he bin.
dered Jeroboam from hurting the prophet who came out of Judah, by
drying up his royal hand, when he stretched it forth, saying, " Lay hold
on him :" he hindered Herod from destroying the holy child Jesus, by
warning Joseph to flee into Egypt, &c, &c. The Scriptures, and the
history of the world, are full of accounts of the ordinary and extraordi.
nary interpositions of Divine Providence, respecting the detection of
intended mischief, and the preservation of persons and states whom the
wicked determined to destroy : and, to go no farther than England, the
providential discovery of the gunpowder plot is as remarkable an instance
as any, that God keeps a watchful eye upon the counsels of men, and
confounds their devices whenever he pleases.
3. During the commission of sin, God's providence is engaged in
marking it, in setting bounds to it, or in overruling it in a manner quite
contrary to the expectation of sinners. When Joseph's brethren con
trived the getting money by selling him into Egypt, God contrived the
preservation of Jacob's household. Thus, when Haman contrived a
gallows *o hang Mordecai thereon, the Lord so overruled this cruel
478 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
design, that Haman was hung on that very gallows. Thus, when Satan
wanted to destroy Job, God set bounds to his rage, and bid the fierce
accuser spare the good man's life. That envious fiend did his worst to
make the patient saint curse God to his face ; but the Lord so overruled
his malice, that it worked for good to Job : for when Job's patience
had had its perfect work, all his misfortunes ended in double prosperity,
and all his tempestuous tossings raised him to a higher degree of per-
fection : for " the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of tempta
tion, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment," 2 Pet. ii, 9.
Thus, again, to preserve the seed of the righteous, God formerly kept
one hundred prophets, and seven thousand true Israelites, from the
cruelty of Jezebel ; and, for the sake of the sincere Christians in Ju-
dea, he shortened the great tribulation spoken of, Matt, xxiv, 22. When
the ungodly are most busy in sinning, God's providence is most employ,
ed in counterworking their sin, in putting bounds to their desperate de
signs, and in making « a way for the godly to escape out of temptation,
that they may be able to bear it : for the rod of the ungodly cometh not
[with its full force] into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put
forth their hand unto iniquity," through such powerful and lasting temp
tations, as would make it impossible for them to stand firm in the way
of duty, Psa. cxxv, 3.
4. When sin is actually committed, the providence of God, in con
junction with his mercy and justice, is employed, either in using means
to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and pardon, or in inflicting
upon them such punishments as seem most proper to Divine wisdom.
To be convinced of it, read the history of man's redemption by Jesus
Christ. Mark the various steps by which Providence brings the guilty
to conviction, the penitent to pardon, the finally impenitent to destruc
tion, and all to some degree of punishment. By what an amazing train
of providential dispensations were Joseph's brethren, for instance,
brought to remember, lament, and smart for their cruel behaviour to him !
And how did God, by various afflictions, bring his rebellious people to
consider their ways, and to humble themselves before him in the land
of their captivity ! What an amazing work had Divine Providence in
checking arid punishing the sin of Pharoah in Egypt ; that of the Israel
ites in the wilderness ; that of David and his house in Jerusalem ; and
that of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar in Babylon !
Evangelically and providentially opening the way for the return of
sinners, and repaying obdurate offenders to their face, make one half
of God's work, as he is the gracious and righteous Governor of men.
We cannot doubt it, if we take notice of the innumerable means by
which conversions and punishments are brought about. To touch only
upon punishments : some extend to the sea, others to the land : some
spread over particular districts, others over whole kingdoms : some
affect a whole family, and others a whole community : some affect the soul,
and others the body : some only fall upon one limb, or one of the senses,
others upon the whole animal frame, and all the senses : some affect
our well being, others our being itself: some are confined to this world,
and others extend to a future state : some are of a temporal, and others
of an eternal nature. Now, since Providence, in subserviency to Divine
justice, manages all these punishments, and their innumerable conse-
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 479
quences, how mistaken is Mr. T. when he insinuates that our doctrine
supposes God to be an idle spectator while sin is committed !
5. With respect to the gracious tempers of the righteous, we believe
that they all flow, (though without Calvinian necessity,) from " the free
gift which is come upon all men, and from the light which enlightens
every man that cometh into the world." And as to their good works,
we are so far from excluding Divine grace and providence, in order to
exalt absolute free will, that we assert, Not one good work would ever
be begun, continued, or ended, if Divine grace within us, and Divine
Providence without us, did not animate our souls, support our bodies,
help our infirmities, and (to use the language of our Church) " prevent,
accompany, and follow us'* through the whole. And yet, in all moral,
and in many natural actions, we are as free from the laws of Calvinian
necessity, as from those of the great mogul.
6. With regard to the families and kingdoms of this world, we assert
that God's providence either baffles, controls, or sets bounds to the bad
designs of the wicked ; while it has the principal hand in succeeding the
good designs of the righteous as often as they have any success : " for,
except the Lord keep the city," as well as the watchman, " the watch-
man waketh but in vain." And with respect to the course of nature,
we believe that it is ordered by his unerring counsel. With a view to
maintain order in the universe, his providential wisdom made admirable
laws of attraction, repulsion, generation, fermentation, vegetation, and
dissolution. And his providential power and watchfulness are, though
without either labour or anxiety^ continually engaged in conducting all
things according to those laws ; except, when on proper occasions, he
suspends the influence of his own natural decrees ; and then fire may
cease to burn ; iron to sink in water ; and hungry lions to devour their
helpless prey. Nay, at the beck of Omnipotence, a widow's cruise of
oil, and barrel of meal, shall be filled without the help of the olive tree,
and the formality of a growing harvest ; a dry rod shall suddenly blossom,
and a green fig tree shall instantly be dried up ; garments in daily use
shall not wear out in forty years ; a prophet shall live forty days with-
out food ; the liquid waves shall afford a solid walk to a believing apostle ;
a fish shall bring back the piece of money which it had swallowed ;
and water shall be turned into wine without the gradual process of
vegetation.
If Mr. T. do us the justice to weigh these six observations upon
the prodigious work, which God's providence carries on in the moral,
spiritual, and natural world, according to our doctrine ; we hope he will
no more intimate that we Atheistically deny, or heretically defame that
Divine attribute.
To conclude : we exactly steer our course between rigid free willers,
who suppose they are independent on God's providence ; and rigid bound
willers, who fancy they do nothing but what fate or God's providence
absolutely binds them to do. We equally detest the error of Epicurus,
and that of Mr. Toplady. The former taught that God took no notice
of sin, the latter says that God, by efficacious permissions and irresistible
decrees, absolutely necessitates men to commit it. But we maintain
that .although God never absolutely necessitated his creatures to sin, yet
his providence is remarkably employed about sin, in all the above-
480 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S
described ways* And if Mr. Toplady will call us defamers of Divine
Providence, and Atheists, because we dare not represent God directly
or indirectly as the author of sin ; we rejoice in so honourable a reproach,
and humbly trust that this, as well as all manner of similar evil, is rashly
said of us for righteousness' sake.
SECTION XII.
Some encouragements for those who, from a principle of conscience, bear
their testimony against the Antinomian doctrine of Calvinian election,
and the barbarous doctrine of Calvinian reprobation.
I HUMBLY hope that I have, in the preceding pages, contended for the
truth of the Gospel, and the honour of God's perfections. My conscience
bears me witness, that I have endeavoured to do it with the sincerity
of a candid inquirer after truth ; and I have not, knowingly, leaped over
one material difficulty, which Mr. T. has thrown in the way of the
laborious divine, whose evangelical principles I vindicate. And now,
judicious reader, as I have done my part as a detector of the fala-
cies by which the modern doctrines of grace are "kept upon their
legs," let me prevail upon thee to do thy part as a judge, and to say if
the right leg of Calvinirsm (i. e. the lawless election of an unscriptural
grace) so draws thy admiration as to make thee overlook the deformity
of the left leg, i. e. the absurd, unholy, sin-insuring, hell-procuring, mer
ciless, and unjust reprobation which Mr. T. has attempted to vindicate.
Shall thy reason, thy conscience, thy Bible — and (what is more than this)
shall all the perfections of thy God, and the veracity of thy Saviour, be
sacrificed on the altar of a reprobation which none of the prophets, apos.
ties, and early fathers ever heard of ? A barbarous reprobation, which
heated Augustine drew from the horrible error of Manichean necessity,
and clothed with some Scripture expressions detached from the context,
and wrested from their original meaning ? A Pharisaic reprobation which
the Church of Rome took from him, and which some of our reformers un
happily brought from that corrupted society into the Protestant Churches?
In a word, a reprobation which disgraces Christianity, when that holy
religion is considered as a system of evangelical doctrine, as much as our
most enormous crimes disgrace it, when it is considered as a system of
pure morality 1 Shall such a system of reprobation, I say, find a place
in thy creed? yea, among thy "doctrines of grace /" God forbid !
Dii meliora piis ! erroreinque hostibus ilium ! I hope better things
of thy candour, good sense, and piety. If prejudice, human authority,
a.nd voluntary humility, seduce many good men into a profound reverence
for that stupendous dogma, be not carried away by their number, or
biassed by their shouts. Remember that all Israel, and good Aaron at
their head, danced once round the golden calf; that deluded Solomon
was seen bowing at the shrine of Ashtaroth, the abomination of the
Sidonians ; that all our godly forefathers worshipped a consecrated wafer
four hundred years ago ; that " all the world wandered after the beast ;"
and that God's chosen people " went whoring after their own inventions,
and once sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils" upon the
VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 481
altar of Moloch. Consider this, I say, and take courage : be not afraid
to " be pilloried in a preface, flogged at a pamphlet's tail," arid treated
as a knave, a felon, or a blasphemer, through the whole of the next
Vindication of the deified Decrees,* which are commonly called Calvinism.
This may be thy lot, if thou shouldst dare to bear thy plain testimony
against the Aritinomian idol of the day.
Nor say that thou art not in Italy or Portugal ; but in a Protestant
land, a land of liberty — in England : for thou mightest meet with more
mercy from reprobating priests in popish Naples than in orthodox Geneva.
Being some years ago in the former of those cities, among the fine
buildings which I viewed, one peculiarly drew my attention. It was a
towering monument, several stories high, erected by the Jesuits in honour
of the Virgin Mary, whose image stood on the top of the elegant struc
ture. But what surprised me most was an Italian inscription engraven
upon a stone of the monument, to this purpose : " Pope Benedict the
XlVth grants a plenary indulgence to all those who shall honour this
holy image ; with privilege to deliver one soul out of purgatory every
time they shall pay their respects to this immaculate mother." While
1 copied this inscription in my pocket book, and dropped to my fellow
traveller an innocent irony about the absurdity of this popish decree, two
or three priests passed by ; they smelt out our heresy, looked displeased,
but did not insult us. Mr. Wesley took, some years ago, a similar liberty
with a literary monument, erected in mystic Geneva, to the honour of
absplute reprobation. He smiled at the severity of Calvinian bigotry ;
and not without reason, since popish bigotry kindly sends a soul out of
purgatory if you reverence the black image which is pompously called
the immaculate mother of God : whereas Calvinian bigotry indirectly
sends to hell all those who shall not bow to the doctrinal image which
she calls Divine sovereignty, upon as good grounds as some ancient
devotees called the appetite of Bel [Baal] and the dragon Divine voracity.
He [Mr. Wesley] added to his smile the publication of an ironical reproof.
A gentleman who serves at the altar of absolute reprobation caught him
in the fact, and said something about " transmitting the criminal to Vir
ginia or Maryland,! ^ not to Tyburn." But free wrath yielded to free
grace. Calvinian mercy rejoiced over orthodox judgment. Mr. Wesley
is spared. The vindicator " of the doctrines of grace," after " rapping
his knuckles," " pillorying him in a preface," and " flogging" him again
and again in two pamphlets, and in a huge book, with a tenderness
peculiar to the house of mercy, where popish reprobation checks Pro
testant heresy ; the vindicator of Protestant reprobation, I say, has let
the gray-headed heretic go with this gentle and civil reprimand, p. 10 : —
" Had I publicly distorted and defamed the decrees of God ; [should it
not be, Had I fairly held out to public view the absurdity of the imaginary
decrees preached by Calvin ?] had I, moreover, advanced so many miles
beyond boldness, as to lay those distortions and defamations at the door
of another ; [should it not be, Had I, moreover, ironically asserted that
monstrous consequences necessarily flow from monstrous premises?]
bold as I am affirmed to be, I could never have looked up afterward.
* Mr. T. calls them the decrees of God, and it is an axiom among the Calvinist*
that " God's decrees are God himself."
t See Mr. Toplady's Letter to Mr. Wesley, p. 6.
VOL. II. 31
482 ANSWER TO TOPLADY'S VINDICATION, ETC.
I should have thought every miscreant I met an honester man than
myself. But Mr. John seems a perfect stranger to these feelings. His
Mums alieneus [his brassy hardness] has been too long transferred from
his conscience to his forehead. On the whole, &c, I had rather let the
ancient offender pass unchastised, than soil my hands in the operation."
As Mr. Wesley is so kindly dismissed by Mr. Toplady, I must also
dismiss thee, gentle reader, and leave thee to decide which is most likely
to convert thee to Calvinian reprobation, Urbanitas or Logica Genevensis ;
the courtesy of our opponents, or their arguments.
In the meantime, if thou desire to know how near Calvinian election
comes to the truth, and what is the reprobation which the Scriptures
maintain, I refer thee to An Essay on the partial election of Grace,
and on the impartial election of Justice. — A double essay this, that
unfolds the difficulties in which prejudiced divines and system makers
have for these fourteen hundred years involved the fundamental doctrine
of election ; and which, I flatter myself, will check party spirit, reconcile
judicious Protestants to one another, and give some useful hints to more
respectable divines, who, in happier days, will exert themselves in the
total extirpation of the errors which disgrace modern Christianity.
THE
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
A POLEMICAL ESSAY
ON TUB
TWIN DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIAN IMPERFECTION
AND
A DEATH PURGATORY.
Be ye perfect. Every one that la perfect shall he as his Master. If them wilt be perfect, go and
sell that ihon hast, and give to the poor; — Jesus Christ.
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud. — St. Paul.
Let no man deceive you, &c. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment} because as he f:he vine] is, so are we [the branches] in this
world.— Si. John.
PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK.
Why the following tract is called " The Last Check to Antinomianism^
and " A Polemical Essay11 — Mr. Hill's creed for perfectionists — A
short account of the manner in which souls are purged from the
remains of sin, according to the doctrine of the heathens, the Romaniste,
and Calvinists — The purgatory recommended by the Church of
England, and vindicated in this book, is Christ's blood, and a soul-
purifying faith.
I CALL the following essay The Last Check to Antinomianism, because
it properly continues and closes the preceding Checks. When a late
fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, attacked the doctrine of sincere obedi
ence, which I defend in the Checks, he said, with great truth, " Sincere
obedience, as a condition, will lead you unavoidably up to perfect
obedience." What he urged as an argument against our views of the
Gospel, is one of the reasons by which we defend them, and perhaps the
strongest of all : for our doctrine leads us as naturally to holiness and
perfect obedience, as that of our opponent does to sin and imperfections.
If the streams of Mr. Hill's doctrine never stop, till they have carried
men into a sea of indwelling sin, where he leaves them to struggle with
waves of immorality, or with billows of corruption, all the days of their
life ; it is evident that our doctrine, which is the very reverse of his,
must take us to a sea of indwelling holiness, where we calmly outride
all the storms which Satan raised to destroy Job's perfection ; and where
all our pursuing corruptions are as much destroyed as the Egyptians
were in the Red Sea.
Truth, like Moses' rod, is all of a piece ; and so is the serpent, which
truth devours. Look at the tail of the error which we attack, and you
will see the venomous mortal sting of indwelling sin. Consider the
but-end of the rod, with which we defend ourselves against that smooth,
yet biting error, and you will find the pearl of great price, the invaluable
diamond of Christian perfection. In the very nature of things, therefore,
our long controversial warfare must end in a close engagement for the
preservation of the sting, or for the recovery of the jewel. If our adver
saries can save indwelling sin, the deadly sting, Antinomianism has won
the day : but if we can rescue Christian perfection, the precious jewel,
then will perfect Christianity again dare to show herself, without being
attacked as a dangerous monster ; or scoffed at as the base offspring of
486 PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK.
self ignorance and Pharisaic pride. This remark on the Antinomiamsm
of our opponents is founded upon the following arguments : —
1. All those who represent Christian believers as lawless, first, by
denying that Christ's law is a rule of judgment, which absolutely requires
our own personal obedience ; secondly, by representing this law as a mere
rule of life ; and, thirdly, by insinuating that this rule of life is, after all,
absolutely impracticable ; that a personal fulfilment of it is not expected
from any believer ; that there never was a Christian who lived one day
without breaking it, ; and that believers shall be eternally saved, merely
because Christ kept it for them : all those, I say, who hold this Solifidian
doctrine concerning Christ's law, are Christian Antmomians with a wit
ness ; that is, they are lawless Christians in principle, if not in practice.
Now, all those who attack the doctrine of constant obedience, and
Christian perfection, which we maintain, are under this threefold error
concerning Christ's law ; and therefore they are all Antinomians, that is,
Christless, lawless in principle, though many of them, we are persuaded,
are not so in practice ; the fear of God causing in them a happy incon
sistency, between their legal conduct, and their lawless tenets.
2. If those who plead for the breaking of Christ's law, by the neces
sary indwelling of a revengeful thought, only for one week, or for one
day, are bare-faced Antinomians ; what shall we say of the men who,
on various pretences, plead for the necessary indwelling of all manner
of corruption, during the term of life 1 Can it be said, with any pro-
priety, that these men are free from the plague of Antinomianism?
3. And lastly, when the reader comes to section xvi, wherein I pro
duce and answer the arguments by which the ministers of the imperfect
gospel defend the continuance of indwelling sin in all believers till death,
he will find that their strongest reasons for this continuance are the
very same which the most lawless apostates, and the most daring
renegadoes daily produce, when they plead for their continuing in
drunkenness, lying, fornication, and adultery : and if these immoral
gospellers deserve the name of gross Antinomians, why should not the
moral men, who hold their loose principles, and publicly recommend
them as " doctrines of grace," deserve the name of refined Antinomians ?
May not a silk weaver, who softly works a piece of taffeta, be as justly
called a weaver, as the man who weaves the coarsest sackcloth ?
Through the force of these observations, after weighing my subject
in the balances of meditation and prayer for some months, I arn come
to these alarming conclusions : (1.) There is no medium between
pleading for the continuance of indwelling sin, and pleading for the con
tinuance of heart Antinomianism. And, (2.) All who attack the doctrine
of an evangelically sinless perfection, deserve, when they do it, (which
I would hope is not often,) the name of advocates for sin, better than
the name of Gospel ministers and preachers of righteousness. I am
PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. 487
conscious that this twofold conclusion wounds, in the tenderest part,
several of my dear, mistaken brethren in the ministry, whom, on various
accounts, I highly honour in the Lord. Nevertheless, I am obliged in
conscience to publish it, lest any of my readers, or any of those whom
they may warn, should be misled into Antinomianism, through the mis
takes of those popular preachers : for the interests of truth, the honour
of Christ's holy religion, and the welfare of precious souls are, and
ought to be to me, and to every Christian, far dearer that the credit of
some good, injudicious men, who inadvertently undermine the cause of
godliness ; thinking to do God service by stretching forth a Solifidian
hand to uphold the ark of Gospel truth. Thus much for the reasons
which have engaged me to call this essay The Last Check to Anti-
nomianism.
If the reader desire to know why I call it also A Polemical Essay,
he is informed, that Richard Hill, Esq., (at the end of a pamphlet
entitled, " Three Letters written to the Rev. J. Fletcher, Vicar , of
Madeley,") has published " A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists."
The ten first articles of this creed, which respect the Arminians, I have
already answered in The Fictitious and Genuine Creed ; and the follow,
ing sheets contain my reply to the last article, which entirely refers to
the perfectionists.
That gentleman introduces the whole of his fictitious creed by these
lines : — " The following confession of faith, however shocking, not to say
blasphemous, it may appear to the humble Christian, must inevitably be
adopted, if not in express words, yet in substance, by every Arminian
and perfectionist whatsoever ; though the last article of it chiefly con-
cerns such as are ordained ministers of the Church of England." The
last article, which is the Creed I answer here, runs thus : —
" Though I have solemnly subscribed to the thirty-nine articles of the
Church of England, and have affirmed that I believe them from my
heart, yet I think our reformers were profoundly ignorant of true
Christianity, when they declared, in the ninth article, that ' the infection
of nature does remain in them which are regenerate ;' and in the
fifteenth that ' all we the rest (Christ only excepted) although baptized
and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things, and if we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' This I
totally deny, because it cuts up, root and branch, my favourite doctrine
of perfection : and therefore let Peter, Paul, James, and John, say what
they will, and let the reformers and martyrs join their syren song, their
eyes were at best but half opened, (for want of a little Foundry eye salve,)
therefore I cannot look upon them as adult believers in Jesus Christ.
«J. F.
«.T W.
. S."
188 PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK.
These initial letters probably stand for John Fletcher, John Wesley,
and Walter Sellon. As Mr. Hill seems to level his witty creed at me
first, I shall first make my observations upon it. The van, without tfte
main body and the rear, may perhaps make a proper stand against that
gentleman's mistake : a dangerous mistake this, which is inseparably
connected with the doctrine of a purgatory little better than that of the
Papists ; it being evident that if we cannot be purged from the remains
of sin in this life, wre must be purged from them in death, or after death ;
or we must be banished from God's presence ; for reason and Scripture
jointly depose that " nothing unholy or unclean shall enter into the
heavenly Jerusalem."
If we understand by purgatory, the manner in which souls, still
polluted with the remains of sin, are, or may be purged from these .
remains, that they may see a holy God, and dwell with him for ever ;
the question, Which is the true purgatory 1 is by no means frivolous : for
it is the grand inquiry, How shall I be eternally saved 1 proposed in dif
ferent expressions.
There are four opinions concerning purgatory, or the purgation of
souls from the remains of sin. The wildest is that of the heathens,
who supposed " that the souls, who depart this life with some moral
filth cleaving to them, are purified by being hanged out to sharp, cuttmg
winds ; by being plunged into a deep, impetuous whirlpool ; or being
thrown into a refining fire in some Tartarean region ;" witness these
lines of Virgil : —
Alice panduntur inanes
Suspensoc ad ventos : aliis sub gurgite vasto
Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni.
The second opinion is that of the Romanists, who teach that such
souls are completely sanctified by the virtue of Christ's blood, and the
sharp operation of a penal, temporary fire in the suburbs of hell. The
third opinion is that of the Calvinists, who think that the stroke of death
must absolutely be joined with Christ's blood and Spirit, and with our
faith, to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, and to kill the inbred man
of sin.
The last sentiment is that of the Church of England, which teaches
that there is no other purgatory but " Christ's blood," — " steadfast, per-
feet faith ;" and " the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, cleansing the
thoughts of our hearts, that we may perfectly love him, and worthily
magnify his holy name." " The only purgatory, wherein we must trust
to be saved," says she, " is the death and blood of Christ, which, if we
apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, [called soon after « a perfect
faith,'] it purgeth and cleanseth us from all our sins. ' The blood of
Christ,5 says St. John, « hath cleansed us from all sin.' « The blood of
PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. 480
Christ,' says St. Paul, * hath purged our consciences from dead works
to serve the living God,' &c. This then is the purgatory wherein all
Christian men put their trust and confidence." (Homily on Prayer,
part iii.)
Nor is this doctrine of purgatory peculiar to the Church of England ;
for the unprejudiced Puritans themselves maintained it in the last cen
tury. Mr. R. Alleine, in his excellent treatise on Godly Fear, printed
in London, 1674, says, page 161, "The Lord Christ is sometimes
resembled to a refining fire, &c. ' He is a refiner's fire, and he shall
sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.' He shrill purify, ' he shall save
his people from their sins,' yet so as by fire. God has his purgatory as
well as his hell ; though not according to that popish dream, a pur
gatory" after this life." And I beg leave to add, — though not according
to that Calvinian dream, a purgatory when we leave this life, — a pur-
gatory in the article of death.
The Scriptural doctrine of purgatory is vindicated, and the new.
fangled doctrine of a death purgatory is exploded in the following
pages : wherein I endeavour both to defend " the glorious liberty of
the children of God," and to attack the false liberty of those " who,
while they promise liberty to others in Christ, are themselves [doctrinally
at least] the servants of corruption ;" pleading hard for the indwelling
of sin in our hearts so long as we live ; and thinking it almost
" blasphemous" to assert that Christ's blood, fully applied by the Spirit,
through a steadfast faith, can radically " cleanse us from all sin," with
out the least assistance from the arrows or sweats of death.
Reader, I plead for the most precious liberty in the world, heart
liberty ; for liberty from the most galling of all yokes, the yoke of heart
corruption. Let not thy prejudices turn a deaf ear to the important
plea. If thou candidly, believingly, and practically receive " the truth
as it is in Jesus, it shall make thee free, and thou shalt be free indeed."
Then, instead of shouting, " Indwelling sin and death purgatory," thou
wilt fulfil the law of liberty ; shouting, " Christ and Christian liberty
for ever !" In the meantime, when thou makest intercession for thy
well wishers, remember the author of this essay, and pray that he may
plead on his knees against the remains of sin, far more earnestly than he
does in these sheets against Mr. Hill's mistakes.
THE
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
SECTION I.
The best way of opposing the doctrines of Christian imperfection and a
death purgatory, is to place the doctrine of Christian perfection in a
proper light — Christian perfection is the maturity of a believer's grace
under the Gospel of Christ — It is absurd to suppose that this perfection
is sinless, if it be measured by our Creator's law of paradisiacal inno
cence and obedience — Established believers fulfil our Redeemer's evan
gelical law of liberty — While they fulfil it, they do not transgress it,
that is, (evangelically speaking,} they do not sin.
MOST of the controversies, which arise between men who fear God,
spring from the hurry with which some of them find fault with what
they have not yet examined, and speak evil of what they do not under
stand. Why does Mr. Hill, at the head of the Calvinists, attack the
doctrine of Christian perfection which we contend for ? Is it because
he and they are sworn enemies to righteousness, and zealous protectors
of iniquity ? Not at all. The grand reason, next to their Calvinian
prejudice, is their inattention to the question, and to the arguments by
which our sentiments are supported. Notwithstanding the manner in
which that gentleman has treated me and my friends in his controversial
heats, I still entertain so good an opinion of him as to think that if he
understood our doctrine, he would no more pour contempt upon it, than
upon the oracles of God. I shall, therefore, endeavour to rectify his
ideas of the glorious Christian liberty which we press after. If pro
ducing light is the best method of opposing darkness, setting the doctrine
of Christian perfection in a proper point of view will be the best means
of opposing the doctrines of Christian imperfection, and of a death pur
gatory. Begin we then by taking a view of our Jerusalem and her per
fection : arid when we shall have " marked her bulwarks," and cleared
the ground between her towers and Mr. Hill's battery, we shall march
up to it, and see whether his arguments have the solidity of brass, or
only the showy appearance of wooden artillery, painted and mounted
like brazen ordnance.
CHRISTIAN PERFECTION! Why should the harmless phrase offend
us? Perfection ! Why should that lovely word frighten us ? Is it not
common and plain ? Did not Cicero speak intelligibly when he called
accomplished philosophers PERFECTOS philosophos, and an EXCELLENT
orator PERFECTUM oratorem 1 Did Ovid expose his reputation when he
said that " Chiron* perfected Achilles in music," or " taught him to play
on the lute to perfection 1" Arid does Mr. Hill think it wrong to observe
that fruit grown to maturity is. in its perfection 1 We, whom that gen-
* Phillyrides puerum cithara pe.rfecit Achillem.
492 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
tleman calls perfectionists, use the word* perfection exactly in the same
sense ; giving that name to the maturity of grace peculiar to established
believers under their respective dispensations ; and if this be an error,
we are led into it by the sacred writers, who use the word perfection
as well as we.
The word predestinate occurs but four times in all the Scriptures, and
the word predestination not once ; and yet Mr. Hill would justly exclaim
against us, if we showed our wit by calling for " a little Foundry [or
Tabernacle'] eye salve," to help us to see the word predestination once
in all the Bible. Not so the word perfection : it occurs, with all its
derivatives, as frequently as most words in the Scriptures, and not
seldom in the very same sense in which we take it. Nevertheless, we
do not lay an undue stress upon the expression ; and if we thought thai
our condescension would answer any good end, we would entirely give up
that harmless and significant word. But, if it is expedient to retain the
unscriptural word trinity, because it is a kind of watchword by which
we frequently discover the secret opposers of the mysterious distinction
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the Divine unity, how much more
proper is it not to renounce the Scriptural word perfection, by which the
dispirited spies, who bring an evil report upon the good land of holiness,
are often detected ? Add to this that the following declaration of our
Lord does not permit us to renounce either the word or the thing : —
** Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this sinful
generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he
cometh in the glory of his Father." Now the words of my motto,
" Be ye perfect," &c, being Christ's own words, we dare no more be
ashamed of them, than we dare desire him to be ashamed of us in the
great day. Thus much for the word perfection.
Again : we give the name of " Christian perfection" to that maturity
of grace and holiness which established adu't believers attain to under
the Christian dispensation : and thus we distinguish that maturity of
grace, both from the ripeness of grace, which belongs to the dispensa
tion of the Jews below us ; and from the ripeness of glory, which belongs
to departed saints above us. Hence it appears, that by " Christian per
fection" we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces
which compose the Christian character in the Church militant.
In other words, Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation made
up of these gracious stars, perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect hu
mility, perfect meekness, perfect self denial, perfect resignation, perfect
* The word perfection comes from the Latin perficio, to perfect, to finish, to
accomplish; it exactly answers to the words ODD, and rtXetow, generally used in
the Old and New Testament. Nor can their derivatives be more literally and
exactly rendered, than by perfect and perfection. If our translators render some,
times the word on by upright and sincere, or by sincerity and integrity, it is be-
cause they know that these expressions, like the original word, admit of a great
latitude. Thus Columel calls wood that has no rotten part, and is perfectly
sound, lignum sincerum ; and Horace says that a sweet cask, which has no bad
smell of any sort, is vas sincerum. Thus also Cicero calls purity of diction,
which is perfectly free from faults against grammar, integritas sertnonis : Plautus
says that a pure, undented virgin is filia Integra. And our translators call the
perfectly pure milk of God's word, the sincere milk of the word, 1 Pet. ii, 2. If,
therefore, the words sincerity and integrity are taken in their full latitude, they
convey the fullest meaning of non, and r^AetoD/s, that is, perfection.
LAST CHECK TO AIS'TINOMIANISM. 493
hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies, as well as for our earthly
relations ; and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God, through the
explicit knowledge of our Mediator Jesus Christ. And as this last star
is always accompanied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites,
we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase " perfect love," instead of
the word perfection ; understanding by it the pure love of God shed
abroad in the hearts of established believers by the Holy Ghost, which
is abundantly given them under the fulness of the Christian dispensation.
Should Mr. Hill ask if the Christian perfection which we contend
for, is a sinless perfection, we reply, Sin is the transgression of a Divine
law, and man may be considered either as being under the anti-evangelical,
Christless, remediless law of our Creator ; or, as being under the evan
gelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redee?ner : and the question
must bo answered according to the nature of these two laws.
With respect to the FIRST, that is, the Adamic, Christless law of
innocence arid paradisiacal perfection, we utterly renounce the doctrine
of sinless perfection, for three reasons i (1.) We are conceived and
born in a state of sinful degeneracy, whereby thai law is already vir
tually broken. (2.) Our mental and bodily powers arc so enfeebled,
that we cannot help actually breaking that law in numberless instances,
even after our full conversion. And, (3.) When once we have broken
that law, it considers us as transgressors for ever : nor can it any more
pronounce us sinless, than the rigorous law which condemns a man to
be hanged for murder, can absolve a murderer, let his repentance and
faith be ever so perfect. Therefore, I repeat it, with respect to the
Christless law of paradisiacal obedience, we entirely disclaim sinle-ss
perfection ; and, improperly speaking, we say with Luther, " In every
good work the just man sinneth ;" that is, he more or less transgresses
the law of paradisiacal innocence, by not thinking so deeply, not speak
ing so gracefully, not acting so properly, not obeying so vigorously, as
he would do if he were still endued with original perfection, and para
disiacal powers. Nor do we, in the same sense, scruple to say with
Bishop Latimer, " He [Christ] saved us, not that we should be without
sin ; that no sin should be left in our hearts : no ; he saved us not so.
For all manner of imperfections remain in us, yea, in the best of us :
so that, if God should enter into judgment with us, [according to the
Christless law given to Adam before the fall,] we should be damned.
For there neither is nor was any man born into this world, who could
say, I am clean from sin, [I fulfil the Adamic law of innocence,] except
Jesus Christ :" and in that sense we have all reason to pray with David,
" Cleanse thou me from my secret faults ;" for " if thou wilt mark what
is done amiss, Lord, who may abide it ?" If thou wilt judge us accord
ing to the law of paradisiacal perfection, " what man living shall b«
justified in thy sight ?" But Christ has so completely fulfilled our
Creator's paradisiacal law of innocence, which allows neither of repent
ance nor of renewed obedience, that we shall not be judged by that law>
bat by a law adapted to our present state and circumstances, a milder
law, called " the law of Christ," i. e. the Mediator's law, which is, like
himself, " full of evangelical grace and truth."
To the many arguments which I have advanced in the Checks in
defence of this law, I shall add one more, taken from Heb. vii, 12 : —
494 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIATttSM.
" The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change
also of the law." From these words I conclude, that if the law under
which the Jews were, was of necessity changed when God substituted
the priesthood of Christ for that of Aaron, much more was the Adamic
law of paradisiacal innocence of necessity changed, when God gave to
Adam by promise " the Bruiser of the serpent's head, the High Priest
after the order of Melchisedec." For if a change in the external
.priesthood of necessity implied a change of the Mosaic law, how much
more did the institution of the priesthood itself necessarily imply a
change of the Adamic law, which was given without any mediating
priest !
If Mr. Hill, therefore, will do our doctrine justice, we entreat him to
consider that " we are not without law to God," nor yet under a Christ-
less law with Adam ; but " under a law to Christ," that is, under the law
of our royal Priest, the evangelical " law of liberty :" a more gracious
-law this, which allows a sincere repentance, and is fulfilled by loving
faith. Now as we shall be "judged by this law of liberty," we main-
tain not only that it may, but also that it must be kept ; and that it is
actually kept by established Christians, according to the last and fullest
edition of it, which is that of the New Testament. Nor do we think it
** shocking," to hear an adult believer say, " The law of the Spirit ol
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law [of innocence, <or the letter of the Mosaic law] could
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son,
condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be
[evangelically] fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the
•Spirit," Rom. viii, 2, &c.
Reason and Scripture seem to us to confirm this doctrine : for we
think it is far less absurd to say that the king and parliament make laws
which no Englishman can possibly keep ; than to suppose that Christ
.and his apostles have given us precepts which no Christian is able to
observe : and St. James assures us the evangelical law of Christ and
liberty is that by which we shall stand or fall in judgment : " So speak
ye, and so do," says he, " as they that shall be judged by the law of
liberty," James ii, 12. We find the Christian edition of that law, in all
parts of the New Testament, but especially in our Lord's sermon on the
mount, and in St. Paul's description of charity. We are persuaded, with
St. John and St. Paul, that as " sin is the transgression," so penitential,
pure "love is the fulfilling of that evangelical law;" and therefore do
not scruple to say with the apostle, " that he who loveth another hath
.fulfilled it ; and that there is no occasion of stumbling, i. e. no sin in
.him ;" fulfilling the law of Christ, and sinning, (in the evangelical sense
.of the word,) being as diametrically opposite to each other as obeying
find disobeying, working righteousness and working iniquity.
We do not doubt but, as a reasonable, loving father never requires
of his child, who is only ten years old, the work of one who is thirty
y6ars of age ; so our heavenly Father never expects of us, in our debili
tated state, the obedience of immortal Adam in paradise, or the uninter
rupted worship of sleepless angels in heaven. We are persuaded,
therefore, that, for Christ's sake, he is pleased with an humble obedience
to our present light ; and a loving exertion of our present powers ;
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM. 495
accepting our Gospel services " according to what we have, and not
according to what we have not." Nor dare we call that loving exertion
of our present power, sin, lest by doing so we should contradict the
Scriptures, confound sin and obedience, and remove all the landmarks
which divide the devil's common from the Lord's vineyard. And if at
any time we have exaggerated the difficulty of keeping Christ's law, we
acknowledge our error, and confess that, by this mean, we have Cal-
vinistically traduced the equity of our gracious God, and inadvertently
encouraged the Antinomian delusions.
To conclude. We believe, that although adult, established believers,
or perfect Christians, may admit of many involuntary mistakes, errors,
and faults ; and of many involuntary improprieties of speech and be
haviour ; yet so long as their will is bent upon doing God's will ; so long
as they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit ; so long as they
fulfil the law of liberty by pure love, they do not sin according to the
Gospel : because (evangelically speaking) " sin is the transgression, and
love is the fulfilling of that law." Far then from thinking that there is
the least absurdity in saying daily, " Vouchsafe to keep me this day
without sin," we doubt not but in the believers, who " walk in the light
as Christ is in the light," that deep petition is answered, — the righteous-
ness of the law, which they are under, is fulfilled ; and, of consequence,
.an evangelically sinless perfection is daily experienced. I say evan
gelically sinless, because, without the word evangelically, the phrase
" sinless perfection" gives an occasion of cavilling to those who seek it,
as Mr. Wesley intimates in the following quotation, which is taken from
his " Plain Account of Christian Perfection," p. 60 : — " To explain my
self a little farther on this head : (1.) Not only sin, properly so called,
that is, a voluntary transgression of a known law ; but sin, improperly
so called, that is, an involuntary transgression of a Divine law, known or
unknown, needs the atoning blood. (2.) I believe there is no such per
fection in this life as excludes these involuntary transgressions which I
apprehend to be naturally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes
inseparable from mortality. (3.) Therefore sinless perfection is -a
phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself. (4.) I
believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these in
voluntary transgressions. (5.) Such transgressions you may call sins if
you please : I do not, for the reasons above mentioned."
SECTION II.
Pious Calvinists have had, at times, nearly the same views of Christian
perfection as we have — They dissent from us chiefly because they
confound the anti-evangelical law of innocence, and the evangelical laic
of liberty ; Adamic and Christian perfection ; and because they do
not consider that Christian perfection, falling injinitely short of God's
absolute perfection, admits of a daily growth.
IF it were necessary, we could support the doctrine of Christian per
fection stated in the preceding pages, by almost numberless quotations
from the most judicious and pious Calvinists, the sentiments of two or
490 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
three of them may edify the reader, and give him a specimen of the
candour with which they have written upon the subject, when a spring,
tide of evangelical truth raised them above the shallows of their
system.
" If love be sincere," says pious Mr. Henry, "it is accepted as
the fulfilling of the law. Surely we serve a good Master, that has
summed up all our duty in one word, and that a short word, and a sweet
word, love, the beauty and harmony of the universe. Loving and being
loved is all the pleasure, joy, and happiness of an intelligent being. God
is love ; and love is his image upon the soul. Where it is. the soul is
well moulded, and the heart fitted for every good work." (Henry1 s Ex
position on Rom. xiii, 10.) Again : " It is well for us that, by virtue of
the covenant of grace, upon the score of Christ's righteousness, sincerity
is accepted as our Gospel perfection." (Henry on Gen. vi, 2.) See the
note on the word perfection, sec. 1.
Pious Bishop Hopkins is exactly of the same mind. " Consider,"
says he, " for your encouragement, that this is not so much the absolute
and legal perfection of the work, as the [evangelical] perfection of the
worker, that is, the perfection of the heart, which is looked at and
rewarded by God. There is a twofold perfection, the perfection of the
work, and that of the workman. The perfection of the work is, when
the work does so exactly and strictly answer the holy law of God, that
there is no irregularity in it. The perfection of the workman is nothing
but inward sincerity and uprightness of the heart toward God, which
may be where there are many imperfections and defects intermingled.
If God accepted and rewarded no work, but what is absolutely perfect
in respect of the law ; this would take off the wheels of all endeavours,
for our obedience falls far short of legal perfection in this life ; [the
Adamic law making no allowance for the weakness of fallen man.] But
we do not stand upon such terms as these with our God. It is not so
much what our works are, as what our heart is, that God looks at and
will reward. Yet know, also, that if our hearts are perfect and sincere,
we shall endeavour, to the utmost of our power, that our works may be
perfect, according to the strictness of the law."
Archbishop Leighton pleads also for the perfection we maintain, and
by Calvinistically supposing that perseverance is necessary to Christian
perfection, he extols it above Adam's paradisiacal perfection. Take
his own words abridged : — " By obedience, sanctification is here inti
mated : it signifies both habitual and actual obedience, renovation of the
heart, and conformity to the Divine will : the mind is illuminated by the
Holy Ghost to know and believe the Divine will ; yea, this faith is the
great and chief part of this obedience, Rom. i, 8. The truth of the
doctrine is impressed upon the mind, hence flows out pleasant obedience
and full [he does not say of sin, but] of love : hence all the affections,
and the whole body with its members, learn to give a willing obedience,
and submit to God ; whereas before they resisted him, being under the
standard of Satan. This obedience, though imperfect, [when it is
measured by the Christless law of paradisiacal innocence] yet has a
certain, if I may so say, imperfect perfection. [It is not legally but
evangelically perfect.] Ic is universal [or perfect] three manner of ways.
(1.) In the subject: it is not in the tongue alone, or in the hand, &ct
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANI33I. 497
but has its root in the heart. (2.) In the object : it embraces the whole
law, &c. It accounts no command little, which is from God, because
he is great and highly esteemed ; no command hard, though contrary
to the flesh, because all things are easy to love ; there is the same
authority in all, as St. James Divinely argues. And this authority is
the golden chain to all the commandments, [of the law of liberty
preached by St. James,] which, if broken in any link, falls to pieces.
(3.) In the duration : the whole man is subjected to the whole law, and
that constantly. That this threefold perfection of obedience is not a,
picture drawn by fancy, is evident in David, Psalm cxix." (Archbishop
JLciglilon's Com. on *87. Peter, p. 15.)
That learned prelate, as a pious man, could not but be a perfectionist ;
though, as a Calvinist, he frequently spoke the language of the imper-
fectionists. Take, one more quotation, where he grants all that we con-
tend for : — " To be subject to him [God] is truer happiness than to
command the whole world. Pure love reckons thus, though no farther
reward were to follow ; obedience to God (the perfection of his creature,
and its very happiness) carries its full recompense in its own bosom.
Yea, love delights most in the hardest services, &c. It is love to him,
indeed, to love the labour of love, and the service of it ; and that not so
much because it leads to rest, and ends in it, but because it is service to
him whom we love : yea, that labour is in itself a rest, it is so natural
and sweot to a soul that loves. As the revolution of the heavens, which
is a motion in rest, and rest in motion, changes not place, though run
ning still ; so the motion of love is truly heavenly, and circular still in
God ; beginning in him, and ending in him ; and so not ending, but
moving s'ill without weariness, &c. According as the love is, so is
the soul : it is made like to, yea, it is -nade one with that which it
loves, &c. By the love of God it is made Divine, is one with him, &c.
Now though fallen from this, we arc invited to it ; though degenerated
and accursed in sinful nature, yet we are renewed in Christ, and this
commandment is renewed in him, and a new way of fulfilling it [even
the way of faith in our Redeemer] is pointed out." (Select Work? of
Archbishop Leighton, p. 461.) Where lias Mr. Wesley ever ex
ceeded this high description of Christian perfection ?
I grant that this pious prelate frequently confounds our celestial per
fection of glory with our progressive perfection of grace, and on that
account supposes that the latter is not attainable in this life : but even
then he exhorts us to quit ourselves like sincere perfectionists. " Though
men," says he, " fall short of their aim, yet it is good to aim high.
They shall shoot so much the higher, but not full so high as they aim.
Thus we ought to be setting the state of perfection in our eye, resolving*
* I lliink I have said in one of the Checks that Archbishop Leigh ton doubted
whether those who do not sincerely aspire after perfection, have saving grace :
that doubt (if I now remember right) is Mr. Alleinc's, though this quotation from
the archbishop shows that he was not far from Alleine's sentiment, if he was not
in it. Pious Dr. Doddridge is explicit on this head : — " To allow yourself," said
he, "deliberately to sit down satisfied with any imperfect attainments in religion,
and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not
desire, nay, as what you secretly resolve that you will not pursue, is one of the
,nost fatal signs we can well imagine, that you arc an entire stranger to the first
principles of it." (Doddridgfs Rise and Progress, chap. xx.
VOL. II. 32
498 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
not to rest content below that, and to come as near as we can, even
before we come at it, Phil, iii, 11, 12. This is to act as one that has
such a hope, such a state in view, and is still advancing toward it."
(Ibid. p. 184.) The mistake of the archbishop will be particularly
pointed out where I shall show the true meaning of Phil, iii, 11, the
passage behind which he screens the remains of his Calvinian prejudices.
By the preceding quotations, and by two more from the Rev. Messrs.
Whitefield and Romaine, which the reader will find at the end of sec. ix,
it appears that pious Calvinists come at times very near the doctrine of
Christian perfection ; and if they do not constantly enforce it, it is, we
apprehend, chiefly for the following reasons : —
1. They generally confound the Christless law of innocence with the
evangelical law of Christ ; and because the former cannot be fulfilled by
believers, they conclude that pure obedience to the latter is impracticable.
2. They confound peccability with sin; the power of sinning with
the actual use of that power. And so long as they suppose that a baro
natural capacity to sin, is either original sin, or an evil propensity, v/e do
not wonder at their believing that original sin, or evil propensities, must
remain in our hearts till death removes us from this tempting world.
But on what argument do they found this notion? Did not God create
angels and man peccable ? Or, in other terms, did he not endue them with
a power to sin, or not to sin, to disobey, or obey, as they pleased ? Did not
(he event show that they had this tremendous power ? But would it not be
t; blasphemous" to assert that God created them full of original sin and
evil propensities ? If an adult believer yields to temptation, and falls
i;ito sin as our first parents did, is it a proof that he never was cleansed
fVom inbred sin ? If sinning necessarily demonstrates that the heart
was nl ways teeming with depravity, will it not follow that Adam and
Eve were tainted wiih sin before their will began to decline from original
righteousness? Is it not, however, indubitable, from the nature of God,
from Scripture, and from sad experience, that after having been created
in God's sinless image and holy likeness, our first parents, as well as
.some angels, were " drawn away of their own self-conceited lust," and
became evil by the power of their own free agency? Is it reasonable
to think that the most holy Christians, so long as the day of their visita
tion and probation lasts in this tempting wilderness, are in that respect
above Adam iu paradise, and above angels in heaven ? And may we
not conclude that as Satan and Adam insensibly fell into sin, the one
from the height of his celestial perfection, and the other from the summit
of his paradisiacal excellence, without a.'iy previous bias inclining hira
to corruption ; so may those believers, whose hearts have been com
pletely purified by faith, gradually depart from the faith, and fall so low
as to " account the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctified,
an unholy thing?"
3. The prejudices of our opponents are increased by their confound
ing Adarnic* and Christian perfection ; two perfections, these, which
* Between Adamic and Christian perfection we place the gracious innocence of
little children. Th,.>y are not only full of peccability like Adam, but debilitated
in all their animal and rational faculties, and, of consequence, fit to become an
(;asy prey to temptation, through the weakness of their reason, and the corruption
of their concupiscible and irascible powers. Nevertheless, till they begin per-
LAST CHECK TO ANTINCKHIANISM. 499
are as distinct as the garden of Eden and the Christian Church.
Adamic perfection came from God our Creator in paradise, before any
trial of Adam's faithful obedience : and Christian perfection comes from
God our Redeemer and Sanctifier in the Christian Church, after a severe
trial of the obedience of faith. Adamic perfection might be lost by
doing despite to the preserving love of God our Creator; and Christian
perfection may be lost by doing despite to the redeeming love of God
our Saviour. Adamic perfection extended to the whole man : his body
was perfectly sound in all its parts, and his soul in all its powers. But
Christian perfection extends chiefly to the will, which is the capital,
moral power of the soul ; leaving the understanding ignorant of ten
thousand things, and the body "dead because of sin."
4. Another capital mistake lies at the root of the opposition which
our Calvinian brethren make against Christian perfection. They
imagine that, upon our principles, the grace of an adult Christian is like
the body of an adult man, which can grow no more. But this conse
quence flows from their fancy, and not from our doctrine. We exhort
the strongest believers to " grow up to Christ in all things ;" asserting
that there is no holiness and no happiness in heaven, (much less upon
earlh.) which does not admit of a growth, except the holiness and hap-
piness of God himself; because, in the very nature of things, a being
absolutely perfect, and in every sense infinite, can never have any thing
added to him. But infinite additions may be made to beings every way
finite, such as glorified saints and holy angels are.
Hence it appears that the comparison which we make between the
ripeness of a fruit, and the maturity of a believer's grace, cannot be
carried into an exact parallel. For a perfect Christian grows far more
than a feeble believer, whose growth is still obstructed by the shady
thorns of sin. and by the draining suckers of iniquity. Beside, a frisk
which is come to its perfection, instead of growing, fails and decays :
whereas a " babe in Christ" is called to grow till he becomes a perfect
Christian ; a perfect Christian, till he becomes a disembodied spirit : a
disembodied spirit, till he reaches the perfection of a saint glorified in
body and soul ; and such a saint, till he has fathomed the infinite depths
of Divine perfection, that is, to all eternity. For if we go ou from
faith to faith, and are spiritually " changed from glory to glory,'' bv
beholding God <; darkly through a glass" on earth ; much more shall we
experience improving changes, when we shall " see him as he is," and
behold him face to face in various, numberless, and still brighter dis
coveries of himself in heaven. If Mr. Hill did but consider this, he
would no more suppose that Christian perfection is the Pharisaic rickets
sonally to prefer moral evil to moral good, we may consider them as evanuelioallv
or graciously innocent. I say graciously innocent, because, if we consider them
in the seed of fallen Adam, we find them naturally " children of wrath," and
under the curse : but if we consider them "in the seed of the woman," which
was promised to Adam and to his posterity, we find them graciously placed in a
state of redemption and evangelical salvation. For "the Free gift which is come
upon all men to justification," belongs first to them, Christ having .sanctified
infancy first. And therefore we do not scruple to say, after our Lord, " Of such
is the kingdom of heaven." Now the kingdom of heaven is riot of sinners of>
sinners, but of little children, as being innocent through the free gift; or of
adults, as being penitent, that is, turned from their sins to Christ.
500 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOXIAXISX.
which put a stop to the growth of believers, and turn them into " tern-
porary monsters." Again : —
Does a well-meant mistake defile the conscience ? You inadvertently
encourage idleness and drunkenness, by kindly relieving an idle, drunken
beggar, who imposes upon your charity by plausible lies : is this loving
error a sin ? A blundering apothecary sends you arsenic for alum ; you
use it as alum, and poison your child ; but are you a murderer, if you
give the fatal dose in love ? Suppose the tempter had secretly mixed
some of the forbidden fruit with other fruits that Eve had lawfully
gathered for use ; would she have sinned if she had inadvertently eaten
of it, arid given a share to her husband? After humbly confessing
and deploring her undesigned error, her secret fault, her accidental
offence, her involuntary trespass, would she not have been as innocent
as ever ? I go farther still, and ask, May not a man who holds many
right opinions, be a perfect lover of the world ? And by a parity of
reason, may not a man who holds many wrong opinions, be a perfect
lover of God ? Have not some Calvinists died with their hearts over,
flowing with perfect love, and their heads full of the notion that God set
his everlasting, absolute hatred upon myriads of men before the founda
tion of the world ? Nay, is it not even possible that a man, whose heart
is renewed in love, should, through mistaken humility, or through weak
ness of understanding, oppose the name of Christian perfection, when
he desires, and perhaps enjoys the thing?
Once more. Does not St. Paul's rule hold in spirituals as well as
in temporals ? " It is accepted according to what a man hath, and not
according to what he hath not." Does our Lord actually require more
of believers than they can actually do through his grace ? And when
they do it to the best of their power, docs he not see some perfection
in their works, insignificant as those works may be? "Remove this
immense heap of stones," says an indulgent father to his children,
" and be diligent according to your strength." While the eldest, a
strong man, removes rocks, the youngest, a little child, is as cheerfully
busy as any of the rest in carrying sands and pebbles. Now, may not his
childlike obedience be as excellent in its degree, and, of consequence,
as acceptable to his parent, as the manly obedience of his eldest brother ?
Nay, though he does next to nothing, may not his endeavours, if they
are more cordial, excite a smile of superior approbation of his loving
father, who looks at the disposition of the heart more than at the ap
pearance of the work ? Had the believers of Sardis cordially laid out
all their talents, would our Lord have complained that he did not " find
their works perfect before God ?" Rev. iii, 2. And was it not accord.
ing to this rule of perfection that Christ testified the poor widow, who
had given but two ?nitest had nevertheless cast more into the treasury
than all the rich, " though they had cast in much ;" because, our Lord
himself being Judge, she had " given all that she had ?" Now could
she give, or did God require more than her all ? And when she thus
heartily gave her all, did she not do (evangelically speaking) a perfect
work, according to her dispensation and circumstances ?
We flatter ourselves that if these Scriptural observations and rational
queries do not remove Mr. Hill's prejudice, they will at least make way
for a more candid perusal of the following pages.
LAST CHECK TO AXTIXOMIANISM. 501
SECTION Til.
Several objections raised against our doctrine are solved merely by con
sidering the nature of Christian perfection — It is absurd to say that
all our Christian perfection is in the person of Christ.
I REPEAT it, if our pious opponents decry the doctrine of Christian
perfection, it is chiefly through misapprehension ; it being as natural
for pious men to recommend exalted piety, as for covetous persons to
extol great riches. And this misapprehension frequently springs from
their inattention to the nature of Christian perfection. To prove it, I
need only oppose our definition of Christian perfection to the OBJECTIONS
which are most commonly raised against our doctrine.
I. " Your doctrine of perfection leads to pride." Impossible ! if
Christian perfection is " perfect humility."
II. " It exalts believers ; but it is only to the state of the vain-glori
ous Pharisee." Impossible ! If our perfection is " perfect humility,"
it makes us sink deeper into the state of the humble, justified publican.
III. " It fills men with the conceit of their own excellence, and makes
them say fo a weak brother, Stand &?/, I am holier than tJwu." Impos
sible again! We do not preach Pharisaic, but Christian perfection,
which consists in "perfect poverty of spirit," and in that "perfect
charity which vaunteth not itself, honours all men, and bears with the
infirmities of the weak !"
IV. " It sets repentance aside." Impossible ! for it is " perfect
repentance."
V. " It will make us slight Christ." More and more improbable !
How can " perfect faith" in Christ make us slight Christ ? Could it be
more absurd to say that the perfect love of God will make us despise
God?
VI. " It will supersede the use of mortification and watchfulness ; for.
if sin be dead, what need have we to mortify it and to watch against it ?"
This objection has some plausibility ; I shall therefore answer it in
various ways: (1.) If Adam, in his state of paradisiacal perfection,
needed perfect watchfulness and perfect mortification, how much more
do we need them who find « the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"
planted, not only in the midst of our gardens, but in the midst of our
houses, markets, and churches ? (2.) When we are delivered from sin,
are we delivered from peccability and temptation 1 When the inward man
of sin is dead, is the devil dead ? Is the corruption that is in the world
destroyed ? And have we not still our five senses and our appetite, " to
keep with all diligence," as well as our " hearts," that the tempter may
not enter into us, or that we may not enter into his temptations'?
Lastly : Jesus Christ, as son of Mary, was a perfect man : but how was
he kept so to the end ? Was it not by " keeping his mouth with a bridle,
while the ungodly were in his sight," and by guarding all his senses with
a perfect assiduity, that the wicked one might not touch them to his
hurt? And if Christ our head kept his human perfection only through
watchfulness, and constant self denial ; is it not absurd to suppose that
his perfect members can keep their perfection without treading in
his steps?
502 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANI3M.
VII. Another objection probably stands in Mr. Hill's way : it runs
thus : — " Your doctrine of perfection makes it needless for perfect Chris
tians to say the Lord's prayer : for if God vouchsafes to ' keep us this
day without sin,' we shall have no need to pray at night, that God wo aid
' forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' "
. We answer : (1.) Though a perfect Christian does not trespass volun
tarily, and break the law of love, yet he daily breaks the law of Adamic
perfection through the imperfection of his bodily and mental powers : and
he has frequently a deeper sense of these involuntary trespasses than
many weak believers have of their voluntary breaches of the moral law.
(2.) Although a perfect Christian has a witness, that his sins are now
forgiven, in the court of his conscience, yet he " knows the terrors of
the Lord :" he hastens to meet the awful day of God : he waits for the
appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the character of a righteous
Judge : he keeps an eye to the awful tribunal, before which he must
soon " be justified or condemned by his words :" he is conscious that
his final justification is not yet come ; and therefore he would think
himself a monster of stupidity and pride, if, with an eye to his absolu
tion in the great day, he scrupled saying to the end of his life, " Forgive
us our trespasses." (3.) He is surrounded with sinners, -who daily
" trespass against him," and whom he is daily bound to " forgive ;" and
his praying that he may be forgiven now, and in the great day, " as he
forgives others," reminds him that he may forfeit his pardon, and binds
him more and more to the performance of the important duty of forgiv
ing his enemies. And, (4.) His charity is so ardent that it melts him,
as it were, into the common mass of mankind. Bowing himself, there
fore, under all the enormous load of all the wilful trespasses which his
fellow mortals, and particularly his relatives and his brethren, daily
commit against God, he says, with a fervour that imperfect Christians
seldom feel, Forgive us our trespasses, fyc ; " we are heartily sorry
for our misdoings, [my own and those of my fellow sinners ;] tho
remembrance of them is grievous unto us ; the burthen of them is into
lerable." Nor do we doubt but, when the spirit of mourning leads a
numerous assembly of supplicants into the vale of humiliation, the per
son who puts the shoulder of faith most readily to the common burden of
sin, and heaves most powerfully in order to roll the enormous load into
the Redeemer's grave, is the most perfect penitent — the most exact
observer of the apostolical precept, " Bear ye one another's burdens, and
so fulfil the law of Christ ;" and, of consequence, we do not scruple to say
that such person is the most 'perfect Christian in the whole assembly.
If Mr. Hill consider these answers, we doubt not but he will confess
that his opposition to Christian perfection chiefly springs from his
inattention to our definition of it, which I once more sum up in these
comprehensive lines of Mr. Wesley : —
O let me gain perfection's height !
O lot me into nothing fall !
(As less than nothing in thy sight,)
And feel that Christ is all in all !
VIII. Our opponents produce another plausible objection, which runs
thus : — " It is plain from your account of Christian perfection that adult
believers are free from sin* their hearts being purified by perfect faith,
LAST CHECK TO ANTIIfOMIANISM. 503
and filled with perfect love. Now sin is that which humbles us, and
drives us to Christ ; and therefore, if we were free from indwelling sin,
we should lose a most powerful incentive to humility, which is the
greatest ornament of a true Christian."
We answer, Sin never humbled any soul. Who has more sin than
Satan? And who is prouder? Did sin make our first parents humble?
If it did not, how do our brethren suppose that its nature is altered for
the ^better ? Who was humbler than Christ ? But was he indebted to
sin for his humility ? Do we not see daily that the more sinful men are,
the prouder they are also ? Did Mr. Hill never observe that the holier a
believer is, the humbler he shows himself? And what is holiness but
the reverse of sin ? If sin be necessary to make us humble and keep us
near Christ, does it not follow that glorified saints, whom all acknow
ledge to be sinless, are all proud despisers of Christ ? If humility is
obedience, and if sin is disobedience, is it not as absurd to say that sin will
make us humble, i. e. obedient, as it is to affirm that rebellion will make
us loyal, and adultery chaste 1 See we not sin enough, when we look ten
or twenty years back, to humble us to the dust for ever, if sin can do
it ? Need we plead for any more of it in our hearts and lives ? If the
sins of our youth do not humble us, are the sins of our old age likely to
do it ? If we contend for the life of the man of sin that he may subdue
our pride, do we not take a large stride after those who say, Let us su\
that grace may abound. Let us continue full of indwelling sin that
humility may increase ! What is, after all, the evangelical method of
getting humility ? Is it not to look at Christ in the manger, in Gethse-
marie, or on the cross ; to consider him when he washes his disciples'
feet ; and obediently to listen to him when he says, " Learn of me to be
meek and lowly in heart ?" Where does the Gospel plead the cause of
the Barabbas, and the thieves within ? Where does it say that they mav
indeed be nailed to the cross, and have " their legs broken," but their
life must be left whole within them, lest we should be proud of their
death ? Lastly : what is indwelling sin but indwelling pride ? At least, is
not inbred pride one of the chief ingredients of indwelling sin? And how
can 'jjride be productive of humility ? Can a serpent beget a dove ? And
will not men gather grapes from thorns, sooner than humility of heart
from haughtiness of spirit ?
IX. The strange mistake which I detect would not be so prevalent
among our prejudiced brethren, if they were not deceived by the plausi
bility of the following argument : — " When believers are humbled for a
thing, they are humbled by it : but believers are humbled for sin ; and
therefore they are humbled by sin."
The flaw of this argument is in the first proposition. We readily
grant that penitents are humbled for sin ; or, in other terms, that they
humbly repent of sin ; but we deny that they are humbled by sin. To
show the absurdity of the whole argument, I need only produce a
sophism exactly parallel : "When people are blooded for a thing, they
are blooded by it : but people are sometimes blooded for a cold ; and
therefore people are sometimes blooded by a cold."
X. " We do not assert that all perfection is imaginary. Our mean
ing is, that all Christian perfection is in Christ; and that we are perfect
in his person, and not in our own."
504 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
ANSWER. If you mean by our being perfect only in Christ, that we
. can attain to Christian perfection no other way, than by being perfectly
grafted in him, the true vine ; and by deriving, like vigorous branches,
the perfect sap of his perfect righteousness, to enable us to bring forth
fruit unto perfection, we are entirely agreed : for we perpetually assert
that nothing but " Christ in us the hope of glory," nothing but " Christ
dwelling in our hearts by faith," or, which is all one, nothing but " the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, can make us free from the law
of sin, and perfect us in love."
But as we never advanced that Christian perfection is attainable any
other way than by a faith that " roots and grounds us" in Christ, we
doubt some mystery of iniquity lies hid under these equivocal phrases :
" All our perfection is in Christ's person : we are perfect in him and not
in ourselves."
Should those who use them insinuate by such language that we need
not, cannot be perfect, by an inherent personal conformity to God's
holiness, because Christ is thus perfect for us; or should "they mean
that we are perfect in him, just as country freeholders, entirely strangers
to state affairs, are perfect politicians in the knights of the shire who
represent them in parliament ; as the sick in a "hospital are perfectly
healthy in the physician that gives them his attendance ; as the blind
jiian enjoyed perfect sight in Christ, when he saw walking men like
moving trees ; as the filthy leper was perfectly clean in the Lord, before
he had felt the power of Christ's gracious words, " I will, be thou
clean ;" or, as hungry Lazarus was perfectly fed in the person of the
rich man, at whose gate he lay starving ; should this, I say, be their
meaning, we are in conscience bound to oppose it, for the reasons con-
tained in the following queries : —
1. If believers are perfect, because Christ is perfect for them, why
does the apostle exhort them to " go on to perfection?"
2. If all our perfection be inherent in Christ, is it not strange that
St. Paul should exhort us to " perfect holiness in the fear of God, by
cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit ?" Did not
Christ perfect his own holiness ? And will his personal sanctity be im
perfect, till we have cleansed ourselves from all defilement ?
3. If Christ be perfect for us, why does St. James say, " Let patience
have her perfect work," that ye may be perfect ? Is Christ's perfection
suspended upon the perfect work of our patience ?
4. Upon the scheme which I oppose, what does St. Peter mean,
when he says, " After ye have suffered awhile, the Lord make you per-
feet ?" What has our suffering awhile to do with Christ's perfection 1
Was not Christ " made perfect through his own sufferings ?"
5. If believers were perfect in Christ's person, they would all be
equally perfect. But is this the case ? Does not St. John talk of some
who are perfected, and of others who " are not yet made perfect in
love '<" Beside, the apostle exhorts us to be perfect, not in Antinomian
notions, but "in all the will of God, and in every good work;" and
common sense dictates, that there is some difference between our good
works and the person of Christ.
6. Does not our Lord himself show that his personal righteousness
will by no means be accepted instead of our personal perfection, where
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 505
he says, « Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, [or whose fruit
never grows to any perfection, see Luke viii, 14,] my Father taketh
away," far from imputing to it his perfect fruitfulness ?
7. In the nature of things can Christ's perfection supply the want of
that perfection which he calls us to ? Is there not a more essential dif
ference between Christ's perfection and that of a believer, than there is
between the perfection of a rose and that of the grass of the field ?
between the perfection of a soaring eagle, and that of a creeping insect ?
If our Lord is the head of the Church, and we are the members, is it
not absurd to suppose that his perfection becomes us in every respect ?
Were I allowed to carry on a Scriptural metaphor, 1 would ask, Is not
the perfection of the head very different from that of the hand 1 And
do we not take advantage of the credulity of the simple, when we make
them believe that an impenitent adulterer and murderer is perfect in
Christ ; or, if you please, that a crooked leg and cloven foot are per-
fectly handsome, if they do but somehow belong to a beautiful face ?
8. Let us illustrate this a little more. Does not the Redeemer's per-
sonal perfection consist in his being GOD and MAN in one person ; in his
being eternally begotten by the Father as the " Son of God ;" anvl itnbe-
gotten in time by a father, as « the son of man ;" in his having " given
his life a ransom for all;" in his having "taken it up again; and his
standing m the midst of the throne, able to save to the uttermost all that
come unto God through him ?" Consider this, candid believer, and say
if any man or angel can decently hope that such an incommunicable
perfection can ever fall to his share.
9. As the Redeemer's personal perfection cannot suit the redeemed,
no more can the personal perfection of the redeemed be found in the
Redeemer. A believer's perfection consists in such a degree of faith
as works by perfect love. And does not this high degree of fait a chiefly
imply uninterrupted self diffidence, self denial, self despair ? A heart-
felt, ceaseless recourse to the blood, merits, and righteousness of Christ ?
And a grateful love to him, " because he first loved us," and fervent
charity toward all mankind "for his sake I" Three things, these,
which, in the very nature of things, either cannot be in the Saviour at
all, or cannot possibly be in him in the same manner in which they
must be in believers.
10. Is not the doctrine of our being perfect in Christ's person big
with mischief? Does it not open a refuge of lies to the loosest ranters
in the land? Are there none who say, We are perfect in Christ's
person ? In him we have perfect chastity and honesty, perfect temper
ance and meekness ; and we should be guilty of Pharisaic insolence if
we patched his perfection with the filthy rags of our personal holiness?
And has not this doctrine a direct tendency to set godliness aside, and
to countenance gross Antinomianism ?
Lastly. When our Lord preached the doctrine of perfection, did ho
not do it in such a manner as to demonstrate that our perfection must
be personal? Did he ever say, "Iftliou wilt be perfect, only believe
that I am perfect for thee ?" On the contrary, did he not declare, « If
thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast ; [part with all that stands in
thy way ;] and follow me" in the way of perfection ? And again : " Do
good to them that hate you, that ye may be the children of your Father
506 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANIS3I.
who is in heaven ; for he sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust, &c.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is per
fect ?" Who can read these words and not see that the perfection
which Christ preached, is a perfection of holy dispositions, productive
of holy actions in all his followers ? And that, of consequence, it is a
personal perfection, as much inherent in us, and yet as much derived
from him, and dependent upon him, as the perfection of our bodily
health 1 The chief difference consisting in this, that the perfection of
our health comes to us from God in Christ, as the God of NATURE ;
whereas our Christian perfection comes to us from God in Christ, as the
God of GRACE.
SECTION IV.
Mr. TIUTs first argument against Christian perfection is taken from, the
ninth and fifteenth articles of the Church of England — These articles,
properly understood, are not contrary to that doctrine — That our
Church holds it, is proved by thirteen arguments — She opposes Phari
saic, but not Christian perfection — Eight reasons are produced to
show that it is absurd to embrace the doctrine of a death purgatory
because our reformers and martyrs, in following after the perfection of
humility, have used some unguarded expressions, which seem to bear
hard upon the doctrine of Christian perfection.
Ix the preceding sections I have laid the axe at the root of some
prejudices, and cut up a variety of objections. The controversial field
is cleared. The engagement may begin : nay, it is already begun ; for
Mr. Hill, in his Creed for Perfectionists, and Mr. Toplady, in his Caveat
against unsound Doctrines, have brought up, and fired at our doctrine,
two pieces of ecclesiastical artillery ; — the ninth and fifteenth articles
of our Church : and they conclude that the contents of these doctrinal
camions absolutely demolish the perfection we contend for. The report
of their wrong-pointed ordnance, and the noise they make about our
subscriptions are loud ; but that we need not be afraid of the shot, will,
I hope, appear from the following observations : —
The design of the fifteenth article of our Church is pointed out by the
title, " Of Christ alone without Sin." From this title we conclude that
the scope and design of the article is not to secure to Christ the honour
of being alone cleansed from sin ; because such an honour would be a
reproach to his original and uninterrupted purity, which placed him far
above the need of cleansing. Nor does the article drop the least hint
about the impossibility of our being " cleansed from sin" before we go
into the purgatory of the Calvinists : I mean the chambers of death.
What our Church intends, is to distinguish Christ from all mankind, and
especially from the Virgin Mary, whom the Papists assert to have been
always totally free from original and actual sin. Our Church does this
by maintaining, (1.) That Christ was born without the least taint of
original sin, and never committed any actual transgression. (2.) That
all other men. the Virgin Mary and the most holy believers not excepted,
LAST CHECK TO ANTIJTOMIANISM. 507
are the very reverse of Christ in both these respects ; all being con
ceived in original sin, and offending in many things, even after baptism,*
and with all the helps which we have under the Christian dispensation
to keep us "without sin" from day to day. And, therefore, (3.) That
"if we say we have no sin;" if we pretend, like some Pelagians,
that we have no original sin ; or if we intimate, like some Pharisees,
that " we never did any harm in all our lives," that is, that we have no
actual sin, " we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ;" there
being absolutely no adult person without sin in those respects, except
our Lord Jesus Christ.
That this is the genuine sense of the article appears, (1.) By the
absurdity which follows from the contrary sentiment. For if these
words, " Christ alone without Sin," are to be taken in an absolute and
unlimited sense ; if the word alone entirely excludes all mankind, at all
times ; if it is levelled at our being cleansed from sin, as well as at our
having been always free from original and actual pollution ; if this is the
case, I say, it is evident that not only fathers in Christ, but also Enoch
and Elijah, St. John and St. Paul, are to this day tainted with sin, and
must to all eternity continue so, lest Mr. Hill's opinion of Christ alone
without sin should not be true.
2. Our sentiment is confirmed by the article itself, part of which
runs thus :— « Christ, in the truth of our nature, was made like unto
us in all things, sin only excepted, from which he was clearly void,
both in his flesh and in his spirit. He came to be a Lamb without
spot; and sin, as St. John says, was not in him. But all we the
rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, [i. e. although we
have from our infancy all the helps that the Christian dispensation
affords men to keep them without sin,] yet we offend in many things,
[after our baptism,] and if we say, [as the above-mentioned Pelagians
and Pharisees,] that we have no [original or actual] sin, [i. e. that we
are like Christ, in either of these respects ; our conception, infancy,
childhood, youth, and age, being all taken into the account,] we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
Having thus opened the plain, rational, and Scriptural sense in which
,'e subscribe to our fifteenth article, it remains to make a remark upon
we
the ninth.
Some bigoted Pelagians deny original sin, or the Aclamic infection of
our nature ; and some bigoted Papists suppose that this infection is
entirely done away in baptism : in opposition to both these, our Church
prudently requires our subscription to her ninth article, which asserts,
(1.) That "the fault and corruption of our nature" is a melancholy
reality : and, (2.) That this " fault, corruption, or infection doth remain
in them who are regenerated ;" that is, in them who are " baptized, or
made children of God," according to the Christian dispensation. For
* The Rev. Mr. Toplady, in his Historic Proof, p. 235, informs us that a
popish archbishop of St. Andrews condemned Patrick Hamilton to death, for
holding among other doctrines, " That children incontinent after baptism are
sinners," or, which is all one, that baptism does not absolutely take away original
sin. This anecdote is important, and shows that our Church levels at a popish
error the words of her articles, which Mr. Hill and Mr. Toplady suppose to be
levelled at Christian perfection.
?)08 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
every person who has attentively read our liturgy, knows that these ex
pressions, baptized, regenerated, and rrtade a member of Christ, and a
child of God, are synonymous in the language of our Church. Now,
because we have acknowledged, by our subscription to our ninth article,
that "the infection of our nature" is not done away in baptism, but
" does remain in them which are regenerate," or baptized, Mr. Hill
thinks himself authorized to impose upon us the yoke of indwelling sin
for life ; supposing that we cannot be fair subscribers to that article,
unless we renounce the glorious liberty of God's children, and embrace
the Antinomian gospel, which is summed up in these unguarded words
of Luther, quoted by Bogatsky in his Golden Treasury :* " The sins of
a Christian are for his good, and if he had no sin, he would riot be so
well off; neither would prayer flow so well." Can any thing be either
more unscriptural or absurd ? What unprejudiced person does not see
we may, with the greatest consistency, maintain that baptism does not
remove the Adamic infection of sin, and that nevertheless this infection
may be removed before death ?
Nevertheless, we are willing to make Mr. Hill all the concessions we
can, consistently with a good conscience. If by " the infection of
nature," he understand the natural ignorance which has infected our
understanding ; the natural forgetfulness which has affected our memory ;
the inbred debility of all our mental powers, and the poisonous seeds of
mortality which infect all men from head to foot, and hinder the strongest
believers from serving God with all the fervour they would be capable
of, were they not fallen from paradisiacal perfection, under the curse of
a body sentenced to die, and " dead because of sin :" if Mr. Hill, I
say, understand this by the " infection of nature," we believe thai such
an infection, with all the natural, innocent appetites of the flesh, remains,
not only in those whom the Scriptures call " babes in Christ," but also
in " fathers ;" there being no adult believer that may not say, as well
as Christ, Adam, or St. Paul, " I thirst. I am hungry. I want a help-
meet for me. I know but in part. I see darkly through a glass. I
groan, being burdened. He that marrieth sinneth not. It is better to
marry than to burn," &c.
But if Mr. Hill, by " the infection of nature," mean the sinful lusts
of the flesh, such as drunkenness, gluttony, whoredom, &c ; or, if he
understand unloving, diabolical tempers, such as envy, pride, stubborn
ness, malice, sinful anger, ungodly jealousy, unbelief, fretfulness, impa
tience, hypocrisy, revenge, or any moral opposition to the will of God :
if Mr. Hill, I say, understand this by " the infection of nature ;" and if
he suppose that these evils must radically and necessarily remain in the
hearts of all believers (fathers in Christ not excepted) till death comes
to " cleanse the thoughts of their hearts" by the inspiration of his ill-
smelling breath, we must take the liberty of dissenting from him ; and
we produce the following arguments to prove that, whatever Mr. Hill
may insinuate to the contrary, the Church of England is riot against the
doctrine of evangelical perfection which we vindicate.
I. Our Church can never be so inconsistent as to level her articles
against what she ardently prays for in her liturgy: but she ardently
prays for Christian perfection, or for perfect love in this life. Therefore
* See the edition printed in London in 1773, p. 328.
LAST CHECK TO AIN'TIXOMIAXISM. 509
»he is not against Christian perfection. The second proposition of this,
argument can alone be disputed, and I support it by the well-known
collect in the communion service, " Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee,
and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Here we see, (1.) The nature of Christian perfection ; it is perfect love.
(2.) The seat of this perfect love, a heart cleansed from its own thoughts*
(3.) The blessed effect of it, a worthy magnifying of God's holy name.
(4.) Its author, God, of whom the blessing is asked. (5.) The imme
diate mean of it, the inspiration of his Holy Spirit. And, lastly, the
gracious procurer of it, our Lord Jesus Christ.
II. This vein of godly desire after Christian perfection runs through
her daily sendee. In her confession she prays : " Restore thou them
that are penitent, according to thy promises, &c, that hereafter we may
live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name."
Now, godliness, righteousness, and sobriety, being the sum of our duty
toward God, our neighbour, and ourselves, are also the sum of Christian
perfection. Nor does our Church absolve any but such as desire " that
the rest of their lives may be pure and holy, so that at the last they may
come to God's eternal joy ;" plainly intimating that we may get a pure
heart, and lead a pure and holy life, without going into a death purga
tory ; and those who do not attain to purity of heart and life, that is, to
perfection, are in danger of missing God's eternal joy.
III. Hence it is that she is not ashamed to pray daily for sinless pu
rity in the Te Dcum : — " Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without
sin," that is, sinless ; for, I suppose, that the title of our fifteenth article,
" Of Christ alone without Sin," means, Of Christ alone sinless from his
conception to his last gasp. This deep petition is perfectly agreeable to the
collects for the ninth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth Sundays after
Trinity : " Grant to us the Spirit to think and do always such things as
be rightful, that we may be enabled to live according to thy will" i. e.
to live without sin. « We pray thee, that thy grace may always pre
vent and follow us, arid make us to be continually given to all good
works" &c. « Grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of
the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to
follow thee." « Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts." Again : " May it please thee, that by the
wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, [Luke, the
evangelist and physician of the soul,] all the diseases of our souls may
be healed," &c. (St. Luke's Day.) « Mortify and kill in us all vices,
[and among them envy, selfishness, and pride,] and so strengthen us by
thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith
unto death, we may glorify thy holy name," &c. (The Innocents' Day.)
*' Grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandments we
may please thee both in will and deed." (First Sunday after Trinity.)
" Direct, sanctify, and govern both our hearts and bodies, in the ways
of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments, that we may be
preserved [in these ways and works] in body and soul." " Prevent us
in all our doings, &c, and farther us with thy continual help ; that in all
our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy
name." (Communion Service.) Once more : « Grunt that m all our
510 LAST CHECK TO AS TINOMIANISM.
sufferings here on earth, &c, we may steadfastly look up to heaven,
and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed ; and being filled
with the Holy Ghost, may learn to bless our persecutors by the example
of thy first martyr," &c. (St. Stephen's Day.) It is worth our notice,
that blessing our persecutors and murderers is the last beatitude, the
highest instance of Christian perfection, and the most difficult of all the
duties, which, if we may believe our Lord, constitute us perfect in our
sphere, " as our heavenly Father is perfect :" see Matt, v, 11, 44, 45, 48.
IV. Perfect love, i. e. Christian perfection, instantaneously springs
from perfect faith : and as our Church would have all her members
perfect in love, she requires them to pray thus for perfect faith, which
must be obtained in this life or never : " Grant us so perfectly, and
without all doubt, to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in
thy sight may never be reproved." (St. Thomas' Day.)
V. Our Lord teaches us to ask for the highest degree of Christian
perfection, where he commands us " when we pray to say, &c, Thy
kingdom come : thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." And our
Church, by introducing this deep prayer in all her services, shows how
greatly Mr. Hill is mistaken, when he supposes that she looks upon our
doctrine of Christian perfection as " shocking."
Should this gentleman object that although our Church bids us pray
for Christian perfection in the above-cited collects, and in our Lord's
prayer, yet she does not intimate that these deep prayers may be an
swered in this life : I oppose to that argument not only the word on
earth, which she so frequently mentions in the Lord's prayer, but also
her own words : " Everlasting God, who art more ready to hear than
we to pray, and art wont to give more than we desire, &c, pour down
upon us the abundance of thy mercy," &c. (Twelfth Sunday after
Trinity.) Mr. ilill must therefore excuse us, if we side with our praying
Church, and are not ashamed to say, with St. Paul, " Glory be to him
til-it is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or
think, according to the power that worketh in us," Epli. iii, 20.
VI. That our Church cannot reasonably be against Christian perfec
tion, I farther prove thus : what the Church of England recommends as
the end of baptism, can never be contrary to her doctrine : but she
recommends a " death unto sin," or Christian perfection, as the end of
baptism ; therefore she cannot be against Christian perfection. The
second proposition, which alone is disputable, I prove by these words of
her catechism : "What is the inward or spiritual grace in baptism?
A death unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness." Hence she prays
at the grave, " We beseech thee to raise us from the death of sin to the
life of righteousness, that when we shall depart this life, we may rest in
him," [Christ.] Now, that a death to sin is the end of baptism, and
that this end is never fully answered till this death has fully taken place,
is evident by the following extract from our baptismal office : " Grant
that the old Adam in this person may be so buried that the ne-.v mw be
raised up in him." " Grant that all carnal affections [and consequently
all the carnal mind and all inbred sin] may die in him, and that all things
belonging to the Spirit may live and grow in him." " Grant that the
person now to be baptized may receive the fulness of thy grace. Grant
that he being dead to sin, and living to righteousness, and being buried
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM. 511
with Christ in his death, may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the
whole body of sin." How can we maintain, with our Church that we
are to crucify, mortify, (i. e. kill,) and utterly abolish the whole body of
sin ; so -as to be dead to sin, and to have the old Adam buried in this
te ; and yet hold, with Mr. Hill, that this « whole body of sin," which
we are utterly to abolish, is to remain wholly and utterly unabolished
till death come to abolish it ?
VII. Our Church is not against that end of the Lord's Supper which
she constantly inculcates : but that end of the Lord's Supper which she
constantly inculcates is Christian perfection : therefore our Church is
not against Christian perfection. The second proposition, which alone
needs proof, is founded upon these deep words of our Communion Ser
vice :— « Grant us to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to
drink ms blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body
and our satis washed through his precious blood, and that we may
evermore dweU in him and he in vs." These words express the height
of Christian perfection, nor has the Lord's Supper had its full end upon
us till that prayer is answered.
VIII. Our Church is not against what she considers the end of Christ's
nativity, and of his being presented in the temple : but what she considers
as that end, is Christian perfection : therefore she is not against Christian
perfection. The second proposition of this argument is founded, (1 )
Upon tos proper preface to Christmas day in the Communion Service •—
'Christ, &c was made very man, &c, without spot of sin, to make us
clean from ail sin." And, (2.) Upon these words of the collect for the
presentation of Christ, in the temple :—« We humbly beseech thee, that
as thy only begotten Son was presented in the temple in substance of
our flesh, so we may be presented unto thee with pure ami clean hearts."
IX. I he same argument holds good with respect to our Lord's dr
dimension, his keeping of the passover with unleavened bread, his
ascending into heaven, and his sending the Comforter from thence
I hat, according to our Church, the end of these events is our Christian
perfection, appears by the following extracts from her collects :— « Grant
us the true circumcision of the Spirit, that our hearts and all our members
being mwtijied from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things
ooey &c. (Fhe Circumcision of Christ.) « Grant us so {o put aw°v
3 leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may alway serve thee in
pureness of living and truth." (First Sunday after Easter.) « Grant &c
that we may also in heart and mind thither [to heaven] ascend, and with
him [Christ] continually dwell" &c. (Ascension Day.} « Grant us }>v
the sjiine Spirit, to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to
rejoice in his holy comfort." (Whitsuntide.)
X. Our Church cannot reasonably oppose what she ardently wish-s
1 her communicants, and what she earnestly asks for and "strongly
recommends to all her members : but she thus wishes, asks, and recom-
mends deliverance from all sin, and perfect charity, that is, Christian
pericction : and therefore she cannot be against Christian perfection.
) second proposition is founded, (1.) Upon these words of the absolu-
n which sue gives to all communicants :— « Almighty God, &c, pardon
MK( deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all
goodness. (2.) Upon her collect for Quinquagesima Sunday :— « Send
512 LAST CHECK TO AlfTINOMIANISM.
thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of
charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues :" (St. Paul calls it
" the "bond of perfection.") And, (3.) Upon the definition which she
gives us of charity, in her homilies : — " Charity," says she, " is to love
God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our power and strength.
Wtih all oar heart ; that is to say, that our heart, mind, and study be
set to believe his word, and to love him above all things that we love best
in heaven or in earth. With all our soul ; that is to say, that our chief
joy and delight be set upon him, and our whole life given to his service.
With all our power ; that is to say, that, with our hands and feet, with
our eyes and ears, our mouths and tongues, and with all our parts and
powers, both of body and soul, we should be given to the keeping of his
commandments. This is the principal part of charity, but it is not the
whole ; for charity is also to love every man, good and evil, friend and
foe, whatsoever cause be given to the contrary." (Horn, on Charily.)
" Of charity [St. John] says, He that doth keep God's word and com-
mandment, in * him is truly the perfect love of God,' &c. And St. John
wrote not this as a subtle saying, &c, but as a most certain and necessary
truth." (Homily of Faith, part ii.) " Thus it is declared unto you what
true chanty or Christian love is, &c, which love, whosoever keepeth,
not only toward God, whom he is bound to love above all things, but also
toward his neighbour, as well friend as foe, it shall surely keep him from
all offence of God, and just offence of man" (Homily on Charity, part ii.)
Again : " Every man persuadeth himself to be in charity ; but let him
examine his own heart, his life and conversation, and he shall truly
discern whether he be in perfect charity or not. For he that followeth
not his own will, but giveth himself earnestly to God, to do all his will
and commandment, he" may be sure that he loveth God above nil things,
or else surely he loveth him not, whatsoever he pretend." (Homily on
Charitij.) Once more : perfect " patience careth not what, nor how
much it suffereth, nor of whom it sufTereth, whether of friend or foe, but
studieth to suffer innocently. Yea, he in whom perfect charity is, careth
so little to revenge, that he rather studieth to do good for evil, according
to the most perfect example of Christ upon the cross. Such charity and
love as Christ showed in his passion, should we bear one to another, if
we will be his true servants. If we love but them that love us, what
great thing do we do ? We must pe perfect in our charity, even as our
Father in heaven is perfect." (Homily for Good Friday.)
XI. That state which our Church wants all her priests to bring their
nocks to is not a " shocking" or chimerical state : but she wants all her
priests to bring all their flocks to " perfecmess in Christ," that is, to
Christian perfection : and therefore the state of Christian perfection is
neither shocking nor chimerical. The minor, which alone is contestable,
rests upon this awful part of the charge which all her bishops give to her
priests : — " See that you never cease your labour, care, and diligence,
until you have done all that lieth in you to bring all such as shall be
committed to your charge unto that agreement of faith, and that ripeness
and perfeciuess of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you
for error in religion, or viciousness in life." (Ordin. Office.)
XII. Nor is our Church less strict with the laity than with the clergy ;
for she receives none into her congregation but such as profess a deter
LAST CHECK TO AXTISOMIAXISX. 513
mination of coming up to Christian perfection. Accordingly, all her
members have solemnly promised and vowed by their sponsors at their
baptism, and in their own persons when they were confirmed by the
bishop: (1.) "To renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and
vanities of this wicked world, without reserve, and all the sinful lusts of
the flesh. (2.) To believe all the articles of the Christian faith. And,
(3.) To keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same
all the days of their life." And is not this vowing to « perfect holiness
in the fear of God ?" Does the first part of this sacred engagement
leave any room for a moment's agreement with the devil, the world, or
the flesh ? Does the second make the least allowance for one doubt
with respect to any one article of the Christian faith ? Or the third for
one wilful breach of God's commandments? Again: are not these
commandments thus summed up in our Church catechism : — « I learn
in them my duty toward God, which is to love him with all my heart ;
and my duty toward my neighbour, which is to love him as myself?5'
Is not this perfect love, or Christian perfection? And have we not
" vowed to walk in the same all the days of our life ?" As many
Churchmen, therefore, as make conscience of keeping their baptismal
vow, must not only « go on, but attain unto perfection :" and if there
have been no perfect Christians in our Church, all her members have
died in the actual breach of the awful promise which they made in their
baptism : a supposition too shocking either to make or allow.
If you ask, Where are those perfect Churchmen or Christians ? I
answer, that if the perfect love that keeps the commandments is not attain-
able, our baptismal vow is absurd and detestable ; for it is both irrational,
and very wicked, to vow things absolutely impossible. But this is net'
all : upon that supposition the Bible, which makes such frequent mention
of the perfect and of perfection, is not better than a popish legend ; for
that book ought to rank among religious romances, which recommends
imaginary things as if they were indubitable realities. So sure then as
the Bible is true, there are, or may be perfect Christians ; but
Virtu tem incolurnem odimus,
Sublatam ex oculis qunarimus, invidi.
" While we honour dead saints, we call those who are alive enthusiasts,
hypocrites, or heretics." It is not proper, therefore, to expose them to
the darts of envy and malice. And suppose living witnesses of perfect
love were produced, what would be the consequence ? Their testimony
would bo excepted against by those who disbelieve the doctrine of Chris
tian perfection, just as the testimony of the believers, who enjov the
sense of their justification, is rejected by those who do not believe that
a clear experience of the peace and pardoning love of God is attainable
in this life. If the original, direct perfection of Christ himself was hor
ribly blackened by his bigoted opposers, how could the derived, reflected
perfection of his members escape the same treatment from men, whose
hearts are tinctured with a degree of the same bigotry?
Add to this, that in order to harden unbelievers, " the accuser of the
brethren"' perpetually obtrudes upon the Church, not only false witnesses
of pardoning grace, but also vain pretenders to perfect love : for he
knows that by putting off as many counterfeits as he possibly can, he
will give the enemies of the truth room to say that there is in the Church
VOL. H. 33
514 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
no gold purified seven times, — no coin truly stamped with the king's
image, perfect love ; and bearing the royal inscription, " Holiness unto
the Lord."*
Therefore, instead of saying that this or the other eminent believer
has attained Christian perfection, we rest the cause upon the experience
of St. John, and of those with whom that apostle could say, " There is
no occasion of stumbling in him that loveth. Herein is our love made
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
[with respect to holiness] as He is [in his human nature] so are we in
this world — pure, unde filed, and filled with perfect love ; with this differ,
ence nevertheless, that he is in the kingdom of glory, and we in the
kingdom of grace ; he has a glorified, and we a corruptible body ; he
has the original perfection of a tree, and we the derived perfection of
branches growing upon it. Or, to use another comparison, he shines
with the communicative perfection of a pure, bright, unextinguishable
fire ; and we with a borrowed, and yet inherent perfection of a coal
entirely lighted. The burning mineral was black, cold, and filthy, be-
fore it was impregnated with the perfection of the fire ; it continues
bright, hot, and pure, only so long as it remains in the fire that kindled
it : for if it fall from it by any accident, the shining perfection which it
had acquired gradually vanishes, and it becomes a filthy cinder, the
black emblem of an apostate. So true is that saying of our Lord,
"Without me [or rather separate from me\ ye can do nothing ;" ye can
neither get, nor keep light or heat, knowledge or love. But when we
live not, and Christ liveth in us ; when our life is hid with Christ in
God, when we dwell in God, and God dwells in us ; then it is that our
love is made perfect, and that, loving one another even as Christ hath
loved us, as he is loving, "so are we in this world," 1 John iv, 17.
Such was the avowed experience of fathers in Christ in the apostolic
times, and such it undoubtedly is also in our days. Nor can I persuade
myself that our Church trifles with her children when she describes the
perfect Christian thus, in our Homily for Good Friday : — " He in whom
perfect charity is, careth so little to revenge, that he rather studieth to
do good for evil, according to the most perfect example of Christ upon
the cross."
XII. If Mr. Hill reply, that our Church speaks there of a mere non
entity ; and that we can never have a grain of perfect charity in this
life, because the old leaven1 of indwelling sin will always corrupt the
sweetness of our tempers before God ; I answer his objection by pro
ducing my last proof, that our Church holds the very doctrine for which
we are called perfectionists. Hear her pressing perfect love and purity,
(1.) Upon all her communicants: — "Have a lively and steadfast faith
in Christ, &c, and be in perfect charity with all men." (Com. Office.)
* Among the professors, who have lately set up as witnesses of perfect love,
I am not a little surprised to find Mr. Hill himself. This gentleman, who has
treated Mr. Wesley with such severity, for standing up in defence of perfect love,
or Christian perfection, most solemnly ranks himself among the perfect lovers of
their neighbours, yea, of their adversaries! Hear him make his astonishing pro.
fession before the world, at the end of his pamphlet called, The Admonisher Ad
monished. "I most solemnly declare," says he, " that I am in perfect charity
with Dr. Adams, as well as with you, sir, my unknown antagonist." I never yet
heard a perfectionist make so solemn and so public a profession of perfect love.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM. 515
And, (2.) Upon all her feeble children : — " Though your power be
weak," says she to them, " yet Christ is risen again to strengthen you
in your battle : his Holy Spirit shall help your infirmities. In trust of
his mercy take you in hand to purge the leaven of sin, that corrupteth
and soureth the sweetness of our life before God ; that ve mav be as
new and fresh dough, void of all sour leaven of wickedness ; so shall ye
show yourselves to be sweet bread to God, that he may have his delight
in you." (Horn, on the Rcsur.)
All the preceding arguments support our sense of the ninth and fif
teenth articles ; and if Mr. Hill urge that our Church contradicts herself,
and sometimes pleads for Christian imperfection and a death purgatory ;
we reply, that, supposing the charge were well grounded, yet we ought
rather to follow her, when she soberly follows Scripture, than when she
hastily follows inconsistent Augustine. But we would rather hope that
when she speaks of human depravity in a manner which seems to bear
hard upon the preceding quotations, it is either when she speaks of
human depravity in general, or when she inculcates the perfection of
humility ; or when she opposes the feigned perfection of those whom
she ironically calls "proud, just, perfect, and holy Pharisees." (Horn,
on the Misery of Man.) From these and the like words, therefore, we
have as much reason to conclude that she renounces true Christian holi
ness, as to infer that she decries true Christian perfection. Beside, the
delusion of those Pharisees, who have missed a perfection of evangelical
righteousness and humility, and have attained a perfection of self right-
eousness and pride, is so horrible and so diametrically opposite to the
spirit of Christianity, that our reformers deserve to be excused, if they
have sometimes opposed that error in an unguarded manner ; especially
as they have so clearly and so frequently asserted the glorious liberty
/* /""< 19 i *i t *
ot God s children.
I shall close this vindication of the Church of England with some
remarks upon her " martyrs," whom Mr. Hill produces also in his creed,
to keep the doctrine of Christian imperfection in countenance.
1. If any of our martyrs, speaking of his converted, renewed, and
sanctified state, said, " I am all sin," or words to that purpose, he spoke
the words of unguarded humility, rather than the words of evangelical
soberness : for a man may have grace and zeal enough to burn for one
truth, without having time and prudence enough properly to investigate
and state every truth.
2. In our state of weakness, the very perfection of humility may
betray an injudicious martyr into the use of expressions which seem to
clash with the glorious liberty of God's children ; just as an excessive
love for our friends may betray us into an injudicious and teasing
officiousness.
3. When a martyr considers himself in his fallen state in Adam, or
in his former state of disobedience, he may say, " I am all sin," in the
very same sense in which St. Paul said, " I am the chief of sinners."
But allow him time to explain himself, and he will soon give you to
understand that he " rejoices in the testimony of a good conscience,
purged from dead works to serve the living God ;" and that, far from
harbouring any sin in himself, he is determined to " strive against sin in
516 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM.
otlters, resisting unto blood." And is not such a disposition as this one
of the highest steps in the ladder of Christian perfection ?
4. Hence it appears that the unguarded expressions of our martyrs
were levelled at Pharisaic pride, or at absolute perfection, and not at
Christian perfection. Like some pious Calvinists in our days, they
embraced Christian perfection in deed, while, through misapprehension,
they disclaimed it in word. And therefore their speeches against the
glorious liberty of God's children, show only that Christian perfection is
a perfection of humility and love, and not a perfection of wisdom and
knowledge.
5. If it can be proved that any of those who rank among our martyrs
died full of indwelling sin, I will not scruple to say that he died a bigot
and not a martyr ; for to die full of indwelling sin is to die full of secret
obstinacy and uncharitableness ; and St. Paul declares that were an
apostle himself to " give his bgdy to be burned" in such a disposition,
" it would profit him nothing."
6. As many brave Englishmen have laid down their lives in the field
of battle, to defend their country against the French, without being pro
perly acquainted witli the liberties and boundaries of the British empire ;
so many Protestants have laid down their lives in Smithfield, to defend
their religion against the Papists, without being acquainted with all the
landmarks which divide the land of spiritual Israel from that of the
Philistines, and perfect Christianity from Antinomian dotages.
1. The Jews can produce their martyrs as well as the Protestants.
The Maccabees, for example, died entirely satisfied with the Mosaic
covenant, and strangers to the transcendent glory of the Christian dis
pensation. But is this a sufficient reason for preferring Judaism to
Christianity ? Yes, if Mr. Hill be in the right, when he decries the
doctrine of perfect faith and perfect love, and imposes upon us the doc
trine of a death purgatory, because some good men formerly died with
out having clear views of the doctrine of Christian perfection ; though,
like men who eat honey in the dark, they tasted its sweetness, and
delightfully experienced its power.
8. To conclude : I am persuaded that were all our reformers and
martyrs alive, none of them would object to this argument, which sums
up the doctrine of the Church of England with respect to purgatory :
" If death cleanseth us from indwelling sin, it is not Christ's blood
applied by the Spirit through faith. But the only purgatory wherein
we [Christian men] trust to be saved, is the death and blood of Christ,
which, if we apprehend it with a true and steadfast faith, purgeth and
cleanseth us from all our sins. ' The blood of Christ,' says St. John,
' hath cleansed us from all sin.' " (Homily on Prayer, part iii.) There
fore, the doctrine, that " death, &c, cleanseth us from all indwelling
sin," or the doctrine of a death purgatory, is as contrary to the doctrine
of our Church as to that of St. John.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 517
SECTION V.
Mr. Hill intimates that the apostles were imperfectionists — St. Peter and
St. James, far from pleading for a death purgatory, stand up for
Christian perfection.
WHEN Mr. Hill has so unadvisedly brought the Church of England
against us, it is not surprising to see him press four apostles, " Peter,
Paul, James, and John," into the field to " cut up," (as he calls it,)
"root and branch, my favourite doctrine of perfection." Never were
these holy men set upon a more unholy piece of work. Methinks I
hear them say, Let Mr. Hill rank us with the Gibeonites : let him make
us " hewers of wood" to the congregation for ever : but let him not set
us upon cutting up, root and branch, the lovely and fruitful tree of
Christian perfection. Happily for that rare tree, Mr. Hill only pro
duces the names of the apostolic woodmen, while we produce their axe,
and show that they lay it at the root of Antinomianism ; a deadly tree
this, which is, to our favourite tree, what the fatal tree in paradise was
to the tree of life. Mr. Hill appeals first to Peter ; let then Peter first
answer for himself.
1. Where does that apostle plead for Christian imperfection, and a
death purgatory ? Is it where he says, " As He who has called you is
holy : so be ye HOLY IN ALL manner of conversation. Seeing you have
purified your souls, &c, love one another with a PURE HEART FER
VENTLY. Christ left us an example, that ye should follow his steps ;
who did no sin — who bare our sins, that we, being DEAD TO SIN, should
live to righteousness : forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in
the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind ; for he that hath suffered
in the flesh, hath ceased from sin. The God of all grace, &c, after
that ye have suffered awhile, make you PERFECT." Had Peter been
against our doctrine, is it probable that he would thus have excited
believers to attain perfection ; wishing it them, as we wish our flocks
4< the peace of God which passes all understanding ?"
If that apostle pleads not for the necessary indwelling of sin in his
first epistle, doth he do it in the second ? Is it where he says, that
" exceeding great and precious promises are given us, that by these we
might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the pollution
that is in the world through lust ?" Is there indwelling sin in the Divine
nature ? And can those people, whose hearts are still full of sin and
indwelling corruption, be said to " have escaped the pollution that is in
the world through lust ?" Might not a man, whose lungs are still full
of dangerous ulcers, be said with as much propriety to have escaped
the misery that is in the world through consumptions 1 Is it where St.
Peter describes Christian perfection, and exhorts believers to attain it,
or to rise higher in it, by adding with " all diligence to faith virtue, to
virtue knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness,
and charity," the key of the arch, and the bond of perfection 1 Is it
where he states the difference between fallen believers, weak believers,
and perfect Christians ; hinting that the first " LACK these things," i. e.
Christian graces ; that " these things ARE in" the second : and that they
" ABOUND" in the third 1 Or is it where he bids " us be diligent that we
519 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM.
may be found of God in peace, without spot and blameless ?" For my
part. I do not see here the shadow of a plea for the root of every evil in
the hearts of believers till they die, any more than for the fruit of adul
tery, murder, and incest in their lives till they go hence.
But what principally strikes us in Mr. Hill's appeal to St. Peter is,
that although Peter was naturally led by his subject to speak of the
necessary indwelling of sin in our hearts during the term of life, if that
doctrine had been true, yet he does not so much as drop one hint about
it. The design of his first epistle was, undoubtedly, to confirm believers,
under the fiery trials which their faith meets with. " You are kept,"
says he, " by the power of God, through [obedient] faith unto salvation,
wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be) ye are
in heaviness, through manifold temptations." What a fair opportunity
had Peter to say here, without an if need be, "You MUST be in heavi
ness, not only through manifold temptations, but also through the remain,
ing corruptions of your hearts : the Canaanites and wild beasts must
still dwell in the land, to be goads in your sides, and thorns in your eyes,
or you would grow proud and careless ; your heart leprosy must cleave
to you, as Gehazi's leprosy cleaved to him. Death radically cured him.
and nothing but death can radically cure you. Till then, your heads
must remain full of imputed righteousness, and your hearts full of in
dwelling sin." But, happily for the honour of Christianity, this Anti-
nomian, this impure gospel has not the least countenance from St. Peter
and he cuts up the very roots of it where he says, " Who shall harm
you, if you be followers of that which is good 1 Commit the keeping
of your souls unto God in well doing. [The very reverse of sinning.]
You are his daughters, [the daughters of him to whom God said, Walk
before me, and be thou perfect,] so long as ye DO WELI, and are not
AFRAID with any amazement," that is, so long as your conduct and tem
pers become the Gospel. And every body knows that a man's tempers
are always as his heart ; and that, if his heart be " full of evil," his
tempers cannot be " full of goodness," Rom. xv, 14.
II. If St. Peter, the first of Mr. Hill's witnesses, does not say one
word to countenance Antinomianism, and to recommend Christian im
perfection ; let us see if St. James pleads for Baal in the hearts, any
more than for Baal in the lives of perfect believers. Turn to his epistle,
O ye that thirst after holiness ! To your comfort you will find, that in
the first chapter he shows himself a bold asserter of Christian perfection.
" Let patience," says he, " have her PERFECT WORK, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing." He speaks the same language in
other places : " Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and CON-
TIKUETII THEREIN, he, being a doer of the work, shall be blessed in his
deed." Arid again : " If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect
man." Nor is it difficult to demonstrate from his second chapter, that
established believers, or perfect Christians, " keep the royal, perfect law
of liberty ;" and that those who "break it in one point are" in a de
plorable case.
If Mr. Wesley had written an epistle to Antinomian believers, to make
them go on to Christian perfection, could he have expressed himself in
a stronger manner than St. James does in the following passages ? —
" Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned, [or
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAN1SM. 519
damned,] James v, 9. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He
that judge th his brother, judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law,
thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one Lawgiver,
who is able to save and to destroy" [those believers who keep or break
his royal law,] James iv, 11, 12. Again: "If ye FULFIL THE ROYAL
LAW, according to the Scripture, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thy.
self, ye DO WELL : but [if ye do not fulfil it] if ye have respect to per-
sons, ye commit sin. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet
offend [i. e. commit sin] in one point, he is guilty of all, &c. So speak
ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,"
James ii, 8, &c.
What follows demonstrates that fallen believers, if they do not repent
and rise to the state of Christian perfection, will be condemned for one
sin. St. James properly instances in the sin of uncharitableness, be
cause it is directly contrary to our Lord's new commandment of loving
one another as he has loved us, and because charity is the fulfilling of
" the royal law, and the bond of perfection." " Can faith save him"
[the uncharitable believer ?] says St. James. " If a brother or sister be
naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you [believers] say, Be ye
warmed and filled , notwithstanding ye give them not those things which
are needful to the body, what doth it profit ? Even so, faith, if it hath riot
works, [and of consequence, the fallen believer, if he has sin unrepented of,]
is dead." Such a one " is of the devil, for he committeth sin, and sin is the
transgression of the law of liberty, by which he shall be judged, yea, by
which he shall have judgment without mercy, that has (thus) showed no
mercy ;" whether he sinned negatively by not relieving his poor brother
in deed, though he gave him good words ; or whether he did it positively,
by " having respect to persons, or by grudging against his brother :" com-
pare James ii, 13, &c, with 1 John iii, 4, dec, to the end of both chap,
ters, which are two strong batteries raised on purpose to defend the
doctrine of Christian perfection, and to demolish the doctrine of Chris
tian imperfection, which is all one with Antmomiariism.
Should it be objected, that, " at this rate, no Christian believer is safe,
till he has obtained Christian perfection :" we reply, that all Christian
believers are safe, who either stand in it, or press after it. And if
they do neither, we are ready to prove that they rank among fallen
believers, and are in as imminent danger of being " spued out of
Christ's mouth," as the Laodiceans were. Let Mr. Hill candidly read
the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, and the
First of St. John, and let him doubt of it if he can.
Should Mr. Hill object that " St. James himself says, In many things
we offend all ; and that this one saying abundantly proves that he was
a strong imperfectionist ;" I beg leave to involve my honoured opponent
in the following dilemma : — Are the offences, of which St. James
speaks, involuntary 1 Or are they voluntary 1 If Mr. Hill says, " They
are involuntary," I answer, Then they are not proper breaches of " the
law of liberty," which St. James preaches ; because that law curses us
for no involuntary offences ; and therefore such offences, (like St. Paul's
reproving of the high priest more sharply than he would have done,
had he known what high dignity his unjust judge was invested with,)
such offences, I say, are not sins according to the royal and evangelical
520 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
law of our Mclchisedec : and therefore they do not prove that all be
lievers remain fall of indwelling sin till death. If Mr. Hill reply, that
" the many offences, of which St. James speaks, are voluntary offences,
and therefore real breaches of the law of liberty ;" I answer, that this
genuine sense of the words, taken in connection with the context, con-
iirms our doctrine of Christian perfection, and our opposition to Anti-
nomianisrn ; and I prove it thus : —
The text and context run thus : — " My brethren, be not many mas
ters ; [i. e. lord it not over one another ;] knowing that we [who do so]
shall receive the greater condemnation" if we do not learn humility.
" I say we, because I would not have you think that God our Judge is a
respecter of persons, and will spare an apostle, who breaks the law of
liberty arid does not repent, any more than he would spare you. For
if I represented God as a partial Judge, Judas' greater condemnation
would prove me mistaken. And I insist the more upon this awful doc-
trine, because ' in many things we offend all,' especially in word, till
we are made perfect in love, that ' love which is the fulfilling of the
law,' and enables us to * keep our tongue as it were with a bridle' all
the day long." If Mr. Hill ask, by what means I can show that this is
really St. James' meaning ; I reply, By that plain rule of divinity and
criticism, which bids us take the beginning of a verse in connection
with the end. And if we do this here, we find the doctrine of Chris-
tian perfection in this very text, thus : — " We shall receive the greater
damnation" if we do not repent and cease to " be many masters ; for
in many things we from time to time offend all," especially by our words,
till we are perfected in love. " If any man oftend not in word, the
same is, what each of iis should be, a perfect man, and able also to
bridle his whole body," James iii, 1, 2. So certain, therefore, as there
are men able to bridle their tongue, and their whole bodies, there are
men perfect in the body, perfect before death, according to the doctrine
contained in this controverted passage of St. James.
" But St. James says also, The spirit that dwelleih in us lusteth to
envy, James iv, 5."
I reply, 1. It is usual for modest teachers to rank themselves with
the persons, of whom they say something disagreeable : and this they
do to take away the harshness of their doctrine, and to make way for
the severity of their charges. Thus Peter writes : " The time past of
our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when
",ve walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquet-
ings, and abominable idolatries ;" though it is evident that Peter, a poor,
industrious, godly Jew, never " walked in abominable idolatries, working
the will of the Gentiles." Now the same delicacy of charity, which
made St. Peter rank himself with heathens, who walked in drunkenness,
whoredom, and gross idolatry, makes St. James rank himself with the
carnal Christians, who are possessed by an envious spirit.
2. Nay, St. James himself, using the same figure of speech, says,
" The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, &c ; therewith
curse we men, who are made after the similitude of God." But would
it be reasonable to infer from these words that his tongue was still "full
of deadly poison," and that he therewith continued to curse his neigh
bour ? Therefore all that is implied in his words about envy, is that, till
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM. 521
we are made perfect in the " charity which envieth not, and is not puffed
up, the spirit that is in us lusteth to envy" and pride. And that we,
who have not yet attained Christian perfection, need not be always
envious and proud, is evident from the very next words, " But he giveth
more grace, wherefore he says, God resisteth the proud, envious man,
but giveth grace to the humble : resist the devil and he will flee from
you : purify your hearts, ye double minded : be afflicted, and mourn,
and weep : let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into
heaviness." So severe was St. James to those adulterers and adulter
esses, those genteel believers, who stopped short of Christian perfection,
loved the world, and envied one another ! Therefore, to press him into
the service of Solifidianism, is as rash an attempt as to call his epistle
an epistle of straw, worthy of being committed to the flames : and (if
the preceding remarks are just) Mr. Hill is as much mistaken, when
he appeals to St. James, as when he quotes St. Peter, in defence of
Christian imperfection.
SECTION VI.
St. Paul preached Christian perfection, and professed to have attained
it — A view of the different sorts of perfection which belong to the dif
ferent dispensations of grace and glory — The holy child Jesus' im
perfection in knowledge and suffering, and his growing in wisdom
and stature, and in favour with God and man, were entirely consistent
with his perfection of humble love.
ST. PAUL'S name appears upon Mr. Hill's list of witnesses against
Christian perfection ; but it is without the apostle's consent : for Peter
and James did not plead more strenuously for the glorious liberty of
God's children, than St. Paul. Nay, he professed to have attained it,
and addressed fathers in Christ as persons that were partakers of it
together with himself. " We speak wisdom," says he, " among them
that are perfect," 1 Cor. ii, 6. " Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus
minded," Phil, hi, 15.
Nor did St. Paul fancy that Christian perfection was to be confined
to the apostolic order: for he wanted all believers to be like him in this
respect. Hence it is, that he exhorted the Corinthians "to perfect
holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. vii, 1 ; to be perfect, 2 Cor. xiii, 1 1 ;
to be perfectly joined together in the same mind," 1 Cor. i, 10 ; and
showed them the perfect, or " more excellent way," 1 Cor. xiii. He told
the Ephesians, that " God gave pastors for the perfecting of the saints,
till all come in the unity of the faith, — unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," Eph. iv, 12, 13. He
"taught every man. &c, that he might present every man perfect in
Christ Jesus," Col. i, 28. He wanted the Colossians fully to " put on
charity, which is the bond of perfection, that they might stand perfect
and complete in all the will of God," Col. iii, 14 ; iv, 12. He would
have "the man of God to be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every
good work," 2 Tim. iii, 27. He exhorted his converts, " whether they
did eat, drink, or do any thing else, to do ail to the glory of God, and
522 LAST CHECK TO ANTOOMIATttSM.
in the name of the Lord Jesus ; rejoicing evermore, praying without
ceasing, and in every thing giving thanks ;" that is, he exhorted them
to walk according to the strictest rules of Christian perfection. He
blamed the Hebrews for being still such " as have need of milk, and not
of strong meat ;" observing that " strong meat, soVi rsXsiwv, belongeth
to them that are perfect, even to them who by reason of use, [or experi
ence,] have their [spiritual] senses exercised to discern both good and
evil," Heb. v, 12, &c. He begins the next chapter by exhorting them
to " go on to perfection ;" intimating that if they do not, they may
insensibly fall away, " put the Son of God to open shame, and not be
renewed again to repentance." And he concludes the whole epistle by
a pathetic wish that " the God of peace would make them perfect in
every good work to do his will." Hence it appears that it would not
be less unreasonable to set St. Paul upon " crucifying Christ afresh,"
. than to make him attack Christ's well-known doctrine, " Be ye [moral
ly] perfect, [according to your narrow capacity and bounded power,]
even as your heavenly Father is [morally] perfect" [in his infinite na
ture, and boundless Godhead,] Matt, v, 48.
Mr. Hill will probably attempt to set all these scriptures aside, by
saying that nothing can be more absurd than to represent Paul as a
perfectionist, because he says himself, " Not as though I had already
attained, or were already perfect," Phil, iii, 12. But some remarks
upon the different sorts of perfection, and upon the peculiar perfection
which the apostle said he had not yet attained, will easily solve this
difficulty.
Mr. Hill is too well acquainted with divinity, not to know that abso
lute perfection belongs to God alone ; and that Christ himself, with
respect to his humanity, fell and still falls short of infinite perfection.
Omniscience, and a wisdom admitting of no growth, are essential lo
absolute perfection : but the man Christ was not omniscient ; for he did
not know the day of judgment : nor was his wisdom infinite ; for he grew
in wisdom. Nay, his happiness is not yet absolute ; for it daily increases
as he sees his seed, and is more and more satisfied. God alone is su
premely perfect : all beings are imperfect, when they are compared to
him ; and though all his works were perfect in their places, yet, as he
gave them different degrees of perfection, they which have inferior
degrees of goodness, may be said to be imperfect in comparison of
them which are endued with superior degrees of excellence. Thus
archangels are perfect as archangels, but imperfect in comparison of
Jesus Christ. Angels are perfect as angels, but imperfect in compari
son of archangels. Enoch, Elijah, and the saints who arose wi.h our
Lord, are perfect as glorified saints ; and, in comparison of them, the
departed " spirits of just men made perfect" continue in a state of im
perfection : for the risen saints are glorified in body and soul ; but the
mouldered bodies of departed saints, not having yet felt " the power of
Christ's resurrection," are still under the power of corruption. Imper
fect as St. Paul and St. John are now, in comparison of Enoch, Elijah,
and the twenty-four elders so often mentioned by St. John ; yet they
are far more perfect than when they were pressed down by a corrupti
ble body, under which they " groaned, being burdened :" for the disem
bodied spirits of "just men made perfect" are more perfect than the
LAST CHECK TO AKTINOMIAXISM. 523
most perfect Christians, who are yet in a "body dead because of sin."
And, as among rich men, some are richer than others ; or among tall
men, some are taller than others ; so among perfect Christians, some
are more perfect than others.
According to the gradation which belongs to all the works of God ;
and according to the doctrine of the dispensations of Divine grace ; the
least perfect of all perfect Christians, is more perfect than the most
perfect Jew; yea, than John the Baptist, whose dispensation linked
together Judaism and Christianity. Or, to speak the language of our
Lord, " He that is least in the [Christian] kingdom of God, is greater
than John ;" though John himself was " the greatest born of a woman"
under any preceding dispensation. By the same rule, he that is per-
feet under the Jewish dispensation, is more perfect than he that is only
perfect according to the dispensation of the Gentiles.
The standard of these different perfections is fixed in the Scriptures.
" To fear God and work righteousness," that is, to do to others as we
would be done to, from the principle of the fear of God, is the standard
of a Gentile's perfection. The standard of a Jew's perfection, with
respect to morality, may be seen in Deut. xxvii, 14-26, and in Psa. xv.
And, with respect to devotion, it is fixed in Psalm cxix. The whole of
this perfection is thus summed up by Micah : — " O Israel, what does the
Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God ?"
The perfection of infant Christianity, which is called, in the Scrip,
tures, " the baptism of John," is thus described by John and by Christ :
— " He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, &c.
If thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast, give to the poor, and follow
me. If any man come to me and hate not [i. e. is not willing for my
sake to leave] his father and mother, his wife and children, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever does not bear
his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple."
With respect to adult perfect Christianity, which is consequent upon
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, administered by Christ himself, its per
fection is described in the sermon on the mount ; in 1 Cor. xiii ; and in all
those parts of the epistles where the apostles exhort believers to walk
agreeably to " the glorious liberty of God's children."
The perfection of disembodied spirits is thus described by a voice from
heaven : — « Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord : even so, saith
the Spirit, for they rest from their labours, [not from their sins ; this
they did before death,] and their works follow them." And the com
plete perfection of glorified saints is thus described by St. John and St.
Paul : — " They shall live and reign with Christ in a city wherein there
is no temple, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
of it, and the city hath no need of the sun to shine in it, for the glory of
God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And there shall be
no curse : but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his
servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face ; and his name shall
be on their foreheads, and they shall reign for ever and ever" in glorified
bodies. For " this corruptible body shall put on incorruption, and this
mortal shall put on immortality. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in
glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural
524 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
body, it is raised a spiritual body : as is the heavenly Adam, such are
they also that are heavenly : and as we have borne the image of the
earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly : for flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God :" but the spiritual, i. e. the
glorified body shall inherit the heavenly Canaan.
Persons, whose orthodoxy consists in obstinately refusing to peep over
the wall of prejudice, will probably say that these observations upon the
different sorts and degrees of perfection are " novel chimeras," and that
I multiply perfections, as I do justifications, " inventing them by the
dozen." To this I answer, that we advance nothing but what, we hope,
recommends itself to the candour of those who have a regard for reason
and revelation.
1. REASON tells us that all God's works are perfect in their places ; and
that, some having a higher place than others upon the scale of beings,
they are of consequence more perfect. If Mr. Hill will not believe it,
we appeal to his banker, and ask, if there is not an essential difference
between the metallic perfection of brass, that of silver, and that of gold ?
We appeal te his jeweller, and ask if the perfection of an agate is not
inferior to that of an emerald — the perfection of a ruby to that of a
diamond ; and if some diamonds cannot be said to be more perfect than
others? We appeal to his gardener, and ask if a blackberry is not
inferior to a strawberry, a strawberry to a nectarine, and a nectarine to
a pineapple : and if, nevertheless, those various fruits have not each
their perfection ? Nay, we will venture to ask his under gardener, if
the perfection of the fruit does not imply the perfection of the blossom ;
if the perfection of the blossom does not presuppose that of the bud ;
and if a bud, whose perfection is destroyed by the frost in March, is
likely to produce perfect blossoms in May, and perfect fruit in October ?
Should the fear of becoming a perfectionist make Mr. Hill refuse his
assent to these obvious truths, we will address him as a master of arts,
a gentleman who is versed in natural philosophy, as well as in Calvinism.
Is it absurd to say that some just men rise progressively from the per-
fection of a lower, to the perfection of a higher dispensation in the
spiritual world ? Do we not see a similar promotion, even among the
basest classes of animals in the natural world 1 Consider that beautiful
insect, which exults to display its crown, and expand its wings in the
sun. Will you not say that it is a perfect butterfly ? Nevertheless,
three weeks ago it was a perfect aurelia, quietly sleeping in its silken
tomb. Some months before, it was a perfect silkworm, busily preparing
itself for another state of existence, by spinning and weaving its shroud.
And had you seen it a year ago, you would have seen nothing but a per
fect egg. Thus, in one year, it has experienced three grand changes,
which may be called metamorphoses, births, or conversions. Each
change was perfect in its kind : and, nevertheless, the last is as far
superior to the first, as a beautiful, flying butterfly exceeds a black,
crawling worm ; and such a worm, the invisible seed of life, that lies
dormant in the diminutive egg of an insect.
2. SCRIPTURE and experience do not support our doctrine of the dif
ference of perfections, less than reason and philosophy. We read,
Gen. vi. 9, that " Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation."
We read also, Job i, 1, "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIAXISM. 525
name was Job, and that man was PERFECT." Now, whatever the per-
fection of Noah and Job consisted in, it is evident that it was not Jewish
perfection : for the perfection of Judaism requires the sacrament of
circumcision ; and Mr. Hill will hardly say that men were circumcised
in the land of Uz, and before the flood. Hence I conclude that
Noah and Job had attained the perfection of Gentilism, and not that of
Judaism.
Again : " Mark the perfect man," says David, " for his end is peace."
No doubt he spake this of the perfect, Jew ; and such were, I think,
Moses, Samuel, and Daniel : if Mr. Hill will not allow it, I produce
Simeon or Anna, or Zacharias and Elizabeth, " who were both right
eous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
God blameless," Luke i, 16. Now these excellent Jews were not
perfect according to the dispensation of John the Baptist ; for water
baptism was not less essential to a perfect disciple of John, than circum
cision was to a perfect disciple of Moses, and they, or some of them,
probably died long before John opened his dispensation by " preaching
the baptism of repentance."
Once more : John the Baptist was undoubtedly perfect according to
his own dispensation ; his penitential severity, his great reputation for
holiness, and the high encomium which our Lord passed upon him,
naturally lead us to conclude it. But that he was not a perfect Christian
is evident from fhe following considerations: (1.) Our Lord said, that
"the least in the Christian kingdom of God should be greater than
John." (2.) John himself confessed the imperfection of his baptism,
or dispensation, in comparison of the perfection of Christ's baptism and
spiritual dispensation : u I have need to be baptized of thee," said he to
Christ, " and comest thou to me ?" And to his disciples he said, " I
indeed baptize you with water, but he [the Lamb of God] shall baptize
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." (3.) John was beheaded
before Christ was crucified ; and the outpouring of the Spirit, the bap
tism of the Holy Ghost, did not begin till after Christ's ascension ; the
apostle St. John having particularly mentioned that " the Holy Ghost
was not yet given," or that a full dispensation of the Spirit was not yet
opened, " because Jesus was not yet glorified," John vii, 39 : an impor
tant observation this, which is confirmed by Christ's own words to his
disciples, John xvi, 7, " I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you that
I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you :
[the full dispensation of the Holy Ghost shall not be opened :] but if I
depart, I will send him to you." Agreeably to this, "he commanded
them thai they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the
promise of the Father, [i. e. the promised Spirit,] which, says he, ye
have heard of me ; for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.''' And when they
had been thus baptized, they began to preach the full baptism of Christ,
which has two branches, the baptism of water, and the baptism of the
Spirit, or of celestial fire. Therefore, when the penitent Jews asked,
" Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" Peter answered, " Be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost ; for the promise of it is unto you, and unto
your children, and to all that are afar off; even as many as the Lord
526 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
our God shall call" to the perfection of the Christian dispensation : " and
we are witnesses of these things ; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom
God [since the day of pentecost] hath given to them that obey him,"
i. e. to obedient believers : compare Acts ii, 38,* and v, 32, with John
vii, 38.
From the preceding reasons, we conclude that the case of John the
Baptist was as singular as that of Moses. Moses knew Joshua, and
pointed him out as the man who was to lead the Israelites into the land
of promise : but Moses died before Joshua opened the way. Thus
Moses saw the good land : he was not far from the typical kingdom of
God ; but he did not enter into it. In like manner the Baptist knew
Christ, and pointed him out as the wonderful person who was to introduce
believers into the spiritual kingdom of God. But John was beheaded
before Christ glorified opened h;s peculiar kingdom. Thus John saw
the kingdom of heaven : he was not far from it. But yet he did not
enter into it. He died a "just man, made perfect" according to his own
incomplete dispensation, but not according to the dispensation of Christ
and his Spirit. This was the Baptist's grief, not his guilt : for he earn,
estly desired to be baptized of Christ with the Holy Ghost ; but the Holy
Ghost was not yet given in the Christian measure. The gift of the
Spirit was rather distilled as a dew, than poured out as a shower ;
" because Jesus was not yet glorified :" but now, that he is ascended up
on high to receive that unspeakable gift for men in its fulness ; now that
the promise of the Father is fulfilled to all who plead it aright ; we are
culpable if we rest satisfied with the inferior manifestations of the Spirit
which belong to the baptism of John or to infant Christianity : and we
act in an unchristian-like manner if we ridicule the kingdom of the Holy
Ghost, and speak evil of perfect Christianity.
To return : a perfect Gentile sees God in his works and providences ;
but wanting a more particular manifestation of his existence and goodness,
he sighs, O where shall I find him ? A perfect Jew ardently expects his
coming as Messiah and Emmanuel, or God with iis ; anfl he groans, O
that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down ! A perfect disciple
of John believes that the Messiah is come in the flesh, and prays, O
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, restore the kingdom
to a waiting Israelite : baptize me with the Holy Ghost : fill me with the
Spirit ! And perfect Christians can witness from blessed experience that
He who was " manifest in the flesh," is come in the Spirit's power to
establish within them his gracious " kingdom of righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost."
In this blessed kingdom St. Paul lived, when he said, " Let us, as
many as are perfect, be thus minded." Nevertheless, though he was
not only a perfect Christian, but also able to " preach wisdom among
them that were perfect," he justly acknowledges himself imperfect in
knowledge, in comparison of perfectly glorified saints. " We know but
in part," says he, " but when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass
darkly," but when we shall drop these dark veils of flesh and blood, and
be clothed witli celestial, incorruptible bodies, we shall be capable of
beholding God, " we shall see him face to face," 1 Cor. xiii, 9, &c.
" For though we are now the sons of God, it does not yet appear what
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 527
we shall be : but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is," 1 John iii, 2.
It is of this final perfecting of the saints in the day of the resurrection
that the apostle writes to the Hebrews, where he says, " These, having
all obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise," which
relates to the full perfection of the just : " God having provided some
better things for us [Christians] that they [the Jewish saints] without us
should not be made perfect, [that is, that we should all be perfected in
glory together.] For we shall all be changed in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, (for the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible,) and we [who shall have died, or
shall then be found living in a state of initial perfection] shall be changed,"
Heb. xi, 39; 1 Cor. xv, 51.
Nor does it follow from hence that all glorified saints shall be equally
perfect. I cannot but embrace here the reasonable sentiment of Dr.
Watts : — " The worship of heaven," says that judicious divine, " and the
joy that attends it, may be exceedingly different in degrees, according to
the different capacities of spirits ; and yet all may be perfect, and free
from sinful defects. Does not the sparrow praise its Maker upon the
ridge of a cottage, chirptng in its native perfection ? And yet the lark
advances, in her flight and song, as far above the sparrow as the clouds
are above the housetop. Surely superior joys and glories must belong
to superior powers and services. The word perfection does not always
imply equality. If all the souls in heaven be of one mould, and make,
and inclination ; yet there may be different sizes of capacity even in the
same genus, and a different degree of preparation for the same delights ;
therefore should all the spirits of the just be uniform in their natures and
pleasures, and all perfect ; yet- one spirit may possess more happiness
and glory than another, because it is more capacious of intellectual
blessings, and better prepared for them. So when vessels of various
size are thrown into the same ocean, there will be a great difference in
the quantity of the liquid which they receive ; though all may be full to
the brim, and all made of the richest metal." (Walts on the Happiness
of Separate Spirits.)
Having thus proved both by reason and Scripture that there are various
sorts and degrees of perfection ; and that a man may be perfect accord
ing to the dispensation of Divine grace he is under upon earth, though
he be not yet perfect according to the dispensation of Divine glory, which
will take place when our mortal bodies shall know the power of Christ's
resurrection : having proved this, I say, nothing is easier than to recon
cile St. Paul with himself, when he speaks in the same chapter of his
being perfect, and of his not being yet perfect. For when he says, " Let
us, as many as are perfect, be thus minded," he speaks of Christian
perfection, that is, of the maturity of grace and holiness, which men still
burdened with corruptible flesh and blood arrive at under the full dispen
sation of the Gospel of Christ. But when he says, " Not as though I
had already attained, or were already perfect," &c, he speaks of his
perfection as a candidate for a crown of martyrdom on earth, and for a
crown of glory in heaven. Just as if he said, " Though I am dead to
sin, and perfected in love ; though / live not, but Christ livefh in me ;
yet I am not satisfied with my present perfection : I want to be perfected
528 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
like Christ. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and [then]
to enter into his glory 1 Luke xxiv, 26. I want, in short, to be perfected
in suffering, as well as in lore. I cannot, I will not rest, till I end my
race of pain and shame, and know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings
on the ignominious tree. I am filled with a noble ambition of dying a
martyr for him ; being persuaded that this perfection of sufferings will
ripen me for my heavenly perfection — the perfection to which I shall be
raised at the resurrection of the just."
That this was the apostle's meaning, when he denied his " being
already made perfect," will, I hope, appear indubitable to those who
consider the context. The words which immediately precede St. Paul's
observation that " he had not yet attained," express a pathetic wish of
sharing both in Christ's exaltation, by a glorious resurrection, and in his
huiniliationt by perfect sufferings. " That I may know hirn," as he says,
" and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings ;
being made conformable unto his [painful, ignominious] death, if by any
means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead," which is the full
perfection of the human nature ; and secure a part in the first resurrection
of the just, in which martyrs will be peculiarly interested : witness this
plain scripture, " I saw the souls of them thai were beheaded for the
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, &c, and they lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years : but the rest of the dead lived not
again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrec
tion. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection,"
Rev. xx, 4, &c.
But I repeat it, although St. Paul disclaimed his having yet attained
a perfection of shame and glory, he nevertheless professed his having
attained a perfection of Christian faith working by love. This is evident
from the words that follow the controverted text : — " This one thing I do,
&c, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus [which is my complete glorification in heaven.] Let us,
therefore, as many as are perfect [in faith and love] be thus minded."
Let us press after our perfection of suffering here, and of glory hereafter :
a bodily perfection this, which the apostle describes thus at the end of
the chapter : — " We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall change our vile body, according to the working whereby he is able
to subdue all things unto himself," Phil, iii, 21. Hence it appears, if
we are not strangely mistaken, that it is not less absurd to oppose our
doctrine of Christian perfection from Phil, iii, than to oppose the divinity
of Christ from the first chapter of St. John's Gospel.
I shall conclude these remarks upon the various sorts of perfection
by an observation which may help Mr. Hill to understand how St. Paul
could be perfect in love, when he professed that he was not perfect either
in glory, knowledge, or sufferings.
Had not our Lord been perfect in lore from a child, he would have
broken the two great commandments on which hang all the law and the
prophets. But " in him was no sin :" therefore he was perfect in love,
though his love admitted of an increase, as well as his wisdom and
knowledge ; just as a perfect bud admits of a perfect growth into a
perfect blossom, and such a blossom into a perfect fruit. Hence it is
that our Lord's perfect love grew, " he increased in favour with God
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 529
arid man :" an additional degree of approbation being due to him from
all rationals, upon every display of his growing perfection, Luke i, 52.
But though our Lord was always perfect in love, yet it is certain that
he was not always perfect in sufferings, much less in glory : for he was
not perfected in sufferings till after he had expired between the two
thieves ; nor was he perfected in glory before he took his place at the
right hand of God. This is evidently the apostle's doctrine where he
says, « It became Him by whom are all things, to make the Captain of
our salvation perfect through sufferings," Heb. ii, 10. And again,
chap, v, 8, « Though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by the
things which he suffered : and being made perfect [in sufferings and in
glory] he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey
him." Mr. Hill must then allow that St. Paul's IMPERFECTION, with
respect to sufferings and glory, was no obstacle to the PERFECTION of
his love : or he must assert that Christ was sinfully imperfect in love
so long as he continued imperfect in sufferings and glory ; a supposition
this which is too horrible to be admitted by a merely nominal Christian,
much more by Mr. Hill.
SECTION VII.
St. Paul was not carnal, and sold under sin — The true meaning ol
Gal. r, 17, and of Rom. mi, 14, tyc, is opened consistently with the.
context, the design of the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans,
and the privileges of Christians, and the doctrine of perfection.
IT is easier to raise dust than to answer an argument. I expect,
therefore, that our opponents, instead of solidly answering the contents
of the preceding section, will assert that St. Paul was an avowed enemy
to deliverance from evil tempers before death, arid of consequence a
strong opposer of the doctrine of Christian perfection. And to support
their assertion they wiii probably quote the following text : — « The flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, arid the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye
cannot do the things that ye would," Gal. v, 17. For they conclude
from these words, that, so long as we dwell in bodies of corruptible flesh,
we cannot help breaking the law of liberty (at least from time to time)
by sinful, internal lusts. As this objection passes among them for un
answerable, it may not be amiss to give it a fourfold answer : —
1. St. Paul wrote these words to the carnal, fallen Galatians. To
them he said, « So that ye cannot do the things that ye would :" and
there was a good reason why « they could not do" what they had a
weak desire to do. They were bewitched by the flesh, and by carnal
teachers, who led them from the power of the Spirit to the weakness of
the letter; yea, to the letter of Judaism too. But did he not speak of
himself to the Philippians in a very different strain ? Did he not declare,
"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthen eth me??J And
cannot every believer, who steadily walks in the Spirit, say the same
thing 1 Who does not see the flaw of this argument 1 The "'disobedient,
fallen, bewitched" believers of Galatia, of whom St. Paul stood in doubt,
could not but fulfil the lusts of the flesh when they were led by the flesh:
VOL. II. 34
530 LAST CHECK TO AZVTINOMIANISM.
" neither hot nor cold," like the Laodiceans, they could neither be perfect
Christians nor perfect worldlings, because they fully sided neither with
the Spirit nor with the flesh : or, to use the apostle's words, " they could
not do the things that they would," through the opposition which the
flesh made against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ; neither
of these principles being yet fully victorious in their halting, distracted
hearts : therefore this must be also the miserable case of all obedient,
faithful, established believers through all ages all the world over ! What
has this Antinomian conclusion to do with the Scriptural premises ?
When I assert that those who have put out their knees cannot run a
race swiftly, do I so much as intimate that no man can be a swift racer ?
2. It is as unscriptural to judge of the power and liberty of established
believers by the power and liberty of the Galatians, as it is unreasonable
to judge of the liberty of a free nation by the servitude of a half-enslaved
people ; or of the strength of a vigorous child by the weakness of a
halfr formed embryo. I found this remark, (1.) Upon Gal. v, 1, where
the apostle indirectly reproves his Judaizing, wrangling converts, for
being fallen from " the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and
for being entangled again with the yoke of bondage." And, (2.) Upon
Gal. iv, 19, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until
Christ be formed in you." The dawn of day is not more different from
(he meridian light, than the imperfect state described in this verse is
different from the perfect state described in the following lines, which
are descriptive of the adult Christian : — « I am crucified with Christ :
nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God," Gal. ii, 20.
3. The sense which is commonly fixed upon the texts produced by
our opponents is entirely overturned by the context : read the preceding
verse and you will find a glorious, though a conditional promise of the
liberty which we plead for : « This I say, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall
not fulfil the [sinful] lusts of the flesh ;" that is, far from harbouring
either outward or inward sin, ye shall, with myself, and as many as are
perfect, steadily keep your body under, and bo in every thing spiritually
minded, which " is life and peace."
4. TvVe should properly distinguish between the lawful and the sinful
lusts or desires of the flesh. To desire to eat, to drink, to sleep, to marry,
to rest, to shun pain, at proper times and in a proper manner, is no sin ;
such lusts or desires arc not contrary to the law of liberty. Our Lord
himself properly indulged most of these harmless propensities of the
flesh, without ceasing to bo tho immaculate Lamb of God. Hence it is
that our Church requires us in our baptism to renounce only " the sin
ful lusts of the flesh ;" giving us a tacit leave lawfully to indulge its
lawful appetites. I should ba glad, for example, to recruit my strength
by one hour's sleep, or by an ounce of food ; as well as by a good night's
rest, or a good meal. But the flesh harmlessly lusteth against the
Spirit : so that in these, and in a thousand such instances, " I cannot do
the things that I would." But do I commit sin when I use my body
according to its nature ? Nay, if I were as strongly solicited unlawfully to
indulge the lawful appetites of my flesh, as Christ was to turn stones into
bread when he felt keen hunger in the wilderness, would not such a tempta
tion increase the glory of my victory, rather than the number of my sins ?
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 531
Is it right in our opponents to avail themselves of the vague, unfixed mean-
ing of the words flesh and lust, to make the simple believe that, so long as
we have human flesh about us, and bodily appetites within us, our hearts
must necessarily remain pregnant with sinful lusts, and we shall " have
innumerable lusts (as says an imperfectionist whom I shall soon mention)
swarming about our hearts ?" Does not this doctrine put a worm at the
root of Christian liberty, while it nourishes Antinomian freedom ; a free-
dom to sin, even to adultery and murder, without ceasing to be sinless
and perfect in Christ ?
5. Two lines after St. Paul's supposed plea for the necessary contin
uance of indwelling sin in believers, the apostle begins a long enume
ration of the « works of the flesh, of the which," says he, « I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things, [or
admit in their hearts such lusts as hatred, variance, strife, or envyings,]
shall not inherit the kingdom of God :" whereas, " they that are Christ's
[they that are led by tlie Spirit of God, for in St. Paul's account only
suck are Christ's, that is, properly belong to Christ's spiritual dispenl
sation, Rom. viii, 9, 14,] have crucified the flesh with its affections and
lusts," Gal. v, 24. Now these spiritual believers " can do all things
through ^Christ :" and accordingly the apostle observes that, far from bear
ing the fruit of the flesh, they bear the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy,
peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, tem
perance, — the whole cluster of inherent graces which makes up Christian
perfection ; and then he observes that " the law is not against such,
[because they fulfil it :] for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," Gal. v, 14-23.
6. The sense which the imperfectionists give to Gal. v, 17, is riot only
flatly contrary to the rest of the chapter, but to the end arid design of all
the episde. What the apostle has chiefly in view through the whole,
is to reprove the Galatians for their carnality in following Judaizing
teachers, and in bearing the fruits of the flesh, envy, variance, &c, inso
much that they were ready to bite and devour one another. Now, if
when he had sharply reproved them as persons who ended in the flesh,
after having begun in the Spirit, he had written Gal. v, 17, in the sense
-of our opponents, he would fairly have excused these bewitched men,
absolutely defeated his reproof, and absurdly furnished them with an
excellent plea to continue in their bad course of life. For if they could
not " fulfil the law of Christ," but must remain carnal, and sold under
indwelling sin, had they riot a right to answer the apostle thus: "If
neither we whom thou callest bewitched Galatians, nor any spiritual
other believers ? Are we not all bound by adamantine chains of carnal
necessity to break the law of Christ so long as we are in the body 1 Art
thou not the very man who givest us to understand that we cannot do
what we should and would do, because the flesh, which we cannot possibly
part with before death, lustcth against the Spirit 1 And is not absolute
necessity the best excuse in the world ?"
^ 7. Should Mr. Hill ask, What is then the genuine meaning of
Gal. v, 17 ? We reply, that when we consider that verse in the light
532 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
of the context, we do not, doubt but the sense of it is fairly expressed
in the following lines : — " The flesh and the Spirit are two contrary prin
ciples. ' They that are in, or walk after the flesh, cannot please God.'
And ye are undoubtedly in the flesh, and walk after the flesh, while * ye
bite and devour one another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit : be
led by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh, as ye now
do : for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,' and prevails in all carnal
people; 'and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh,' and prevails in all
spiritual people ; ' and these two,' far from nesting together, as Antino-
mian teachers make you believe, ' are contrary to each other.' They
are irreconcilable enemies : * so that' as obedient, spiritual believers,
while they are led by the Spirit, « cannot do what they would do if they
were led by the flesh ; ye bewitched, carnal, disobedient Galatians, who
are led by the flesh, cannot do what ye would do' if ye were led bv the
Spirit, and what ye still have some desire to do, so far as ye have not
yet absolutely quenched the Spirit. Would ye then return to your
liberty ? Return to your duty : change your guide : forsake the carnal
mind : let « Christ be formed in you : be led by the Spirit : so shall ye
fulfil the law of Christ ;' and it shall no more condemn you, than the
law of Moses binds you. * For if ye be led by the Spirit, ye arc not
under the curse of the law :' ye are equally free from the bondage of the
Mosaic law, and from the condemnation of the law of Christ," Gal.
v, 16-18.
8. Should Mr. Hill say "that by the flesh he understands not only the
bodi/, but also Ihe natural desires, appetites, and aversions, which are neces
sarily excited in the soul, in consequence of its intimate union with the
body ; and that the body of sin must needs live and die with the body
which our spirit inhabits ; because, so long as we continue in the
body, we are unavoidably tried by a variety of situations, passions, incli
nations, aversions, and infirmities which burden us, hinder us from doino-
and suffering all we could wish to do and to suffer, and occasion our
doing or feeling what we should be glad in some respects not to do or
feel:"
I answer, It is excessively wrong to conclude that all these burdens,
infirmities, appetites, passions, and aversions, are those sinful workings
of our corrupt nature which are sometimes called the Jlesh. You can
not continue a whole day in deep prostration of body and soul, nor per
haps one hour upon your knees. Your stomach involuntarily rises
at the sight of some food which some persons esteem delicious : your
strength fails in outward works : your spirits are exhausted ; you faint
or sleep, when others are active and toil : you need the spiritual and
bodily cordials which others can administer : perhaps also you are
afflicted with disagreeable sensations in the outward man, through the
natural, necessary play of the various springs which belong to flesh and
blood : your just grief vents itself in tears : your zeal for God is attended
with^a proper anger at sin : nay, misapplying what the apostle says of
the carnal man under the law, you may declare with great truth, The
extensive good I would, I do not ; and the accidental evil I would not,
that I do ; I would convert every sinner, relieve every distressed object,
and daily visit e^ery sick bed in the kingdom, but I cannot do it. I
would never try the patience of my friends, never stir up the envy of
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. 533
my rivals, never excite the malice of my enemies ; but I cannot help
doing this undesigned evil, as often as I strongly exert myself in the
discharge of my duty.
If you say, " All these things, or most of them, are quite inconsistent
with the perfection you contend for," I ask, Upon this footing was not
our Lord himself imperfect ? Did his bodily strength never fail in ago-
nizing prayer, or intense labour ? Did his animal spirits always move
with the same sprightliness ? Do we not read of his sleeping in the
ship, when his disciples wrestled with a tempestuous sea ? Did he not
fulfil the precept, " Be ye angry and sin not ?" Had he not the trouble
some sensation of grief at Lazarus' grave ; of hunger in the wilderness ;
of weariness at Jacob's well ; and of thirst upon the cross ? If he was
" made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and tempted in all things as we
are ;" is it not highly probable that he was not an utter stranger to the
other natural appetites, and uneasy sensations which are incident to
flesh and blood ? Is it a sin to feel them ? Is it not rather a virtue
totally to deny them, or not to gratify them out of the line of duty, or
not to indulge them in an excessive manner in that line ? Again : did
not his holy flesh testify a natural innocent abhorrence to suffering ?
Did not his sacred body faint in the garden 1 Were not his spirits so
depressed, that he stood in need of the strengthening assistance of an
angel ? Did he do all the good he would ? To suppose that he wished
not the conversion of his friends and brethren, is to suppose him totally
devoid of natural affection ; but were they all converted ? Did you
never read, " Neither did his brethren believe in him : and his friends
went out to lay hold on him ; for they said, He is beside himself?" To
conclude : did he not accidentally stir up the evil he would not, when
he gave occasion to the envy of the Pharisees ; the scorn of Herod ; the
fears of Pilate ; the rage of the Jewish mob ? And when he prayed
that the bitter " cup might pass from him, if it were possible ;" did he
not manifest a resigned desire to escape pain and shame ? If every
such desire be indwelling sin, or the flesh " sinfully lusting against the
Spirit," did he not go through the sinful conflict as well as those whom
we call perfect men in Christ ? And, consequently, did he not fall at
once from mediatorial, Adamic, and Christian perfection ; indwelling
sin being equally inconsistent with all these kinds of perfection ? What
true believer does not shudder at the bare supposition ? And if our
sinless Lord felt the weakness of the flesh harmlessly lusting against the
willingness of the spirit, according to his own doctrine, " The spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," is it not evident that the con
flict we speak of, (if the spirit maintains its superior, victorious lusting
against the flesh, and by that means steadily keeps the flesh in its proper
place,) is it not evident, I say, that this conflict is no more inconsistent
with Christian perfection, than suffering, agonizing, fainting, crying, and
dying, which were the lot of our sinless, perfect Saviour, to the last ?
If I am not greatly mistaken, the preceding remarks prove, (1.) That
when our opponents pretend to demonstrate the necessary indwelling
of sin in all believers, from Gal. v, 17, they wretchedly tear that text
from the context, to make it speak a language which St. Paul abhors.
(2.) That this text, fairly taken together with the context, and the
design of the whole epistle, is a proof that obedient, spiritual believers,
531 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIATUSM
can do what the " bewitched Galatians" could not do ; that is, they can
" crucify the flesh with all its affections and lusts," and walk as perfect
Christians who utterly destroy the whole body of sin, and " fulfil the law
of Christ." And, (3.) That to produce Gal. v, against the doctrine of
Christian perfection, is full as absurd as to quote the sermon upon the
mount in defence of Antinomian delusions. I have dwelt so long upon
this head, because I have before me* " An Essay on Galatians v, 17,"
lately published by an ingenious divine, who takes it for granted that the
apostle contends, in this verse, for the necessary indwelling of sin.
Mr. Hill will probably say, " That he does not rest the doctrine of
Christian imperfection so much upon the experience of the fallen Gala
tians, as upon that of St. Paul himself, who, in Romans vii, frankly ac
knowledges that he was still a wretched, carnal man, sold under sin, and
serving with the flesh the law of sin. Whence it follows that it is high
presumption in modern believers to aspire at more perfection, and a
greater freedom from sin upon earth, than had been attained by St.
Paul, who was * not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, but
laboured more abundantly than they all.' " To this common objection
I answer : —
1. The perfection we preach is nothing but perfect repentance, per
fect faith, and perfect love, productive of the gracious tempers which
St. Paul himself describes, 1 Cor. xiii. We see those blessed tempers
shining through his epistles, discourses, and conduct ; and I have proved
in the preceding section that he himself 'professed Christian perfection.
This objection, therefore, appears to us an ungenerous attempt to make
St. Paul grossly contradict himself. For what can be more ungenerous
than to take advantage of a figurative mode of expression, to blast a
good man's character, and to traduce him as a slave of his fleshly lusts,
a drudge to carnality, a wretch sold under sin ? What would Mr. Hill
think of me, if, under the plausible pretence of magnifying God's grace
to the chief of sinners, and of proving that there is no deliverance from
sin in this life, I made the following speech? —
" The more we grow in grace, the more clearly we see our sins ; and
the more willingly we acknowledge them to God and men. This is
abundantly verified by the confessions that the most holy men 'have
made of their wickedness. Paul himself, holy Paul, is not ashamed to
humble himself for the sins which he committed, even after his conver
sion. ' I robbed other Churches,' says he, « taking wages to do you
service,' 2 Cor. xi, 8. Hence it appears that the apostle had agreed to
serve some Churches for a proper salary : but, being « carnal, and sold
under sin,' he broke his word ; he fleeced, but refused to feed the flocks ;
and robbing the Churches, he went to the Corinthians, perhaps to see
what he could get of. them also in the end; for 'the heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked,' Jer. xvii. 9. Nay, partial as
he was to those Corinthians, for whom he turned Church robber, he
showed that his love to them was not sinless and free from rage ; for
once he threatened to come to them ' with a rod ;' and he gave one of
them to ; Satan for the destruction of the flesh.' With great propriety,
* The arguments by which the doctrine of tJte necessary indwelling of sin in all
believers till death is supported in that essay, will be considered in section xiv.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 535
therefore, did holy Paul say to the last, « I am the chief of sinners.'
And now, when the chief of the apostles thus abases himself before
God, and publicly testifies, both by his words and works, that there is
no deliverance from sin, no perfection in this life; who can help being
frightened at the Pharisaic pride of the men who dare inculcate the doc
trine of sinless perfection?"
I question if Mr. Hill himself, upon reading this ungenerous and
absurd, though in one sense Scriptural plea for St. Paul's imperfection,
would not be as much out of conceit with my fictitious explanation of
2 Cor. xi, as I am with his Calvinistic exposition of Rom. vii. Nor do
I think it more criminal to represent the apostle as a Church robber,
than to traduce him as a " wretched, carnal man, sold under sin ;"
another Ahab, that is, a man who did " evil in the sight of the Lord,
above all that were before, him."
2. St. Paul no more professes himself actually a carnal man in Rom.
vii, 7, than he professes himself actually a liar in Rom. iii, 7, where he
says, " But if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, why
am I judged as a sinner 1" He no more professes himself a man
actually sold under sin, than St. James and his fellow believers profess
themselves a generation of vipers, and actual cursers of men, when the
one wrote and the others read, " The tongue can no man tame : it is
full of deadly poison ; therewith curse we men." When St. Paul
reproves the partiality of some of the Corinthians to this or that preacher,
he introduces Apollos and himself; though it seems that his reproof was
chiefly intended for other preachers, who fomented a party spirit in the
corrupted Church of Corinth. And then he says, "These things,
brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos, for
your sakes ; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that
which is written," 1 Cor. iv, 6. By the same figure he says of himself,
what he might have said of any other man, or of all mankind : " Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I
am become as sounding brass." Thrice in three verses he speaks of
his not having charily : and suppose he had done it three hundred times,
this would no more have proved that he was really uncharitable, than
his saying, Rom. vii. " I am sold under sin," proves that he " served the
law of sin with his body," as a slave is forced to serve the master who
bought him.
3. It frequently happens, also, that by a figure of rhetoric, which is
called hypotyposis, writers relate things past, or things to come, in the
present tense, that their narration may be more lively, and may make a
stronger impression. Thus, Gen. vi, 17, we read, "Behold I, even I,
do bring [i. e. I will bring one hundred and twenty years hence] a flood
upon the earth to destroy all flesh." Thus also, 2 Sam. xxii, 1, 35, 48,
" When the Lord had delivered David out of the hands of all his ene
mies, arid given him peace in all his borders, he spake the words of this
song. He teacheth [i. e. he taught] mv hands to war, so that a bow of
steel is [i. e. was] broken by mine arms : it is God that avengeth [i. e.
that hath avenged] me, and that bringeth [i. e. has brought] me forth
from mine enemies." A thousand such expressions, or this figure con
tinued through a thousand verses, would never prove, before unpreju
diced persons, that King Saul was alive, and that David was not yet
536 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
delivered for good out of his bloody hands. Now, if St. Paul, by a
similar figure, which he carries throughout part of a chapter, relates his
past experience in the present tense : if the Christian apostle, to humble
himself, and to make his description more lively, and the opposition be
tween the bondage of sin and Christian liberty more striking ; if the
apostle, I say, with such a design as this, appears upon the stage of
instruction in his old Jewish dress, a dress this, in which he could serve
God day and night, and yet, like another Ahab, breathe threatem'ngs
and slaughter against God's children : and if in this dress he says, " I
am carnal, sold under sin," dec, is it not ridiculous to measure his
growth as an apostle of Christ by the standard of his stature' when he
was a Jewish bigot, a fiery zealot, full of good meanings and bad per
formances '/
4. To take a scripture out of the context, is often like taking the
stone that binds an arch out of its place : you know not what to make
of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which it
was intended. This our opponents do, when they so take Rom. vii,
out of its connection with Rom. vi, and Rom. viii, as to make it mean
the very reverse of what the apostle designed. St. Paul, in Romans
fifth and sixth, and in the beginning of the seventh chapter, describes
" the glorious liberty of the children of God" under the Christian dis
pensation. And as a skilful painter puts shades in his pictures to
heighten the effect of the lights ; so the judicious apostle introduces, in
the latter part of Rom. vii, a lively description of the domineering
power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt : a burden this,
which he had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit charged sin
home upon his conscience after he had broken his good resolutions ;
but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting at
Damascus. Then he groaned, " O wretched man that I am," &c,
hanging night and day between despair and hope, between unbelief and
faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought him into Christian
liberty by the ministry of Ananias ; of this liberty the apostle gives us a
farther and fuller account in Rom. viii. Therefore the description of
the man who groans under the galling yoke of sin, is brought in merely
by contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the
bondage of sin and the liberty of Gospel holiness : just as the generals,
who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the prince whom
they had conquered. On such occasions the conqueror rode in a tri
umphal chariot crowned with laurel, while the captive king followed
him on foot, loaded with chains, and making, next to the conqueror, the
most striking part of the show. Now, if in a Roman triumph, some of
the spectators had taken the chained king on foot for the victorious
general in the chariot, because the one immediately followed the other,
they would have been guilty of a mistake not unlike that of our oppo
nents, who take the carnal Jew, "sold under sin," and groaning as he
goes along, for the Christian believer, who " walks in the Spirit," exults
in the liberty of God's children, and always triumphs in Christ.
5. To see the propriety of the preceding observation, we need only
take notice of the contrariety there is between the bondage of the carnal
penitent, described Rom. vii, 14, &c, and the liberty of the spiritual man,
described in the beginning of that very chapter. The one says, " Who
LAST CHECK TO ANTESTOMIANISM. 537
shall deliver me ? Sin revives : it works in him all manner of concu
piscence, yea, it works death in him : he is carnal, sold under sin,"
forced by his bad habits to what he is ashamed of, and kept from doing
what he sees his duty. " In him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good
thing : sin dwelleth in him. How to perform that which is good he
finds not." Though he has a desire to be better, yet still he " does not
do good, he does evil ; evil is present with him." His " inward man,"
his reason and conscience approve, yea, delight in God's law," i. e. in
that which is right ; but still he does it not ; his good resolutions are no
sooner made than they are broken : for « another law in his members
wars against the law of his mind," that is, his carnal appetites oppose
the dictates of his conscience, and " bring him into captivity to the law
of sin;" so that, like a poor chained slave, he has just liberty enough to
rattle his chains, and to say, « O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death," from this complete assemblage
of corruption, misery, and death ! Is it not ridiculous to conclude, that
because his groaning slave has now and then a hope of deliverance, and
at times " thanks God through Jesus Christ" for that hope ; he is act
ually a partaker of the liberty, which is thus described in the beginning
of the chapter ? " Ye are become dead to the law [the Mosaic dispen
sation] that ye should be married to Him, who is raised from the dead,
that [instead of omitting to do good, and doing evil] we should bring
forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, [in the state of
the carnal man sold under sin, a sure proof this that the apostle was no
more in that state] the motions of sin which were by the law [abstracted
from the Gospel promise] did work in our members to bring forth fruit
unto death. But now we are delivered from the [curse of the moral, as
well as from the bondage of the Mosaic] law, that being dead wherein
we were held ; that we should serve God in newness of spirit, and not
in the oldness of the letter," Rom. vii, 4, 5, 6. Immediately after this
glorious profession of liberty, the apostle, in his own person, by way of
contrast, describes to the end of the chapter the poor, lame, sinful obel
dience of those who serve God in the oldness of the letter : so that
nothing can be more unreasonable than to take this description for a
description of the obedience of those who " serve God in the newness
of the Spirit." We have, therefore, in Rom. vii, 4, 5, 6, a strong
rampart against the mistake which our opponents build on the rest of
the chapter.
6. This mistake will appear still more astonishing, if we read Rom
vi, where the apostle particularly describes the liberty of those who
" serve God in newness of the spirit," according to the glorious privileges
of the new covenant. Is darkness more contrary to light than the pre
ceding description of the carnal Jew is to the following description of
the spiritual Christian ? " How shall we that are dead to sin live any
longer therein ? Our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of
sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we might not serve sin. [Note :
the carnal Jew, though against his conscience, still serves the law of sin,
Rom. vii, 25.] Now he that is dead is freed from sin. Reckon ye
yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin. Yield yourselves unto God
as those that are alive from the dead. [Note : the carnal Jew says,
" Sin revived and I died," Rom. vii, 9, but the spiritual Christian is alive
538 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
from the dead.] Sin shall not have dominion over you [now you are
spiritual : you need not say, I do the evil that I hate, and the evil I u-ould
not, that I do :] for you are not under the law [under the weak dispen
sation of Moses ;] but under grace [under the powerful, gracious dis
pensation of Christ.] God be thanked that [whereas] ye were the
servants of sin, when you carnally served God in the oldness of the letter,
ye have obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine which was delivered
you ; [that is, ye have heartily embraced the doctrine of Christ, who
gives rest to all that come to him travailing and heavy laden.] Being
then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness : for
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. —
But now being — carnal, sold under sin, [ye serve the law of sin 1 No :
just the reverse :] but now being made free from sin, and become the
servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting
life," Rom. vi, 2-22. Is it possible to reconcile this description of
Christian liberty with the preceding description of Jewish bondage 1
Can a man at the same time exult in the one, and groan under the
other ? When our opponents assert it, do they not confound the Mosaic
and the Christian dispensations ; the workings of the spirit of bondage,
and the workings of the Spirit of adoption ? And yet, astonishing ! they
charge us with confounding LAW and GOSPEL !
7. We shall see their mistake in a still more glaring light if we pass
to Rom. viii, and consider the description which St. Paul continues to
give us of the glorious liberty of those who have done with "the oldness
of the [Jewish] letter, and serve God in newness of the Spirit." The
poor Jew carnally sticking in the letter, is condemned for " all he does,
if his conscience be awake. " But there is now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus, [who are come up to the privileges of
the Christian dispensation,] who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [the power of
the quickening Spirit given me, and my fellow believers, under the spi
ritual and perfect dispensation of Christ Jesus] hath made me free from
the law of sin and death. For what the law [the letter of the Mosaic
dispensation] could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God,
sending his own Son, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness
of the law," the spiritual obedience, which the moral law of Moses,
adopted by Christ, requires, " might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit. For [so far from professing that I am
carnal and sold under sin, I declare that] to be carnally minded is death :
[well may then the carnal Jew groan, Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death /] But to be spiritually minded is life and peace ! So
then, they that are in the flesh, [i. e. carnal, sold under sin,] cannot
please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit, of
Christ, he is none of his :" he is, at best, a disciple of Moses, a poor,
carnal Jew, and remains still a stranger to the glorious privileges of the
Christian dispensation. " But if Christ be in you, the body is dead,
[weak, and full of the seeds of death,] because of [original] sin ; but the
spirit is life, [strong and full of immortality,] because of [implanted and
living] righteousness. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear, [like the poor, carnal man, who through fear and anguish
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 539
groans out, O wretched man that I am /] But ye have received the Spirit
of adoption, whereby we [who walk in newness of the Spirit, and please
God — we, who have the Spirit of Christ,] cry, Abba, Father ! the Spirit
itself bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God ;
and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God," whom we please, " and joint
heirs with Christ," through whom we please God, Rom. viii, 1-17.
This glorious liberty, which God's children enjoy in their souls, uftder
the perfection of the Christian dispensation, will one day extend to their
bodies, which are dead [i. e. infirm and condemned to die] " because of
[original] sin."- And with respect to the body only it is that the apostle
says, Rom. viii, 23, " We ourselves, also, who have the first fruits of
the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption" of our out-
ward man, " that is, the redemption of our body : for," with respect to
the body, whose imperfection is so great a clog to the soul, " we are
saved by hope." In the meantime, "we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. Who shall separate us," that
love God, and walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, " from the
love of Christ ? Shall tribulation or distress," &c, do it ? « Nay, in all
these things," much more in respect of sin and carnal mindedness,
" we jire more than conquerors, through him that loved us," Rom. viii,
23—37.
And that this abundant victory extends to the destruction of the carnal
mind, we prove by these words of the context, " To be carnally minded
is death ; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace ; because the
carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh," they
that are carnally minded, " cannot please God. But ye are not in the
flesh," ye are not carnally minded, « if so be that the Spirit of God dwell
in you. For where the Spirit of the Lord is," and dwells as a Spirit of
adoption, "there is constant liberty : now if any man have not that Spirit,"
or if he hath it only as a Spirit of bondage, to make him groan, O
wretched man ! he may indeed be a servant of God in the land of his
spiritual captivity, but " he is none of Christ's" freemen : he may serve
God " in the oldness of the letter," as a Jew ; but he does not "serve
him in newness of the Spirit," as a Christian. For, I repeat it, " where
the Spirit of Christ is," and dwells according to the fulness of the Chris-
tian dispensation, " there is a liberty, a glorious liberty," which is -the
very reverse of the bondage that Mr. Hill pleads for during the term of
life : see Rom. viii, 14-21.
Whether therefore we consider Rom. vii, Rom. vi, or Rom. viii, it
appears indubitable, that the sense which our opponents fix upon Rom.
vn, 14, &c, is entirely contrary to the apostle's meaning, to the context,
and to the design of the whole epistle, which is to extol the privilege of
those who are Christ's, above the privileges of those who are Noah's or
Moses' ; or, if you please, to extol the privileges of spiritual Christians,
who serve God « in newness of the Spirit," above the privileges of carnal
heathens and Jews, who serve him only "in the oldness of the letter."
540 LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM.
SECTION VIII.
An answer to the arguments by which St. Paul's supposed carnality i*
generally defended.
IF the sense which our opponents give to Rom. vii, 14, be true, the
doctrine of Christian perfection is a dream, and our utmost attainment
on earth is St. Paul's apostolic carnality, and involuntary servitude to the
law of sin ; with a hopeful prospect of deliverance in a death purgatory.
It is therefore of the utmost importance to establish our exposition of
that verse, by answering the arguments which are supposed to favour
the Antinomian meaning rashly fixed upon that portion of Scripture.
ARG. I. " If St. Paul was not carnal and sold under sin when he
wrote to the Romans, why does he say, « I am carnal V Could he not
have said, I was carnal once, but now the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death 1 Can you
give a good reason why, in Rom. vii, 14, the phrase, / am carnal, must
mean, / was carnal 1 Is it right thus to substitute the past time for the
present ?"
ANSWER. We have already shown that this figurative way of speak
ing is not uncommon in the Scriptures. We grant, however, that we
ought not to depart from the literal sense of any phrase, without good
reasons. Several such, I trust, have already been produced, to show
the necessity of taking St. Paul's words, " I am carnal," in the sense
stated in the preceding section. I shall offer one more remark upon
this head, which, if I mistake not, might alone convince the unpreju
diced.
The states of all souls may in general be reduced to three : (1.)
That of unawakened sinners, who quietly sleep in the chains of their
sins, and dream of self righteousness and heaven. (2.) That of
awakened, uneasy, reluctant sinners, who try in vain to break the galling
chains of their sins. And, (3.) That of delivered sinners, or victorious
believers, who enjoy the liberty of God's children. This last state is
described in Rom. vii, 4, 6. The rest of that chapter is judiciously
brought in, to show how the unawakened sinner is roused out of his
carnal state, and how the awakened sinner is driven to Christ for liberty
by the lashing and binding commandment. The apostle shows this by
observing, ver. 7, &c, how the law makes a sinner (or if you please
made him} pass from the unawakened to the awakened state : " I
had not known sin," says he, " but by the law," &c. When he had
described his unawakened state without the law, and began to describe
his awakened state under the law, nothing was more natural than to
change the time or tense. But having already used the past tense in
the description of the first or the unawakened state ; «&nd having said,
" Without the law sin was dead : I was alive without the law once : sin
revived and I died," &c, he could no more use that tense, when he began
to describe the second, or the awakened state ; I mean the state in which
he found himself when the commandment had roused his sleepy con
science, and slain his Pharisaic hopes. He was therefore obliged to use
another tense ; and none, in that case, was fitter than the present ; just
as if he had said, " When the commandment slew the conceited Pharisee
LAST CHECK TO A^TINOMIANISM. 541
in me ; when I died to my self-righteous hopes ; I did not die without a
froan. Nor did I pass into the life of God without severe pangs : no ;
struggled with earnestness, I complained with bitterness, and the
language of my oppressed heart was, / am carnal, sold under sin" <fyc,
to the end of the chapter.* It is, therefore, with the utmost rhetorical
propriety that the apostle says, / am, and not, / was carnal, fyc. But
rhetorical propriety is not theological exactness. David may say as a
poet, " God was wroth : there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and
fire out of his mouth devoured : coals were kindled by it." But it would
be ridiculous to take these expressions in a literal sense. Nor is it
much less absurd to assert that St. Paul's words, " I am carnal, sold
under sin," are to be understood of Christian and apostolic liberty.
ARG. II. " St. Paul says to the Corinthians, « I write not to you as to
spiritual men, but as to carnal, even to babes in Christ.' Now if the
Corinthians could be at once holy and yet carnal ; why could not St.
Paul be at the same time an eminent, apostolic saint, and a carnal,
urretched man, sold under sin ?"
AXSWER. (1.) The Corinthians were by no means established be-
lievers in general, for the apostle concludes his last epistle to them by
bidding them " examine themselves whether they were in the faith."
(2.) If St. Paul proved carnal still, and was to continue so till death,
with all the body of Christian believers, why did he upbraid the Corinth,
ians with their unavoidable carnality ? Why did he wonder at it, and
say, "Ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envy ings and
strife, &c, are ye not carnal?" Might not these carnal Corinthians
have justly replied, Carnal physician, heal thyself? (3.) In the
language of the apostle, to be carnal, to be carnally minded, to icalk after
Ihe flesh, not to walk offer the Spirit, and to be in the flesh, are phrases
uf the same import. This is evident from Rom. vii, 14 ; viii, 1-9 ; and
he says, directly or indirectly, that to those who are in that state,
" there is condemnation ; that they cannot please God ; and that they
are in a state of death ; because, to be carnal, or carnally minded, is
death," Rom. viii, 1, 6, 8. Now if he was carnal himself, does it not
follow that he " could not please God," and that he was in a state of
"condemnation arid death?" But how does this agree with the profes
sion which he immediately makes of being " led by the Spirit, of walking
in the Spirit, and of being made free from the law of sin and death, by
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ?" (4.) We do not deny that the
remains of the carnal mind still cleave to imperfect Christians ; and
that, when the expression carnal is softened and qualified, it may, in a
low sense, be applied to such professors as those Corinthians were, to
* Some time after I had written this, looking into " Dr. Docldridge's Lectures
on Divinity," p. 451, I was agreeably surprised to find that what that judicious
and moderate Calvinist presents as the most plausible sense of Rom. vii, 14, is
exactly the sense which I defend in these pages. Take his own words : — " St.
Paul at first represents a man as ignorant of the law, and then insensible of sin ;
but afterward being acquainted with it, and then thrown into a kind of despair,
by the sentence of death which it denounces, on a.ccount of sins he is now con
scious of having committed ; he then farther shows that even where there is so
good a disposition as to 'delight in the law,' yet the motives are too weak to
maintain that uniform tenor of obedience, which a good man greatly desires, and
which the Gospel by its superior motives and grace does in fact produce."
542 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
whom St. Paul said, " I could not speak to you as to spiritual." But
could not the apostle be yet spoken to as a spiritual man ? And does he
not allow that, even in the corrupted Churches of Corinth and Galatia,
there were some truly spiritual men — some adult, perfect Christians ?
See 1 Cor. xiv, 37, and Gal. vi, 1. (5.) When the apostle cails the
divided Corinthians carnal, he immediately softens the expression by
adding, "babes in Christ." If therefore the word carnal is applied to
St. Paul in this sense, it must follow that the apostle was but " a babe in
Christ ;" and if he was but a babe, is it not as absurd to judge of the
growth of adult Christians by his growth, as to measure the stature of
a man by that of an infant? (6.) And, lastly: the man described in
Rom. vii, 14, is not only called carnal without any softening, qualifying
phrase ; but the word carnal is immediately heightened by an uncommon
expression, " sold under sin ;" which is descriptive of the strongest
" bondage of corruption." Thus reason, Scripture, and criticism agree
o set this argument aside.
AUG. III. " The carnal man, whose cause we plead, says, Rom. vii,
20, ' If I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin which
dwelleth in me,' that is, in my unrenewed part : and therefore he might
be an eminent, apostolic saint in his renewed part ; and a carnal, wretched
man, sold under sin, in his unrenewed part."
ANSWER. 1. The apostle, speaking there as a carnal, and yet
awakened man, who has light enough to see his sinful habits, but not
faith and resolution enough to overcome them ; his meaning is evidently
this : — If I, as a carnal man, do what I, as an awakened man, tcould
not ; it is no more I that do it, that is, I do not do it according to my
awakened conscience, for my conscience rises against my conduct : but
it is sin thai dwelleth in me ; it is the tyrant sin, that has full possession
of me, and minds the dictates of my conscience no more than an inex
orable task master minds the cries of an oppressed slave.
2. If the pure love of God was shed abroad in St. Paul's heart and con
strained him, he dwelt in love, and of consequence in God. For St.
John says, " He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.
He that is in you, is greater than he that is in the world." Now if God
dwelt in Paul by his loving Spirit, it becomes our objectors to show that
an, indwelling God and indwelling sin are one and the same thing ; or
that the apostle had strangely altered his doctrine when he asked, with
indignation, " What concord has Christ with Belial ?" For if indwell
ing sin, the Belial within, was necessary to nestle with Christ in St.
Paul's heart, and in the hearts of all believers, should not the apostle
have rather cried out with admiration, " See how great is the concord
between Christ and Belial ! They are inseparable ! They always live
in the same heart together : and nothing ever parted them, but what
parts man arid wife, that is, death."
3. If a reluctance to serve the Jaw of sin be a proof that we are holy as
Paul was holy, is there not joy in heaven over the apostolic holiness of
most robbers and murderers in the kingdom ? Can they not sooner or
later say, " With my mind, or conscience, / serve the law of God ; but
with my flesh the law of sin. How to perform what is good, I find not. I
would be honest and loving, if I could be so without denying myself;
but I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me ?"
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 543
For can any thing be stronger upon this head than the words of the
inhuman princess, who, being at the point of committing murder, cried
out, " My mind, [that is, my reason or conscience,] leads me to one
thing, but my new, impetuous passion carries me to another, against my
will. I see, I approve what is right, but I do what is criminal."*
AUG. IV. " The man whose experience is described in Rom. vii, is
said * to delight in the law of God after the inward man, and to serve the
law of God with the mind;' therefore he was partaker of apostolic
holiness."
ANSWER. Does he not also say, " With the flesh I serve the law of
sin ]" And did not Medea say as much in her way before she imbrued her
hands in innocent blood ? What else could she mean when she cried
out, " I see and approve with my mind what is right, though I do what is
criminal ?" Did not the Pharisees for a time " rejoice in the burning and
shining light" of John the Baptist ? And does not an evangelist inform us
that Herod himself heard that man of God (rj£sw£) " with delight," and
" did many things" too ? Mark vi, 20. But is this a proof that either
Medea, the Pharisees, or Herod had attained apostolic holiness 1
ARG. V. " The person who describes his unavailing struggles under
the power of sin, cries out at last, Who shall deliver me, &c, and imme
diately expresses a hope of future deliverance, thanking God for it,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. vii, 24, 25. Does not this show
that the carnal man sold under sin was a Christian believer, and, of con
sequence, Paul himself?"
ANSWER. This shows only that the man sold under .sin, and groaning
for evangelical liberty, is supported under his unhappy circumstances by
a hope of deliverance ; and that when the law, like a severe school
master, has almost brought him to Jesus Christ ; when he is come to
the borders of Canaan, and " is not far from the kingdom of God and the
city of refuge," he begins to look and long earnestly for Christ ; and has
at times comfortable hopes of deliverance through him. He has a faith
that desires liberty, but not a faith that obtains it. He has a degree
of the " faith to be healed," which is mentioned Acts xix, 9 ; but he has
not yet the actually healing, prevailing faith, which St. John calls the
victory, and which is accompanied with an internal witness that " Christ
is formed in our hearts." It is absurd to confound the carnal man who
struggles into Christ and liberty, saying, " Who shall deliver me," &c,
with the spiritual man who is come to Christ, stands in his redeeming
power, and witnesses that " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has made him free from the law of sin and death." The one may say,
in his hopeful moments, " I thank God, / shall have the victory, through
Jesus Christ :" but the other can say, " I have it now. Thanks be to
God, who givcth us the victory though Jesus Christ our Lord," 1 Cor.
xv, 67. The one wishes for, and the other enjoys liberty : the one has
ineffectual desires, and the other. has victorious habits. Such is the
contrast between the carnal penitent described in Rom. vii, 14, and the
obedient believer described in Rom. viii. " There is a great difference,"
says the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, " between good desires and good habits.
* Sod trahit invitam nova vis, aliudque cupido,
Mens aliud suadet. Video meliora, proboque,
Deleriora scquor. — OVID.
544 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
Many have the one who never attain the other." Many come up to the
experience of a carnal penitent, who never attain the experience of an
obedient believer. " Many have good desires to subdue sin, and yet, rest-
ing in those good desires, sin has always had the dominion over them ;"
with the fiesh they have always served tlie law of sin. " A person sick
of a fever may desire to be in health, but that desire is riot health itself."
(Whitejield's Works, vol. iv, page 7.) If the Calvinists would do justice
to this important distinction, they would soon drop the argument which
I answer, and the yoke of carnality which they try to fix upon St.
Paul's neck.
AEG. VI. " You plead hard for the apostle's spirituality ; but his own
plain confession shows that he was really carnal, and sold under sin.
Does he not say to the Corinthians, that « there was given him a thorn
in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be
exalted above measure, by the abundance of the revelations which had
been vouchsafed him V 2 Cor. xii, 7. Now what could this ' thorn in
the flesh' be, but a sinful lust 1 And what « this messenger of Satan,' but
pride or immoderate anger 1 Thrice he besought the Lord that these
plagues might depart from him ; but God would not hear him. Indwell,
ing sin was to keep him humble ; and if St. Paul stood in need of that
remedy, how much more we T
ANSWER. I . Indwelling anger keeps us angry and not meek : indwell,
ing pride keeps us proud, and not humble. The streams answer to the
fountain. It is absurd to suppose that a salt spring will send forth
fresh water.
2. You entirely mistake the apostle's meaning. While you try to
make him a modest imperfectionist, you inadvertently represent him as
an impudent Antinomian : for, speaking of his " thorn in the flesh," and
of the '• buffeting of Satan's messenger," he calls them his infirmities,
and says, " Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities." Now,
if his infirmities were pride, a wrathful disposition, and a filthy lust, did
he not act the part of a filthy Antinomian, when he said that " he glo
ried in them ?" Would not even Paul's carnal man have blushed to speak
thus i Far from glorying in his pride, wrath, or indwelling lust, did he
not groan, " O wretched man that I am ?"
3. The apostle, still speaking of his thorn in the flesh, and o*f Satan
buffeting him by proxy, and still calling these trials his infirmities, ex-
plains himself farther in these words : — " Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in persecutions, &c, for Christ's sake ; for
when I am weak, then am I strong. Christ's strength is made perfect
in my weakness." Those infirmities, that thorn in the flesh, that
buffeting of Satan, cannot, then, be indwelling sin, or any outbreaking
of it ; for the devil himself could do no more than to take pleasure in
his wickedness : and in Rom. vii, the carnal penitent himself delights
" in the law of God after the inward man," instead of taking pleasure in
his indwelling sin.
4. The infirmities in which St. Paul glories and takes pleasure were
such as had been given him to keep him humble after his revelations.
" There was given to me a thorn in the flesh," &c, 2 Cor. xii, 7.
Those infirmities and that thorn were not then indwelling sin, for in
dwelling sin was not given him after his visions, seeing it stuck fast in
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 545
him long before he went to Damascus. It is absurd therefore to sup.
pose that God gave him the thorn of indwelling sin afterward, or indeed
that he gave it him at all.
5. If Mr. Hill 'wants to know what we understand by St. Paul's
thorn in the flesh, and by the messenger of Satan that buffeted him ; we
reply, that we understand his bodily infirmities — the great weakness,
and the violent headache with which Tertullian and St. Chrysostom
inform us the apostle was afflicted. The same God, who said to Satan
concerning Job, " Behold he is in thine hand to touch his bone and his
flesh, but save his life ;" the same God, who permitted that adversary
to " bind a daughter of Abraham with a spirit of bodily infirmity for
eighteen years;" the same gracious God, I say, permitted Satan to
afflict St. Paul's body with uncommon pains ; and, at times, it seems,
with preternatural weakness, which made his appearance and delivery
contemptible in the eyes of his adversaries. That this is not a conjec
ture, grounded upon uncertain tradition, is evident from the apostle's
own words two pages before. " His letters, say they, [that buffeted me
in the name of Satan] are weighty and powerful ; but his bodily pre
sence is weak, and his speech contemptible," 2 Cor. x, 10. And soon
after, describing these emissaries of the devil, he says, " Such are false
apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of
Christ, [to oppose me, and to prejudice you against my ministry :] and
no marvel ; for Satan himself [who sets them on] is transformed into
an angel of light," 2 Cor. xi, 13. But if the thorn in the flesh be ail
one with the buffeting messenger of Satan, St. Paul's meaning is evi
dently this : — " God, who suffered the Canaanites to be scourges in the
sides of the Israelites, and thorns in their eyes, Josh, xxiii, 13. has suf
fered Satan to bruise my heel, while I bruise his head : arid that adver
sary afflicts me thus, by his thorns and pricking briers, that is, by false
apostles, who buffet me through malicious misrepresentations which ren
der me vile in your sight." This sense is strongly countenanced by these
words of Ezekiel : — " They shall know that I am the Lord, and there shall
be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn
of all that are round about them that despised them," Ezek. xxviii, 24.
Both these senses agree with reason and godliness, with the text and
the context. Satan immediately pierced the apostle's body with preterna
tural pain ; and, by the malice of false brethren, the opposition of false
apostles within the Church, and the fierceness of cruel persecutors
without, he immediately endeavoured to cast down or destroy the zeal
ous apostle. But Paul walked in the perfect way, and we may well say
of him, what was said of Job on a similar occasion, "In all this, Paul
sinned not," as appears from his own words in this very epistle : "I am
exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. Our flesh had no rest, but
we were troubled on every side : without the Church were fightings,
within were fears :" we had furious opposition from the heathens with-
out, ; arid within, we feared lest our brethren should be discouraged by
Jie number and violence of our adversaries : " nevertheless God, who
comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us. We are troubled
on every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but not in despair ;
persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed ; always
Dearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. For which
VOL. II. "35
546 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
cause we faint not ; but though our outward man perish" through the
thorns in our flesh, and the huffetings of Satan, " yet the inward man
is renewed day by day ;" it grows stronger and stronger in the Lord.
When I see St. Paul bear up with such undaunted fortitude, under the
bruising hand of Satan's messengers, and the pungent operation of the
" thorns in his flesh," methinks I see the general of the Christians
waiving the standard of Christian perfection, and crying, " Be ye fol
lowers of me." Be wholly spiritual. "Take unto you the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and
having done all, to stand," and to witness with me, that " in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."
AUG. VII. " You extol the apostle too much. He certainly was a
carnal man still ; for St. Luke informs us, that the contention [<7rapo|utf{i-o£]
was so sharp between Barnabas and him, that they departed asunder
one from the other, Acts xv, 39. Now charity [K tfapo^uvsrcu] is not
provoked, or does not contend. Strife or contention is one of the fruits
of the flesh, and if St. Paul bore that fruit, I do not see why you should
scruple to call him a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin."
ANSWER. 1. Every contention is not sinful. The apostle says him
self, " Contend for the faith. Be angry and sin not. It is good to be
zealously affected always in a good thing." Jesus Christ did not break
the law of love, when he looked round with anger upon the Pharisees,
" being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." Nor does Moses
charge sin upon God, where he says, " The Lord rooted them out of
their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation." If St.
Paul had contended in an uncharitable manner, I would directly grant
that in that hour he fell from Christian perfection ; for we assert, that
as a carnal professor may occasionally cross Jordan, take a turn into
the good land, and come back into the wilderness, as the spies did in
the days of Joshua ; so a spiritual man, who lives in Canaan, may oc
casionally draw back, and take a turn in the wilderness, especially
before he is "strengthened, established, and settled" under his heavenly
vine, in the good land that flows with spiritual milk and honey. But
this was not the apostle's case. There is not the least intimation given
of his sinning hi the affair. Barnabas, says the historian, determined
to take with them his own nephew, John Mark ; but Paul thought not
good to do it, because, when they had tried him before, he went not with
them to the work, but departed from them from Pamphylia, Acts xv, 38.
Now by every rule of reason and Scripture, Paul was in the right : for
we are to try the spirits, and lovingly to beware of men, especially of
such men as have already made us smart by their cowardly fickleness,
as John Mark had done, when he had left the itinerant apostles in the
midst of their dangers.
With respect to the word (tfap&furff*^) contention or provoking, it is
used in a good, as well as in a bad sense. Thus, Heb. x, 24, we read
of (tfapogutfimov ayatfTtf) a contention or a provoking unto love and good
works. And therefore, granting that a grain of partiality to his nephew
made Barnabas stretch too much that fine saying, " Charity hopeth all
things ;" yet, from the circumstances of Barnabas' parting with St. Paul,
we have not the least proof that St. Paul stained at all his Christian
perfection in the affair.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 547
If the reader will properly weigh these answers to the arguments, by
which our opponents try to stain the character of St. Paul as a spiritual
man, he will see, I hope, that the apostle is as much misrepresented by
Mr. Hill's doctrine, as Christian perfection is by his fictitious creed.
SECTION IX.
St. Paul, instead of owning himself a " carnal man" still « sold under
sin" presents us icith a striking picture of the perfect Christian, by
occasionally describing his own spirituality and heavenly mindedness;
and therefore his genuine experiences are so many proofs that Chris
tian perfection is attainable, and has actually been attained in this
life — What St. Augustine and the Rev. Mr. Whitefield once thought
of Rom. vii — And how near this last divine, and the Rev. Mr. Ro-
maine, sometimes come to the doctrine of Christian perfection.
MR. HILL'S mistake, with respect to St. Paul's supposed carnality, is
so much the more astonishing, as the apostle's professed spirituality not
only clears him, but demonstrates the truth of our doctrine. Having
therefore rescued his character from under the feet of those who tread
his honour in the dust, and sell his person under sin at an Antinomian
market, I shall retort the argument of our opponents ; and appealing to
St. Paul's genuine and undoubted experiences, when he taught wisdom
" among the perfect," I shall present the reader with a picture of the
perfect Christian, drawn at full length. Nor need I inform Mr. Hill
that the misrepresented apostle sits for his own picture before the glass
of evangelical sincerity ; and that, turning spiritual self painter, with
the pencil of a good conscience, and with colours mixed by the Spirit
of truth, the draws this admirable portrait from the life
" Be followers of me. This one thing I do ; leaving the things that
are behind, I press toward the mark for the prize of the heavenly calling
[a crown of glory.] Charity is the bond of perfection. Love is the
fulfilling of the law. If I have not charity, I am nothing." And what
charity or love St. Paul had, appears from Christ's words and from his
own. « Greater [i. e. more perfect] love hath no man than this," says
our Lord, « that he lay down his life for his friends." Now, this very
love Paul had for Christ, for souls, yea, for the souls of his fiercest ad
versaries, the Jews. Hear him : — " The love of Christ constraineth us.
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I long to depart and to be
with Christ. I count not my life dear unto myself, that I may finish my
course with joy. I am ready not to be bound only, but to die also for
the name of the Lord Jesus. If I be offered upon the sacrifice and ser
vice of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." And in the next
chapter but one to that in which the apostle is supposed to profess him
self actually " sold under sin," he professes perfect love to his sworn
enemies ; even that love by which " the righteousness of the law is ful
filled in them who walk after the Spirit." Hear him : — " I say the truth
in Christ, I lie not ; my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy
Ghost, that I, &c, could wish that myself were accursed, i. e. made a
curse (01*0 X-pitfre) offer iJie example of Christ, for my kinsmen accord
ing to the flesh ;" meaning his inexorable, bloody persecutors, the Jews.
548 LAST CHECK TO ANTINO31IANISM.
Nor was this love of St. Paul like a land flood : it constantly flowed
like a river. This living water sprang up constantly in his soul : wit
ness these words : — " Remember, that, by the space of three years, I
ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. Of many I have
told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they mind earthly
things : for our conversation is in heaven. Our rejoicing is this, the
testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not
with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conver
sation in the world. I know nothing [i. e. no evil] by [or of] myself.
We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. Whether we are
beside [i. e. carried out beyond] ourselves, it is to God : or whether we
be sober, [i. e. calm,] it is for your cause : [i. e. the love of God and
man is the only source of all my tempers.] Giving no offence in any
thing, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in
much patience, by pureness, by kindness, by love unfeigned ; being
filled with comfort, and exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. I will
gladly spend and be spent for you ; though the more abundantly I love
you, the less I be loved : [a rare instance this, of the most perfect love !]
We speak before God in Christ, we do all things, dearly beloved, for
your edifying. I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live, yet not
I, [see here the destruction of sinful self!] but Christ liveth in me ; and
the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
As always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether
it be by life or by death : we worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Mark them who walk
so, as. ye have us for an example. I have learned, in whatsoever state
I am, therewith to be content ; every where and in all things I am in
structed, both to abound and to suffer need : I can do all things through
Christ who strengtheneth me. Teaching every man in all wisdom, that
I may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus ; whereunto also I
labour, striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily."
This description of the perfect Christian, and of St. Paul, is so exceed
ingly glorious, and it appears to me such a refutation of the Calvinian
mistake which I oppose, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure, and my
readers the edification of seeing the misrepresented apostle give his own
lovely picture a few more finishing strokes : — " We speak not as pleas
ing men," says he, " but as pleasing God, who trieth our hearts. For
neither at any time used we flattering words, &c, God is witness ; nor
of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others. But we were
gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. Being
affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted to you,
not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls ; labouring night and
day, because we would not be chargeable to any of you. Ye are wit.
nesses, and God also, howT holily, and justly, and unblamably we be
haved ourselves among you. The Lord make you abound in love one
toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you. Thou
hast fully known my manner of life, purpose, faith ; long suffering,
jharily, patience : I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall
give in that day."
When I read this wonderful experience of St. Paul, written by him.
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM. 549
self, and see his doctrine of Christian perfection so gloriously exempli,
lied in his own tempers and conduct, I am surprised that good men
should still confound Saul the Jew with PAUL THE CHRISTIAN : and should
take the son of " the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her
children," for the son of " the Jerusalem from above, which is free, and
is the mother of us all, who stand in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free." But, upon second thoughts, I wonder no more : for if
those who engross -to themselves the title of Catholics, can believe that
Christ took his own body into his own fingers, broke it through the mid
dle, when he took bread, broke it, and said, " This is my body which is
broken for you ;" why cannot those who monopolize the name of ortho
dox among us, believe also that St. Paul spoke with a figure when he
said, " * I am carnal, and sold under sin, and brought into captivity to the
law of sin which is in my members. Brethren, I beseech you be as I
am : those things which ye have heard and seen in me, do, and the God
of peace shall be with you.' Now you have heard and seen, ' that the
evil which I would not, that I do ; and that with my flesh I serve the
law of sin.' In short, you have heard and seen that * I am carnal and
sold under sin. ' '
I am not at all surprised that carnal and injudicious professors should
contend for this contradictory doctrine, this flesh-pleasing standard of
Calvinian inconsistency and Christian imperfection. But that good, and
in other respects judicious men, should so zealously contend for it, ap
pears to me astonishing. They can never design to confound carnal
bondage with evangelical* liberty, and St. Paul's Christian experience
with that of Medea, and " Mr. Fulsome," in order to countenance gross
Antinomianism : nor can they take any pleasure in misrepresenting the
holy apostle. Why do they then patronize so great a mistake 1 I answer
still, By the same reason which makes pious Papists believe that conse
crated bread is the real flesh of Christ. Their priests and the pope say
so : some figurative expressions of our Lord seem to countenance their
saying. We Protestants, whom the Papists call carnal reasoners and
heretics, are of a different sentiment : and should they believe as we dct,
their humility and orthodoxy would be in danger. Apply this to the
present case. Calvinian divines and St. Augustine affirm that St. Paul
humbly spake his present experience when he said, / am carnal, <$fc.
We, who are called " Arminians and perfectionists," think the contrary ;
and our pious opponents suppose that if they thought as we do, they
should lose their humility and orthodoxy. Their error therefore springs
chiefly from mistaken fears, and not from wilful opposition to truth.
Nor is St. Augustine fully for our opponents : we have our part in the
bishop of Hippo as well as they. If he was for them when his contro
versy with Pelagius had heated him ; he was for us when he yet stood
upon t^e Scriptural line of moderation. Then he fairly owned that the
man whom the apostle personates in Romans vii, is homo sub lege posiiiis
ante gratia?n; "a man under the [condemning, irritating] power of the
law, who is yet a stranger to the liberty and power of Christ's Gospel."
Therefore, if Mr. Hill claim St. Augustine, the prejudiced controvertist,
we claim St. Augustine, the unprejudiced father of the Church ; or
rather, setting aside his dubious authority, we continue our appeal to
unprejudiced reason and plain Scripture.
550 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
What I say of St. Augustine may be said of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield.
Before he had embraced St. Augustine's mistakes, which are known
among us by the name of " Calvinism," he believed, as well as that
father, that the disconsolate man who groans, Who shall deliver me 1 is
not a possessor but a seeker of Christian liberty. To prove it, I need
only transcribe the latter part of his sermon, entitled, The Marks of the
New Birth : —
" Thirdly," says he, " I address myself to those who are under the
drawings of the Father, and are going through the Spirit of bondage ;
but, not finding the marks [of the new birth] before mentioned, are ever
crying out, [as the carnal penitent, Rom. vii,] Wfio shall deliver us from
the body of this death 1 Despair not : for, notwithstanding your present
trouble, it may be the Divine pleasure to give you the kingdom."
Hence it appears that Mr. Whitefield did not look upon such mourners
as Christian believers ; but only as persons who might become such if
they earnestly sought. He therefore most judiciously exhorts them to
seek till they find. " The grace of God, through Jesus Christ," adds
he, " is able to deliver you, and give you what you want ; even you may
receive the Spirit of adoption, the promise of the Father. All things
are possible with him ; persevere, therefore, in seeking, and determine
to find no rest in your spirit, till you know and feel that you are thus
born again from above, and God's Spirit witnesses with your spirits that
you are the children of God."
What immediately follows is a demonstration that, at that time, Mr.
Whitefield was no enemy to Christian perfection, and thought that some
had actually attained it ; or else nothing would have been more trifling
than his concluding address to perfect Christians. Take his own words,
and remember that when he preached them, by the ardour of his zeal,
and the devotedness of his heart, he showed himself a young man Jn
Christ, able to trample under foot the most alluring baits of the flesh
and of the world.
" Fourthly and lastly," says he, " I address myself to those who have
received the Holy Ghost in all its sanctifying graces, and are almost
ripe for glory. Hail, happy saints ! For your heaven is begun upon
earth. You have already received the first fruits of the Spirit, and are
patiently waiting till that blessed change come, when your harvest shall
be complete. I see and admire you, though, alas, at* so great a dis
tance from you. Your life, I know, is bid with Christ in God. You
have comforts, you have meat to eat, which a sinful, carnal world knows
nothing of. Christ's yoke is now become easy to you, and his burden
light : you have passed through the pangs of the new birth, and now
* At that time Mr. Whitefield was in oraers, and had "received the Spirit of
adoption." As a proof of it, I appeal, (1.) To the account of his conversion at
Oxford, before he was ordained; and, (2.) To these his own words: "I can say,
to the honour of rich, free, distinguishing1 grace, that I received the Spirit of
adoption before I had conversed with one man, or read a single book on the
doctrine of free justification by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ." That
is, before he had any opportunity of being drawn from the simplicity of the Scrip
ture Gospel, into the Calvinian refinements. (See his Works, vol. iv, page 45.)
Now, those Christians, who leave babes and young men in Christ " at so great a
distance from them," are the very persons whom we call "fathers in Christ,"
" perfect Christians."
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 551
rejoice that Christ Jesus is formed in your hearts. You know what it
is to dwell in Christ, and Christ in you. Like Jacob's ladder, although
your bodies are on earth, yet your souls %and hearts are in heaven ; and
by your faith and constant recollection, like the blessed angels, you do
always behold the face of your Father, which is in heaven. I need not
then exhort you to press forward, fyc. Rather I will exhort you in
patience to possess your souls : yet a little while, and Jesus Christ will
deliver you from the burden of the flesh, and an abundant entrance shall
be administered unto you into the eternal joy, &c, of his heavenly king,
dom." I have met with few descriptions of the perfect Christian that
please me better. I make but one objection to it : Mr. Whitefield
thought that the believers who " by constant recollection, like the blessed
angels, always behold the face of their Father," are so advanced in
grace, that they " need not to be exhorted to press forward." This is
•carrying the doctrine of perfection higher than Mr. Wesley ever did.
For my part, were I to preach to a congregation of such " happy saints,"
I would riot scruple taking this text : " So run that ye may [eternally]
obtain :" nor would I forget to set before them the example of the per
fect apostle, who said, " This one thing I do, leaving the things that are
behind, and reaching forth, I press toward the mark," &c. Had I been
in Mr. Whitefield's case, I own I would either have refused to join
the imperfectionists, or I would have recanted my address to perfect
Christians.
So strong is the Scriptural tide in favour of our doctrine, that it some
times carried away the Rev. Mr. Romaine himself. Nor can I confirm
the wavering reader in his belief of the possibility of obtaining the
glorious liberty which we contend for, better than by transcribing a fine
exhortation of that great minister, to what we call Christian perfection,
and what he calls the walk of faith : —
" The new covenant runs thus : — « I will put,' says God, « my law in
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,' &c. The Lord here
engages to take away the stony heart, and to give a heart of flesh, upon
which he will write the ten commandments, &c. The love of God will
open the contracted heart, enlarge the selfish, warm the cold, and bring
liberality out of the covetous. When the Holy Spirit teaches brotherly
love, he overcomes all opposition to it, &c. He writes upon their hearts
the two great commandments, ' on which hang all the law and the pro-
phets. The love of God,' says the apostle to the Romans, < is shed
abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost ;' and to the Thessalonians,
i Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.' Thus he
engages the soul to the holy law, and inclines the inner man to love
obedience. It ceases to be a yoke and a burden. How easy is it to do
what one loves ! If you dearly love any person, what a pleasure it is to
serve him ! What will not love put you upon doing or suffering to
oblige him ! Let love rule in the heart "to God and to man, his law will
then become delightful, and obedience to it will be pleasantness. The
soul will run ; yea, inspired by love, it will mount up with wings as
eagles, in the way of God's commandments. Happy are the people
that are in such a case." Now, such a case is what we call, the state
of Christian perfection ; to the obtaining of which, Mr. Romaine excites
his own soul by the following excellent exhortation : —
S53 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
"This is the very tenor of the covenant of grace, which the almighty
Spirit has undertaken to fulfil, [if we mix faith with the promises, as
Mr. Romaine himself will soon .intimate,] and he cannot fail in his office.
It is his crown and glory to make good his covenant engagements. O
trust him then, and put honour upon his faithfulness, [that is, if I mistake
not, make good your own covenant engagements.] He has promised
to guide thee with his counsel, and to strengthen thee with his might,
&c. What is Itithin thee, or without thee, to oppose thy walking in
love with him, he will incline thee to resist, and he will enable thee to
overcome. O what mayest thou not expect from such a Divine Friend,
who is to abide with thee on purpose to keep thine heart right with
God ! [Query : when the heart is kept full of indwelling sin, is it kept
right with God?] What cannot he do? What will he not do for thee?
Such as is the love of the Father and of the Son, such is the love of the
Holy Ghost : the same free, perfect, everlasting love. Read his pro
mises of it. Meditate on them. Pray to him for increasing faith to
mix with them ; that he [not sin] dwelling in the temple of thy heart,
thou mayest have fellowship there with the Father and with the Son.
Whatever in thee is pardoned through the Son's atonement, pray the
Holy Spirit to subdue, that it may not interrupt communion with thy
God. And whatever grace is to be received out of the fulness of Jesus,
in order to keep up arid promote that communion, entreat the Holy
Spirit to give it thee with growing strength. But pray in faith, nothing
wavering. So shall the love of God rule in thy heart. And then thou
shalt be like the sun, when it goeth forth in its might, shining clearer
and clearer to the perfect day. O may thy course be like his, as free,
us regular, and as communicative of good, that thy daily petition may be
answered, and that the will of thy Father may be done on earth, as it is
in heaven." (Walk of Faith, vol. i, page 227, &c.)
I do not produce this excellent quotation to insinuate that the Rev.
Mr. Romaine is a perfectionist, but only to edify the reader, and to show
that the good, mistaken men, who are most prejudiced against our doc
trine, see it sometimes so true, and so excellent, that, forgetting theii
pleas for indwelling sin, they intimate that our daily petition may be
answered ; and that the " will of our Father may be done on earth as it
is in heaven ;" an expression this, which includes the height and depth
of all Christian perfection.
SECTION X.
St. John is for Christian perfection, and not for a death purgatory — •
I John i, 8, fyc, is explained agreeably to St. John's design, the con-
text, arid the vein of holy doctrine which runs through, the rest of the
epistle.
THE Scriptures declare that " we are built upon the foundation of
the apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone :" and
St. Paul being deservedly considered as the chief of the apostles, and
of consequence as the chief stone of the foundation on which, next to
the corner stone, our holy religion is built, who can wonder at the
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 553
pains which our opponents take to represent this important part of our
foundation as carnal, wretched, and sold under sin 1 Does not every
body see that such a foundation becomes the Antinomian structure
which is raised upon it ? And is it not incumbent upon the opposers of
Antinomianism to uncover that wretched foundation by removing the
heaps of dirt in which St. Paul's spirituality is daily buried ; and by this
means to rescue the holy apostle, whom our adversaries endeavour to
" sell under sin," as a carnal wretch ? This rescue has been attempted
in the four last sections. If I have succeeded in this charitable attempt,
I may proceed to vindicate the holiness of St. John, who is the last
apostle that Mr. Hill calls to the help of indwelling sin, Christian im
perfection, and a death purgatory,
Before I show how the loving apostle is pressed into a service which
is so contrary to his experience, and to his doctrine of perfect love, I
shall make a preliminary remark. To take a passage of Scripture out
from the context, and to make it speak a language contrary to the
obvious design of the sacred writer, is the way to butcher the body of
Scriptural divinity. This conduct injures truth, as much as the Gala-
tians would have injured themselves, if they had literally " pulled their
eyes out, and given them to St. Paul :" an edifying passage, thus dis
placed, may become as loathsome to a moral mind, as a good eye, torn
out of its bleeding orb in a good face, is odious to a tender heart.
Among the passages which have been thus treated, none has suffered
more violence than this : — " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us," 1 John i, 8. "That's enough for
me," says a hasty imperfectionist : " St. John clearly pleads for the
indwelling of sin in us during the term of life ; and he is so set against
those who profess deliverance from sin, and Christian perfection in
this life, that he does not scruple to represent them as liars and self
deceivers."
Our opponents suppose that this argument is unanswerable. But to
convince them that they are mistaken, we need only prove that the
sense which they so confidently give to the words of St. John is con
trary, (1.) To his design. (2.) To the context. And, (3.) To the pure
and strict doctrine which he enforces in the rest of the epistle.
I. With respect to St. John's design, it evidently was to confirm be
lievers who were in danger of being deceived by Antinomian and anti-
christian seducers. When he wrote this epistle, the Church began to
be corrupted by men, who, under pretence of knowing the mysteries of
the Gospel better than the apostles, imposed upon the simple Jewish
fables, heathenish dreams, or vain, philosophic speculations ; insinuating
that their doctrinal peculiarities were the very marrow of the Gospel.
Many such arose at the time of the reformation, who introduced stoical
dreams into Protestantism, and whom Bishop Latimer and others steadily
opposed under the name of " Gospellers."
The doctrines of all these Gospellers centred in making Christ, indi
rectly at least, the minister of sin ; and in representing the preachers of
practical, self-denying Christianity, as persons unacquainted with Chris
tian liberty. It does not indeed appear that the Gnostics, or knowing
ones, (for so the ancient Gospellers were called,) carried matters so far
as openly to say that believers might be God's dear children in the very
554 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
commission of adultery and murder, or while they worshipped Milcom
and Ashtaroth : but it is certain that they could already reconcile the
verbal denial of Christ, fornication and idolatrous feasting, with true
faith ; directly or indirectly " teaching and seducing Christ's servants
to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols," Rev. ii, 20.
At these Antinomians, St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude, levelled their
epistles. St. Paul strongly cautioned Timothy, Titus, and the Ephesians
against them: see Eph. iv, 14; v, 6. And St. John wrote his first
epistle to warn the believers who had not yet been seduced into their
error : a dreadful, though pleasing error this, which, by degrees, led
some to deny Christ's law, and then his very name ; hence the triumph
of the spirit of antichrist. Now, as these men insinuated that believers
might be righteous without doing righteousness ; and as they supposed
that Christ's righteousness, or our own knowledge and faith, would supply
the want of internal sanctification and external obedience ; St. John
maintains against them the necessity of that practical godliness which
consists in not " committing sin," and in " walking as Christ walked :"
nay, he asserts that Christ's blood, through the faith which is our victory,
purifies " from all sin, and cleanses from all unrighteousness." To
make him, therefore, plead for the necessary continuance of indwelling
sin, till we go into a death purgatory, is evidently to make him defeat
his own design.
II. To be more convinced of it, we need only read the controverted
text in connection with the CONTEXT ; illustrating both by some notes in
brackets. St. John opens his commission thus, First Epistle i, 5, 6, 7 : —
" This is the message which we have received of him [Christ] and
declare unto you, that God is light, [bright, transcendent purity,] and in
him is no darkness [no impurity] at all. If we [believers] say that we
have fellowship with him, [that we are united to him by an actually
living faith,] and walk in darkness, [in impurity or sin,] we lie, and do
not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, [if we
live up to our Christian light and do righteousness,] we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
from all sin. For let no man deceive you : he that does righteousness
is righteous, even as he, Christ, is righteous ; and in him is no sin,"
1 John iii, 5, 7. So far we see no plea, either for sin, or for the Cal-
vinian purgatory.
Should Mr. Hill reply, that " when St. John says, < The blood of
Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' the apostle doe>' not mean all indwelling
sin ; because this is a sin from which death aioiie can cleanse us :" we
demand a proof, and in the meantime we answer, that St. John, in the
above-quoted passages, says, that " he who does righteousness," in the
full sense of the word, " is righteous, as Christ is righteous ;" observing
that " in him [Christ] is no sin." So certain, then, as there is no
indwelling sin in Christ, there is no indwelling sin in a believer who does
righteousness in the full sense of the word ; for he is made " perfect in
love," and is " cleansed from all sin." Nor was St. John himself
ashamed to profess this glorious liberty ; for he said, " Our love is made
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment ; because as
he [Christ] is [perfect in love, and of consequence without sin,] so are
we in this world," 1 John iv, 17. And the whole context shows that
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 555
the beloved apostle spake these great words of a likeness to Christ with
respect to the perfect love which " fulfils the law, abolishes tormenting
fear, ana enables the believer to stand with boldness in the day of judg
ment," as being forgiven, and " conformed to the image of God's Son."
If Mr, Hill urge that " the blood of Christ, powerfully applied by the
Spirit, cleanses us indeed from the guilt, but not from the filthiness of
sjji ; blood having a reference to justification and pardon, but not to
sanctification and holiness:" we reply, that this argument is not only
contrary to the preceding answer, but to the text, the context, and other
plain scriptures. (1.) To the text, where our being cleansed from all sin
is evidently suspended on our humble and faithful walk : " If we walk
in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Christ cleanses us," &c.
Now every novice in Gospel grace knows that true Protestants do not
suspend a sinner's justification on his " walking in the light as God is in
the light." (2.) It is contrary to the context ; for in the next verse but
one, where St. John evidently distinguishes forgiveness and holiness, he
peculiarly applies the word cleansing to the latter of these blessings :
" He is faithful to forgive us our sin," by taking away our guilt ; " and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," by taking away all the filth of
indwelling sin. And, (3.) It is contrary to other places of Scripture,
where Christ's blood is represented as having a reference to purification,
as well as to forgiveness. God himself says, " Wash ye ; make you
clean ; put away the evil of your doings ; cease to do evil ; learn to do
well." The washing and cleansing here spoken of, have undoubtedly a
reference to the removal ofthejilth, as well as the guilt of sin. Accord,
ingly we read that all those who « stand before the throne, have both
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ;"
that is, they are justified by, and sanctified with his blood. Hence our
Church prays " that we may so eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his
blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our
souls washed [i. e. made clean also] through his most precious blood."
To rob Christ's blood of its sanctifying power, and to confine its efficacy
to the atonement, is therefore an Antinomian mistake, by which our
opponents greatly injure the Saviour, whom they pretend to exalt.
Should Mr. Hill assert, that " when St. John says, If we walk in the
light, 6fc, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, the loving apostle's
meaning is not that the blood of Christ radically cleanses us, but only
that it begets and carries on a cleansing from all sin, which cleansing
will be completed in a death purgatory :" we answer : (1.) This assertion
leaves Mr. Hill's doctrine open to all the above-mentioned difficulties.
(2.) It overthrows the doctrine of the Protestants, who have always
maintained that nothing is absolutely necessary to eternal salvation, and,
of consequence, to our perfect cleansing, but an obedient, steadfast faith,
apprehending the full virtue of Christ's purifying blood, according to
Acts xv, 9, " God giving them the Holy Ghost, put no difference between
them and us, purifying their hearts by faith," — not by death. (3.) It is
contrary to matter of fact : Enoch and Elijah having been translated to
heaven, and therefore having been perfectly purified even in body, with-
out going into the Calvinian purgatory. But, (4.) What displeases us
most in the evasive argument which I answer, is, that it puts the greatest
contempt on Christ's blood, and puts the greatest cheat on weak believers,
556 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
who sincerely wait to be now " made perfect in love," that they may
now worthily magnify God's holy name.
An illustration will prove it. I suppose that Christ is now in England,
doing as many wonderful cures as he formerly did in Judea. My
benevolent opponent runs to the Salop infirmary, and tells all the patients
there that the great Physician, the Son of God, has once more visited
the earth ; arid he again " heals all manner of sickness and diseases
amonn; the people, and cleanses" from the most inveterate leprosy by a
touch or a word. All the patients believe Mr. Hill ; some hop to this
wonderful Saviour, and others are carried to his footstool. They touch
and retouch him ; he strokes them round again and again : but not one
of them is cured. The wounds of some, indeed, are skinned over for
a time ; but it soon appears that they still fester at the bottom, and that
a painful core remains unextracted in every sore. The poor creatures
complain to Mr. Hill, " Did you not, sir, assure us upon your honour,
as a Christian gentleman, that Christ heals all manner of diseases, and
cleanses from all kinds of leprosies ?" " True," says Mr. Hill ; " but
you must know that these words do not mean that he radically cures
any disease, or cleanses from any leprosy : they only signify that he
begins to cure every disease, and continues to cleanse from all leprosies ;
but notwithstanding all his cures, begun and continued, nobody is cured
before death. So, my friends, you must bear your festering sores as
well as you can, till death comes radically to cleanse and cure you from
them all." Instead of crying, " Sweet grace ! Rich grace !" and of
clapping Mr. Hill for his evangelical message, the disappointed patients
desire him to take them back to the infirmary, saying, " We have there
a chance for a cure before death ; but your great Physician pronounces
us incurable, unless death comes to the help of his art : and we think
that any surgeon could do as much, if he did not do more." (See sec. xii,
argument xx.)
If Mr. Hill say that I beat the air, and that the text which he quotes
in his " Creed for Perfectionists," to show that it is impossible to be
cleansed from all sin before death, is not 1 John i, 7, but the next verse ;
I reply, that if St. John assert in the seventh verse that « Christ's blood,"
powerfully applied by the Spirit of faith, " cleanses us from all sin," that
inspired writer cannot be so exceedingly inconsistent as to contradict
himself in the very next verse.
Should the reader ask, " What then can be St. John's meaning in
that verse, where he declares that * if we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ?' How can these words
possibly agree- with the doctrine of a perfect cleansing from all sin ?"
We answer, that St. John having given his first stroke to the Anti-
nomian believers of his day, strikes, by the by, a blow at Pharisaic
professors. There were in St. John's time, as there are in our own,
numbers of men who had never been properly convinced of sin, and
who boasted, as Paul once did, that touching the righteousness of the
law, they were blameless ; they served God ; they did their duty ; they
gave alms ; they never did any body any harm ; they thanked God that
they were not as other men ; but especially that they were not like
those mourners in Sion, who were no doubt very wicked, since they
made so much ado about God's meicy, and a powerful application of
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 557
the Redeemer's all-cleansing blood. How proper then was it for St.
John to inform his readers that these whole-hearted Christians, these
perfect Pharisees, were no better than liars and self deceivers ; and that
true Christian righteousness is always attended by a genuine conviction
of our native depravity, and by an humble acknowledgment of our actual
transgressions.
This being premised, it appears that the text so dear to us, and so
mistaken by our opponents, has this fair, Scriptural meaning : — " If we
[followers of Him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re
pentance] say, We have no sin [no native depravity from our first pa-
rents, and no actual sin, at least no such sin as deserves God's wrath ;
fancying we need not secure a particular application of Christ's atoning
and purifying blood] we deceive ourselves, and the truth [of repentance
and faith] is not in us."
That the words are levelled at the monstrous error of self-conceited,
and self-perfected Pharisees, and not at "the glorious liberty of the
children of God," appears to us indubitable from the following reasons :
(1.) The immediately preceding verse strongly asserts this liberty. (2.)
The verse immediately following secures it also, and cuts down the doc
trine of our opponents ; the apostle's meaning being evidently this : —
" Though I write to you, that ' if we say' we are originally free from
sin, and never did any harm, ' we deceive ourselves ;' yet, mistake me
not : I no not mean to continue under the guilt, or in the moral infection
of any sin, original or actual. For if we penitently and believingly con
fess both, ' he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness,' whether it be native or self contracted,
internal or external. Therefore, if we have attained the glorious liberty
of God's children, we need not, through voluntary humility, say that we
do nothing but sin. It will be sufficient, when we are * cleansed from
all unrighteousness,' still to be deeply humbled for our present infirmities,
and for our past sins ; confessing both with godly sorrow and filial shame.
For if we should say, * We have not sinned, [note : St. John does not
write, If we should say, WE DO NOT SIN,] we make him a liar, and the
truth is riot in us ;' common sense dictating that if ' we have not sinned,'
we speak an untruth when we profess that Christ has forgiven our sins."
This appears to us the true meaning of 1 John i, 8, when it is fairly
considered in the light of the context.
III. We humbly hope that Mr. Hill himself will be of our sentiment
if he compare the verse in debate with the pure and strict doctrine which
St. John enforces throughout his epistle. In the second chapter he says,
" We know that we know him, if wre keep his commandments, &c.
Whoso KEEPETH HIS WORD, in him verily is the love of Gocl PERFECTED.
He that abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked,
&c. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light [where the blood
of Christ cleariseth from all sin] and there is none occasion of stumbling
in him."
The same doctrine runs also through the next chapter : " Every one
that hath this hope in him, PURIFIETH HIMSELF AS HE (Christ) is PUKE.
Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, &c, and ye know
that he was manifested to take away our sins, [i. e. to destroy them root
and branch ;] and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
558 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
not : whosoever sinneth, does not [properly] see him, neither know him ;
he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he [Christ] is righteous.
He that committeth sin, [i. e. as appears by the context, he that trans-
gresseth the law,] is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth from the begin,
ning : for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God [whosoever
is made partaker of God's holiness, according to the perfection of the
Christian dispensation] doth not commit sin, [i. e. does not transgress
the law ;] for his seed," the ingrafted word, made quick and powerful by
the indwelling Spirit, " remaineth in him, and [morally speaking] he
cannot sin because he is [thus] born of God. For if ye know that
he is righteous, ye know that every one that doth righteousness is
born of him ;" and that he that doth not righteousness, — he " that com-
rnitteth sin," or transgresseth the law,— -is, so far, of the devil, for " the
devil" transgresseth the law, i. e. " sinneth from the beginning. In this
the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.* Who-
soever does not righteousness, [i. e. whosoever sinneth, taking the word
in its evangelical meaning,] is not of God," 1 John hi, 3-11 ; ii, 29.
If Mr. Hill cry out, " Shocking ! Who are those men that do not sin ?"
I reply, All those whom St. John speaks of, a few verses below : " Be
loved, if our heart condemn us ; [and it will condemn us if we sin, but
God much more, for] God is greater than our hearts, &c. Beloved,
if our hearts condemn us not, we have confidence toward God, &c, be
cause we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing
in his sight," 1 John iii, 20, &c. Now, we apprehend, all the sophistry
in the world will never prove that, evangelically speaking, "keeping-
God's commandments," and "doing what pleases him," is sinning.
Therefore, when St. John professed to keep God's commandments, and
to do what is pleasing in his sight, he professed what our opponents
call sinless perfection, and what we call Christian perfection.
Mr. Hill is so very unhappy in his choice of St. John, to close the
number of his apostolic witnesses for Christian imperfection, that, were
it not for a few clauses of his first epistle, the anti-Solifidian severity of
that apostle might drive all imperfect Christians to despair. And what
is most remarkable, those few encouraging clauses are all conditional :
" If any man sin," for there is no necessity that he should ; or rather,
(according to the most literal sense of the word a,aap<rr), which being in
the Aorist has generally the force of a past tense,) " If any man HAVE
SINNED : if he have not sinned unto death : if we confess our sins : if
that which ye have heard shall remain in you : if ye walk in the light :"
then do we evangelically enjoy the benefit o'f our Advocate's intercession.
Add to this, that the first of those clauses is prefaced by these words,
" My little children, these things I write unto you, THAT YE SIN NOT ;"
and all together are guarded by these dreadful declarations : — " He that
says, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar. If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If any man
say, I love God, and loveth not his brother, [note : he that loveth another
* This doctrine of St. John is perfectly agreeable to that of our Lord, who said
that " Judas had a devil," because he gave place to the love of money ; and who
called Peter himself " Satan," when he " savoured the things of men," in opposi
tion to " the things of God."
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 559
hath fulfilled the law,] he is a liar. There is a sin unto death, I do not
fiay that he shall pray for it. Let no man deceive you ; he that does
righteousness is righteous. He that committeth sin [or transgresseth
the law] is of the devil." To represent St. John, therefore, as an enemy
to the doctrine of Christian perfection, does not appear to us less absurd
than to represent Satan as a friend to complete holiness.
SECTION XI.
Why the privileges of believers under the Gospel of Christ cannot be
justly measured by the experience of believers under the law of Moses
— A review of the passages upon which the enemies of Christian
perfection found their hopes that Solomon, Isaiah, and Job, 'were
strong imperfectionists.
IF Mr. Hill had quoted Solomon, instead of St. John ; and Jewish,
instead of Christian saints, he might have attacked the glorious Chris-
tian liberty of God's children with more success : for " the heir, as long
as he is a child, [in Jewish nonage,] differeth nothing from a servant.
but is under tutors [and school masters] until the time appointed by the
father. Even so we, when wre were children, were in bondage : but when
the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and
stand in the [peculiar] liberty, wherewith Christ has made us [Chris
tians] free," Gal. iii, 1 ; iv, 1. But this very passage, which shows that
Jews are, comparatively speaking, in bondage, shows also that the
Christian dispensation and its high privileges cannot be rne'asured by the
inferior privileges of the Jewish dispensation, under which Solomon
lived : for the " law made nothing perfect," in the Christian sense of the
word. And " what the law could not do, God, sending his only Son,
condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be
fulfilled in us [Christian believers] who walk after the Spirit ;" being
endued with that large measure of it, which began to be poured out on
believers on the day of pentecost : for that measure of the Spirit was
not given before, " because Jesus was not yet glorified," John vii, 39.
But after " he had ascended on high, and had obtained the gift of the in
dwelling Comforter" for believers ; they received, says St. Peter, " the
end of their faith, even the Christian salvation of their souls :" a salva
tion which St. Paul justly calls so great salvation, when he compares it
with Jewish privileges, Heb. ii, 3. " Of which [Christian] salvation,"
proceeds St. Peter, " the prophets have inquired, who prophesied of the
grace that should come unto you [Christians,] searching what, or what
nianner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them [according to
their dispensation] did signify, when it testified beforehand the suffer
ings of Christ, arid the glory [the glorious dispensation] that should fol
low [his return to heaven, and accompany the outpouring of the Spirit.]
Unto whom [the Jewish prophets] it was revealed, that not unto them
selves, but unto us [Christians] they did minister the things which are
now preached unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,"
1 Pet. i, 9, &c. And, among those things, the Scriptures reckon the
500 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
coming of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, with power into the hearts of
oelievers, and the baptism of fire, or the perfect love, which " burns up
the chaff" of sin, " thoroughly purges God's floor," and makes the hearts
of perfect believers " a habitation of God through the Spirit, and not a
nest for indwelling sin." As this doctrine may appear new to Mr. Hill,
I beg leave to confirm it by the testimony of two as eminent divines as
England has lately produced. The one is Mr. Baxter, who, in his com
ment upon these words, " A testament is of force after men are dead,"
&c, Heb. ix, 17, very justly observes, that " his (Christ's) covenant has
the nature of a testament, which supposeth the death of the testator, and
is not of efficacy till then, to give full right of what he bequeatheth.
Note : that the eminent, evangelical kingdom of the Mediator, in its last,
full edition, called the kingdom of Christ and of heaven, distinct from
the obscure state of promise before Christ's incarnation, began at Christ's
resurrection, ascension, and sending of the eminent gift of the Holy
Ghost, and was but as an embryo before." My other witness is the
Rev. Mr. Whitefield, who proposes and answers the following question :
" Why was not the Holy Ghost given till Jesus Christ was glorified ?
Because till then he was himself on the earth, and had not taken on him
the kingly office, nor pleaded the merits of his death before his heavenly
Father, by which he purchased that invaluable blessing for us." (Sec
his Works, vol. iv, p. 362.) Hence I conclude, that as the full mea
sure of the Spirit, which perfects Christian believers, was not given be
fore our Lord's ascension, it is as absurd to judge of Christian perfection
by the experiences of those who died before that remarkable event, as
to measure the powers of a sucking child by those of an embryo.
This might suffice to unnerve all the arguments which our opponents
produce from the Old Testament against Christian perfection. How-
ever, we are willing to consider a moment those passages by which
they plead for the necessary indwelling of sin, in all Christian believers,
and defend the walls of the Jericho within, that accursed city of refuge
for spiritual Canaanites and Diabolonians.
I. 1 Kings viii, 46, &c. Solomon prays and says, " If they [the
Jews] sin against thee (for there is no man* that sinneth not) and thou
be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry
them away captive — yet, if they bethink themselves and repent, and
make supplication unto thee, and return unto thee with all their heart,
and with all their soul, then hear thou their prayer." No unprejudiced
person, who, in reading this passage, takes the parenthesis (" for there
is no man that sinneth not") in connection with the context, can, I think,
help seeing that the Rev. Mr. Toplady, who, if I remember right,
quotes this text against us, mistakes Solomon, as much as Mr. Hill does
St. John. The meaning is evidently, there is no man icho is not liable
to sin ; and that a man actually sins, when he actually departs from God.
Now, peccability, or a liableness to sin, is not indwelling sin ; for angels,
* If Mr. Hill consult the original, he will find that the word translated sinneth^
is in the future tense, which is often used for an indefinite tense in the potential
mood, because the Hebrews have no such mood or tense. Therefore our trans-
lators would only have done justice to the original, as well as to the context,
if they had rendered the whole clause, "There is no man that may not sin;
instead of " There is no man that sinneth not."
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 561
Adam and Eve, were all liable to sin, in their sinless state. And that
there are some men who do not actually sin is indubitable, (1.) From
the hypothetical phrase in the context, *« if any man sin," which shows
that their sinning is not unavoidable. (2.) From God's anger agains*
those that sin, which is immediately mentioned. Hence it appears, that
so certain as God is not angry with all his people, some of them do not
sin in the sense of the wise man. And, (3.) From Solomon's intimating
that these very men who have sinned, or have actually departed from
God, may " bethink themselves, repent and turn to God with all their
heart, and with all their soul," that is, may attain the perfection of their
dispensation ; the two poles not being more opposed to each other than
sinning is to repenting ; and departing from God, to returning to him
with all our heart and with all our soul. Take therefore the whole
passage together, and you have a demonstration that " where sin hath
abounded, there grace may much more abound." And what is this
but a demonstration that our doctrine is not chimerical ? For if Jews
(Solomon himself being judge) instead of sinning and departing from
God, can " repent, and turn to him with all their heart," how much
more Christians, whose privileges are so much greater !
II. " But Solomon says also, There is not a just man upon earth,
that does good and sinneth not," Eccles. vii, 20.
(1.) We are not sure that Solomon says it: for he may introduce
here the very same man who, four verses before, says, " Be not righteous
overmuch," &c, and Mr. Toplady may mistake the interlocutor's mean-
ing in one text, as Dr. Trap had done in the other. But, (2.) Sup
posing Solomon speaks, may not he in general assert what St. Paul
does, Rom. iii, 23 ? " All have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God," the just not excepted : is not this the very sense which Canne,
Calvinist as he was, gives to the wise man's words, when he refers the
reader to this assertion of the apostle 1 And did we ever speak against
this true doctrine '? (3.) If you take the original word to sin, in the
lowest sense which it bears : if it mean in Eccles. vii, 20, what it does
in Judges xx, 16, namely, to miss a mark, we shall not differ ; for we
maintain, that, according to the standard of paradisiacal perfection,
" there is not a just man upon earth, that does good and misses not"
the mark of that perfection, i. e. that does not lessen the good he does,
by some involuntary, and therefore (evangelically speaking) sinless de.
feet. (4.) It is bold to pretend to overthrow the glorious liberty of
God's children, which is asserted in a hundred plain passages of the
New Testament, by producing so vague a text as Eccles. vii, 20. And
to measure the spiritual attainments of all believers, in all ages, by this
obscure standard, appears to us as ridiculous as to affirm, that' of a
thousand believing men. nine hundred and ninety-nine are indubitably
villains ; and that of a thousand Christian women, there is not one but
is a strumpet ; because Solomon says a few lines below, " One man
among a thousand have I found ; but a woman among all those have I
not found," Eccles. vii, 28.
III. If it be objected that " Solomon asks, « Who can say, I have made
my Jieart dean, I am pure from my sin ?" Prov. xx, 9 :" we answer : —
1. Does not Solomon's father ask, " Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?"
Does a question of that nature always imply an absurdity, or an impos-
VOL. II. 36
562 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
sibility ? Might not Solomon's query be evangelically answered thus ?
" The man in whom thy father David's prayer is answered, Create in
me a clean heart, O God: the man who has regarded St. James' direc
tion to the primitive Solifidians, Cleanse your hearts, ye double minded :
the man who has obeyed God's awful command, O Jerusalem, wash thy
heart from iniquity, that thou mayest be saved : or the man who is in-
terested in the sixth beatitude, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God : that man, I say, can testify to the honour of the blood
which cleanseih from all sin, that he has made his heart clean."
2. However, if Solomon, as is most probable, reproves in this passage
the conceit of a perfect, boasting Pharisee, the answer is obvious : no
man of that stamp can say with any truth, " I have made my heart clean ;"
for the law of faith excludes all proud boasting, and if we say, with the
temper of the Pharisee, " that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us ;" for we have pride, and Pharisaic pride too, which,
in the sight of God. is perhaps the greatest of all sins. If our opponents
take the°wise man's question in either of the preceding Scriptural senses,
they will find that it perfectly agrees with the doctrine of Jewish and
Christian perfection.
IV. Solomon's pretended testimony against Christian perfection is
frequently backed by two of Isaiah's sayings,- considered apart from the
context, one of which respects the " filthiness of our righteousness ;"
and the other the uncleanness of our lips. I have already proved, (vol. i,
Fourth Check, letter viii,) that/the righteousness which Isaiah compares
tojilthy rags, and St. Paul to dung, is only the anti-evangelical, Pharisaic
righteo&uness of unhumbled professors : a righteousness this, which may
be" called " the righteousness of impenitent pride," rather than " the
righteousness of humble faith ;" therefore the excellence of the right
eousness of faith cannot, with any propriety, be struck at by that passage.
V. " But Isaiah, undoubtedly speaking of himself, says, Wo is me,
for I am undone, because I am a, man of unclean lips, Isaiah vi, 5."
True : but give yourself the trouble to read the two following verses,
and you will hear him declare that the power of God's Spirit applying
the blood of sprinkling (which power was represented by « a live coal
taken from off the altar,") touched his lips ; so that " his iniquity was
taken away and his sin purged." This passage, therefore, when it is
considered with the context, instead of disproving the doctrine of Chris
tian perfection, strongly proves the doctrine of Jewish perfection.
If Isaiah is discharged from the service into which he is so unwar
rantably pressed, our opponents will bring Job, whom the Lord himself
pronounces perfect according to his dispensation, notwithstanding the
hard thoughts which his friends entertained of him.
VI. Perfect Job is absurdly set upon demolishing Christian perfection,
because he says, <; If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn
me ; if I say, [in a self-justifying spirit] / am perfect, it shall also prove
me perverse," Job ix, 20. But, (1.) What does Job assert here more
than Solomon does in the word, to which Canne on this text judiciously
refers his readers : " Let another man praise thee, and not thine own
mouth ; a stranger, and not thine own lips." Though even this rule is
not without exception ; witness the circumstance which drove St. Paul
to what he calls' a confidence of boasting. (2.) That professing the
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. 563
perfection of our dispensation in a self-abasing and Christ-exalting spirit
is not a proof of perverseness, is evident from the profession which
humble Paul made of his being one of the perfect Christians of his time,
Phil, iii, 15, and from St. John's declaration, that his "love was made
perfect," John iv, 17. For when we have " the witnessing Spirit,
whereby we know the things which are freely given to us of God, we
may, nay, at proper times we should acknowledge his gifts, to his glory,
though not our own. (3.) If God himself had pronounced Job perfect,
according to his dispensation, Job's modest fear of pronouncing himself
so, does not at all overthrow the Divine testimony ; such a timorousness
only shows that the more we are advanced in grace, the more we are
averse to whatever has the appearance of ostentation ; and the more
deeply we feel what Job felt, when he said, " Behold, I am vile ; what
shall I answer thee ? I will put my hand upon my mouth," Job xl, 4.
VII. " But Job himself, far from mentioning his perfection, says,
Now mine eye seeth thee, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,
Job xlii, 6." And does this disprove our doctrine? Do we not assert
that our perfection admits of a continual growth ; and that perfect re
pentance, and perfect humility, are essential parts of it ? These words
of Job, therefore, far from overthrowing our doctrine, prove that the
patient man's perfection grew ; and that from the top of the perfection
of Gcntilism, he saw the day of Christian perfection, and had a taste of
what Mr. Wesley prays for, when he sings, —
O let me gain perfection's height,
0 let me into nothing fall, &c.
Confound, o'erpower me with thy grace ;
1 would be by myself abhorr'd ;
All might, all majesty, all praise,
All glory be to Christ my Lord !
VIII. With respect to the words, " The stars are not pure — the hea
vens are not clean in his sight : his angels he charged with folly," Job
xv, 15 ; v, 18, we must consider them as a proof that absolute perfection
belongs to God alone ; a truth this, which we inculcate as well as our
opponents. Beside, if such passages overthrow the doctrine of perfection,
they would principally overthrow the doctrine of angelical perfection,
which Mr. Hill holds as well as we. To conclude : —
IX. When Job asks, "What is man that he should be clean? How
can he be clean that is born of a woman ? Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean?" And when he answers, " Not one ;" he means not
one who falls short of infinite power. If he excluded Emmanuel, God
with us, I would directly point at him \vho said, " I will, be thou clean ;"
and at the believers who declare, " We can do all things through Christ
that strengthened us," and accordingly " cleanse themselves from all
filthiness of the flesh and spirit, that they may be found of him without
spot and blameless." Yea, I would point at the poor leper, who has
faith enough to say, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me dean. They
tell me that my leprosy must cleave to me till death batter down this
tenement of clay ; but faith speaks a different language : only say the
word, Be thou clean, and I shall be cleansed : purge me with hyssop :
sprinkle clean water upon me, and I shall be clean from all my filthiness.
If these remarks be just, does it not appear that it is as absurd to stab
564 LAST CHECK TO ANTEVOMIANISM.
Christian perfection through the sides of Job, Isaiah, and Solomon, as
to set Peter, Paul, James, and John, upon " cutting it up, root and branch?"
SECTION XII.
Containing a variety of arguments, to prove the absurdity of the twin
doctrines of Christian imperfection and a death purgatory.
I HAVE hitherto stood chiefly upon the defensive, by showing that Mr.
Hill has no ground for insinuating that our Church, and Peter, Paul,
James, and John, are defenders of the twin doctrines of Christian imper
fection and a death purgatory : I shall now attack these doctrines by a
variety of arguments, which, I hope, will recommend themselves to the
candid reader's conscience and reason.
If I wanted to encounter Mr. Hill with a broken reed, and not with
the weapons of a Protestant, REASON and SCRIPTURE, I would retort
here the grand argument by which he attempts to cut down our doc
trines of free agency and cordial obedience : — " The generality of the
carnal clergy are for you, therefore your doctrines are false." If this
argument, be good, is not that which follows better still ? " The gene
rality of bad men are for your doctrine of Christian imperfection ;
therefore that doctrine is false : for if it were true, wicked people would
not so readily embrace it." But as I see no solidity in that argument,
by which I could disprove the very being of a God, (for the generality
of wicked men believe there is a Supreme Being,) I discard it, and
begin with one, which I hope is not unworthy the reader's attention.
I. Does not St. Paul insinuate that no soul goes to heaven without
perfection, where he calls the blessed souls that wait for a happy resur
rection, ffvsuaara &xaiwv <rs-7cXsic.jfjt.svwv, " the spirits of just men made
perfect," and not TSrsXsjwjxsva f\icvpa<ra chxaiwv, the perfected spirits of
just men 1 Hebrews xii, 23. Does not this mode of expression denote
a perfection which they attained while they were men, and before they
commenced separate spirits; that is, before death? Can any one go to
a holy and just God, without first being made just and holy ? Does not
the apostle say, that " the unrighteous, or unjust, shall not inherit the
kingdom of God ?" arid that " without holiness no man shall see the
Lord ?" Must not this holiness, of whatsoever degree it is, be free from
every mixture of unrighteousness 1 If a man have at death the least
degree of any unrighteousness and defiling mixture in his soul, must he
not go to some purgatory, or to hell ? Can he go to heaven, if " nothing
that defileth shall enter the New Jerusalem?" And if at death his
righteous disposition is free from every unrighteous and immoral mix.
ture, is he not " a just man perfected on earth," according to the dis
pensation he is under ?
II, If Christ takes away the outward pollution of believers, while he
absolutely leaves their hearts full of indwelling sin in this life, why did
ha, %d; fault with the Pharisees for cleansing the " outside of the cup and
platter, while they left the inside full of all corruption ?" If God says,
"My son, give me thy heart;" if he requires "truth in the inward
.parts ;" and complains that the " Jews drew near to him with their lips,
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. 565
when their hearts were far from him ;" is it not strange he should be
willing that the hearts of his most peculiar people, the hearts of Chris
tians, should necessarily remain unclean during the term of life ? Be-
side, is there any other Gospel way of fully cleansing the lips and
hands, but by thoroughly cleansing the heart ? And is not a cleansing
so far Pharisaical as it is heartless 1 Once more : if Christ has assured
us that " blessed are the pure in heart," and that " if the Son shall make
us free, we shall be free indeed," does it not behoove our opponents to
prove that a believer has a "pure heart, who is full of indwelling cor-
ruption ; and that a man is free indeed, who is still sold under inbred
sin?
III. When our Lord has bound the indwelling " man of sin, the strong
man armed, can he not cast him out?" When he " cast out devils, and
unclean spirits with a word," did he call death to his assistance ? Did
he not radically perform the wonderful cure, to show his readiness and
ability radically to cure those whose hearts are possessed by indwelling
iniquity, that cursed sin, whose name is LEGION ? When the legion of
expelled fiends " entered into the swine," the poor brutes were delivered
from their infernal guests by being " choked in the sea." Death there
fore cured them, not Christ. And can we have no cure but that of the
swine ? No deliverance from indwelling sin, but in the arms of death .
If this is the case, go, drown your plaguing corruptions in the first pond
which you will meet with, O ye poor mourners, who are more weary of
your life, because of indwelling sin, than Rebecca was because of the
daughters of Heth.
IV. How does the notion of sin necessarily dwelling in the hearts of
the most advanced Christians agree with the full tenor of the new cove
nant, which runs thus ? "I will put my laws in their minds, and write
them in their hearts. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall
make them free from the law of sin and death." If the law of perfect
love to God and man be fully put into the heart of a believer, according
to the full tenor of Christ's Gospel, what room remains for the hellish
statutes of Satan ? Does not the Lord cleanse the believer's heart, as
he writes the law of love there ? And when that law is wholly written
by the Spirit, " the finger of God," which applies the all-cleansing blood,
is not the heart wholly cleansed ? When God completely gives " the
heart of flesh," does he not completely take away " the heart of stone ?"
Is not the heart of stone the very rock in which the serpent, indwelling
sin, lurks ? And will God take away that cursed rock, and spare the
venomous viper that breeds in its clefts ?
V. Cannot the " little leaven of sincerity and truth leaven the whole"
heart ? But can this be done without " purging out entirely the old
leaven of malice and wickedness ?" Mav not a father in Christ be as " free
from sin," as one who is totally given up to a reprobate mind is " free
from righteousness ?" Is not the glorious liberty of God's children the
very reverse of the total and constant slavery to sin, in which the
strongest sons of Belial live and die ? If a full admittance of Satan's
temptation could radically destroy original righteousness in the hearts
of our first parents, why cannot a full admittance of Christ's Gospel
radically destroy original unrighteousness in the hearts of believers?
Does not the Gospel promise us that " where sin has abounded, grace
566 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
shall much more abound ?" And did not sin so abound once as entirely
to sweep away inward holiness before death? But how does grace
abound much more than sin, if it never can entirely sweep away inward
sin without the help of death ?
VI. Is there not a present, cleansing power, as well as a present,
atoning efficacy, in the Redeemer's blood ? Have we not already taken
notice that the same passage of Scripture which informs us that " if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins," declares
also, that, upon the same gracious terms, "he is faithful and just to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness ?" Now, if the faithful and just
God is ready to forgive to-day a poor mourner who sincerely confesses
his guilt ; and if it would be doing Divine faithfulness and justice great
dishonour to say that God will not forgive a weeping penitent before the
article of death ; is it doing those Divine perfections honour to assert
that God will not cleanse before death a believer, who humbly confesses
and deeply laments the remains of sin ? Why should not God display
his faithfulness and justice in cleansing us now from inbred sin, as well
as in forgiving us now our actual iniquities, if we now comply with the
gracious terms, to the performance of which this double blessing is
annexed in the Gospel charter ?
VII. If our opponents allow that faith and love may be made perfect
two or three minutes before death, they give up the point. Death is no
longer absolutely necessary to the destruction of unbelief and sin : for
if the " evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God" may be
taken away, and the completely " honest and good heart" given two or
three minutes before death, we desire to know why this change may not
take place two or three hours, two or three weeks, two or three years
before that awful moment ?
VIII. It is, I think, allowed on all sides that " we are saved," that, is,
sanctified as well as justified, " by faith." Now, that particular height
of sanctification, that full " circumcision of the heart," which centrally
purifies the soul, springs from a peculiar degree of saving faith, and
from a particular operation of the " Spirit of burning :" a quick opera
tion this, which is compared to a baptism of fire, and proves sometimes
so sharp and searching, that it is as much as a healthy, strong man can
do to bear up under it. It seems, therefore, absurd to suppose that
God's infinite wisdom has tied this powerful operation to the article of
death, that is, to a time when people, through delirium or excessive
weakness, are frequently unable to think, or to bear the feeble operation
of a little wine and water.
IX. When our Lord says, " Make the tree good and its fruit good : a
good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good
things," does he suppose that the hearts of his faithful people must
always remain fraught with indwelling sin ? Is indwelling sin a good
treasure ? Or does Christ any where plead for the necessary indwelling
of a bad treasure in a good man ? When " the spouse is all glorious
within ; when her eye is single, and her whole body full of light," — how
can she still be full of darkness, and inbred iniquity 1 And when St.
Paul observes that established Christians are " full of goodness," Rom.
xv, 14, who can think he means that they are full of lieart corruption,
and (what is worse still) that they must continue so to their dying day 7
LAST CHECK TO ANTINO^JIANISM. 567
X. If Christian perfection be nothing but the depth of evangelical
repentance, the full assurance of faith, and the pure love of God and
man, shed abroad in a faithful believer's heart by the Holy Ghost given
unto him, to cleanse him, and to keep him clean " from all the filthmess
of the flesh and spirit," and to enable him to " fulfil the law of Christ,"
according to the talents he is entrusted with, and the circumstances in
which he is placed in this world : if this, I say, is Christian perfection,
nothing can be more absurd than to put off the attaining of it till we die
and go to heaven. This is evident from the descriptions of it which we
find in the New Testament. The first is in our Lord's account of the
beatitudes. For how can holy mourning he perfected in heaven, where
there will be nothing but perfect joy ? Will not the loving disposition
of peace makers ripen too late for the Church, if it ripen only in heaven,
where there will be no peace breakers ; or in the article of death, when
people lose their senses, and are utterly disabled from acting a recon
ciler's part ? Ye that are " persecuted for righteousness' sake," will
ye stay till ye are among the blessed, to " rejoice in tribulation ?" Will
the blessed " revile you, and say all manner of evil of you falsely," to
give you an opportunity of being " exceeding glad," when you are
counted worthy to suffer for Christ's name ? And ye, double-minded
Christians, will ye tarry for the " blessedness of the pure in heart," till
ye come to heaven ? Have you forgot that heaven is no purgatory, but
a glorious reward for those who " are pure in heart ?" for those who
have " purified themselves even as God is pure I"
XI. From the beatitudes our Lord passes to precepts descriptive of
Christian perfection reduced to practice. " If thy brother hath aught
against thee,' go thy way, and be reconciled to him. Agree quickly
with thine adversary. Resist not evil. Turn thy left cheek to him
that smites thee on the right. Give alms so as not to let thy left hand
know what thy right hand does. Fast evangelically. Lay not up trea
sures upon earth. Take no [anxious] thoughts what ye shall eat. Bless
them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you, that ye may be
the children of your Father, who is in heaven ; for he maketh the sun
to shine on the just and on the unjust. Be ye perfect as your Father
who is in heaven is perfect." What attentive reader does not see that
none of these branches of a Christian's practical profession can grow in
the article of death ; and that to suppose they can flourish in heaven, is
to suppose that Christ says, " Be thus and thus perfect, when it will be
impossible for you to be thus and thus perfect? Love your enemies, when
all will be your friends : do good to them that hate you, when all will
flame with love toward you 1 Turn your cheek to the smiters, when the
cold hand of death will disable you to move a finger ; or when God
shall have fixed « a great gulf between the smiters and you ?"
XII. The same observation holds with respect to that important
branch of Christian perfection which we call perfect self denial. " If
thine eye offend thee," says our Lord, "pluck it out. If thy right hand
offend thee, cut it off," &c. Now can any thing be more absurd than
to put off the perfect performance of these severe duties till we die, and
totally lose our power over our eyes and hands ? Or, till we arrive at
heaven, where nothing that offendeth can possibly be admitted ?
XIII. St. Luke gives us, in the Acts of the Apostles, a sketch of the
538 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
perfection of Christians living in community. " The multitude of them
that believed," says he, " were of one heart and one soul. They continued
steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine, and in prayer. They had all things
common: parting their possessions to all, as every man had need;
neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed
was his own : and continuing daily in the temple, and breaking bread
from house to house, they ate their meat with gladness, and singleness
of heart, praising God !" When I read this description of the practical
perfection of a Christian Church, I am tempted to smile at the mistake
of our opponents, and to ask them, if we can " eat our meat with glad
ness" in the article of death, or « sell our possessions" for the relief of
our brethren upon earth, when we are gone to heaven ?
XIV. Consider we some of St. Paul's exhortations for the display of the
perfection which we contend for, and we shall see in a still stronger light
the absurdity that I point out. He says to the Romans, " Present your
bodies a living sacrifice ; and be not conformed to this present world, that
ye may prove what is that perfect will of God. Having different gifts,"
use them all for God ; " exhorting with diligence, giving with simplicity,
showing mercy with cheerfulness, not slothful in business, fervent in
spirit, serving the Lord, communicating to the necessities of the saints,
given to hospitality, weeping with them that weep, being of the same
mind, condescending to men of low estate, providing things honest in the
sight of all men, heaping coals of fire [coals of burning love and nielt-
ing kindness] on the head of your enemy, by giving him meat, if he be
hungry; or drink, if he be thirsty; overcoming Ihus evil with good."
Again: exhorting the Corinthians to Christian perfection, he says,
" Brethren, the time is short. I would have you without carefulness.
It remameth that those who have wifes, be as though they had none ;
they that weep, as if they wept not ; they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced
not ; they that buy, as if they possessed not ; and they that use this
world, as not abusing it," &c. Once more : stirring up the Philippians
to the perfection of humble love, he writes, " Fulfil ye my joy, that ye
think the same thing, have the same love ; being of one soul, of one
mind. Do nothing through vain glory, but in lowliness of mind esteem
each the others better than themselves. Look not every one on his
own things, but every one also on the things of others. Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself, and
became obedient unto death." Now all these descriptions of the prac
tical part of Christian perfection, in the very nature of things, cannot be
confined to the article of death, much less to our arrival at heaven.
For when we are dying, or dead, we cannot " present our bodies a
living sacrifice ;" we cannot " use this world as not abusing it ;" nor can
we " look at the things of others" as well as at our own.
XV. The same thing may be said of St. Paul's fine description of
Christian perfection under the name of charity. " Charity suffereth
long;" but at death all our sufferings are cut short. "Charity is not
provoked : it thinketh no evil : it covereth all things : it rejoiceth not in
iniquity : it hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things,"
&c. The bare reading of this description shows that it does not respect
the article of death, when we cease to endure any thing ; much less does
it respect heaven, where we shall have absolutely nothing to endure.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 569
XVI. If a pefect fulfilling of our relative duties be a most important
part of Christian perfection, how ungenerous, how foolish is it to promise
the simple that they shall be perfect Christians at death, or in heaven ?
Does not this assertion include all the following absurdities? Ye shall
perfectly love your husbands and wives in the article of death, when
you shall not be able to distinguish your husbands and wives from other
men and women : or in heaven, where " ye shall be like the angels of
God," and have neither husbands nor wives. Ye shall assist your
parents, and instruct your children with perfect tenderness, when ye
shall be past instructing or assisting them at all ; when they shall be in
heaven or in hell ; past needing, or past admitting your assistance or
instructions. Ye shall inspect your servants in perfect love, or serve
your master with perfect faithfulness, when the relations of master and
servant will exist no more. Ye shall perfectly bear with the infirmities
of your weak brethren, when ye shall leave all your weak brethren
behind, and go where all your brethren will be free from every degree
of trying weakness. Ye shall entertain strangers, attend the sick, and
visit the prisoners, with perfect love, when ye shall give up the ghost, or
when ye shall be in paradise, where these duties have no more place
than lazar houses, sick beds, prisons, &c.
XVII. Death, far from introducing imperfect Christians into the state
of Christian perfection, will take them out of the very possibility of ever
attaining it. This will appear indubitable, if we remember that Chris-
tian perfection consists in perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect hope,
perfect love of an invisible God, perfect charity for visible enemies, per
fect patience in pain, and perfect resignation under losses ; in a constant
bridling of our bodily appetites, in an assiduous keeping of our senses,
in a cheerful taking up of our cross, in a resolute " following of Christ
without the camp," and in a deliberate choice to " suffer affliction with
the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season." Now so certain as there can be no perfect repentance in the
grave ; no Christian faith where all is sight ; no perfect hope where all
is enjoyment ; no perfect love of an invisible God, or of visible enemies,
where God is visible, and enemies are invisible ; no bearing pain with
perfect patience when pain is no more ; and suffering affliction with
the people of God, where no shadow of affliction lights upon the people
of God, &c. So certain, I say, as death incapacitates us for all these
Christian duties, it incapacitates us also for every branch of Christian
perfection. Mr. Hill might then as well persuade the simple that they
shall become perfect surgeons and perfect midwives, perfect masons
and perfect gardeners in the grave, or beyond it, as persuade them that
they shall become perfect penitents and perfect believers in the article
of death, or in the New Jerusalem.
XVIII. From the preceding argument it follows, that the graces of
repentance, faith, hope, and Christian charity, or love for an invisible
God, for trying friends, and for visible enemies, must be perfected here
or never. If Mr. Hill grant that these graces are, or may be perfected
here, he allows all that we contend for. And if he assert that tt^y
shall never be perfected, because there is " no perfection here," and
because the perfection of repentance, &c, can have no more place in
heaven than sinning and mourning, I ask, What becomes then of the
570 LAST CHECK TO AISTINOMIANISM
scriptures which Mr. Hill is so ready to produce when he defends Cal-
vinian perseverance ? " As for God, his work is perfect : being confident
of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you (who
have always obeyed, Phil, ii, 12) will perform, or stfireXstTj will perfect
it/' if you continue to obey. " The Lord will perfect that which con-
cerneth me. Praying exceedingly that we as workers together with
God might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Looking unto
Jesus, the author, and (rsXsiwTTjv) the perfecter of our faith ; for he is
faithful that promised." How can the Lord be faithful, and yet never
perfect the repentance and faith of his obedient people ? Will he sow
such a blessed seed as that of faith, hope, and love to our enemies, and
never let a grain of it either miscarry or bring forth fruit to perfection ?
Is not this a flat contradiction ? How can a pregnant woman never
miscarry, and yet necer bring forth the fruit of her womb to any per,
fection ? Such, however, is the inconsistency which Mr. Hill obtrudes
upon us as Gospel. If his doctrine of Calvinian perseverance be true,
no believer can miscarry ; no grain of true faith can fail of producing
fruit to perfection : and if his doctrine of Christian perfection be true,
no believer can be perfect ; no grain of faith, repentance, hope, and love
for our husbands and wives, can possibly grow to perfection. How
different is this doctrine from that of our Lord, who, in the parable of
the sower, represents all those who do not " bear fruit unto perfection,"
as miscarrying professors !
XIX. If impatience were that bodily disorder which is commonly
called the heart burn ; if obstinacy were a crick in the neck ; pride an
imposthume in the breast ; raging anger a fit of the toothache ; vanity
the dropsy ; disobedience a bodily lameness ; uncharitableness the
rheumatism, and despair a broken bone ; there would be some sense in
the doctrine of Christian imperfection, and reason could subscribe to
Mr. Hill's creed : for it is certain that death effectually cures the heart
burn, a crick in the neck, the toothache, &c. But what real affinity
have moral disorders with bodily death ? And why do our opponents
think we maintain a « shocking" doctrine, when we assert that death has
no more power to cure our pride, than old age to remove our covetous-
ness 1 Nay, do we not see that the most decrepit old age does not cure
men even of the grossest lusts of the carnal mind ? When old drunkards
and fornicators are as unable to indulge their sensual appetites as if they
actually ranked among corpses, do they not betray the same inclinations
which they showed when the strong tide of their youthful blood joined
with the rapid stream of their vicious habit ? Is not tiiis a demonstration
that no decay of the body, — no, not that complete decay which we call
death, has any necessary tendency to alter oui moral habits ? And do
not the ancients set their seal to this observation ? Does not Solomon
say, that « in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be ?" And
has Mr. Hill forgotten those remarkable lines of Vir<nl ? —
to
Quae cura nitentcs
Pascere e-quos, eadem sequitur tellure reposto? ?
"Disembodied souls have, in the world of spirits, the very same
dispositions and propensities which they had when they dwelt in the
body."
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 571
XX. If God hath appointed death to make an end of heart pollution,
and to be our complete saviour from sin, our opponents might screen
their doctrine of a death purgatory behind God's appointment ; it being
certain that God, who can command iron to swim, and fire to cool,
could also command the filthy hands of death to cleanse the thoughts of
our hearts. But we do not read in our Bible either that God ever gave
to indwelling sin a lease of any believer's .hearHbr life ; or that he ever
appointed the king of terrors to deliver us from the deadly seeds of
iniquity. And although the Old Testament contains an account of
many carnal ordinances adapted to the carnal disposition of the Jews,
we do riot remember to have read there, " DEATH shall circumcise thy
heart, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.
Death shall sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from
all your filthiness death will cleanse you. Death will put -my Spirit
within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and (when you are
dead) ye shall keep my judgments and do them." And if death was
never so far honoured under the Mosaic dispensation, we ask where
he has been invested with higher privileges under the Gospel of Christ ?
Is it where St. Paul says that " Christ hath abolished death, and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel ?" It appears
to us that it is a high degree of rashness in the Calvinists, and in the
Romanists, to appoint the pangs of death, and the sorrows of hell, to do
the most difficult, and, of consequence, the most glorious work of Christ's
Spirit, which is powerfully to " redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify
unto himself a peculiar people, [not full of all inbred unrighteousness,
but 'dead to sin, free from sin, pure in heart,' and] zealous of good
works." And we shall think ourselves far more guilty of impertinence,
if we nominate either death or hell to do the office of the final purifier
of our hearts, than if we ordered a sexton to do the office of the prime
minister, or an executioner to act as the king's physician. With
respect to salvation from the root, as well as from the branches of sin,
we will therefore " know nothing," as absolutely necessary, " but Jesus
Christ and him crucified," risen again, ascended on high, that he might
send the Holy Ghost to perfect us in love, through " a faith that purifies
the heart, and through a hope which, if any man hath, he will purify
himself, even as God is pure."
XXI. To conclude : if Christian perfection implies the perfect use
of " the whole armour of God," what can be more absurd than the
thought that we shall be made perfect Christians in heaven or at death ?
How will Mr. Hill prove that we shall perfectly use the helmet of hope,
perfectly wield the shield of faith, and perfectly quench the fiery darts of
the devil in heaven, where faith, hope, and the devil's darts shall never
enter ? Or, how will he demonstrate that a soldier shall perfectly go
through his exercise in the article of death, that is, in the very moment
he leaves the army, and for ever puts off the harness ?
Mr. Baxter wrote, in the last century, a vindication of holiness, which
he calls, "A Saint, or a Brute." The title is bold; but all that, can be
said to defend iniquity cannot make me think it too strong, so many aro
the arguments by which the Scriptures recommend a holy life. And 1
own^to thee, reader, that when I conquer all that can be said in defence
of Christian perfection, and all the absurdities which clog the doctrine
572 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
of Christian imperfection, I am inclined to imitate Mr. Baxter's positive-
ness, and to call this essay, A Perfect Christian in this World, or a Per
fect Dupe in the next.
SECTION XIII.
Containing a variety of arguments to prove the mischievousness of the
doctrines of Christian imperfection.
THE arguments of the preceding section are produced to show the
ABSURDITY of Mr. Hill's doctrine of Christian imperfection ; those
which follow are intended to prove the MISCHIEVOUSNESS of that modish
tenet.
I. It strikes at the doctrine of salvation by faith. " By grace are ye
saved through faith," not only from the guilt and outward acts of sin,
but also from its root and secret buds. " Not of* works," says the
apostle, " lest any man should [Pharisaically] boast ;" and may we not
add, Not of DEATH, lest he that had the power of death, that is, the devil,
should [absurdly] boast? Does not what strikes at the doctrine of faith,
and abridges the salvation which we obtain by it, equally strike at
Christ's power and glory ? Is it not the business of faith to receive
Christ's saving word, to apprehend the power of his sanctifying Spirit,
and to inherit all the great promises by which he saves his penitent, be
lieving people from their sins ? Is it not evident that if no believers can
be saved from indwelling sin through faith, we must correct the apostle's
doctrine, and say, " By grace are ye saved from the remains of sin,
through death ?" And can unprejudiced Protestants admit so Christ-
debasing, death-exalting a tenet, without giving a dangerous blow to the
genuine doctrines of the reformation 1
II. It dishonours Christ as a Prophet : for, as such, he came to teach
us to be now " meek and lowly in heart :" but the imperfect gospel of
the day teaches that we must necessarily continue passionate and proud
in heart till death ; for pride and immoderate anger are, I apprehend,
two main branches of indwelling sin. Again : my motto demonstrates
that he publicly taught the multitudes the doctrine of perfection, and
Mr. Hill insinuates that this doctrine is " shocking," not to say " blas
phemous."
III. It disgraces Christ as the Captain of our salvation : for St. Paul
says, that our Captain furnishes us with " weapons mighty through God
to the pulling down of Satan's strong holds, and to the bringing of every
* Here, and in some other places, St. Paul by " works" means only the
deeds of a Christless, anti-mediatorial law, and the obedience paid to the Jewish
covenant, which is frequently called "the law," in opposition to the Christian
covenant, which is commonly called "the Gospel," that is, the Gospel of Christ,
because Christ's Gospel is the most excellent of all the Gospel dispensations.
The apostle, therefore, by the expression, " not of works," does by no means
exclude from " final" salvation, the law of faith, and the works done in obedience
to that law : for, in the preceding verse, he secures the obedience of faith
when he says, "Ye are saved, [that is, made partakers of the blessing of the
Christian dispensation,] by grace through faith." Here then the word "by
grace" secures the first Gospel axiom, and the word " through faith" secures the
second
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 573
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." But our opponents
represent the devil's strong hold as absolutely inpregnable. No weapons
of our warfare can pull down Apollyon's throne. Inbred sin shall main,
tain its place in man's heart till death strike the victorious blow. Christ
may indeed fight against the Jericho within, as " Joab fought against
Rabbah of the children of Ammon :" but then he must send for death, as
Joab sent for David, saying, " I have fought against Rabbah, and have
taken the city of waters : now, therefore, gather the rest of the people
together, encamp against the city, and take it, lest I take the city, and it
be called after my name," 2 Sam. xii, 27, 28.
IV. It pours contempt upon him as the Surety of the new covenant, in
which God has engaged himself to deliver obedient believers " from
their enemies, that they may serve him without [tormenting] fear, all
the days of their lives." For how does he execute his office in this
respect, if he never sees that such believers be delivered from their
most oppressive and inveterate enemy, indwelling sin? Or if that
deliverance take place only at death, how can they, in consequence of
their death freedom, " serve God without fear all the days of their
lives ?"
V. It affronts Christ as a King, when it represents the believer's
heart, which is Christ's spiritual throne, as being necessarily full of
indwelling sin, — a spiritual rebel, who, notwithstanding the joint efforts
of Christ and the believer, maintains his power against them both dur
ing the term of life. Again : , does not a good king deliver his loyal
subjects from oppression, and avenge them of a tyrannical adversary,
when they cry to him in their distress ? But does our Lord show himself
such a king, if he never avenge them, nor turn the usurper, the murderer,
sin, out of their breasts ? Once more : if our deliverance from sin depend
upon the stroke of death, and not upon a stroke of Christ's grace,
might we not call upon the king of terrors, as well as upon the King of
saints, for deliverance from the remains of sin ? But where is the
difference between saying " O death, help us !" and crying, " O Baal,
save us?"
VI. It injures Christ as a Restorer of pure, spiritual worship in
God's spiritual temple, the heart of man. For it indirectly represents
him as a Pharisaic Saviour, who made much ado about driving, with
a whip, harmless sheep and oxen out of his Father's material temple ;
but who gives full leave to Satan, not only to bring sheep and doves into
the believer's heart, but also to harbour and breed there during the term
of life, the swelling toad, pride ; and the hissing viper, envy ; to say
nothing of the greedy dog, avarice, and the filthy swine, impurity ;
under pretence of " exercising the patience, and engaging the indus
try" of the worshippers, if we may believe the Calvin of the day.
(See the argument against Christian perfection at the end of this
section.)
VII. It insults Christ as a Priest ; for our Melchisedec shed his all-
cleansing blood upon the cross, and now pours his all-availing prayer
before the throne ; asking, that, upon evangelical terms, we may now
be " cleansed from all unrighteousness, and perfected in one." But if
we assert that believers, let them be ever so faithful, can never be thus
cleansed and perfected in one till death comes to the Saviour's assistance,
574 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
do we not place our Lord's cleansing blood, and powerful intercession,
and of consequence his priesthood, in an unscriptural and contemptiblo
light?
Should Mr. Hill attempt to retort this argument by saying, " that it is
our doctrine, not his, which derogates from the honour of Christ's
priesthood, because we should no longer need our High Priest's blood,
if we were cleansed from all sin :" I reply : —
(1.) Perfect Christians need as much the virtue of Christ's blood, to
prevent the guilt and pollution of sin from returning, as imperfect Chris
tians want it to drive that guilt and pollution away. It is not enough
that the blood of the true paschal Lamb has been sprinkled upon our
souls to keep off the destroyer ; it must still remain there to hinder his
coming back " with seven other spirits more wicked than himself." (2.)
Mr. Hill is in the dark ; he calls for a light ; and when it is brought, he
observes, The darkness of the room is now totally removed. " Is it so,
sir ]" replies his footman ; " then you need these candles no more ; if
they have totally removed the darkness of your apartment, you have
no more need of them." Mr. Hill smiles at the absurdity of his ser
vant's argument ; and yet it is well if he does not admire the wisdom
of my opponent's objection. (3.) The hearts of perfect Christians are
cleansed, and kept clean by faith ; and Christian perfection means the
perfection of Christian faith, whose property it is to endear Christ and
his blood more and more ; nothing then can be less reasonable than to
say that, upon our principles, perfect believers have done with the
atoning blood. (4.) Such believers continually " overcome the accuser
of the brethren through the blood of the Lamb ; there is no moment,
therefore, in which they can spare it : they are feeble believers who
can yet dispense with its constant application ; and hence it is that they
continue feeble. None make so much use of Christ's blood as perfect
Christians. Once it was only their medicine, which they took now and
then, when a fit of fear, or a pang of guilt, obliged them to it ; but
now it is the Divine preservative, which keeps off the infection of sin.
Now it is the reviving cordial, which they take to prevent their " grow
ing weary, or faint in their minds." Now it is their daily drink ; now
it is what they sprinkle their every thought, word, and work with. In
a word, it is that blood which constantly speaks before God and in their
consciences " better things than the blood of Abel," and actually pro
cures for them all the blessings which they enjoy or expect. To say,
therefore, that the doctrine of Christian perfection supersedes the need
of Christ's blood, is not less absurd than to assert that the perfection of
navigation renders the great deep a useless reservoir of water. Lastly :
are not the saints before the throne perfectly sjnless ? And who are
more ready than they to extol the blood arid sing the song of the Lamb :
" To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, be
glory," &c ? If an angel preached to them the modern Gospel, and
desired them to plead for the remains of sin, lest they should lose their
peculiar value for the atoning blood ; would not they all suspect him to
be an angel of darkness, transforming himself into" an angel of light 1
And shall we be the dupes of the tempter, who deceives good men,
that they may deceive us by a similar argument ?
VIII. It discredits Christ as the Fulfdler of the Father's promise, and
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 575
as the Sender of the indwelling, abiding Comforter, in order that our
joy may be full. For the Spirit never takes his constant abode as a
Comforter in a heart full of indwelling sin. If he visit such a heart
with his consolations, it is only " as a guest that tarrieth but a day."
When he enters a soul fraught with inbred corruption; he rather acts as a
Reprover than as a Comforter ; throwing down the tables of the spiritual
money changers ; hindering the vessels, which are not holiness unto the
Lord, from being carried through God's spiritual temple, and expelling,
according to the degree of our faith, whatsoever would make God's
house " a den of thieves."
But, instead of this, Mr. Hill's doctrine considers the heart of a
believer as a " den of lions ;" and represents Christ's Spirit, not as the
destroyer, but as the keeper of the wild beasts, and evil tempers which
dwell therein. This I conclude from these words of the Rev. Mr.
Toplady : — " They," indwelling sin and unholy tempers, " do not quite
expire, till the renewed soul is taken up from earth to heaven. In the
meantime these heated remains of depravity will, too often, like pri
soners in a dungeon, crawl toward the window, though in chains, and
show themselves through the grate. Nay, I do not know whether the
strivings of inherent corruption for mastery be not, frequently, more
violent in a regenerate person, than even in one who is dead in tres
passes ; as wild beasts are sometimes the more rampant and furious for
being wounded." (See Caveat against Unsound Doctrines, p. 65.)
When I read this Gospel, I cannot but throw in a Caveat against Mr.
Toplady's Caveat. For if his be not unsound, every body must allow
it to be uncomfortable and unsafe. Who would not think it dreadfully
dangerous to dwell with one wild beast that cannot be killed, unless we
are iirst killed ourselves ? But how much more dangerous is it to be
condemned to dwell for life with a number of them which are not only
immortal, so long as we are alive, but " are sometimes the more ram
pant arid furious for being wounded !" The Saviour preached by Mr.
Toplady only wounds the Egyptian dragon, the inward Pharaoh, and
makes him rage, but our Jesus drowns him in the ssa of his own blood,
barely by stretching out the rod of his power, when we stretch out to
him our arms of faith. Mr. Hill's Redeemer only takes Agag prisoner,
as double-minded Saul did ; but our Redeemer " hews him in pieces"
as upright Samuel. The Christ of the Calvinists says, " Confine the
enemy ; though he may possibly be fiercer than before." But ours
'''thrusts out the enemy before us, and says, Destroy," Deut. xxxiii, 27.
O, ye preachers of finished salvation, we leave it to your candour to
decide which of these doctrines brings most glory to the saving name
of Jesus.
IX. The doctrine of our necessary continuance in indwelling sin to
our last moments, makes us naturally overlook or despise the " exceed
ing great and precious promises given unto us, that by these we might
be partakers of the Divine nature," that is, of God's perfect holiness ,
" having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust," 2
Pet. i, 4 ; and thus it naturally defeats the full effect of evangelical
truths and ministerial labours ; an effect this, which is thus described by
St. Paul ; " teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may preseni
every man perfect in Christ Jesus," that is, perfect according to the
576 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
richest dispensation of Divine grace, which is, "the Gospel of Christ
Jesus," Col. i, 28. Again : "The Scripture is profitable for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur-
nished to all good works," 2 Tim. iii, 16. Now we apprehend that the
perfection which thoroughly furnishes believers unto all good works, is
a perfection productive of all the " good works" evangelically as well
as providentially " prepared that we should walk in them" before death :
because, (whatever Mr. Hill may insinuate to the contrary in England,
and father Walsh at Paris,) the Scriptures say, " Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for there is no work nor device" in
death, that is, " in the grave whither thou goest." For as the tree falls,
so it lies : if it falls full of rottenness with a brood of vipers, and a never-
dying worm in its hollow centre ; it will continue in that very condition ;
and wo to the man who trusts that the pangs of death will kill the
worm, or that a purgative fire will spare the rotten wood and consume
the vipers !
X. It defeats in part the end of the Gospel precepts, to the fulfilling
of which Gospel promises are but means. " All the law, the prophets,"
and the apostolic writings, " hang on these two commandments : — Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as
thyself," through penitential faith in the light of thy dispensation ; that
is, in two words, thou shalt be evangelically perfect. Now, if we
believe that it is absolutely impossible to be thus perfect by keeping
these two blessed commandments in faith, we cannot but believe also
that God, who requires us to keep them, is defective in wisdom, equity,
and goodness, by requiring us to do what is absolutely impossible ; and
we represent our Church as a wicked step mother who betrays her
children into the wanton commission of perjury, by requiring of every
one of them, in the sacrament of baptism, a most solemn vow, by which
they bind themselves, in the presence of God and of the congregation,
that "they will keep God's holy will and commandments," that is, that
they will keep God's evangelical law, " and walk in the same all the
days of their life."
XI. It has a necessary tendency to unnerve our deepest prayers.
How can we pray in faith that God would help us to " do his will on
earth as it is done in heaven," or that he would " cleanse the thoughts
of our hearts, that we may perfectly love him and worthily magnify his
holy name :" how can we, I say, ask this in faith, if we disbelieve the
very possibility of having these petitions answered? And what poor
encouragement has Epaphras, upon the scheme which we oppose,
" always to labour fervently for the Colossians in prayer, that they
might stand perfect and complete in the will of God ;" or St. Paul to
wish that " the very God of peace would sanctify the Thessalonians
wholly, and that their whole spirit, and soul, and body, might be pre
served blameless," if these requests could not be granted before death,
and were unavoidably to be granted to them and to all believers in the
article thereof?
XII. It soothes lukewarm, unholy professors, and encourages them
to sit quietly under the vine of Sodom, and under their own barren fig
tree : I mean under the baneful influence of their unbelief and indwell
ing sin ; nothing being more pleasing to the carnal rnind than this syren
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIAXISM. 577
song : — " It is absolutely impossible that the thoughts of your hearts-
should be cleansed in this life. God himself does not expect that you
should be purified from all iniquity on this side the grave. Jt is proper
that sin should dwell in your hearts by unbelief, to endear Christ to you,
and so to work together for your good" The preachers of mere
morality insinuate that God does not forgive sins before death. This
dangerous, uncomfortable doctrine damps the faith of penitents, who
think it absurd to expect before death what they are taught they can
only receive at death. And as it is with the pardon of sins, so it is also
with " cleansing from all unrighteousness." The preachers of Christian
imperfection tell their hearers that nobody can be cleansed from heart
sin before death. This new doctrine makes them secretly trust in a
death purgatory, and hinders them from pleading in faith the promises
of full sanctification before death stares them in the face ; while others,
like spared Agag, madly venture upon the spear of the king of terrors
with their hearts full of indwelling sin. The dead tell no tales now ;
but it will be well if, in the day of resurrection, those who plead for the
necessary indwelling of sin during the term of life, do not meet in the
great day with* some deluded souls, who will give them no thanks for
betraying them, to their last moments, into the hands of indwelling sin,
by insinuating that there can be no deliverance from our evil tempers
before we are ready to exchange a death bed for a coffin.
XIII. It greatly discourages willing Israelites, and weakens the
hands of the faithful spies who want to lead feeble believers on, and to
take by force the kingdom which consists in righteousness, peace, and
joy in the Holy Ghost ; nothing being more proper to damp their ardour
than such a speech as this : — " You may strive against your corruptions
and evil tempers as long as you please : but you shall never get rid of
them ; the Jericho within is impregnable : it is fenced up to heaven,
and garrisoned by the tall, invincible, immortal sons of Anak : so strong
are these adversaries, that the twelve apostles, with the help of Christ
and the Holy Ghost, could never turn one of them out of his post. Nay,
they so buffeted and overpowered St. Paul, the most zealous of the
apostles, that they fairly took him prisoner, ' sold him under sin,' and
made him groan t6 the last, « O wretched, carnal man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the law of my inbred corruptions, which brings me into
captivity to the law of sin : I thank God through death. So then with
the flesh,' you must, as well as St. Paul, ' serve the law of sin' till you die.
Nor need you fret at these tidings; for they are the pure Gospel of
Christ, the genuine doctrines of free grace and Christian liberty. In
Christ you are free, but in yourselves you must continue to serve the
law of sin : and indeed why should you not do it, since the sins of a
Christian are for his good ; and even the dung of a sheep of Christ is
of some use, nay, of the most excellent use, if we believe Mr. Hill ; for
the most grievous falls— falls into repeated acts of adultery and delibe
rate murder, serve to make us know our place, to drive us nearer to
Christ, and to make us sing louder the praises of restoring grace."
Beside, that gentleman represents those who preach deliverance from
indwelling «in before we go into a death purgatory, as « men of a
Pharisaic cast ; blind men, who never saw their own hearts ; proud
men, who oppose the righteousness of God ; vain men, who aspire at
VOL. II. 37
&18 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
robbing Christ of the glory of being alone uithout sin : in short, men
who hold doctrines which are shocking, not to say blasphemous."
How would this speech damp our desires after salvation from indwell
ing sin ! How would it make us hug the cursed chains of our inbred
corruptions, if the cloven foot of the imperfect, unchaste Diana, which
it holds out to public view without Gospel sandals, were not sufficient to
shock us back from this impure gospel to the pure Gospel of Jesus
Christ ! And yet (if I am not mistaken) this dangerous speech only
unfolds the scope of Mr. Hill's " Creed for Perfectionists."
XIV. To conclude. The modish doctrine of Christian imperfection
and death purgatory is so contrived, that carnal men will always prefer
the purgatory of the Calvinisis to that of the Papists. For the Papists
prescribe I know not how many cups of Divine wrath and dire ven
geance, which are to be drunk by the souls of the believers who die
half purged, or three-parts cleansed. These foz/f-damned, or a quarter-
damned creatures, must go through a severe discipline, and fiery salva
tion, in the very suburbs of hell, before they can be perfectly purified.
But our opponents have found out a way to deliver half-hearted believers
out of all fear in this respect. Such believers need not 'f utterly abolish
the body of sin" in this world. The inbred man of sin not only may,
but he shall live as long as we do. You will possibly ask, " What is
to become of this sinful guest 1 Shall he take us to hell, or shall we
take him to heaven ? If he cannot die in this world, will Christ destroy
him in the next V No : here Christ is almost left out of the question,
by those who pretend to be determined to " know nothing but Christ and
him crucified." Our indwelling adversary is not destroyed by the
brightness of the Redeemer's spiritual appearing, but by the gloom of
the appearance of death. Thus they have found another Jesus ;
another Saviour from sin. The king of terrors comes to the assistance
of Jesus' sanctifying grace, and instantaneously delivers the carnal be
liever from indwelling pride, unbelief, covetousness, peevishness, uncha-
ritableness, love of the world, and inordinate affection. Thus the
clammy sweats, brought on by the greedy monster, kill, it seems, the
tree of sin, of which the blood of Christ could only kill the buds ! The
dying sinner's breath does the capital work of the Spirit of holiness !
And by the most astonishing of all miracles, the faint, infectious, last gasp
of a sinful believer blows away, in the twinkling of an eye, the great
mountain of inward corruption, which all the means of grace, all the
faith, prayers, and sacraments of twenty, perhaps of forty years, with
all the love in the heart of our Zerubbabel, all the blood in his veins,
all the power in his hands, and all the faithfulness in his breast, were
never able to remove ! If this doctrine be true, how greatly was St.
Paul mistaken when he said, " The sting of death is sin, &c. Thanks
be to God, who giveth us the victory through Christ our Lord !" —
Should he not have said, Death is the cure of sin, instead of saying,
" Sin is the sting of death ?" And should not his praises flow thus :
" Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through DEATH, our great
and only deliverer from our greatest and fiercest enemy, indwelling sin ?"
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 579
SECTION XIV.
An answer to the arguments by which the imperfectionists support the
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin in all believers till they go
into the death purgatory.
THE pleasing effect of the light in a picture, is considerably height,
ened by the bold opposition of strong shades : if the preceding argu
ments are the lights by which we hope agreeably to strike the mental
eyes of the reader, who candidly considers the doctrine of Christian
perfection, it will not be improper to heighten those lights by the
amazing contrast of the arguments which our opponents advance in
defence of indwelling sin and Christian imperfection. These arguments
appear to us shades — bold, logical shades : but the bolder they are, the
more they will set off the lustre of the truth which we recommend ; for,
if " all things work for good to them that love God," why should not all
the errors of others work for good to them that love the truth? I am
abundantly furnished with the erroneous shades I want, by three of the
most approved authors, who support the ark of the imperfect gospel —
the Rev. Mr. Toplady, author of the " Historic Proof of Calvinism ;"
the Rev. Mr. Martin, author of several tracts which are esteemed by the
Calviuists ; and the Rev. Mr. Henry, famous for his voluminous Expo
sition of the Bible.
The first of these authors, in his " Caveat against Unsound Doctrine,"
intimates that there never were on earth bit three persons possessed of
the sinless perfection which we contend for; Adam, Eve, and Jesus
Christ: a bold intimation this, which, like the Babel I attack, has its
foundation in confusion, — in the confusion of three perfections which
are entirely different ; the paradisiacal sinless perfection of our first
parents ; the mediatorial, sinless perfection of Jesus Christ ; and the
Christian, evangelically sinless perfection of St. John. This intimation
is supported by some passages from Solomon, which have been already
considered in section xi, and by the following argument : —
ARGUMENT I. " A person of the amplest fortune cannot help the
harbouring of snakes, toads, &c, on his lands ; but they will breed, and
nestle, and crawl about his estate, whether he will or no. All he can
do is, to pursue and kill them, whenever they make their appearance.
Yet, let him be ever so vigilant and diligent, there will always be a
succession of those creatures, to exercise his patience and engage his
industry. So it is with the true believer, in respect to indwelling sin."
(Caveat against Unsound Doctrines, page 54.) To this we answer : —
1. From the clause which I produce in Italics in this argument, one
would think that patience and industry cannot be properly exercised
without indwelling sin ; if so, does it not follow that our Lord's patience
and industry always wanted proper exercise, because he was always
perfectly free from indwelling sin? We are of a different sentiment
with respect to our Lord's Christian virtues ; and we apprehend that the
patience and industry of the most perfect believer will always, without
the opposition of indwelling sin, find full exercise in doing and suffering
the whole will of God ; in keeping the body under ; in striving against
580 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
the sin of others ; in testifying, by word and deed, that the works of the
world are evil ; in resisting the numberless temptations of him, who
" goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour ;" and in
preparing to conflict with the king of terrors.
2. Why should not assiduous vigilance clear an estate of snakes, as
one of our kings cleared Great Britain of wolves 1 Did he not attempt
and accomplish what appeared impossible to less resolute minds ? Mr.
Toplady is too well acquainted with the classics not to know what the
heathens themselves have said of industry and love ; —
Ornnia vincit amor. Labor improbus omnia vincit :
if " love and incessant labour overcome the greatest difficulties," what
cannot a diligent believer do, who is animated by the love of God,
and feels that he " can do all things through Christ who strengthens
him ?"
3. But the capital flaw of Mr. Toplady's argument consists in so con
sidering the weakness of free will, as entirely to leave God and the
sanctifying power of his Spirit out of the question. That gentleman
forgets, that, " for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he
might destroy the works of the devil." Nor does he consider, that a
worm, assisted by Omnipotence itself, is capable of the greatest achieve
ments. Of this we have an illustrious instance in Moses, with respect
to the removal of the lice, the frogs, and the locusts. " Moses entreated
the Lord, arid the Lord turned a mighty, strong west wind, which took
away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea ; there remained not
one locust in all the coasts of Egypt," Exodus x, 19. If Mr. Toplady
had not forgot the mighty God, with whom Moses and believers have to
do, he would never have supposed that the comparison holds good
between CHRIST "cleansing the thoughts and hearts of a praying
believer by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit," and a MAN, who can by
no means destroy the snakes and toads that breed, nestle, and crawl
ubout his estate.
4. The reverend author of the " Caveat" sinks in this argument even
below the doctrine of heathen moralists. For, suppose the extirpation
of a vicious habit were considered, would not a heathen be inexcusable,
if he overlooked the succour and inspiration of the Almighty ? And
what shall we say of a Gospel minister, who, writing upon the destruc
tion of sin, entirely overlooks what at other times he calls the sovereign,
matchless, all-conquering, irresistible power of Divine grace, which (if
we believe him) is absolutely to do all in us and for us ; who insinuates,
that the toad pride, and the viper envy, must continue to nestle and
crawl in our breasts for want of ability to destroy them ; and who con-
eludes that the extirpation of sin is impossible, because we cannot bring
k about by our own strength ? Just as if the power of God, which
" helps our infirmities," did not deserve a thought ! Who does not see,
that when a divine argues in this manner, he puts his bushel upon the
light of Christ's victorious grace, hides this sin-killing and heart-cleans-
ing light, and then absurdly concludes that the darkness of sin must
necessarily remain in all believers ? Thus, if I mistake not, it appears,
that Mr. Toplady's argument, in favour of the death purgatory, is con-
trary to history, experience, and Gentilisrn ; and how much more to
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 581
Christianity, and to the honour of Him who " to the uttermost saves his
believing people from their" heart toads and bosom vipers, when they
go to him for this great salvation !
The next author who shall furnish me with logical shades, is the
ingenious and Rev. Mr. Martin, who has just published a plea for the
necessary indwelling of sin in all believers. He calls it, " The Chris
tian's peculiar Conflict, an essay on Galatians v, 17 :" and from it I
extract the arguments which follow : —
ARG. II. (15, &c.) " O ye vain boasters of inherent perfection, say,
where is the man among you to be found, who always doth the things
that he would 1 If there be one who has this pre-eminence among his
brethren, why should his name be concealed ? Is he a preacher 1 and
dare he assert he has, at all times, that discovery of the truth to his own
soul he could wish, &c. Is he a private Christian ? and will he venture
to declare that in every character he sustains, &c, he continually acts
not only the conscientious part, but in every respect fulfils the desire of
his mind ? What ! does he hesitate 1 Is he afraid to attest this in the
presence of a heart-searching God? How deceitful then is his con
fidence ! &c. Strange infatuation ! If he cannot at all times do the
things, the good things that he would, can he suppose his best desires
are more extensive than that law which is exceeding broad 1 &c. If he
can be so vain as to suppose this, there is more hope of a fool than of
him who is so wise in his own conceit. If he disowns the inference,
and yet maintain his premises, that he is perfect, i. e. without sin, has
ceased to commit iniquity, what is the conclusion 1 I am obliged to
conclude that perfection and imperfection, things as contrary to each
other as light and darkness, are with such a deluded person considered
as one and the same thing."
This argument, stript of its rhetorical ornaments, and put into a plain
logical dress, runs thus : —
" When Christians do not do all the good things which they desire to
do, they sin, or break God's law, which is purer and broader than their
desires : but the best ministers, and the best private Christian, do not do
all the good things which they desire to do : and therefore the best
ministers, and the best private Christians sin, and their sinless perfection
is an empty boast." We may bring the argument into a still narrower
compass, thus : " All deficiencies are sinful, and therefore inconsistent
with every kind of perfection." Now this proposition, which is the basis
of the whole argument, has error for its foundation. Granting that
deficiencies are inconsistent with the absolute will of God, and with the
perfection of his boundless power, I affirm four things, each of which,
if I mistake not, overturns our objector's argument : —
1. The separate " spirits of just men made perfect" are perfectly
sinless ; nevertheless, they " do not do all the good that they would ;"
for they have not yet prevailed to get the blood of God's martyrs avenged :
a display of justice this, which they ardently wish for. And I prove it
by these words of St. John : — " I saw under the altar the souls of them
that were slain for the word of God, and they cried with a loud voice,
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge, and avenge
our Hood on them that dwell on the earth /" Rev. vi, 9. Had they done
what they wished, i. e. actually prevailed with God, their prayer would
582 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
have been immediately turned into praises, and persecutors would long
ago have been rooted out from the earth.
2. For want of infinite wisdom, does not perfect love infinite creatures
frequently desire to do more for its object than it can ? When " Michael
fought with the dragon," is it not highly probable that he lovingly desired
to hinder his cruel adversary from doing any farther mischief? But did
not his performance fall short of his pious, resigned desire ? May not
this be said also of the guardian care of the angels, who minister to the
heirs of salvation? Do these loving spirits afford us all the help, or
procure us all the bliss, which their tender compassion prompts them to
wish us ? If not, is it not absurd to suppose that, barely on this account,
they are sinfully imperfect? Nay, would it not be a high degree of
rashness and injustice to insinuate that they are transgressors of God's
spiritual law ; and that his commandment, which is broader than their
desires, is broken by their not doing us all the good which they desire to
do us, and which they would actually do us, if a wise Providence had not
set bounds to their commission ? Does not this unscriptural, Calvinian
legality put the stamp of sinfulness upon all angels and archangels,
merely to keep in countenance the Antinomian doctrine of the necessary
sinfulness of all believers ?
3. If we consider our Lord himself as a man, did he do all the good
he would while he was upon earth ? Did he preach as successfully as
his perfect love made him desire to do ? If he had all the success he
desired in his ministry, why did he " look round upon his hearers with
anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts ?" Why did he
weep and complain, " How often would I have gathered you, &c, and
ye would riot ?" Were even his private instructions so much blessed to
his own disciples as he could have wished 1 If they were, what meant
these strange expostulations, " How is it that ye have no faith ? Faithless
generation, how long shall I be with you ? Hast thou been so long time
with me, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me ? Will ye also go
away ?"
Nay, had not Christ his innocent infirmities too ? Did he not shudder
at the prospect of the cup of trembling ? Needed he not the " strength,
ening support of an angel in the garden of Gethsemane ?" Did he not
" offer up prayers, with strong cryings and tears, unto Him that was
able to save him from death ? Was he not heard in that he feared ?"
Heb. v, 7. Did he not innocently cry out upon the cross, " My God !
my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" And does not the apostle
observe, that " we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities ; but [one who] was in all points tempted
as we are, yet without sin?" Heb. iv, 15. When our opponents, there-
fore, confound sin with natural, innocent injirmilies, or with our not doina
all the good we would, do they not inadvertently fix a blot upon the
immaculate character of Him who could say, " Which of you conviriceth
me of sin ?"
4. My pious opponent wishes, no doubt, to praise God as perfectly as
an angel ; while an angel probably desires to do it as completely as an
archangel ; but in the nature of things this cannot be. Thousands of
God's moral vessels, which are perfect in their place and degree, and
as such adorn God's universal temple, fall short of each other's perfection
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 583
without being sinfully imperfect on that account. When deficiencies
are natural, and not moral, if we call them sin, in many cases we charge
God with the creation of sin. Nor is it any more sin in a man not to
magnify God so vigorously as an angel, or in an angel not to serve his
Creator so perfectly as an archangel, than it is a sin in a good soldier
not to do the king such excellent service as an experienced captain, or
a consummate general. In the moral Avorld, as well as in the natural,
" one star may differ from another star in glory," without the least
disparagement to its peculiar perfection. The injudicious refinements
of Calvinism make a confused jumble of God's works, as they do of
God's truth, and of the various perfections which belong to the various
classes of his children : but a wise dispenser of the word will do by those
various truths and perfections as Joseph did by his brothers : " He placed
them the first born according to his birthright, [or superiority,] and the
youngest according to his youth" [or inferiority.]
5. We are not ashamed to assert that perfection in one respect, and
imperfection in another respect, may consistently meet in the same
subject ; or that men and things may be perfect in one sense and imper
fect in another. If our opponents ridicule us for it, we will present
them with an ocular, and by no means " metaphysical" demonstration
of their mistake. Two perfect grains, the one of barley, and the other
of wheat, lie before us. I say with the perfectionists that the grain of
barley is perfect in its kind, but imperfect, or inferior in excellence, when
it is compared to the grain of wheat. But Mr. Martin, at the head of
the imperfectionists, thinks me deluded, and placing himself in his
judgment seat, gravely says, " I am obliged to conclude that perfection
and imperfection, things as contraiy to each other as light and darkness,
are with such a deluded person considered as one and the same."
" Some are so unaccountably absurd and ridiculous." Reader, thou art
judge and jury : pronounce which of the two deserves best this imputa
tion of " unaccountable absurdity," — the author of this Essay, or that of
the " Essay on Gal. v, 17."
6. With respect to this gentleman's triumphant question, " Where is
the (perfect) man 1 Why should his name be concealed ?" I hope it
has already been satisfactorily answered in sec. iv, arg. xii. To what
is advanced there, I add here the following remark : — Inveterate preju
dice is blind. If it believe not reason, Moses, the prophets, and the
apostles, " neither would it be persuaded though one rose from the dead."
And were we to point out a person as perfect as Jesus of Nazareth, and
to say, " Behold the man !" I should not wonder if the prepossessed
professors cried out, as some ancient engrossers of orthodoxy did,
" He is a deceiver of the people, teaching perfection throughout all
Jewry." And if they did not say, " He is the friend of publicans and
sinners, away with him !" it is not improbable they would say, " He is
a friend of the Pharisees and Arrninians, why do you hear him ? Would
ye also be his disciples ?" It is in vain to hope that prejudice expired
with those who scoffed at perfection incarnate, and spit in the face of
Jesus Christ, " thinking to do God and Ike Mcssia'i service." Man is
man in London, as well as in Jerusalem. Our author goes on : —
ARG. III. Page 18. " It is not more essential to those who are par-
Uikers of the grace of God in truth, to desire this, [the destruction of
584 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
sin,] than it is for every creature, as such, to desire an exemption from
pain and shame." Then follows a dangerous insinuation, that we must
say by the cup of indwelling sin, as our Saviour did by the cup of pain
and shame : " The cup that my Father giveth me, shall I not drink of it ?"
ANSWER. Never was a cup of subtle poison more artfully mixed !
And that the reader may not suspect any mischief, the author borrows
the very cup which our heavenly Father presented to Christ in the
garden of Gethsemane ; a cup of pain and shame. Reader, examine
this cup, before thou drink it. Death is in it. Pour out the new wine,
which makes the poison it contains palatable, and at the bottom thou
wilt find this mortal sediment : — " It is as absurd absolutely to desire
deliverance from sin in this life, as absolutely to desire deliverance from
pain arid shame." To discover the falsehood of this proposition we
need only weigh the following remarks : — (1.) Man mixed for himself
the moral cup of sin, and God, to punish him, mixed the natural
cup of pain and shame. (2.) It is excessively wrong so to confound
moral and natural evil, as to say that, because we cannot with any pro
priety absolutely pray for deliverance from all natural evil in this
life, we ought not absolutely to ask and expect deliverance from all
moral evil before death. (3.) When the imperfectionists confound the
moral cup of sin, with the natural cup of shame and pain, they are as
grossly mistaken, as if they confounded poison, and counter-poison ; sin,
and its punishment ; the murderer's revengeful heart, and the gallows
on which he is hanged. (4.) Shame and pain, when they are appointed
for a trial of faith, and endured for righteousness' sake, compose the
last and greatest of all the beatitudes ; a beatitude this, of which our
Lord drank so deeply, when, " for the joy that was set before him, he
endured the pain, and despised the shame of the cross," Heb. xii, 2.
But where was indwell ins: sin ever ranked among the ingredients which
compose the beatitudes, that our opponents should thus confound it with
pain and shame? (5.) When they insinuate that we must bear with
sin as patiently as with pain and shame, the moral cup of indwelling
iniquity as readily as the natural cup of outward affliction, do they not
grossly confound " the cup of devils" with " the cup of the Lord," and
make the simple believe that because we must patiently drink the latter
with Christ, we must also patiently drink the former with Belial ? The
Captain of our salvation bids us " rejoice and be exceeding glad," when
we patiently suffer pain and shame for righteousness' sake ; therefore
absolutely to deprecate all pain and shame would be to pray against
our "exceeding great joy;" yea, against "our reigning with" Christ :"
for, only <« if we suffer, shall we also reign with him." But where does
Christ bid us " rejoice and be exceeding glad" when we are full of
indwelling sin ? Or where does he promise that if we harbour indwell-
ing sin, " we shall also reign with him ?" Christians, awake ! We
pour out this rank poison before you, that you may advert to its offen
sive smell. While rash Solifidians gather it up, as 'if it were the honey
of Canaan ; boldly trample it under foot, and be ye more and more per
suaded that righteousness Calvinistically imputed, and indwelling sin,
are the two arms in which the Delilah of the imperfectionists clasps her
deluded admirers.
Page 31. Our ingenious author proposes an important question : — " If
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 585
the grace of God," says he, " be so abundant as the Scriptures repre
sent it, (and the Scripture cannot be broken,) why are believers per
mitted to struggle so long for that victory they cannot yet obtain ?"
that victory which death is to bring them ? " Whence is it that they,
who pant for purity, should not immediately obtain a request so
desirable ?" For our author lays it down as an undoubted truth, that
" flesh and spirit mutually lust, desire, and strive to obtain a complete
conquest, but at present, [i. e. in this life.] neither can prevail." (p. 26.)
This important question we answer thus: — Imperfect Christians do
not attain perfect purity of heart. (1.) Because they do not see the
need of it ; because they still hug some accursed thing, or because the
burden of indwelling sin is not yet become intolerable to them. They
make shift to bear it yet, as they do the toothache, when they are still
loath to have a rotten tooth pulled out. (2.) If they are truly willing to
be made clean, they do not yet believe that the Lord both can and will
make them clean ; or that " now is the day of this salvation." And, as
faith inherits the promises of God, it is no wonder if their unbelief miss
this portion of their inheritance. (3.) If they have some faith in the
promises that the Lord can and will " circumcise their hearts, that they
may love him with all their hearts ;" yet it is not that kind or degree of
faith which makes them completely willing to sell all, to deny themselves,
faithfully to use their inferior talent, and to continue instant in prayer
for this very blessing. In short, " they have not, because they ask not,"
which is the case of the Laodicean imperfectionists ; or " because they
ask amiss," which is the case of the imperfect perfectionists. (4.)
Frequently also they will receive God's blessing in their own precon
ceived method, and not in God's appointed way. Hence God suspends
the operation of his sanctifying Spirit, till they humbly confess their
obstinacy and false wisdom, as well as their unbelief, and want of perfect
love. Thus we clear our sanctifier, and take the shame of our impurity
to ourselves. Not so our opponents. They exculpate themselves, and
insinuate that God has appointed the necessary continuance of indwelling
sin in us for life, that the conflict which we maintain with that enemy
may answer excellent ends. Their arguments, collected in the above-
quoted " Essay," are produced and answered in the following pages : —
ARG. IV. Page 37, &c. " By this warfare the Lord manifests and
magnifies himself to his people ; and, if I am not mistaken, &c, the
continuance of it is a mean by which believers have such views of the
perfections and glory of God, as it does not seem to us probable they
could here obtain without it." Then our author instances in God's
. " unchanging love toward the elect," and in his « sovereign grace, that
reigns through righteousness to the salvation of the guilty." He next
observes that " those believers who are most conscious of this internal
conflict ; most sensible of the power and prevalency of indwelling sin,
are most thankful that the endearing declarations of God's distinguishing
love are true." And, pp. 39, 40, we are distinctly told that the doctrine
of the necessary continuance of indwelling sin magnifies " the power
and patience of God ; the power of God to support us under this con
flict, and his patience in bearing with our manifold weakness and ingra
titude." For, great as the burden of our ingratitude is, " vet he fainteth
not, neither is he weary."
586 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
This is an extract of our author's argument, which, like a snake, works
its way through verbose windings, where I have not leisure to follow it.
Crush this snake, and out will come this less viper : " The longer sin
continues in us, the more God's sovereign love, grace, power, and pa-
tience, by which he saves guilty, weak, and ungrateful sinners, is mani
fested unto us." Or, if you please, " The longer we continue in sin, or
the longer sin continues in us, the more is grace manifested and magni
fied." Or, if you will speak as the apostolic controvertist, " Let us
continue in sin that grace may abound" A notion this, which is the
very soul of Antinomianism unmasked.
To fill the pious reader with a just detestation of this doctrine, I need
only unfold it thus : if the continuance of indwelling sin magnifies God's
sovereign grace and patience, in saving ungrateful sinners; the con
tinuance of outward sin will do this much more : for the greater our out
ward sins are, the greater will God's patience appear in bearing with us,
and his grace in forgiving us ; seeing " he fainteth not, neither is he
weary." Thus we are come almost to the top of Antinomianism : and,
to reach the highest step of the fatal ladder, we need only declare, as
the author of .the five letters has done, that « a grievous "fall [into sin,
such as adultery, robbery, murder, and incest,] will make us sing louder
to the praise of restoring grace throughout all the ages of eternity."
(See the fourth of those letters.) Now, if " a grievous fall" will infallibly
have that happy effect, it follows that ten such falls will multiply ten
times the display of God's power and patience. What a boundless field
opens here, to run an Antinomian race, and to enlarge our wickedness
as hell ! What a ladder is here lent us to descend to the depth of the
abomination of desolation, in order to reach the loudest notes of praise
in heaven ! If this Solifidian Gospel be not one of " the depths of Satan,"
and the greatest too, I am not capable of discerning midnight gloom from
noon-day brightness.
ARC. V. Page 4. " To save the guilty in such a manner as, &c,
effectually to humble them who are saved, displays the manifold wisdom
of God. Does it not seem necessary, to attain that great end, to make
believers experimentally « know what an evil and bitter thing' sin is, &c ?
If so, when can the objects of salvation see this with becoming shame
and sorrow ? Not while they are < in the gall of bitterness,' &c. For,
in that state, * so abominable is man, that he drinketh in iniquity like
water.' On the other hand, this cannot be after they are brought to
glory : for then all the painful and shameful memorials of sin will be
finally removed. It must be while flesh and spirit dwell in the same
man."
Granted ; but what has this argument to do with the question ? Did
we ever deny that, as long as we live, we must repent, or be deeply
conscious " what an evil and bitter thing" sin is ? The question is,
whether indwelling sin is the cause or source of true repentance, or an
incentive to it ; and whether God has appointed that this should remain
in our hearts till death, lest we should forget " what an evil and bitter
thing sin is," or lest we should not remember it " with becoming shame
and sorrow ?" The absurdly of this plea has already been exposed in
sec. iii, obj. viii, ix. And, to the arguments there advanced, I now add
those which follow: (1.) Does not experience convince imperfect
LAST CHECK TO ANTIIVOMIANISM. 587
believers, that the more fretfulness, self will, and obstinacy they have in
their hearts, the less they do repent ? How absurd is it then to suppose
that the remains of these evil dispositions will help them to feel " be
coming shame and sorrow" for sin ! (2.) Do not our opponents tell
their hearers that we get more becoming shame and sorrow by looking
one moment " at Him whom we have pierced," than by poring upon
our corruptions for an hour ? If so, why will they plead for indwelling
s*ia , that " becoming shame and sorrow" may abound ? And why do
they pretend that, they exalt Christ more than we, who maintain that our
most becoming shame and deepest sorrow flow from his ignominy and
sufferings, and not from our indwelling sin, and conflicting corruptions 1
Did not Job " abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes," when he
saw his redeeming God by faith, much more than when he just kept
his head above the bitter waters of impatience and murmuring? (3.)
The pleaders for the continuance of indwelling sin tell us, " that as the
sight and attacks of a living and roaring lion will make us dread lions
more than all the descriptions and pictures which represent their
destructive fierceness ; so the feeling the onsets of indwelling sin will
make us abhor sin more than all the descriptions of its odious nature,
and the accounts of its fearful consequences : because a burnt child
naturally dreads the fire." To this wre answer : — A burnt child, who
pleads for the keeping of a burning coal upon his breast to make him
dread the fire, has hitherto been burned to little purpose. Who had
ever less to do with indwelling sin, and its cursed attacks, than the holy
Jesus, and faithful angels ? And yet, who is more filled with a perfect
abhorrence of all iniquity ? On the other hand, who has been more
distracted, and longer torn by indwelling sin, than the devil ? And who,
nevertheless, is better reconciled to it ? Or, who is more plagued by
the continual rend ings and bitings of the lions and vipers within, than
those passionate, revengeful people, who say, with all the positiveness
of Jonah and Absalom, " I do well to be angry, and revenge is sweet ?"
Experience, therefore, demonstrates the inconclusiveness of this argu
ment. (4.) If the penitent thief properly learned, in a few hours,
" what an evil and bitter thing external and internal sin is," is it not
absurd to suppose that he must have continued forty years full of
indwelling sin to learn that lesson, if God had added forty years to
his life ? Would this delay have been to the honour of his Divine
Teacher ? Lastly : when Christ cast seven devils out of Mary Mag-
dalene, did he leave one or two devils behind, to teach her " becoming
shame and sorrow" for sin ? And was it these two remaining " Diabo-
lonians" that made her dissolve in tears at Christ's feet ; or the grateful,
penitential love which she felt for her gracious deliverer? Is it not
astonishing that Gospel ministers should so far forget themselves and
their Saviour as to teach, as openly as for decency they dare, that
we must fetch our tears of godly sorrow from the infernal lake, and
rekindle the candle of repentance at the fire of hell ! And that the
fanning breath of the Spirit, and the golden, hallowed snuffers of the
sanctuary cannot make that candle burn continually clear, unless we
use, to the end of our life, the black finger of Satan, indwelling sin ; and
Adam's accursed extinguisher, original corruption !
AKG. VI. Our author's next argument, in favour of the necessary
588 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
indwelling of sin during life, is more decent, and consequently more
dangerous. The cloven feet of error delicately wear the sandals of
truth : but, with a little attention, we shall soon see that they are only
borrowed or stolen. The argument, abridged from page 44, and ren
dered more perspicuous, may run thus : — " If we have frequently been
slothful, and have not at all times exerted our abilities to the uttermost,
why may not God in wisdom rebuke us for it, and make us sensible of
that evil, by not permitting us to effect what at other times we seem
determined, if possible, to accomplish ? [that is, by not permitting us
utterly to abolish the whole body of sin.] If Samson abuse his strength,
it is fit he should have cause severely to repent of his folly, by being
deprived of it for a season, and becoming as weak as other men." Here
we are left to infer, that as Samson through his unfaithfulness became
" as weak as other men" for a season ; so all believers, on account of
their unfaithfulness, must be weakened by indwelling sin, during the
term of life.
To this we answer, (1.) That although believers frequently give place
to sloth and unfaithfulness, yet they are no more necessitated to do it,
than Samson "svas to dally with Delilah. (2.) If the constant indwelling
of sin be a just punishment for not making a proper use of the talent of
grace which God gives us, it evidently follows that our unfaithfulness,
and not a necessity appointed by God, is the very worm which destroys
our evangelically sinless perfection : and the moment our opponents
grant this, they allow all that we contend for ; unless they should be able
to prove that God necessitates us to be unfaithful, in order to punish us
infallibly with indwelling sin for life.
As for Samson, he is most unfortunately brought in to support the
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of that weakening sin, which we
call " inbred corruption :" and he might be most happily produced to
encourage those unfaithful believers, who, like him, have not made a
proper use of their strength in time past. For he outlived his penal
weakness, and recovered the strength of a perfect Nazarite before death ;
witness his last achievement, which exceeded all his former exploits.
For it would be highly absurd to suppose that he got in a death purga
tory the amazing strength by which he pulled down the pillars that
supported the large building where the Philistines feasted. Nor need I
the strength of a logical Samson to break the argumentative reeds which
support the temple of error, in which the imperfectionists make sport,
to their hurt, with the doctrine of that Christian Samson, who said, " I
can do all things through Christ that strengthened! me."
ARG. VII. Page 47, &c. We are indirectly told, (for pious men can
not utter gross Antinomianism without the mask of circumlocution,) that
indwelling sin must continue in us, that " grace [may] not only be exer
cised, but distinguished from all that has only the appearance of it. But
— how is the true grace of God to be here distinguished from that which
is but the semblance of it? By its effects— a clear and spiritual discovery
of the depravity, deceit, and desperate wickedness of our own hearts."
And then we are given to understand that lest we should not be deeply
convinced of that " desperate wickedness," the continuance of indwelling
sin is absolutely necessary. This argument runs into the fifth, which I
have already answered. It is another indirect plea for the continuance
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 589
of outward adultery and murder, as well as for the continuance of in
dwelling sin ; it being certain that outward adultery, &c, " will convince
us of the desperate wickedness of our hearts," still more powerfully than
heart adultery, &c. To what hard shifts are good men put, when they
light for the continuance of the bud, or root of any sin ! Their every
stroke for sin is a stab at the very vitals of godliness.
ARG. VIII. Page 48. " The continuance of indwelling sin," which is
(with great modesty in the ingenious author, and therefore with great
danger to the unwary reader) called " this warfare," is supported by the
following reason : — " It is often an occasion to discover the strength of
grace received, as well as the truth of it." This argument is all of a
piece with the preceding, and puts me in mind of a speech, which a
shameless young debauchee made once to me : — " I kept (said he)
drinking and dosing in such a tavern, without ever going to bed, ever
being sober one hour for twenty -three days. I never had so remarkable
an occasion to discover the strength of my body, and the excellence of
my constitution." However, in a few months, while he continued in the
conclusion to discover his strength, a mortal disorder seized upon him,
and by removing him into eternity, taught me that if Fulsome, the pro
fessor, speaks the truth, when he says, Once in grace always in grace,
Nabal, the sot, was mistaken, when he hinted, Once in health always in
health. To make the imperfectionists ashamed of this argument, I hope
I need only observe, (1.) That nothing ever showed more the strength
of grace than the conflicts which the man Christ Jesus went through,
though he never conflicted a moment with indwelling sin. (2.) That
the strength and excellence of a remedy is much better discovered by
the removal of the disorder which it is designed to cure, than by the
conflicts which the poor patient has with pain, till death comes to termi
nate his misery. And, (3.) That the argument I refute, indirectly
represents Christ as a physician, who keeps his patients upon the rack
to render himself more necessary to them, and to show the strength of
the anodyne mixture, by which he gives them, now and then, a little
ease under their continued, racking pain !
Our author adds, p. 49, " If those who bear the heaviest burdens are
sometimes esteemed the strongest men, they who are thus engaged in
this warfare [I wish he would speak quite out, and say, They who bear
the Jieadcst, burden of indwelling sin,'] have that evidence of the strength
of grace, &c, which is peculiar to themselves." A great mistake this :
for if we may believe Ovid, when Medea murdered her own child, under
a severe conflict with indwelling sin, she " had that fatal evidence of"
what is here preposterously called the strength of grace ; but what I beg
leave to call the obstinacy of free will. Sed trahit invitam nova vis, fyc.
" Passion." said she, " hurries away my unwilling, reluctant mind.''*
Judas, it scerns, was not an utter stranger to this conflict, (any more than
to the burden of guilt,) when he hurried out of it into a death purgatory.
Nor do I blarne him for having chosen strangling rather than life, if
death can terminate the misery which accompanies indwelling sin, and
do more in that respect for fallen believers than Christ himself ever did.
But supposing that "the saving grace of God, which has appeared to all
men," never appeared to Medea and Judas ; supposing these two sinful
souls never conflicted with indwelling sin ; it will, however, follow from
590 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
our author's insinuation, that, in case David had defiled half a dozen
married women, and killed their husbands, to enjoy them without a rival,
we should esteem him six times stronger in grace, if he had not fainted
under his sixfold burden, like Judas ; because " in this [Antinomian]
warfare, those who bear the heaviest burdens are esteemed the strong
est" believers ; and because " they have that testimony of their love to
Christ which is peculiar to themselves." If Satan were to transform
himself into an angel of light, could he preach a more dangerous and
immoral gospel to an Antinomian and perverse generation ?
ARG. IX. Our author's last argument in favour of the necessary con
tinuance of sin in us, occurs page 51, and runs thus : — "I will only add,
that by this warfare the Lord weans his people from the present evil
world, and makes them long for the land of promise, as the land of rest,
&c. I know some will say, This is impossible ; and be ready to ask,
Are we then debtors to the flesh 1 [A very proper question ! which the
author answers thus :] By no means, &c. In our flesh dwells no good
thing, &c. Nevertheless — he [God] can and does make the presence
of evil so irksome to the believer, that it makes him ardently long for
complete deliverance from it." That is, in plain English, he" keeps his
patients so long upon the rack of their indwelling sin, that at last they
are forced to long for death, the great cleanser from heart iniquity. This
argument would have been complete if it had been supported by these
two passages : — " I do well to be angry even unto death :" «' In those
days men, [plagued by the locusts which ascend out of the bottomless
pit,] shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." To show its
absurdity I need only make two or three remarks upon it : —
1. Mark the inconsistency of our opponents. When they hear us
press obedient faith upon a fallen or wavering believer, by mentioning
to him the terrors of the Lord, the fear of losing the Divine favour, and
the danger of being even " spued out of Christ's mouth, and condemned
without mercy" if he show no mercy ; they say that enforcing the love
of Christ on a disobedient believer, will abundantly answer all the good
ends which we propose by thus preaching Christ's law : but, when they
plead for the continuance of sin, they forget their own doctrine, and tell
us that indwelling sin is necessary to keep us in the way of duty, namely,
in ardent longing for heaven. They blame us for making use of Christ's
law, to spur believers : and yet they, (see to what astonishing height
their partiality is grown !) they do not blush to preach openly the law of
sin to believers ; insisting that its working in their members is necessary
to " make them long for the land of promise, as for the land of rest,
and for the speedy possession of that great good which God has laid up
for them." (p. 52.) We are heretics for preaching the law of Christ,
the law of liberty ; they who preach the law of sin, the law of bondage,
are orthodox, and engross to themselves the glorious title of Gospel
ministers !
2. How absurd is it to prop up the throne of indwelling sin in the
hearts of believers, that its tyrannical law may make them long for hea
ven ! Did not Christ long for heaven without indwelling sin ? Do not the
holiest believers, who are most free from indwelling sin, long most for
the beatific vision ? And do we not see that fallen believers, who are
most filled with indwelling sin, are most apt to be lovers of sin and the
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 591
world, " more than lovers of God" and heaven ? Arc they not the very
people, who, unmindful of Lot's wife, stay in the plain, instead of
escaping for their life, and fleeing to the celestial mount of God without
ever looking behind them ?
3. Is not indwelling sin a clog, rather than a spur, to the heavenly
racers ? If sin be of such service to us, to make us run the career of
holy longing after heavenly rest, why does the apostle exhort us to " set
aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us ?" If we
want a spur to make us mend our pace, need we keep the spur, indwell
ing sin ? Is it not more likely to spur us to hell than to heaven ? If we
have thousands of sinless spurs, what need have we of keeping that to
drive us to heaven, which drove Adam behind the trees of the garden,
not to say out of his native paradise ?
If you ask, What are the sinless spurs of believers ? We reply, all the
toils, infirmities, and pains of our weary, decaying, mortal bodies : all the
troubles, disappointments, and sorrows, which arise as naturally out of
our present circumstances, as sparks do out of the fire : a share of the
dreadful temptations which harassed Christ in the wilderness : and fre
quent tastes of the bitter cup which made him sweat blood in the garden,
and cry out on Calvary. Hear one, to whom our opponents absurdly
give the spur of indwelling sin, as if he had not spurring enough without
it : " I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh,"
Col. i, 24. And surely indwelling sin was never one of Christ's afflic
tions. x\gain : " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ 1 Shall
it be tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, 01
peril, or sword ? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day
long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" Once more : some
were " tortured, not accepting deliverance ; and others had trials of
cruel mockings, and scourgings ; yea, moreover, of bonds and imprison
ments. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted,
were slain with the sword ; they wandered about in sheep skins, and
goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented ; they wandered in deserts
and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
I grant that all true believers have not these thorns in the flesh, and
feel not the spurs which made Elijah flee for his life before incensed
Jezebel, and " request that he might die under the juniper tree ;" but, at
the best of times, they have, or should have David's affliction, " My eyes
run down with water because men keep not thy law :" they have, or
should have Jeremiah's grief, " O that my head were waters, and mine
eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep, day and night, for the deso
lation of Jerusalem, or for the slain of the daughter of God's people !"
They have, or should have the sorrow of just Lot, who was vexed " from day
to day with the filthy conversation of the wicked among whom he dwelt."
To suppose, therefore, tfiat in this vale of tears, tribulation, and sin, we
need keep the sting of indwelling sin, because we must " strive against
the sin" which is in the world to the end, even unto blood, if we are
called to secure the crown of martyrdom ; or, because it " is the will
of God, that through much tribulation we should enter the kingdom ;"
(p. 46 ;) and because we should long for heaven : to suppose, I say, that
we must keep the sting, indwelling sin, on these accounts, is as absurd
as to suppose that all the keepers and nurses in bedlam must be mad.
592 LAST CHECK TO ANTHVOMIANISM.
and must continue to be plagued with personal lunacy, lest they should
not " strive against" madness to the end ; lest they should not come out
of great disturbances when they remove from their dreary habitation ;
and lest, while they continue there, they should not see mad people
enough to make them long for the conversation of reasonable persons.
ARG. X. Page 52. Our author closes his shrewd plea for the death
purgatory by proposing a very material objection : « If any exclaim and
say, These sentiments have a tendency to reconcile believers to sin ; I
must say, The flesh might as soon be reconciled to the spirit, as the
spirit to the flesh ; or sin to grace, as grace to sin. It is often said,
That nature will be nature. And why may not this be applied to the
Divine nature, of which believers are said to be partakers ?" Hence our
author insinuates that tne Divine nature of believers is « immutable ;"
and that, because " to will is present with them," when they sin they still
retain God's holiness, as " lions and eagles, however confined or caressed,
retain their ferocity and brutal appetites."
I am glad to see that this pious author has still the cause of holiness
at heart, and desires to stop up the Antinomian gap. I arn persuaded
that he intends to do God service by pleading for the continuance of
indwelling sin. If he ask for the reprieve of that robber and murderer,
it is merely because Antinomianism has deceived him,. as formerly Pha
risaism deceived the Jews, who cried, « Release unto us Barnabas'." If
he saw that Christ in us must be crucified afresh, in case the robber in
us is not put to death ; I doubt not he would be as sorry for his publica
tion, as the devout Jews were for their antichristiari request, when they
" were pricked to the heart" on the day of pentecost.
But, alas ! if a good intention excuse bad performances, it does not
stop their mischief. The very desire which our author evidences to
secure godliness, is so unfortunately expressed, that it gives her as fatal
a blow as the tempter did, when he said to our first parents, " Ye shall
not surely die." For, when that gentleman intimates to fallen believers,
\ e are possessed of the Divine nature ; and, be your works what they
will, if to will be " in some degree present," (p. 54,) ye are as much
possessed of God's holy image, as a lion is possessed of a lion's fierce
nature. What is this, but to preach the very gospel which the serpent
preached in paradise ; with this difference, that the serpent said, " Ye
shall not die : ye shall be as gods." But the impcrfectioriists say, Your
salvation is finished : ye have already the " immutable nature" of God :
ye are already as gods 1 Adam believed the tempter, and lost his holy
nature. The imperfectionists believe our author : O ! may none of them
remain " immutable" in the sinful imperfection which he so earnestly
contends for !
XI. A Caveat. Having said so much upon .our author's mistakes, I
should be inexcusable if I did not drop a caution about the veil with
which they are covered. His book goes into the world under the harm
less title of " The Christian's peculiar Conflict ;" whereas it should be
called, A plea for the propriety and usefulness of the continuance of
indwelling sin in all Christians. This plain, artless title would have
made true Christians stand upon their guard ; but now they take up
without suspicion the cup mixed by the author : and it is well if some
have riot already drank it to the dregs without fear.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 593
An illustration will give the reader an idea of the wisdom with which
the title of this essay is contrived. I write a treatise full upon the
advantage of a standing rebellion in the kingdom, and urge a variety of
plausible arguments to show the great good that will arise from an
inveterate opposition to the government. " If a spirit of rebellion ceases
in any subject, the king's patience, mercy, love, and power will riot be
so fully displayed, nor will the loyalty of his good subjects be so well
distinguished and proved : rebellion, and the burdens that attend it, will
make us long for peace : guilty, ungrateful rebels will love the king and
admire his mercy the more when they are forgiven after their manifold
rebellions. And therefore [to use the unguarded words of our author,
page 53,] it becomes us seriously to consider how far this great end [of
a spirit of rebellion continually dwelling in every Briton's breast] is
understood, approved, and answered." I show my manuscript to a
friend, who says, Your essay will alarm every well wisher to the con
stitution of the realm. But I remove his objection by saying. I will not
call it " An essay on the propriety and usefulness of a spirit of rebellion
constantly harboured in the breast of every one of his majesty's sub
jects:" but I will call it, The loyal subject's peculiar conflict, an essay
on 1 Samuel xii, 19; and this plausible title will modestly"make way for
my boldest arguments. Pleas for the continuance of rebellion and
indwelling sin may properly enough be introduced by such a stratagem.
SECTION XV.
Mr. Hill objects, that the doctrine of Christian perfection is popish ; and
the author shows that it is truly evangelical, and stands inseparably
connected with the cordial obedience required by the mediatorial law
of Moses and Christ, insomuch that there is absolutely no medium be
tween the doctrine of an evangelically sijiless perfection and lawless
Antinomianism — This section contains a recapitulation of the Scrip
ture proofs of the doctrine maintained in these sheets ; and therefore
the careful perusal of it is humbly recommended to the reader.
HAVING taken my leave of the ingenious author of The Christian's
peculiar Conflict, I return to Mr. Hill, who by this time meets me with
his " Review" in his hand, and, with that theological sling, casts at our
doctrine a stone which has indeed frighted thousands of weak souls, but
has never done any execution among the judicious. Your doctrine,
says he, " is a popish doctrine ;" and he might have added, with a.s
much reason, that it is a Pelagian doctrine too: for, bold as Pelagius
and some popes have been in coining new doctrines, they never camo
to sucli a pitch of boldness as to say that they were the authors of the
doctrine, of evangelical obedience, and of those commandments which
bind us to love God, — our covenant God, with all our hearts, and our
neighbours as ourselves : precious Gospel commandments these, upon
which the- doctrine of perfection securely rests !
What pope was ever silly enough to pretend that he wrote the book
of Deuteronomy, where we find this sweet, evangelical law, " Hear, O
Israel : thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with
VOL. II. 38
594 tlST CliECfc TO
all thv soul., ftnd \vith all thy might. And these words which I command
thee this day, shall be in thy heart," [to do them, I suppose, and not to
WJicule them under the names of perfection and popery?] Deut. vi, 5, 6.
KoW bY what argument will M*. Hill prove that the pope is the inventor
*fifck Blessed doctrine]
Should -that gentleman reply, that when God gave his ancient people
this eraeioufl 1 w of perfection, lie did not give it with an intention that
thcy^hould penally keep it as an evangelical law ; but. only with an
intention to drive them to the promised Messiah who was to keep it for
hem, and to give eternal indulgences to all the believers who break it ;
^demand a>oof: and till Mr. Hill produce it, we show his mistake
by the following arguments:-!. Although the Jewish dispensation
revealed a « gracious God, abucdant in goodness, mercy, and truth, for-
giviucr iniquity, transgression, and sin," to returning sinners who pern-
Sly laid hold on'his Jewish covenant ; yet, if I remember right it ,
never promised to accept of an obedience performed by another. Hence
k is that God never commanded that Jewish females should be circum
cised, but confined his ordinance to the males, who alone could person
ally obey it. We frequently read of vicarious offering* m the Jewish
Gospel, but not of vicarious obedience and vicarious love. For a though
the obedience of godly parents engaged God to ^f ™^S^
upon their children, yet the children were to obey for themselves, o. t<
bo cut off in the end." The Jews were undone by a conceit of the con-
trury doctrine, and by wild notions about the obedience ot -Abr
and the holiness of the temple, which they fancied was imputed to them
in the Culvinian way: and a similar mistake, it is to be feared, s
undoes multitudes of Christians, who fatally mistake the nature
Christian obedience, absurdly put on robes of self-imputed righteous
ness, and rashly bespatter the robes of personal and evangelically per
fect obedience, which God requires of every one of us.
" The mistake I oppose would never have been made by our oppo-
nents if they had not used themselves to tear the evangelically legal
part of the Scriptures from the context, in order to give it a sense con
trarv to that of the sacred writers ; it being certain, that, when you
have torn a man's tongue out of his mouth, you may afterward force it
down his throat, and leave it there with the root against his teeth and
the tip toward his stomach. To show that the precept of perfect love,
which I have quoted from Deut. vi, is treated in this manner as often as
our opponents insinuate God did not intend that Jewish believers should
personally observe it as a term of final acceptance, but only that they
should be driven thereby to the Mediator, who should perfectly love
God for them : to show, I say, the absurdity of this notion, we need only
do Moses the justice to hear him out. Let any unprejudiced person
lead the whole chapter, and he will, I am persuaded, side against the
Calvhian imputation of a Jewish perfection to Jewish believers. Mem
beo-ins bv saying, " Now these are the commandments, which the .Lor.
vour God [yours, through an evangelical covenant] commanded to teach
you, that ve might do them, [and not that your Mediator might do them
for you,] Deut. vi, 1. Two verses after, he adds, « Hear, O Israel, and
observe and do, [not, Hear, O Israel, and another shall observe and do
for thee,] that it may be well with thee." Then comes our capital
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 595
doctrine and precept of perfect love, which, a few verses below, Moses
continues to enforce thus : " Ye shall not tempt the Lord your [cove
nant] God. You shall diligently keep the [evangelical] commands of
the Lord your [covenant] God ; and his [Gospel] testimonies, which he
has commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good
in the sight of the Lord thy God, that it may be well with thee. And
when thy son asketh thee, saying, What do mean these statutes, [of per
fect love, &c,] then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's
bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out." And, lest Anti-
nomian hands should draw the golden nail of this perfect obedience for
want of proper clenching, this precious chapter, which our Church has
properly selected for a Sunday lesson, ends with these words, which
must raise a blush on the face, or strike conviction into the breast, of all
who trample under foot the robes of our own evangelical perfection:
" And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, that he might
preserve us alive : and it shall be our righteousness [our Gospel perfec*
tion] if we observe to do all these commandments, before the Lord our
[covenant] God, as he has commanded us," Deut. vi, 1-25.
If our opponents say that this is a transcript of Adam's anti-media
torial law of paradisiacal perfection ; and not a copy of Moses' media
torial law of Jewish perfection : or if they assert, that Moses Calvinis-
tically hints that the Jews were to keep this law by proxy, they may
say that light is darkness. And if they grant that Moses was no
Antinomian shuffler, but really meant what he spoke and wrote, it
unavoidably follows, (1.) That God really required of every Jew an
evangelical and personal perfection of love, according to the degree of
light and power imparted under the Jewish dispensation. (2.) That
this evangelical, Jewish perfection of love was attainable by every sin
cere Jew ; because, whatever God requires of us in a covenant of
grace, he graciously engages himself to help us to perform, if we
believingly and obediently embrace his promised assistance. Arid, (3.)
That if an evangelical perfection of love was attainable under the
Jewish Gospel, (for " the Gospel was preached to the Jews as well as
to us," although not so clearly, Heb. iv, 2,) it is absurd to deny that
the Gospel of Christ requires less perfection, or makes less provision,
that Christians may attain what their dispensation calls them to.
If Mr. Hill thinks that this inference is not just, I refer him to our
Lord's declaration : " Think not that I am come to destroy the law
and the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil :" first, by
perfectly obeying myself the two great moral precepts of Moses and
the prophets : and, next, by teaching and helping all my faithful disci
ples to do the same, Matt, v, 17. Should that gentleman object to the
latter part of this little comment, because it leaves no room for the Cal-
vinian imputation of Christ's mediatorial perfection to fallen believers,
who sleep in impenitency, under the guilt of adultery, covered by mur
der : we reply, that this part of our exposition, far from being forced,
is highly agreeable to the text, when it is taken in connection with the
scope of our Lord's sermon and with the context. For,
(1.) All Christ's sermons, and especially that upon the mount, incul
cate the doctrine of personal perfection, and not the doctrine of imputed
perfection. (2.) The very chapter out of which this text is taken, ends
596 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
with tLsse words: " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in hea
ven is perfect." And Mr. Hill, prejudiced as he is against our doctrine,
is too candid to assert that our Lord meant, " Be ye therefore perfect
as your heavenly Father is perfect : now, he is perfect only by the Cal-
vinian imputation of my righteousness : it is merely by imputation that
he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. And he sendeth
only a Calviaistically imputed rain upon the just and upon the unjust.
Be ye therefore perfect only by the imputation of my perfect righteous-
ness."
Mr. Hill's mistake has not only no countenance from the distant part
of the context, but it is flatly contrary to the words which immediately
follow the controverted text. " For verily I say unto you, [that, far
from being come to destroy the law and the prophets, that is, the spirit,
uality and strictness of the moral part of the Jewish Gospel,] till hea
ven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law [which Pharisaic glosses have unnerved] till all be fulfilled." And
lest you should think that I speak of your fulfilling this law by proxy
and imputation, I add, " Whosoever shall break one of these command
ments, [which I am going to enforce upon you, as my own mediatorial
law ; though hitherto you have considered them only as Moses' media
torial law ;] whosoever, I say, shall break one of these least command
ments, and [by precept and example] teach men so, he shall be called
the least in the kingdom of heaven ; [if he have any place among my
people in my spiritual kingdom, it shall be only among my carnal babes,
who are the least of my subjects.] But whosoever shall do and teach
them, [the commandments whose spirituality I am going to assert,] the
same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven," [he shall be an
adult, perfect Christian in the kingdom of my grace here ; and he shall
receive a proportionable crown of righteousness in the kingdom of my
glory hereafter,] Matt, v, 18, 19.
If I am not mistaken, it evidently follows from these plain words of
Christ, (1.) That he taught a personal perfection, and an evangeli
cally sinless perfection too. (2.) That this perfection consists in not
breaking, by wilful commission, the least of the commandments which
our Lord rescued both from the false glosses of Antinomian Pharisees,
who rested on the imputed righteousness of Abraham, saying, " We
have Abraham for our father : we are the children of Abraham : we
are perfect in Abraham : all our perfection is in Abraham :" and from
the no less false glosses of those absurdly legal Pharisees, who paid the
tjthe of anise, mint, and cummin, with the greatest scrupulosity, while
they secretly neglected mercy, truth, and the love of God. And, (3.)
That the perfection which Christ enforced upon his disciples, was not
merely of the negative kind, but of the positive also ; since it consisted
both in doing and teaching the least, as well as the greatest of God's
commandments.
If you ask what are the greatest of these commandments, which
Christ says his disciples must " do and teach," if they will be great or
perfect in his kingdom and dispensation, St. Matthew answers, " One
of the Pharisees, who was a lawyer, asked him a question, saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law, [the name then
given to the Jewish Gospel which Moses preached ;] Jesus said unto
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 597
him, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy lieart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind : that is the first and great command
ment. And the second is like unto it [in nature and importance :]
Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets," Matt, xxii, 35. That is, whatever
Moses and the other prophets taught and promised, hangs on the nail
of perfect love. All came from, all tended to perfect love under the
Jewish dispensation : nor is my dispensation less holy and gracious.
On the contrary, " What the law could not do," in a manner sufficiently
perfect for my dispensation, (for Jewish perfection is not the highest
perfection at which man may arrive on earth,) " God sending me into
the world for the atonement and destruction of sin, has hereby abundantly
condemned sin in the Hesh, that the righteousness of the mediatorial
law," which enjoins perfect love, " might be abundantly fulfilled in the
hearts of them that walk after the Spirit" of my Gospel : a brighter
Gospel this, which transmits more direct and warmer beams from the
Sun of righteousness, and can raise the exquisitely delicious fruit of
perfect love to a greater perfection than the Gospel which Moses
preached. (Compare Rom. viii, 3, with Heb. iv, 2. See also an
account of the superiority of Christ's Gospel in the Scripture Scales,
sec. vi.)
Agreeably to this doctrine of perfection, our Lord said to the rich
young man, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments ; if
thou wilt be perfect, follow me" in the way of my commandments.
" Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself; for bless
ed are they that do his commandments, that they may enter through
the gates into the city, and have right to the tree of life which is in the
street of that city, on either side of the pure river of the water of life.
This do and thou shalt live" eternally in heaven. ** Bring forth fruit
unto perfection," according to the talents of grace and power which
thou art entrusted with, and thou shalt " inherit eternal life ; thou shalt
receive the reward of the inheritance ; thou shalt receive the crown of
life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him," with the love
which keepeth the commandments, and fulfilleth the royal law. Com
pare Matt, xix, 17 ; Luke x, 28 ; Rev. xxii, 2, 14 ; James i, 12, and
Luke viii, 14.
On these, and the above-mentioned scriptures, we rest the truth and
importance of the doctrine of perfection. Jewish perfection principally
stands or falls with Deut. vi, and Matt, xxii ; and Christian perfection
with Matt, v, and xix, to which you may add the joint testimony of St.
Paul and St. James. The former, whom our opponents absurdly make
the captain of their imperfection, says to the Judaizing Galatians,
"Bear ye one another's burdens, [a rare instance of perfect love !] and
so fulfil the [mediatorial] law of Christ," Gal. vi, 2. Nor let Mr. Hill
say that the apostle means we should fulfil it by proxy ; for St. Paul
adds, in the next verse but one, " Let every man prove his own work,
and then [with respect to that work] he shall have rejoicing in himself
alone, and not in another, for [with regard to personal, evangelical
obedience] every man shall bear his own burden :" a proverbial expres
sion, which answers to this Gospel axiom, Every man sliall be. judged
according to his own works.
598 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
St. Paul urges the same evangelical and lawful doctrine upon the
Romans : — " Love one another ; for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled
the law. For this, Thou shall not commit adultery. Thou shall not
covet ; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly compre
hended in this saying, namely, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.
Love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii, 8, &c. And that St. Paul
spake this of the mediatorial law of liberty and Christian perfection, and
not of the Christless law of innocence and paradisiacal perfection, is
evident from his calling it " the law of Christ," that is, our Redeemer's
law, in opposition to our Creator's law, which was given without an
atoning sacrifice and a mediating priest, and therefore made no allow
ance for infirmities, and admitted neither of repentance nor of renovated
obedience. Beside, St. Paul was not such a novice as not to know that
the Galatians and the Romans, who had all sinned, as he observes, Rom.
iii, 23, could never be exhorted by any man in his senses, to fulfil the
paradisiacal law of innocence, by now loving one another. He there
fore indubitably spake of the gracious law of our gentle Melchisedec ;
the law of Him who said, " A new commandment I give unto you, that
ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,"
John xiii, 34. A precious commandment this, which our Lord calls
new, not because the Jewish mediator had not given it to the Israelites,
but because the Christian Mediator enforced it by new motives, gave
new, unparalleled instances of obedience to it, annexed new rewards to
the keeping of it, and required it to be fulfilled with a new perfection.
And that Christians shall be eternally saved or damned, according to
their keeping or breaking this mediatorial law of Christian perfection,
this " law of Christ, this royal law of Jesus, the King of the Jews," we
prove by Matt, xviii, 35 ; vii, 26 ; xxv, 45 ; and Luke vi, 46, &c.
If Mr. Hill's prejudices are not removed by >^hat St. Paul says in
Rom. xiii, concerning our fulfilling the Gospel law of perfection, we
entreat him to ponder the glorious testimony which the apostle, in Rom.
ii, bears to this law, which he does not scruple to call " his Gospel."
With regard to this gracious rule of judgment, says he, " There is no
respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without a
[Mediator's written] law, shall also perish with a [Mediator's written]
law. And as many as have sinned in [or under a Mediator's written]
law, shall be judged by the [Mediator's written] law. For not the hearers
of the [Mediator's] law are just before God, but the doers of the [Medi
ator's] law shall be justified. [Nor are the heathens totally destitute of
this law :] for when the Gentiles, which have not the [Mediator's written]
law, do by nature, [by natural conscience, which is the echo of the
Mediator's voice, and the reflection of the light which enlightens every
man that cometh into the world,'] when the Gentiles, I say, do [by these
means] the things contained in the law, they, having not the law. are a
law unto themselves ; their conscience also bearing witness ; and their
thoughts [in consequence of the witness borne] accusing, or else excusing
one another ; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by
Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel," [that is, according to the Gospel
law which I preach,] Rom. ii, 11, &c. For, while some "lay up trea
sures in heaven, others treasure up to themselves wrath against the day
of wrath and of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 599
man according to his deeds : to them who, by patient continuance in
well doing, [or in keeping the Mediator's law according to their dispen
sation,] seek for glory [he will render] eternal life, [like a righteous
Judge, and gracious Re warder of them that diligently seek him.] But
unto them that do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [he will
render] indignation and wrath," [in just proportion to the more or less
bright discoveries of the truth, which shall have been made to them,]
Rom. ii, 5, &c. " For that servant, who knew his Lord's will, [by a
written law, delivered through the hands of a Mediator,] and prepared
not himself, [that he might have boldness in the day of judgment,]
neither did according to his will, shall be beaten w^ith many stripes [iu
the hell of unbelieving Jews and disobedient Christians.] But he that
knew not, [his Master's will, by an outwardly written law,] and did
[break the law of nature, disobey the voice of his conscience, and]
commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For
unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,"
Luke xii, 47, 48. An indubitable proof this, that as something is re
quired of all, something, even a talent of grace, a measure of the
spiritual light which enlightens every man, is given to all to improve
with, and bring forth fruit to perfection ; some thirty fold, some sixty
fold, and others a hundred fold, according to their respective dispen
sations.
From these quotations it appears to us indubitable, that the Gospel of
St. Paul, and, of consequence, the Gospel of Christ, is not a wanton,
lawless Gospel ; but a holy, lawful Gospel, in which evangelical pro
mises are properly guarded by evangelical rules of judgment ; and the
doctrines of grace, wisely connected with the doctrines of justice. If
this be a glaring truth, what a dangerous game do many good men play,
when they emasculate St. Paul's Gospel, and with Antinomian rashness
cut off, and cast away that morally legal part of it, which distinguishes
it both from the ceremonial gospel which the Galatians foolishly em-
braced, and from the lawless gospel which Solifidian gospellers contend
for under the perverted name of "free grace!" And how seriously
should we all consider these awful words of St. Paul ! — " There are
some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ ; but
though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto
you [whether it be a more severe, Judaizing gospel, or a less strict,
Solindianizing gospel] than that which we have preached unto you,
[which stands at an equal distance from burthensome, Jewish cere
monies, and from lawless, Solifidian tenets,] let him be accursed,"
Gal. i, 7, 8.
This recapitulation of the principal Scripture proofs of our doctrine
would be exceedingly deficient, if I did not once more remind the reader
of the glorious testimony which St. James bears to the law of liberty : —
" If ye [believers, says he] fulfil the royal law, according to the scrip
ture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well, [ye quit your
selves like perfect Christians.] But if ye have [uncharitably] respect
to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors,
[that is, ye are condemned by the Mediator's law, under which ye are.]
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, [of the Mediator,] and yet
[uncharitably] offend in one point, he is guilty of all, &c. So speak
600 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
ye, therefore, and so do, as people that shal be judged by the law of
liberty [the Mediator's law.] For he [the imperfect, uncharitable, fallen
believer] shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no
[charity or] mercy," James ii, 8.
We rest our doctrine of Jewish and Christian perfection on these
consentaneous testimonies of St. James and St. Paul ; of Moses, the
great lawgiver of the Jews, and of Christ, the great Lawgiver of the Chris-
tiaris : the doctrine of perfection, or of perfectly cordial obedience, being
inseparably connected with the mediatorial laws of Moses and of Christ.
The moment you destroy these laws, by turning them into "rules
of life," through the personal observance of which no believer shall
ever be justified or condemned, you destroy the ground of Jewish and
Christian perfection, and you impose upon us the lawless, unscriptural
tenet of an obedience performed by proxy, and of an imputed perfection,
which will do us as little good in life, death, and judgment, as imputed
health, opposed to inherent health, will do to a poor, sickly, dying crimi
nal. Thus, after leading my reader round a large circle of proofs, I
return to the very point whence I started : (see the beginning of the pre
face :) and I conclude that a gospel without a mediatorial law, without
an evangelical law, without the conditional promise of a crown of hea
venly glory to the obedient, and without the conditional threatening of
infernal stripes to the disobedient ; — I conclude, I say, that such a gospel
will always lead us to the centre of Aritinomiariisrn ; to the Diana and
Hecate of the Calvinists : to lawless free grace and everlasting free
wrath ; or, if you please, finished salvation and finished damnation. On
the other hand, the moment you admit what the Jewish and Christian
Gospel covenants are so express about, I mean an evangelical law, or a
practicable rule of judgment, as well as of conduct, eternal salvation and
eternal damnation become conditional : they are suspended upon the
evangelical perfection or imperfection of our obedience ; and the Rev.
Mr. Berridge hits on the head of the golden "nail, on which " hang all
the law and the prophets," all the four Gospels and the epistles, when
he says, " Sincere obedience, as a condition, will lead you unavoidably up
to a perfect obedience."
And now, reader, choose which thou wilt follow, Mr. Hill's lawless
Antinomiari Gospel, or St. Paul's and St. James' Gospel, including the
evangelical law of Christian liberty and perfection, by which law thou
shalt be conditionally justified or condemned, " when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel," Rorn. ii, 16.
If thou choose imputed righteousness and imputed perfection without
any condition, it will " unavoidably" lead thee down into a death purga
tory, through the chamber of indwelling sin, if thou art an elect person,
in the Calvinian sense of the word ; or to eternal damnation through
the chambers of necessary sin, if thou art one of those whom our oppo
nents call reprobates. But if thou cordially choose the sincere, voluntary,
evangelical obedience of faith, which we preach both as a condition and
as a privilege, it will (Mr. Hill's second being judge) "unavoidably
lead thee up to perfect obedience." There is absolutely no medium
between these two Gospels. Thou must either be a Crispian, lawless
imperfectionist, or an evangelical, lawful perfectionist ; unless thou
choose to be a Gallio — one who cares for none of these things. Thou
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 601
must wrap thyself up in unscriptural notions of imputed righteousness,
imputed holiness, and imputed obedience, which make up the ideal
garment of Calvinistically imputed perfection ; or thou must perfectly
" wash in the blood of the Lamb thy robes" of inherent, though derived
righteousness, holiness, and obedience, which (when they are thus
washed) are the rich wedding garment of evangelical perfection.
SECTION XVI.
The author shows that the distinction between sins, and (evangelically
speaking) innocent infirmities, is truly Scriptural, and that judicious
Calvinists and the Church of England hold it — He draws the line
between sins and innocent infirmities — A view of the extremes into
which rigid, Pelagian perfectionists, and rigid, Calvinian imperfcction-
ists, have run east and west, from the Gospel line of an evangelical
perfection — An answer to Mr. Henry' 's grand argument for the con
tinuance of indwelling sin — Conclusion of the argumentative part oj
this essay.
WE have proved, in the preceding section, that the doctrine of an
evangelically sinless perfection is truly Scriptural, being inseparably con-
nected with the greatest and most excellent precepts of the Old and New
Testament, and with the most evangelical and awful sanctions of Moses
and Jesus Christ. This might suffice to show that our doctrine of per
fection cannot be called popish or Pelagian, with any more candour than
the doctrine of the trinity can be branded with those epithets, because
Pelagius and the pope embrace it. If, in order to be good Protestants,
we were obliged to renounce all that the Jews, Turks, and infidels hold ;
we should renounce the Old Testament, because the Jews revere it ; we
should renounce the unity of God, because the Mohammedans contend
for it ; nay, we should renounce common humanity, because all infidels
approve of it. I beg leave, however, to dwell a moment longer upon
Mr. Hill's objection, that the pope holds our doctrine.
When this gentleman was at Rome, he may remember that his
Cicerone showed him, in the ancient Church of St. Paul without the gate,
(if I remember the name,) the picture of all the popes from St. Peter,
Linus, Cletus, arid Clement, down to the pope who then filled what is
called " St. Peter's chair." According to this view of papacy, Mr. Hill
is certainly in the right ; for if he turn back to sec. v, he will see that
Peter, the first pope, so called, was a complete perfectionist, and if
Clemens, or St. Clement, Paul's fellow labourer, was really the fourth
pope, it is certain that he also held our doctrine as well as Peter and
Christ ; for he wrote to the Corinthians, " By love were all the elect
of God made perfect. Those who were made perfect in love are in the
region of the just, and shall appear in glory. Happy then are we if we
fulfil the commandments of God in the unity of love. Following the
commandments of God they sin not." (St. Clem. Ep. to the Cor.) This
glorious testimony, which St. Clement bears to the doctrine of perfection,
might be supported by many correspondent quotations from the other
fathers. But as this would too much swell this essay, I shall only pro-
602 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
duce one, which is so much the more remarkable, as it is taken from St.
Jerome's third Dialogue against Pelagius, the rigid, overdoing perfect.
ist : Hoc et nos dicimus, posse hojninem non peccare, si velit, pro tempore,
pro loco, pro imbecillitate corporea, quamdiu intentus est animus, quamdiu
chorda nullo vitio laxatur in cithara. That is, " We [who oppose Pela
gius' notion about Adamic perfection] maintain also that, considering
our time, place, and bodily weakness, we can avoid sin if we will, as
long as our mind is bent upon it, and the string of our harp [i. e. of our
Christian resolution] is not slackened by any wilful fault.
When I read these blessed testimonies in favour of the truth which
we vindicate, my pleased mind flies to Rome, and I am ready to say,
Hail ! ye holy popes and fathers, ye perfect servants of my perfect
Lord ! I am ambitious to share with you the names of " Arminian, Pela
gian, Papist, temporary monster, and Atheist in masquerade." I pub-
lish to the world my steady resolution to follow you, and any of your
successors, who have done and taught Christ's commandments. And I
enter my protest against the mistakes of the ministers who teach that
Christ's law is impracticable, that sin must dwell in our hearts as long
as we live, and that we must continue to break the Lord's precepts in
our inward parts unto death.
I shall close my answer to this argument of Mr. Hill by a quotation
from Mr. Wesley's Remarks upon the Review : — " It [our doctrine of
Christian perfection] has been condemned by the pope and his whole
conclave, even in this present century. In the famous bull Unigenitus,
they utterly condemn the uninterrupted act [of faith and love which some
men talked of, of continually rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks] as
dreadful heresy." If we have Peter and Clement on our side, we are
willing to let Mr. Hill screen his doctrine behind the pope who issued
out the bull Unigenitus, and, if he pleases, behind the present pope too.
However, says Mr. Hill, " The distinction between si?is and innocent
infirmities is derived from the Romish Church."
Answer. 1. We rejoice if the Church of Rome was never so unrea
sonable and so deluded by Antinomian popes as to confound an involun
tary, wandering thought, an undesigned mistake, and a lamented fit of
drowsiness at prayer, with adultery, murder, and incest ; in order to
represent Christ's mediatorial law as absolutely impracticable, and to
insinuate that fallen believers, who actually commit the above-mentioned
crimes, are God's dear children, as well as the obedient believers, who
labour under the above-described infirmities.
2. We apprehend that Mr. Hill and the divines who have espoused
Dr. Crisp's errors, are some of the last persons in the world by whom
we may with decency be charged to hold " licentious" doctrines. And
we are truly sorry that any Protestants should make it their business to
corrupt that part of the Gospel which, if we believe Mr. Hill, the pope
himself has modestly spared.
3. Mr. Hill might, with much more propriety, have objected that our
distinction is derived from the Jewish Church ; for " the old rogue," as
some Solifidians have rashly called Moses, evidently made a distinction
between sin and infirmities ; he punished a daring Sabbath breaker arid
an audacious rebel with death, with present death, with the most terrible
kind of death. The language of his burning zeal seemed to be that of
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 603
David, " Be not merciful to them that offend of malicious wickedness,"
Psa. lix, 5. But upon such as accidentally contracted some involuntary
pollution, he inflicted no other punishment than that of a separation from
the congregation till evening. If Mr. Hill consider the difference of
these two punishments, he must either give place to perverseness, or
confess that wilful sins and involuntary infirmities were not Calvinistically
confounded by the mediator of the old covenant ; and that Moses himself
made a rational and evangelical distinction between " the spot of God's
children," and that " of the perverse and crooked generation," Deut.
xxxii, 4.
4. That Christ, the equitable and gracious Mediator of the new cove
nant, was not less merciful than stern Moses, with respect to the
distinction we contend for, appears to us evident from his making a
wide difference between the almost involuntary drowsiness of the eleven
disciples in Gethsemane, and the malicious watchfulness of the traitor
fudas. Concerning the offence of the former, he said. " The spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak ;" and with respect to the crime
of the latter, he declared, " It would be good for that man if he had
never been born."
5. David and Paul exactly followed herein the doctrine of Moses and
Christ. The psalmist says, " Keep back thy servant also from pre
sumptuous sins : let them not have the dominion over me ; then shall I
be upright, [or rather, as the word literally means in the original, / shall
be perfect,] and innocent from the great transgression," Psalm xix, 13.
Hence it is evident that some transgressions are incompatible with the
perfection which David prayed for ; and that some errors, or some secret
[unnoticed, involuntary] faults, are not.
6. This, we apprehend, is evident from his own words : " Blessed is
the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin, and in whose spirit there
is no guile," though there may be some improprieties in his words and
actions, Psalm xxxii, 2. David's meaning may be illustrated by the
well-known case of Nathanael. Philip said unto him, " We have found
him of whom Moses wrote in the law : [a clear proof this, by the by,
that the law frequently means the Jewish Gospel, which testifies of Christ
to come :] it is Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathanael said unto him, Can
any good thing come out of Nazareth T Here was an involuntary fault,
an improper quoting of a proverbial expression : and, nevertheless, as
he quoted it with a good intention, and to make way for a commendable
inquiry into the report which he heard, his error was consistent with
that degree of perfection which implies " innocence from the great
[wilful] transgression." This I prove, (1.) Bv his conduct: "Philip
saith unto him, Come and see ;" and he instantly went, without betraying
the least degree of the self-conceited stiffness, surly pride, and morose
resistance, which always accompany the unloving prejudice by which
the law of Christ is broken. And, (2.) By our Lord's testimony : —
" Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile /" Our Lord's word for guile,
in the original, is t>oXo£, the very word, which being also connected with
a negative, forms the epithet a<yoXo£, whereby St. Peter denotes the
unadulterated purity of God's word, which he compares to sincere or
perfectly pure milk, 1 Pet. ii, 2. Hence I conclude that, Christ himself
604 LAST CHECK TO ANTlA'OMIANISM.
being witness, (evangelically speaking,) there was no more indwelling
insincerity in Nathanael than there is in the pure word of God ; and that
this is the happy case of all those who fully deserve the glorious title* of
" Israelite indeed," which our Lord publicly bestowed upon Nathanael.
To return : —
7. If to make a distinction between sins and infirmities constitutes a
man half a Papist, it is evident that St. Paul was not less tinctured with
popery (so called) than David, Moses, and Jesus Christ : for he writes
to Timothy, " Them that sin rebuke before all, that others may also
fear," 1 Tim. v, 20. And yet he writes to the Romans, " We that are
strong should bear with the infirmities of the weak," Rom. xv, 1. Here
are two plain commands ; the first, not to bear with sins ; and the second
to bear with infirmities : a demonstration this, that there is an essential
difference between sins and infirmities, and that this difference is dis
coverable to others, and much more to ourselves. Nay, in most cases,
it is so discernible to those who have their spiritual senses properly
disposed, that they can as easily distinguish between sins (properly so
called) and infirmities, as a wise judge can distinguish between accidental
death and wilful murder ; or between unknowingly passing a false guinea
with a kind intention to relieve the poor, and treasonably coining it with
a roguish design to defraud the public. The difference between the
sun and the moon is not more striking in the natural world, than the
difference between sins and infirmities in the moral world. Nevertheless,
blind prejudice will probably confound them still, to darken counsel, and
to raise a cloud of logical dust, that Antinomianism (the Diana of the
imperfectionists) may make her escape, and save indwelling sin, which
is the claw of the hellish lion, the tooth of the old dragon, the fishing hook
of Satan, and the deadly sting of the king of terrors.
8. Judicious Calvinists have seen the propriety of the distinction, for
which we are represented as unsound Protestants. Of many whom I
could mention, I shall only quote one, who for his piety, wisdom, and
moderation, is an honour to Calvinism, — I mean the Rev. Mr. Newton,
minister of Olney. In his Letters on Religious Subjects, p. 199, he
makes this ingenuous confession : — " The experience of past years has
taught me [and I hope that, some day or other, it will also teach our
other opponents] to distinguish between ignorance and disobedience.
The Lord is gracious to the weakness of his people ; many involuntary
mistakes will not interrupt their communion with him. He pities their
infirmity, and teaches them to do better. But if they dispute his known
vrill, and act against the dictates of conscience^ they will surely suffer
for it. Wilful sin sadly perplexes and retards our progress." Here is,
if I mistake not, a clear distinction made, by a true Protestant, between
disobedience or wilful sin, and weakness, involuntary mistakes, or
infirmity.
9. If Mr. Hill will not regard Mr. Newton's authority, I beg he would
show some respect for the authority of our Church, and the import of
his own prayers. If there be absolutely no difference between wilful
sins, involuntary negligences, and unavoidable ignorances ; why does our
Church distinguish them, when she directs us to pray in the liturgy,
" that it may please God to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and
ignorances ?' If these three words have but one meaning, should not
LAST CHECK TO AXTIXOMIAJUS3I. 605
Mr. Hill leave out the two last as ridiculous tautology 1 Or, at least, to
remove from our Church the suspicion of popery, should he not pray
every Sunday that God would forgive us all our sins, sins, and sins !
From the nine preceding remarks, and the quotations made therein,
it appears, if I mistake not, that our important distinction between wilful
sin arid infirmities, or involuntary offences, recommends itself to reason
and conscience ; that it is supported by the law of Moses, and the Gos
pel of Christ ; by the Psalms of David, and the epistles of St. Paul ; by
the writings of judicious Calvinists, and the liturgy of our Church ; and
therefore it is as absurd to call it a popish distinction, because the Papists
are not injudicious enough to reject it, as it is absurd to call the doctrine
of Christ's divinity " a doctrine of devils," because devils acknowledged
him to be the Son of God, and their omnipotent Controller.
Should Mr. Hill reply, that if this distinction cannot properly be called
popish, it deserves to be called " Antinomian," and " licentious ;" because
it countenances all the men who give to their grossest sins the soft names
of "innocent infirmities ;" we can answer: (1.) It has been proved that
Moses and Jesus Christ held this distinction ; and therefore to call it
Antinomian and licentious, is to call not only Christ, the holy one of
God, but even " legal " Moses, an Antinomian, and an advocate for
licentiousness. See what these Calvinian refinements come to ! (2.)
The men who abuse the doctrine of the distinction between s'ns and
infirmities, abuse as much the doctrine of God's mercy, and the important
distinction between icorldng days and the Lord's day : but is this a proof
that the doctrines of God's mercy, and the distinction between the Lord's
day and other days, are " licentious tenets, against which all that wish
well to the interest of Protestantism should protest in a body ?"
If Mr. Hill try to embarrass us by saying, " Where will you draw the
line between wilful sins and [evangelically speaking] innocent infirmities?"
We reply, without the least degree of embarrassment, Where Moses and
the prophets have drawn it in the Old Testament ; where Christ and the
apostles have drawn it in the New ; and where we draw it after them in
these pages. And, retorting the question to show its frivolousness, we
ask, Where will Mr. Hill draw the line between the free, evangelical
observing of the Lord's day, and the superstitious, Pharisaic keeping of
the Sabbath ; or between weak, saving faith, and wilful unbelief? Nay,
upon his principles, where will he draw it even between a good and a
bad work ; if all our good works are really dung, dross, and filthy rags ?
However, as the question is important, I shall give it a more particular
answer. An infirmity is a breach of Adam's law of paradisiacal perfec
tion, which our covenant God does not require of us now : and (evan
gelically speaking) a sin for Christians is a breach of Christ's evangelical
law of Christian perfection ; a perfection this, which God requires of all
Christian believers. An infirmity (considering it with the error which
it. occasions) is consistent with pure love to God and man : but a sin is
inconsistent with that love. An infirmity is free from guile, and has its
root in our animal frame : but a sin is attended with guile, and has its
root in our moral frame, springing either from the habitual corruption
of our hearts, or from the momentary perversion of our tempers. An
infirmity unavoidably results from our unhappy circumstances, and from
the necessary infelicities of our present state : but a sin flows from the
606 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
avoidable and perverse choice of our own will. An infirmity has its
foundation in an involuntary want of power : and a sin in a wilful abuse
of the present light and power we have. The one arises from involun
tary ignorance and weakness, and is always attended with a good mean-
ing ; a meaning unmixed with any bad design, or wicked prejudice : but
the other has its source in voluntary perverseness and presumption, and
is always attended with a meaning altogether bad ; or, at best, with a
good meaning, founded on wicked prejudices. If to this line the candid
reader add the line which we have drawn (section vi) between the per
fection of a Gentile, that of a Jew, and that of a Christian, he will not
easily mistake in passing a judgment between the wilful sins, which are
inconsistent with an evangelically sinless perfection, and the innocent
infirmities which are consistent with such a perfection.
Confounding what God has divided, and dividing what the God of
truth has joined, are the two capital stratagems of the god of error. The
first he has chiefly used to eclipse or darken the doctrine of Christian
perfection. By means of his instruments he has perpetually confounded
the Christless law of perfect innocence, given to Adam before the fall ;
and the mediatorial, evangelical law of penitential faith, under which our
first parents were put, when God promised them the seed of the woman,
the mild Lawgiver, the Prince of Peace, the gentle King of the Jews,
who " breaks not the bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking flax," but
compassionately tempers the doctrines of justice by the doctrines of
grace ; and instead of the law of innocence, which he has kept and made
honourable for us, has substituted his own evangelical law of repentance,
faith, and Gospel obedience, which law is actually kept, according to
one or another of its various editions, by all "just men, made perfect ;''
that is, by all the wise virgins, who are ready for the midnight cry, and
the marriage of the Lamb.
Hence it appears that Pelagius and Augustine were both right in some
things, and wrong in a capital point. Pelagius, the father of the rigid
perfectionists and rigid free willers, asserted that Christ's law could be
kept, and that the keeping of that law was all the perfection which that
law requires. So far was Pelagius right ; having reason, conscience,
and Scripture on his side. But he was grossly mistaken if he confounded
Christ's mediatorial law with the law of paradisiacal perfection. This
was his capital error, which led him to deny original sin, and to extol
human powers so excessively as to intimate that by a faithful and diligent
use of them, man may be as innocent, and as perfect as Adam was before
the fall.
On the other hand, Augustine, the father of the rigid imperfectionists
and rigid bound willers, maintained that our natural powers, being greatly
weakened and depraved by the fall, we cannot, by all the helps which
the Gospel affords, keep the law of innocence ; that is, always think,
speak, and act, with that exactness and propriety which became immortal
rnan, when God pronounced him very good in paradise : he asserted that
every impropriety of thought, language, or behaviour, is a breach of the
law^of perfection, under which God placed innocent man in the garden
of Eden ; and he proved that every breach of this law is sin : and that
of consequence there can be no Adamic, paradisiacal perfection in this
life. So far Augustine was very right: so far reason and Scripture
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 607
support his doctrine : and so far the Church is obliged to him for having
made a stand against Pelagius. But he was very much mistaken when
he abolished the essential difference which there is between our Creator's
law of strict justice, and our Redeemer's mediatorial law of justice,
tempered with grace and mercy. Hence he concluded that there is
absolutely no keeping the law, and consequently no performing any
perfect obedience in this life ; and that we must sin as long as we con
tinue in the body. Thus, while Pelagius made adult Christians as
perfectly sinless as Adam was in paradise, Augustine made them so
completely sinful as to make it necessary for every one of them to go
into a death purgatory, crying, " There is a law in my members, which
brings me into captivity to the law of sin. Sin dwelleth in me. With
my flesh I serve the law of sin. I am carnal, sold under sin. O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me ?"
The Scripture doctrine, which we vindicate, stands at an equal dis
tance from these extremes of Pelagius and Augustine. It rejects, with
Augustine, the Adamic perfection which Pelagius absurdly pleaded for ;
and it explodes, with Pelagius, the necessary continuance of indwelling
sin and carnal bondage, which Augustine no less absurdly maintained.
Tims' adult believers are still sinners, still imperfect according to the
righteous law of paradisiacal innocence and perfection : and yet they
are really saints, and perfect according to the gracious law of evan
gelical justification and perfection : a law this, which considers as up
right and perfect, all the godly heathens, Jews, and Christians, who are
" without guile" in their respective folds, or under their various dispen
sations. Thus by still vindicating the various editions of Christ's me
diatorial law, which has been at times almost buried under heaps of
Pharisaic and Antinomian mistakes, we still defend practical religion.
And, as in the Scripture Scales, by proving the evangelical marriage of
free grace and free will, we have reconciled Zelotes and Honestus with
respect to faith and works ; so in this essay, by proving the evangelical
union of the doctrines of grace and justice in the mild and righteous
law of our Redeemer, We reconcile Augustine and Pelagius, and force
them to give up reason and Scripture, or to renounce the monstrous
errors which keep them asunder : I mean the deep, Antinomian errors
of Augustine with respect to indwelling sin and a death purgatory ; and
the high-tlown, Pharisaic errors of Pelagius, with regard to Adamic per
fection, and a complete freedom from original degeneracy.
The method we have used to bring about this reconciliation is quite
plain and uniform. We have kept our Scripture Scales even, and used
every weight of the sanctuary without prejudice ; especially those
weights which the moralists throw aside as Calvinistic and Antinomian ;
and those which the Solifidians cast away as Mosaic and legal. Thus,
by evenly balancing the two Gospel axioms, we have reunited the doc
trines of grace and of justice, which heated Augustine and heated
Pelagius have separated ; and we have distinguished our Redeemer's
evangelical law, from our Creator's paradisiacal law ; two distinct laws
these, which our illustrious antagonists have confounded ; and wo
flatter ourselves that, by this artless mean, another step is taken toward
bringing the two partial gospels of the day to the old standard of the
one complete Gospel of Jesus Christ.
608 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
1 have done unfolding our reconciling plan : but the disciples of
Augustine, rallied by Calvin, have not done attacking it. I hope that
I have answered the objections of Mr. Hill, Mr. Toplady, and Mr.
Martin, against the evangelical perfection which we defend ; but another
noted divine of their persuasion comes up to their assistance. It is the
Rev. Mr. Matthew Henry, who has deservedly got a great name among
the Calvinists, by his valuable " Exposition of the Bible," in five folio
volumes. This huge piece of ordnance carries a heavy ball, which
threatens the very heart of our sinless Gospel. It is too late to attempt
an abrupt and silent flight. Let then Mr. Henry fire away. If our
doctrine of an evangelically sinless perfection is founded upon a rock,
it will stand ; the ponderous ball, which seems likely to demolish it, will
rebound against the doctrine of indwelling sin ; and the standard of
Christian liberty which we waive, will be more respected than ever.
" Corruption," saith that illustrious commentator, " is left remaining
in the hearts of good Christians, that they may learn war, may keep
on the whole armoar of God, and stand continually upon their guard."
" Thus corruption is driven out of the hearts of believers by little and
little. The work of sanctification is carried on gradually : but that
judgment will at length be brought forth into a complete victory:"
namely, when death shall come to the assistance of the atoning blood,
and of the Spirit's power. That this is Mr. Henry's doctrine,° is evi
dent from his comment on Gal. v, 17: "In a renewed man, where
there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between, &c,
the remainders of sin, and the beginnings of grace; and this, Christians
must expect, will be their exercise as long as they continue in this
world ;" or, to speak more intelligibly, till they go into the death pur.
gatory.
Not to mention here again, Gal. v,*17, &c, Mr. Henry builds this
uncomfortable doctrine upon the following text : " The Lord thy God
will put out those nations before thee by little and little ; thou mayest
not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon
thee," Deut. vii, 22. And he gives us to understand that " pride and
security, and other sins," are " the enemies more dangerous than the
beasts of the field, that would be apt to increase" upon us, if God de
livered us from indwelling sin, i. e. from the remains of pride and car.
nal security, and other sins. This exposition is backed by an appeal to
the following text :— « Now these are the nations which the Lord left to
prove Israel by them — to know whether they [the Israelites] would
hearken to the commandments of the Lord," Judges iii, 1, 4. (See
Mr. Henry's exposition on these passages.)
To this we answer: — 1. That it is° absurd to build the mighty doc
trine of a death purgatory upon a historical allusion. If such allusions
were proofs, we could easily multiply our arguments. We could say,
that sin is to be utterly destroyed, because Moses says, " The Lord de
livered into our hands Og and all his people, and we smote him until
none was left unto him remaining," Deut. iii, 3. Because "Joshua
smote Horam, king of Gezer, and his people, until he had left him none
remaining," Deut. iii, 33. Because Saul was commanded " utterly to
destroy the sinners, the Amalekites," and lost his crown for sparing
their king : because, when God " overthrew Pharaoh and all his host,
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 609
there remained not so much as one of them," Exod. xiv, 28. Because,
when God rained fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, " he overthrew all
their [wicked] inhabitants ;" and because Moses says, " I took your sin,
the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and
ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust, and cast the*
dust thereof into the brook," Dent, ix, 21. But we should blush to-
build the doctrine of Christian perfection upon so absurd and slender-
a foundation. And yet such a foundation would be far more solid, than:
that on which Mr. Henry builds the doctrine of Christian imperfection,
and of the necessary indwelling of sin in the most holy believers ; for,
2. Before God permitted the Canaanites to remain in the kuid, he
had said, " When ye are passed over Jordan, then ye shall drive out all
the inhabitants of the land before you, and destroy all their pictures ;
for I have given you the land to possess it. But if ye will not drive
out the inhabitants of the land before you, then it shall com® to pass,
that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes,
and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein you
dwell. And moreover I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them"
Num. xxxiii, 51, &c. Hence it appears, that the sparing of the Ca-
naanites was a punishment inflicted upon the Israelites, as weH as a
favour shown to the Canaanites, some of whom, h'ke Rahab and the
Gibeonites, probably turned to the Lord, and as 4i God's creatures,"
enjoyed his saving mercy in the land of promise. But is indwelling sin
one of " God's creatures," that God should show it any favour, and
should refuse his assistance to the faithful believers, who are determined
to give it no quarter ? Can indwelling sin be converted to God, as the
indwelling Canaanites might, and as some of them undoubtedly were?
3. But the capital flaws of Mr. Henry's argument are, I apprehend,
two suppositions, the absurdity of which is glaring : — " Corruption,"
says he, " is left remaining in the hearts of good Christians, that thev
may learn war, may keep on the whole armour of God, and stand con.
tinually upon their guard." Just as if Christ had not " learned war,
kept on the breastplate of righteousness, and stood continually upon his
guard," without the help of indwelling sin ! Just as if the world, the
devil, the weakness of the flesh, and death, our last enemy, with which
our Lord so severely conflicted, were not adversaries powerful enough
to prove us, to engage us to learn war, and to make us " keep on and
use the whole armour of God" to the end of our life ! The other absurd
supposition is, that " pride, and security, and other sins," which art>
supposed to be typified by " the wild beasts" mentioned in Dent, vii, 22,
will increase upon us by the destruction of indwelling sin. But is it not
as ridiculous to suppose this, as to say, Pride will increase upon us by
1he destruction of pride ; and carnal security will gather strength by the
extirpation of carnal security, and by the implanting of constant watch-
fulness, which is a branch of the Christian perfection which we contend
for ?
4. With respect to the inference which Mr. Henry draws from theso
words, " Thou mayest not consume them at once : the Lord will put them
out before thee by little and little ;" is it not highly absurd also ? Does he
give us the shadow of an argument to prove that this verse was spoken
of our indwelling corruptions ; and suppose it was, would this prove that
VOL. II. 39
610 LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM.
the doctrine of a death purgatory is true ? You say to a greedy persor
You must eat your dinner " by little and little," you cannot swallow it
down at one gulp. A farmer teaches his son to plough, and says, We
cannot plough this field at once, but we may plough it " by little and
little," i. e. by making one furrow after another, till we end the last
furrow. Hence I draw the following inferences : — We eat our meals,
and plough our fields, " by little and little ;" and therefore no dinner can
be eaten, and no field ploughed before death. A surgeon says, " that
the healing of a wound is carried on gradually :" hence his prejudiced
mate runs away with the notion that no wound can be healed so long as
a patient is alive. Who does not see the flaw of these conclusions?
5. But the greatest absurdity, I apprehend, is yet behind. Not to
observe that we do not remember to have read any command in our
Bibles not to consume sin at once ; or any declaration that God will put
it out only " by little and little ;" we ask, What length of time do you
suppose God means ? You make him say that he will make an end of our
indwelling sin " by little and little ;" do you think he means four days, four
years, or fourscore years ? If you say that God cannot or will not
wholly cleanse the thoughts of our hearts under fourscore years, you
send all who die under that age into hell, or into some purgatory where
they must wait till the eighty years of their conflict with indwelling sin
are ended. If you say that God can or will do it in four days, but not
under, you absurdly suppose that the penitent thief remained at least
three days in paradise full of indwelling sin ; seeing his sanctiiication
was to be " carried on gradually" in the space of four days at least.
If you are obliged to grant that when the words " by little and little" are
applied to the destruction of indwelling sin, they may mean four hours,
(the time which the penitent thief probably lived after his conversion,) as
well as four days ; do you not begin to be ashamed of your system ?
Arid if you reply, that death alone fully extirpates indwelling sin, does
not this favourite tenet of yours overturn Mr. Henry's doctrine about the
necessity of the slow. " gradual," destruction of indwelling sin < May
not a sinner believe in a moment, when God helps him to believe?
And may not a believer (whom you suppose necessarily full of indwell
ing sin as long as he is in this world) die in a moment ? If you answer
in the negative, you deny the sudden death of John the Baptist, St.
James, and St. Paul, who had their heads cut off in a moment : in a
word, you deny that any believer can die suddenly. If you reply in the
affirmative, you give up the point, and grant that indwelling sin may be
instantaneously destroyed. And now, what becomes of Mr. Henry's
argument, which supposes that sarictification can never be complete
without a long, gradual process ; and that the extirpation of sin cannot
take place but " by little and little ?"
I have set before thee, reader, the lights and shades of our doctrine :
I have produced our arguments, and those of our opponents ; and now,
say, which of them bear the stamp of imperfection ? If thou pronounce
that urim and thummim, light and perfection, belong to the arguments
of Mr. Hill, Mr. Toplady, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Henry, I must lay by
my pen, and deplore the infelicity of our having a reason, which unsays
in my breast what it says in thine. But if thou find, after mature
deliberation, that our arguments are " light in the Lord," as being more
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXO3IIANISM. 611
agreeable to the dictates of unprejudiced reason, than those of our
antagonists, more conformable to the plain declarations of the sacred
writers, fitter to encourage believers in the way of holiness, more suit
able to the nature of undented religion, and better adapted to the display
of the Redeemer's glory; I shall enjoy the double pleasure of em
bracing the truth, and of embracing her together with thee. In the mean-
time, closing here the argumentative part of this essay, I just beg the
continuance of thy favourable attention, while I practically address
perfect Pharisees, prejudiced imperfectionists, imperfect believers, and
perfect Christians.
SECTION XVII.
An address to perfect Christian Pharisees.
I ADDRESS you first, ye perfect Christian Pharisees, because ye are
most ready to profess Christian perfection, though, alas ! ye stand at
the greatest distance from perfect humility, the grace which is most
essential to the perfect Christian's character ; and because the enemies
of our doctrine make use of you first, when they endeavour to root it
up from the earth.
That ye may know whom I mean by perfect Christian Pharisees,
give me leave to show you your own picture, in the glass of a plain
description. Ye have, professedly, entered into the fold where Christ's
sheep, which are perfected in love, rest all at each other's feet, and at
the feet of the Lamb of God. But how have ye entered ? By " Christ
the door," or at the door of presumption ? Not by Christ the door : for
Christ is meekness and lowliness manifested in the flesh ; but ye are still
ungentle and fond of praise. When he pours out his soul as a Divine
Prophet, he says, « Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart ;
take my yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." But
ye overlook this humble door. Your proud, gigantic minds are above
stooping low enough to follow Him, who " made himself of no reputa
tion" that he might raise us to heavenly honours ; and who, to pour just
contempt upon human pride, had his first night's lodging in a stable, arid
spent his last night partly on the cold ground, in a storm of Divine
wrath, and partly in an ignominious confinement, exposed to the greatest
indignities, which Jews and Gentiles could pour upon him. He rested
his infant head upon hay, his dying head upon thorns. A manger was
his cradle, and a cross his death bed. Thirty years he travelled from
the sordid stable to the accursed tree, unnoticed by his own peculiar
people. In the brightest of his days, poor fishermen, some Galilean
women, and a company of shouting children, formed all his retinue.
Shepherds were his first attendants, and malefactors his last com-
panions.
His first beatitude was, " Blessed are the poor in spirit ;" and the
last, " Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." His
first doctrine was, " Repent :" nor was the last unlike to it : " If I have
612 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet, for I have
given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. He
that will be first among you, let him be the least of all." Now, far
from practising with godly sincerity this last lesson of our humble Lord,
you do not so much as truly relish the first. Ye do not delight in, nay,
ye abhor penitential poverty of spirit. Your humility is not cordial, and
wrought into your nature by grace ; but complimental, and woven
into your carriage by art. Ye are humble in looks, in gestures, in
voice, in dress, in behaviour ; so far as external humility helps you to
secure the reputation of perfect Christians, at which ye aspire from a
motive of Pharisaic ambition : but ye continue strangers to the childlike
simplicity, and unaffected lowliness of Christ's perfect disciples. Ye
are the very reverse of those " Israelites in whom there is no guile."
Ye resemble the artful Gibeonites, who, for a time, imposed upon
Joshua's artless simplicity. Your feigned profession of special grace
deceives those of God's children, who have more of the simplicity of
the dove than of the serpent's wisdom. Ye choose the lowest place,
but ye do not love it. If ye cheerfully take it, it is not among your
equals, but among your inferiors : because you think that such a con-
descending step may raise the credit of your humility, without endanger,
ing your superiority. If ye stoop, and go down, it is not because ye
see yourselves unworthy of the seat of honour ; but because ye hope
that people will by and by say to you, Come up higher. Your Phari
saic cunning aims at wearing at once the coronet of genuine humility,
and the crown of self-exalting pride. Ye love to be esteemed of men for
your goodness and devotion : ye want to be admired for your exactness,
zeal, and gracious attainments. The pride of the Jewish Pharisees was
coarse in comparison of yours. They wore the rough garment, and you
wear the silks of spiritual vanity ; and even when ye dye them in the
blood of the Lamb, which you extol in word, it is to draw the confi
dence of humble Christians by your Christian appearance and language,
more than to follow the propensity of a new nature, which loves to be
clothed with humility, and feels itself in its own centre when it rests in
deep poverty of spirit, and sees that God is " all in all."
One of the greatest ends of Christ's coming into the world, was to
empty us of ourselves, and to fill us with humble love ; but ye are still
full of yourselves and void of Christ, that is, void of humility incarnate.
Ye still aim at some wrong mark ; whether it be self glory, self interest,
self pleasure, self party, or self applause. In a word, one selfish scheme
or another, contrary to the pure love of God and of your neighbour,
secretly destroys the root of your profession, and may be compared to
the unseen worm that ate the root of Jonah's gourd. Ye have a narrow,
contracted spirit : ye do riot gladly sacrifice your private satisfaction,
your interest, your reputation, your prejudices, to the general interest of
truth and love, and to the public good of the whole body of Christ. Ye
are in secret bondage to men, places, and things. Ye do not heartily
entertain the wisdom from above, which is pure, gentle, easy to be en
treated, and full of mercy. Nay, ye are above conviction : gross sin-
ners yield to truth before you. Like Jehu, ye are zealous, and ye
pretend that it is for the Lord of hosts : but alas ! it is for your opinions,
your party, your honour. In a word, ye do not walk in constant, solemn
LAST CHECK TO AMINOMIANISM. 613
expectation of death and judgment ; your will is not broken ; your car-
nal confidence is vet alive ; the heavenly dove does not sit in your
breast : self, wrapt up in the cloak of humility, is still set up in your
hearts, and in secret you serve that cursed idol more than God. Satan,
transformed into an angel of light, has artfully led you to the profession
of Christian perfection through a circle of external performances, through
glorious forms of doctrine in the letter, and through a fair show of zeal
for complete holiness : the Lord, to punish your formality, has in part
given you up to your delusion ; and now ye as much believe yourselves
perfect Christians, as the Pharisees, in our Lord's day, believed them-
selves perfect Jews.
Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection, has borne
his faithful testimony against such witnesses of perfect love as ye are.
If ye despise this address, regard his remarks : " Others," says he, " who
think they have the direct witness of their being renewed in love, are
nevertheless manifestly wanting in the fruit. Some are undoubtedly
wanting in long suffering, Christian resignation. They do not see the
hand of God in whatever occurs, and cheerfully embrace it. They do
not * in every thing give thanks, and rejoice evermore.' They are not
happy ; at least, not always happy. For sometimes they complain.
They say, *This is hard!' Some are wanting in gentleness. They
* resist evil,' instead of turning the other cheek. They do not receive
reproach with gentleness : no, nor even reproof. Nay, they are not
able to bear contradiction without the appearance, at least, of resent
ment. If they are reproved, or contradicted, though mildly, they do not
take it well. They behave with more distance and reserve than they
did before, &c. Some are wanting in goodness. They are not kind,
mild, sweet, amiable, soft, and loving at all times, in their spirit, in their
words, in their look, in their air, in the whole tenor of their behaviour ;
not kind to all, high and low, rich and poor, without respect of person ;
particularly to them that are out of the way, to opposers, and to those
of their own household. They do not long, study, endeavour, by every
means, to make all about them happy. Some are wanting in fidelity, a
nice regard to truth, simplicity, and godly sincerity. Their love is
hardly « without dissimulation :' something like guile is found in their
mouth. To avoid roughness, they lean to the other extreme. They
are smooth to an excess, so as scarce to avoid a degree of fawning.
Some are wanting hi meekness, quietness of spirit, composure, evenness
of temper. They are up and down, sometimes high, sometimes low ;
their mind is not well balanced. Their affections are either not in due
proportion ; they have too much of the one, too little of the other ; or
they are not duly mixt and tempered together so as to counterpoise
each other. Hence there is often a jar. Their soul is out of tune,
and cannot make the true harmony. Some are wanting in temperance.
They do not steadily use that kind and degree of food which they know,
or might know, would most conduce to the health, strength, and vigour
of the body. Or they are not temperate in sleep : they do not rigor
ously adhere to what is best for body and mind. They use neithei
fasting nor abstinence," &c.
I have described vour delusion : but who can describe its fatal conse
quences ? Who can tell the mischief it has done, and continues to do ?
614 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
The few sincere perfectionists, and the multitude of captious imperfec-
tionists, have equally found you out. The former are grieved for you ;
and the latter triumph through you.
When the sincere perfectionists consider the inconsistency of your
profession, they are ready to give up their faith in Christ's all-cleansing
blood, and their hope of getting a clean heart in this life. They are
tempted to follow the multitude of professors, who sit down in self-
imputed righteousness, or in Solifidian notions of an ideal perfection in
Christ. And it is well if some of them have not already yielded to the
temptation, and begun to fight against the hopes which they once enter
tained of loving God with all their hearts. It is well if some, through
you, have not been led to say, " I once sweetly enjoyed the thought of
doing the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven. Once I hope-
fully prayed God would « so cleanse my heart, that I might perfectly
love arid worthily magnify his holy name' in this world. But now I
have renounced my hopes, and I equally abhor the doctrine of evan
gelical perfection, and that of evangelical worthiness. When I was a
young convert, I believed that Christ could really make an end of all
moral pollution, cast out the man of sin, and cleanse us from the sins of
the heart as well as from outward iniquity in this life ; but I soon met
with unhumbled, self-willed people, who, boldly standing up for this
glorious liberty, made me question the truth of the doctrine. Nay, in
process of time, I found that some of those who most confidently pro-
fessed to have attained this salvation, were farther from the gentleness,
simplicity, catholic spirit, and unfeigned humility of Christ, than many
believers, who had never considered the doctrine of Christian perfection.
These offences striking in with the disappointment which I myself met
with, in feebly seeking the pearl of perfect love, made me conclude that it
can no more be found than the philosopher's stone, and that they are
all either fools or knaves, who set believers upon seeking it. And now
I every where decry the doctrine of perfection as a dangerous delusion.
I set people against it wherever I go ; and my zeal in this respect has
been attended with the greatest success. I have damped the hopes of
many perfectionists ! And I have proselyted several to the doctrine of
Christian imperfection. With them I now quietly wait to be purified
from indwelling sin in the article of death, and to be made perfect in
another world."
This is, I fear, the language of many hearts, although it is not openly
spoken by many lips. Thus are you, O ye perfect Pharisees, the great
instruments by which the tempter tears away the shield of those un
settled Israelites, who look more at your inconsistencies than they do at
the beauty of holiness, the promise of God, the blood of Christ, and the
power of the Spirit.
But this is not all ; as ye destroy the budding faith of sincere perfec
tionists, so ye strengthen the unbelief of the Solifidians. Through you
their prejudices are grown up into a fixed detestation of Christian per
fection. Ye have hardened them in their error, and furnished them
with plausible arguments to destroy the truth which ye contend for.
Did ye never hear their triumphs ? " Ha ! ha ! So would we have it !
These are some of the people who stand up for sinless perfection !
They are all alike. Did not I tell you that vou would find them out to
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 615
be no better than temporary monsters ? What monstrous pride ! What
touchiness, obstinacy, bigotry, and stoicism characterizes them ! How
do they strain at gnats and swallow camels ! I had rather be an open
drunkard than a perfectionist. Publicans and harlots shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven before them." These are the cutting speeches
to which your glaring inconsistency, and the severe prejudices of our
opponents, give birth. Is it not deplorable that your tempers should
thus drive men to abhor the doctrine which your lips recommend ?
And what do you get by thus dispiriting the real friends of Christian
perfection, and by furnishing its sworn enemies with such sharp
weapons against it ? Think ye that the mischief ye do shall not recoil
upon yourselves? Is noi Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever ? If he detested the perfect Pharisaism of unhumbled Jews, will
he admire the perfect self-righteousness of aspiring Christians ? If he
formerly " resisted the proud, and gave grace to the humble," what rea
son have ye to hope that he will submit to your spiritual pride, and reward
your religious ostentation with a crown of glory 1 Ye perhaps cry out
against Antinomianism, and I commend you for it : but are ye not deeply
tainted with the worst sort of Antinomianism — that which starches, stiffens,
and swells the soul ? Ye justly bear your testimony against those who
render the law of Christ of none effect to believers, by degrading it into
a rule which they stripped of the punitive and remunerative sanctions
with which it stands armed in the sacred records. But are ye not doubly
guilty, who maintain that this law is still in force as a law, and neverthe
less refuse to pay it sincere, internal obedience ? For when ye break
the first commandment of Christ's evangelical law, by practically dis
carding penitential " poverty of spirit ;" and when ye transgress the
last, by abhorring the lowest place, by disdaining to " wash each other's
feet," and by refusing to " prefer others in honour before yourselves ;"
are ye not guilty of breaking all the law by breaking it in one point, —
in the capital point of humble love, which runs through all the parts of
the law, as vital blood does through all the parts of the body ? O how
much more dangerous is the case of an unhumbled man, who stiffly
walks in robes of self-made perfection, than that of an humble man who
through prejudice, and the force of example, meekly walks in robes of
self- imputed righteousness !
Behold, thou callest thyself a perfect Christian, and restest in the
evangelical law of Christ, which is commonly called the Gospel : thou
makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things
that are more excellent, even the way of Christian perfection, being
instructed out of the Gospel ; and art confident that " thou thyself art a
guide of the blind, a light of them who are in darkness, an instructer of
the foolish, and a teacher of babes," or imperfect believers ; having the
form of knowledge and of the truth in the Gospel. Thou therefore who
teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest,
another should not break the law of Christ, through breaking it dis-
honourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed through you
among those who seek an occasion to blaspheme it, Romans ii, 17, &c.
And think ye that ye shall escape the righteous judgment of God?
Has Christ no woes but for the Jewish Pharisees? O be no longer
misuikeri. Before ye are punished by being here given up to a repro
616 LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM.
bate mind, and by being hereafter cast into the hell of hypocrites, the
outer darkness where there will be more weeping, wailing, and gnashing
of teeth than in any other hell ! Before ye are overtaken by the awful
hour of death, and the dreadful day of judgment, practically learn that
Christian perfection is the mind which was in Christ, especially his
humble, meek, quiet mind ; his gentle, free, loving spirit. Aim at it by
sinking into deep self abhorrence ; and not by using, as ye have hitherto
done, the empty talk and profession of Christian perfection as a step to
reach the top of spiritual pride.
Mistake me not : I do not blame you for holding the doctrine of Chris-
tian perfection, but for wilfully missing the only way that leads to it ; I
mean the humble, meek, and loving Jesus, who says, " I am the way,
and the door : by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved into so
great salvation. He that entereth not by this door into this sheep fold,
but climbeth up some other way, [and especially he that climbeth by the
way of Pharisaic formality,] the same is a thief and a robber :" he robs
Christ^ of his glory, and pretends to what he has no more right to than
a thief has to your property. Would ye then be right ? Do not cast
away the doctrine of an evangelically sinless holiness ; but contend
more for it with your heart than with your lips. With all your soul
press after such a perfection as Christ, St. Paul, and St. John taught
and exemplified ; a perfection of meekness and humble love. Earnestly
believe all the woes which the Gospel denounces against self-righteous
Pharisees, and all the blessings which it promises to perfect penitents.
Drink less into the letter, and more into the Spirit of Christ, till, like a
fountain of living water, it spring up to everlasting life in your heart.
Ye have climbed to the Pharisaic perfection of Saul of Tarsus, when,
" touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless." Would ye
now attain the evangelical perfection which he was possessed of, when
he said, " Let us, as many as are perfect, be thus minded ?" Only
follow him through the regeneration : fall to the dust before God ; rise
conscious of the bliiidness of your heart, meekly deplore it with peni
tential shame ; arid if you follow the directions laid down in the third
address, I doubt not but, dangerous as your case is at present, you will
be, like St. Paul, as eminent for Christian perfection, as you have
hitherto been for Pharisaic formality.
SECTION XVIII.
-4.71 address to prejudiced imperfectionists.
I FEAR that, next to the persons whom I have just addressed, ye in
jure the cause of holiness, O ye believers, who have been deluded into
doctrinal Antinomianism, by the bad arguments which are answered in
tiie preceding pages. Permit me therefore to address you next : nor
suffer prejudice to make you throw away this expostulation, before you
have granted it a fair perusal.
Ye directly or indirectly plead for the necessary continuance of in.
dwelling sin in your own hearts, and in the hearts of all true Christians.
But may I be so bold as to ask, Who gave you leave so to do ? And
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 617
when were ye commissioned to propagate this unholy gospel ? Was
it at your baptism, when ye were ranked among Christ's soldiers,
and received a Christian name, in token that ye would " keep God's holy
will and commandments all the days of your life ?" And that you would
" not be ashamed to fight manfully against the world, the flesh, and the
devil, unto your life's end ?" Are not these three enemies strong enough
sufficiently to exercise your patience, and to try your warlike skill to
the last 1 Did your sponsors promise for you that you would quarter a
fourth enemy, called indwelling sin, in your very breast, lest ye should not
have enemies enough to fight against 1 On the contrary, were ye not
exhorted " utterly to abolish the whole body of sin ?" If so, is it not
strange that ye should spend part of your precious time in pleading,
under various pretexts, for the preservation of heart sin, a sin this, which
gives life, warmth, and vigour to the whole body of sin '/ And is it not
deplorable that, instead of conscientiously fulfilling your baptismal engage
ments, ye should attack those who desire to fulfil them by seeking to have
" the whole body of sin" utterly abolished ?
But ye are, perhaps, ministers of the Established Church : and, in this
case, I ask, When did the bishop send you upon this strange warfare ?
Was it at your confirmation, in which he bound upon you your solemn
obligations to "keep God's holy will and commandments" so as utterly
" to abolish the whole body of sin ?" Is it probable that he commissioned
you to pull down what he confirmed, and to demolish the perfection
which he made you vow to attain, and to " walk in all the days of your
life ?" If the bishop gave you no such commission at your confirmation,
did he do it at your ordination, when he said, " Receive authority to
preach the word of God ?" Is there no difference between " the word
of God," which cuts up all sin, root and branch, and the word of Satan,
which asserts the propriety of the continuance of heart sin during the
term of life ? If not, did the bishop do it when he exhorted and charged
you "never to cease your labour, care, and diligence, till you have
done all that lieth in you, to bring all such as are committed to your
charge to that agreement of faith, and that perfectness of age in Christ,
that there shall be no place left among you for error in religion or
viciousness in life ;" that is, I apprehend, till the truth of the Gospel and
the love of the Spirit have perfectly purified the minds, and renewed
the hearts of all your hearers ?
How can ye, in all your confessions and sacramental offices, renounce
sin, the accursed thing which God abhors, and which obedient believers
detest ; and yet plead for its life, its strength, its constant energy, so long
as we are in this world ? We could better bear with you, if ye appro
priated a hand or a foot, an eye or an ear to sin, during the term of
life ; but who can bear your pleas for the necessary continuance of sin
in the heart 1 Is it not enough that this murderer of Christ, and of all
mankind, rambles about the walls of the city ? Will ye still insinuate
that he must have the citadel to the last, and keep it garrisoned with
filthy lusts, base affections, bad tempers, or " diabolonians," who, like
prisoners, show themselves at the grate : and " like snakes, toads, and wild
beasts, are the fiercer for being confined ?" Who has taught you thus to
represent Christ as the keeper, and not the destroyer of our corruptions ?
If believers be truly willing to get rid of sin, but cannot, because Christ
618 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
has bolted their hearts with an adamantine decree, which prevents sm
from being turned out : if he have irrevocably given leave to indwelling
sin, to quarter for life in every Christian's heart, as the king of France,
in the last century, gave leave to his dragoons to quarter for some months
in the houses of the poor, oppressed Protestants, who does not see that
Christ may be called the protector of indwelling sin, rather than its
enemy ?
Ye absurdly complain that the doctrine of Christian perfection does not
exalt our Saviour, because it represents him as radically saving his obe
dient people from their indwelling sin in this life. But are ye not guilty
of the very error which ye charge upon us, when ye insinuate that he
cannot or will not say to our inbred sins, " Those mine enemies which
will not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before
me ?" If a common judge has power to pass sentence of death upon all
the robbers and murderers who are properly prosecuted ; and if they
are hanged and destroyed in a few days, weeks, or months, in consequence
of his sentence, how strangely do ye reflect upon Christ, and revive the
Agag within us, when ye insinuate that he, the Judge of all, who was
" manifested for this very purpose, that he might destroy the works of the
devil," so far forgets his errand, that he never destroys indwelling sin in
one of his willing people, so long as they are in this world, although that
sin is the capital and most mischievous " work of the devil ?"
Your doctrine of the necessary continuance of indwelling sin in all
faithful believers traduces not only the Son of man, but also the ador
able trinity. The Father gives his only begotten Son, his Isaac, to be
crucified, that the ram, sin, may be offered up and slain. But you insinu
ate that the life of that cursed rain is secured by a decree, which allots
it the heart of all believers for a safe retreat, and a warm stable, so long
as we are in this world. You represent the Son as an almighty Saviour,
who offers to " make us free" from sin ; and yet appoints that the gall
ing yoke of indwelling sin shall remain tied to, and bound upon our very
hearts for life. Ye describe the Holy Ghost as a Sanctifier, who
applies Christ's all-cleansing blood to the believer's heart ; filling it with
the oil of holiness and gladness : and yet ye suppose that our hearts
must necessarily remain " desperately wicked," and full of indwelling
sin ! Is it right to pour contempt upon Christianity, by charging such
inconsistencies upon Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ?
It can hardly be expected that those, who thus misrepresent their
God, should do their neighbour justice. Hence the liberty which ye
take to fix a blot upon the most holy characters. What have the pro
phets and apostles done to you that ye should represent them, not only
as men who had hearts partly evil to the last, but also as advocates for the
necessary indwelling of sin in all believers till death ? And why do ye
so eagerly take your advantage of holy Paul in particular, and catch at
a figurative mode of speech, to insinuate that he was " a carnal wretch,
sold under sin." even when he expected " a crown of righteousness at
the hand of his righteous Judge," for having " finished his course with
the just men made perfect ?" Nay, what have we done to you, that ye
should endeavour to take from us the greatest comfort we have in fight
ing against the remains of sin? Why will ye deprive us of the pleasing
and purifying hope of taking the Jericho which we encompass, and kill-
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 619
ing the Goliath whom we attack ? And what has indwelling sin clone for
you, that ye should still plead for the propriety of its continuance in our
hearts 1 Is it not the root of all outward sin, and the spring of all the
streams of iniquity, which carry desolation through every part of the
globe ? If ye hate the fruit, why do ye so eagerly contend for the neces
sary continuance of the root? And if ye favour godliness, (for many
of you undoubtedly do,) why do you put such a conclusive argument
as this into the mouths of the wicked : " These good men contend for
the propriety of indwelling sin, that grace may abound : and why should
we not plead for the propriety of outward sin for the same important
reason ? Does not God approve of an honest heart, which scorns to
cloak the inward iniquity with outward demureness ?"
Mr. Hill has lately published an ingenious dialogue, called, A Lash to
Enthusiasm, in which, (p. 26,) he uses an argument against pleading for
lukewarmness, which, with very little variation, may be retorted against
his plea for indwelling sin : — " Suffer me," says he, " to put the senti
ments of such persons [as plead for the middle way of lukewarmness]
into the form of a prayer, which we may suppose would run in some
such expressions as the following : < O Lord, thy word requires that I
should love thee with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul,
and with all my strength ; that I should renounce the world, [and
indwelling sin,] and should present myself as a holy, reasonable, and
lively sacrifice unto thee : but, Lord, these are such over-righteous
extremes [and such heights of sinless perfection] as I cannot away with ;
and therefore grant that thy love, and a moderate share of the love of
the world, [or of indwelling sin,] may both reign [or at least continue]
in my heart at once. I ask it tor Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.' " Mr.
Hill justly adds, " Now, dear madam, if you are shocked at such a
petition, consider that it is the exact language of your own heart while
you can plead for what you call the middle way of religion." And I
beg leave to take up his own argument, and to add, with equal propriety,
" Now, dear sirs, if you are shocked at such a petition, consider that it
is the exact language of your own heart while ye can plead for what ye
call indwelling sin, or the remains of sin "
Nor can I see what ye get by such a conduct. The excruciating
thorn of indwelling sin sticks in your hearts ; we assert that Christ can
and will extract it, if ye plead his promise of " sanctifying you wholly in
soul, body, and spirit." But ye say, " This cannot be ; the thorn must
stay in till death extract it ; and the leprosy shall cleave to the walls till
the house is demolished." Just as if Christ, by radically cleansing the
lepers in the days of his flesh, had not given repeated proofs of the
absurdity of your argument ! Just as if part of the Gospel were not,
" The lepers are cleansed," and, " if the Son make you free, ye shall be
free indeed !"
If ye get nothing in pleading for Christian imperfection, permit me to
tell you what you lose by it, and what ye might get by steadily going on
to perfection.
1. If ye earnestly aimed at Christian perfection, ye would have a
bright testimony in your own souls that you are sincere, and that ye
walk agreeably to your baptismal engagements. I have already observed,
that some of the most pious Calvinists doubt if those who do not pursue
620 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
Christian perfection are Christians at all. Hence it follows, that the
more earnestly you pursue it, the stronger will be your confidence that
you are upright Christians ; and when ye shall be perfected in love, ye
shall have that evidence of your sincerity which will perfectly " cast out
servile fear, which hath torment," and nourish the filial fear which has
safety and delight. It is hard to conceive how we can constantly enjoy
the full assurance of faith, out of the state of Christian perfection. For
so long as a Christian inwardly breaks Christ's evangelical law, he is
justly condemned in his own conscience. If his heart do not condemn
him for it, it is merely because he is asleep in the lap of Antinomianism.
On the other hand, says St. John, " If our heart condemn us, God is
greater than our heart, and knoweth all things" that make for our
condemnation. But if we " love in deed and in truth," which none but
the perfect do at all times, " hereby we know that we are of the truth,
and shall assure our hearts before him," 1 John iii, 19, 20.
2. The perfect Christian, who has left all to follow Christ, is peculiarly
near and dear to God. He is, if I may use the expression, one of God's
favourites ; and his prayers are remarkably answered. This will appear
to you indubitable, if ye can receive the testimony of those who are
perfected in obedient love. " Behold," say they, " whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him ; because we keep his commandments, and do those
things which are pleasing in his sight ;" that is, because we are perfected
in obedient love, 1 John iii, 22. This peculiar blessing ye lose by
despising Christian perfection. Nay, so great is the union which subsists
between God and the perfect members of his Son, that it is compared to
dwelling in God, and having God dwelling in us, in such a manner that
the Father, the Son, and the Comforter, are said to make their abode
with us. " At that day [when ye shall be perfected in one] ye shall
know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. If a man
love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father will love him ; and
we will come to him, and make our abode with him," John xiv, 20, 23.
Again : " He that keepeth God's commandments dwelleth in God, and
God in him," 1 John iii, 24. " Ye are my [dearest] friends, if ye do
whatsoever I command you," [i. e. if ye attain the perfection of your
dispensation,] John xv, 14. Once more : — " Keep my commandments ;
and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,
that he may abide with you for ever," John xiv, 15, 16. From these
scriptures it appears that, under every dispensation, the perfect, or they
who keep the commandments, have unspeakable advantages, from which
the lovers of imperfection debar themselves.
3. Ye bring far less glory to God in the state of indwelling sin than
ye would do if ye were perfected in love ; for perfect Christians (other
things being equal) glorify God more than those who remain full of
inbred iniquity. Hence it is, that in the very chapter where our Lord
so strongly presses Christian perfection upon his disciples, he says,
" Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven," Matt, v, 16. For,
" Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit," John xv, 8.
It is true that the fruit of the perfect is not always relished by men, who
judge only according to appearances ; but God, who judges righteous
judgment, finds it rich and precious ; and therefore the two mites which
LAST CHECK TO AXTIXOMIANI8M. 621
the poor widow gave with a cheerful and perfect heart, were more
precious in his account, and brought him more glory, than all the money
which the imperfect worshippers cast into the treasury, though some of
them cast in much. Hence also our Lord commanded that the work of
perfect love which Mary wrought when she anointed his feet for burial,
" should be told for a memorial of her, wherever this [the Christian]
Gospel should be preached in the whole world." Such is the honour
which the Lord puts upon the branches in him that bear fruit to perfection !
4. The perfect Christian (other things being equal) is a more useful
member of society than the imperfect. Never will ye be such humble
men, such good parents, such dutiful children, such loving brothers, such
loyal subjects, such kind neighbours, such indulgent husbands, and such
faithful friends, as when ye shall have obtained the perfect sincerity of
obedience. Ye will then, in your degree, have the simplicity of the
gentle dove, the patience of the laborious ox, the courage of the magnani
mous lion, and the wisdom of the wary serpent, without any of its poison.
In your little sphere of action ye will abound in " the work of faith, the
patience of hope, and the labour of love," far more than ye did before :
for a field properly weeded, and cleared from briers, is naturally more
fruitful than one which is shaded by spreading brambles, or filled with
indwelling roots of noxious weeds ; it being a capital mistake of the
spiritual husbandmen who till the Lord's field in mystical Geneva, to
suppose that the plant of humility thrives best when the roots of in-
dwelling sin are twisted round its root.
5. None but "just men made perfect are meet to be made partakers
of the inheritance among the saints in light;" an inheritance this, which
no man is fit for, till he has " purified himself from the filthiness of the
flesh and spirit." If modern divines, therefore, assure you that a believer,
full of indwelling sin, has a full title to heaven, believe them not : for the
Holy Ghost has said, that the believer who " breaks the law of liberty
in one point, is guilty of all," and that no defilement shall enter into hea
ven : and our Lord himself lias assured us, that " the pure in heart shall
.see God," and that they who are ready for that sight, " went in with the
bridegroom to the marriage feast of the Lamb." And who is ready?
Undoubtedly the believer whose lamp is trimmed and burning. But
is a spiritual lamp trimmed, when its flame is darkened by the black
fungus of indwelling sin ? Again : who shall be saved into glory, but
the man whose " heart was washed from iniquity ?" But is that heart
washed, which continues full of indwelling corruption 1 Wo, therefore,
be to the heathens, Jews, and Christians, who trifle away " the accepted
time." and die without being in a state of heathen, Jewish, or Christian
perfection ! They have no chance of going to heaven, but through the
purgatory preached by the heathens, the Papists, and the Calvinists.
And should the notions of these purgatories be groundless, it unavoidably
follows, that unpurged or imperfect souls must, at death, rank with the
unready souls whom our Lord calls " foolish virgins," and against whom
the door of heaven will be shut. How awful is this consideration, my
dear brethren ! How should it make us stretch every nerve till we have
attained the perfection of our dispensation ! I would not encourage tor
menting fears in an unscriptural manner ; but I should rejoice if all who
call Jesus LOUD, would mind his solemn declarations, " I say unto you,
622 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMY ANISM.
my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, &c ; but I will fore
warn you whom you shall fear : fear Him, who after he hath killed, hath
power to cast into hell : yea, I say unto you, fear him," who will burn
in the fire of wrath those who harbour the indwelling man of sin, lest he
should be utterly consumed by the fire of love.
Should ye cry out against this doctrine, and ask if all imperfect
Christians are in a damnable state 1 We reply, that so long as a Chris
tian believer sincerely presses after Christian perfection, he is safe ; be
cause he is in the way of duty : and were he to die at midnight, before
midnight God would certainly bring him to Christian perfection, or bring
Christian perfection to him ; for we " are confident of this very thing,
that lie who hath begun a good work in them, will perform it until the
day of Jesus Christ, because they work out their salvation with fear and
trembling." But if a believer fall, loiter, and rest upon former expe
riences ; depending upon a self-made, Pharisaical perfection, our chief
message to him is that of St. Paul, « Awake, thou that sleepest ! Awake
to righteousness, and sin not, for thou hast not the heart-purifying
knowledge of God, which is eternal life. Arise from the dead;" call
for oil ; « and Christ will give thee light." Otherwise thou shalt share
the dreadful fate of the lukewarm Laodiceans, and of the foolish virgins,
" whose lamps went out," instead of " shining more and more to the
perfect day."
6. This is not all : as ye will be fit for judgment, and a glorious
heaven, when ye shall be perfected in love ; so you will actually enjoy
a gracious heaven in your own souls. You will possess " within you
the kingdom of God," which consists in settled " righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost." But so long as ye neglect Christian per
fection, and continue sold under indwelling sin, ye not only risk the loss
of the heaven of heavens, but ye lose a little heaven upon earth ; for
perfect Christians are so full of peace and love, that they " triumph in
Christ, wi.h joy unspeakable, and full of glory, and rejoice in tribulation
with a patience which has its perfect work." Yea, they "count it all
joy when they fall into divers trials ;" arid such is their deadness to the
world, that they " are exceeding glad when men say all manner of evil
of them falsely for Christ's sake." How desirable is such a state ! And
who, but the blessed above, can enjoy a happiness superior to him who
can say, « I am ready to be offered up. The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law ; but, O death, where is thy sting T Not
in my heart, since " the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Not in my mind, « for to
be spiritually minded is life and peace." Now this peculiar happiness
ye lose, so long as ye continue imperfect Christians.
7. But supposing a Christian, who dies in a state of Christian imper
fection, can escape damnation, and make shift to get to heaven ; it is
certain that he cannot go into the glorious mansion of perfect Christians,
nor shine among the stars of the first magnitude. The wish of my soul
is, that, if God's wisdom has so ordered it, imperfect Christians may one
day rank among perfect Jews, or perfect heathens. But even upon this
supposition, what will they do with their indwelling sin ? For a perfect
Gentile, arid a perfect Jew, are " without guile" according to their light,
as well as a perfect Christian. Lean not then to the doctrine of the
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 623
continuance of indwelling sin till death. A doctrine this, on which
a Socrates, or a Melchiscdec, would be afraid to mention his heat.ien
perfection, and eternal salvation. On the contrary, by Christian perfec
tion ye may rise to the brightest crowns of righteousness, and " shine
like the sun in the kingdom of your Father." O for a noble ambition
to obtain one of the first seats in glory ! O for a constant, evangelical
striving to have the most " abundant entrance ministered unto you into
the kingdom of God !" O fora throne among these peculiarly redeemed
saints, who " sing the new song, which none can learn" but themselves.
It is not Christ's to give those exalted thrones out of mere distinguishing
grace : no, they may be forfeited ; for they shall be given to those for
whom they are prepared ; and they are prepared for them who, evan
gelically speaking, are worthy : " They shall walk with me in white, for
they are worthy," says Christ : and they shall " sit at my right hand,
and at my left in my kingdom," who shall be worthy of that honour :
" For them that honour me," says the Lord, " I will honour. Be
hold I come quickly : my reward is with me, and I will render to
every man according to his works." And what reward, think ye,
will Christ give you, O my dear, mistaken brethren, if he find you still
passing jests upon the doctrine of Christian perfection, which he so
strongly recommends ? Still pleading for the continuance of indwelling
sin, which he so greatly abhors ?
8. Your whole system of indwelling sin and imputed perfection
stands upon two of the most dangerous and false maxims which were
ever advanced. The first, which begets Antinomian presumption, runs
thus : " Sin cannot destroy us either in this world or in the world to
come." And the second, which is productive of Antinomian despair, is,
" Sin cannot be destroyed in this world." O how hard is it for those
who worship where these syren songs pass for sweet songs of Zion, not
to be drawn into one of these fatal conclusions ! " What need is there
of attacking sin with so much eagerness, since, even in the name of the
Lord, I cannot destroy it ? And why should I resist it with so much
watchfulness, since my eternal life and salvation are absolutely secured,
and the most poisonous cup of iniquity cannot destroy me, though I should
drink of it every day for months or years f If ye fondly think that ye can
neither go backward into a sinful, cursed Egypt, nor yet go forward into
a sinless, holy Canaan ; how natural will it be for you to say, " Soul,
take thine ease," and rest awhile in this wilderness on the pillow of
self-imputed perfection 1 O ! how many are surprised by the midnight
cry in this Laodicean rest ! What numbers meet death with a Solifidian
" Lord ! Lord !" in their mouths, and with indwelling sin in their hearts !
And how inexpressible will be our horror, if we perceive our want of
holiness and Christian perfection, only when it will be too late to attain
them ! To conclude : —
9. Indwelling sin is not only " the sting of death," but tlie very hell
of hells, if I may use the expression : for a sinless saint in a local hell
would dwell in a holy, loving God ; and, of consequence, in a spiritual
heaven : like Shadrach in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, he might
have devouring flames curling about him ; but, within him, he would
still have the flame of Divine love, and the joy of a good conscience.
But so much of indwelling sin as we carry about us, so much of indwell
624 LAST CHECK TO AXTIXOMIANISM.
ing hell ; so much of the sting which pierces the damned ; so much of
the spiritual fire which will burn up the wicked ; so much of the never-
dying worm which will prey upon them ; so much of the dreadful instru
ment which will rack them ; so much of Satan's image which will
frighten them ; so much of the characteristic by which the devil's chil
dren shall be distinguished from the children of God ; so much of the
black mark whereby the goats shall be separated from the sheep. To
plead therefore for the continuance of indwelling sin, is no better than
to plead for keeping in your hearts one of the sharpest stings of death,
and one of the hottest coals in hell-lire. On the other hand, to attain
Christian perfection is to have the last feature of Belial's image erased
from your loving souls, the last bit of the sting of death extracted from
your composed breasts, and the last spark of hell-fire extinguished in
your peaceful bosoms. It is to enter into the spiritual rest which
remains on earth for the people of God ; a delightful rest this, where
your soul will enjoy a calm in the midst of outward storm ; and where
your spirit will no longer be tossed by the billows of swelling pride, dis
satisfied avarice, pining envy, disappointed hopes, fruitless cares, dubious
anxiety, turbulent anger, fretting impatience, and racking unbelief. It
is to enjoy that even state of mind in which all things will work together
far your good. There your love will bear its excellent fruits during the
sharpest winter of affliction, as well as in the finest summer of pros
perity. There you will be more and more settled in peaceful humility.
There you will continually grow in a holy familiarity with the Friend of
penitent sinners, and your prospect of eternal felicity will brighten everv
day.*
Innumerable are the advantages which established, perfect Christians
have over carnal, unsettled believers, who continue sold under indwelling
sin. And will ye despise those blessings to your dying day, O ye pre
judiced imperfectionists ? Will ye secure to yourselves the contrary
curses ? Nay, will ye entail them upon the generations which are yet
unborn, by continuing to print, preach, or argue for the continuance of
indwelling sin, the capital wo belonging to the devil and his angels ?
God forbid ! We hope better things from you ; not doubting but the error
of several of you lies chiefly in your judgment, and springs from a mis
understanding of the question, rather than from a malicious opposition to
that " holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." With plea
sure we remember and follow St. Jude's loving direction : " Of some
[the simple hearted, who are seduced into Antinomianism] have com
passion, making a difference; and others [the bigots and obstinate
seducers, who wilfully shut their eyes against the truth] save with fear,
hating even the garment spotted by the; flesh :" although they will not
be ashamed to plead for the continuance of a defiling fountain of car-
* If the arguments and expostulations contained in these sheets be rational
and Scriptural, is not Mr. Wesley in the right when he says, that "all preachers
should make a point of preaching perfection to believers, constantly, strongly,
and explicitly :" and that " all believers should mind this one thing, and continu
ally agonize for it ?" And do not all the ministers, who preach against Christian
perfection, preach against the perfection of Christianity, oppose "holiness, resist
the sanctifying truth as it is in Jesus, recommend anunscriptural purgatory, plead
for sin, instead of striving against it, and delude imperfect Christians into Lao
dicean ease ?
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIA^VISM. 625
nality in the very hearts of all God's people. We are fully persuaded,
my dear brethren, that we should wrong you, if we did not acknowledge
that many of you have a sincere desire to be saved by Christ into all
purity of heart and life ; and with regard to such imperfectionists, our
chief complaint is, that their desire is "not according to knowledge."
If others of you, of a different stamp, should laugh at these pages ,
and (still producing banter instead of argument) should continue to say,
" Where are your perfect Christians ? Show us but one and we will
believe your doctrine of perfection ;" I shall just put them in mind of
St. Peter's awful prophecy : " Know this first, that there shall come in
the last days scoffers walking after their own [indwelling] lusts, and
saying, Where is the promise of his spiritual coming [to make an end of
sin, thoroughly to purge his floor, and to burn the chaff with unquench
able fire?] For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they
were from the beginning :" all believers are still carnal and sold under
sin as well as father Paul. And if such mockers continue to display
their prejudice by such taunts, I shall take the liberty to show them
their own picture, by pointing at those prejudiced professors of old, who
said concerning the most perfect of all the perfect, " What sign showest
thou, that we may receive thy doctrine 1 Come down from the cross,
and we will believe." O the folly and danger of such scoffs ! " Blessed
is he that sitteth not in the seat of the scornful," and maketh much of
them "that fear the Lord." Yea, he is blessed next to them "that are
undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord, keep his testi
monies, and seek him with their whole heart," Psa. cxix, 1, 2.
Should ye ask, " To what purpose do you make all this ado about
Christian perfection ? Do those who maintain this doctrine live more
holy and useful lives than other believers ?" I answer : —
1 . Every thing being equal, they undoubtedly do, if they hold not the
truth in unrighteousness ; for the best principles, when they are cor-
dially embraced, will always produce the best practices. But alas ! too
many merely contend for Christian perfection in a speculative, sys--
tematical manner. They recommend it to others with their lips, as a
point of doctrine which makes a part of their religious system; instead
of following after it with their hearts, as a blessing which they must
attain, if they will not be found as unprepared for judgment as the fool
ish virgins. These perfectionists are, so far, hypocrites ; nor should
their fatal inconsistency make us to despise the truth which they con
tend for, any more than the conduct of thousands, who contend for the
truth of the Scriptures, while they live in full opposition to the Scriptures,
ought to make us despise the Bible.
2. On the other hand, some gracious persons, (like the pious and
inconsistent Antinomians, whom I have described in the preceding
Checks,) speak against Christian perfection with their lips, but cannot
help following hard after it with their hearts ; arid while they do so,,
they sometimes attain the thing, although they continue to quarrel with
the name. These perfect imperfectionists undoubtedly adorn the Gos
pel of Christ far more than the imperfect, hypocritical perfectionists
whom I have just described ; arid God, who looks at the simplicity of
the heart more than at the consistency of the judgment, pities their mis
takes and accepts their works.
VOL. II. 40
626 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
But, (3.) Some there are, who both maintain doctriintily and prac
tically the necessity of a perfect devotedness of ourselves to God. They
hold the truth, and they hold it in wisdom and righteousness ; their tem
pers and conduct enforce it, as well as their words and profession. And,
on this account, they have a great advantage over the two preceding
classes of professors. Reason and revelation jointly crown the ortho
doxy and faithfulness of these perfect perfectionists, who neither strengthen
the hands of the wicked, nor excite the wonder of the judicious, by ab
surdly pleading for indwelling sin with their lips, while they strive to
work righteousness with their hands and hearts. If ye candidly weigh
this threefold distinction, I doubt not but ye will blame the irrational
inconsistency of holy imperfectionists, condemn the immoral inconsist
ency of unholy perfectionists, and agree with me, that the most excellent
Christian is a consistent, holy perfectionist.
And now, my dear, mistaken brethren, take in good part these plain
solutions, expostulations, and reproofs ; and give glory to God, by be
lieving that he can and will yet save you to the uttermost from your
evil tempers, if ye humbly come to him by Christ. Day arid night ask
of him the new heart, which " keeps the commandments ;" and when
ye shall have received it, if you keep it with all diligence, sin shall no
more pollute it, than it polluted our Lord's soul, when he said, " If ye
keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have kept
rny Father's commandments, and abide in his love." Burn, in the mean
time, the unhallowed pens, and bridle the rash tongues, with which ye
have pleaded for the continuance of sin till death. Honour us with the
right hand of fellowship ; and like reconciled brethren let us at every
opportunity lovingly fall upon our knees together, to implore the help
of Him, who " can do far exceeding abundantly above all that we ask
or think." Nor let us give him any rest, till he has perfected all our
souls in "the charity which rejoiceth in the truth" without prejudice, in
the obedience which keeps the commandments without reserve, and in the
perseverance which finds that " in keeping of them there is great reward."
Nothing but such a conduct as this can remove the stumbling blocks,
which the contentions ye breed have laid in the way of a Deistical world.
When the men. whom your mistakes have hardened, shall see that you
listen to Scripture and reason, who knows but their prejudices may sub
side, and some of them may yet say, " See the good which arises from
friendly controversy ! See how these Christians desire to be perfected
in one ! They now understand one another. Babylonish confusion is at
an end ; evangelical truth prevails ; and love, the most delicious fruit
of truth, visibly grows to Christian perfection." God grant that, through
the concurrence of your candour, this may soon be the language of all
those whom the bigotry of professors has confirmed in their prejudices
against Christianity.
Should this plain address so far influence you, my dear brethren, as
to abate the force of your aversion to the doctrine of pure love, or to
stagger your unaccountable faith in a death purgatory ; and should you
seriously ask which is the way to Christian perfection, I entreat you to
pass on to the next section, where, I hope, you will find a Scriptural
answer to some important questions, which, I trust, a few of you are by
this time ready to propose.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 627
SECTION XIX.
An address to imperfect believers, who cordially embrace the doctrine
of Christian perfection.
YOUR regard for Scripture and reason, and your desire to answers, the
ends of God's predestination, " by being conformed to the image of his
Son," have happily kept or reclaimed you from the Antinomiariism
exposed in these sheets.
Ye see the absolute necessity of personally " fulfilling the law of
Christ ;" your bosom glows with desire to " perfect holiness in the fear
of God ;" and, far from blushing to be called perfectionists, ye openly
assert that a perfect faith, productive of perfect Jove to God and man,
is the pearl of great price, for which you pre determined to sell all, and
which (next to Christ) you will seek early and late, as the one thing
n'eedful for your spiritual and eternal welfare. Some directions, there
fore, about the manner of seeking this pear], cannot but be acceptable
to you, if they are Scriptural and rational ; and such, I humbly trust,
are those which follow : —
1. First, if ye would attain an evangelically sinless perfection, let
your full assent to the truth of that, deep doctrine (irmly stand upon the
evangelical foundation of a precept and a promise. A precept without
a promise would not sufficiently animate you ; nor would a promise
without a precept properly bind you ; but a Divine precept and a Divine
promise form an unshaken foundation. Let then your faith deliberately
rest her right foot upon these precepts : —
" Hear, O Israel — thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might, Deut. vi, 5. Thou shalt
not hate thy neighbour in thy heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke
thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt riot avenge,
nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people : but thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself. I am the Lord. Ye shall keep my
statutes, Lev. xix, 17, 18. And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy
God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways,
and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord God, and his
statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good, &c 1 Circumcise
therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff necked, Deut.
x, 12, &c. Serve God with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for
the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth the imaginations of the
thoughts," 1 Chron. xxviii, 9.
Should unbelief suggest that these are only Old Testament injunctions,
trample upon the false suggestion, and rest the same foot of your faith
upon the following New Testament precepts : — " Think not that I a.m
come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I say unto you, Love your
enemies ; bless them that curse you ; ao good to them that hate you,
&c, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, &c.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye ? Do not even
the publicans the same ? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect, Matt, v, 17, 44, &c. If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments, Matt, xix, 17. Bear ye one another's
628 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ, Gal. vi, 2. This is my com-
mandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you, John xv, 12.
He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law : for this, Thou shall not
commit adultery, &c. Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other
commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as ihyself. Love worketh no ill, &c, therefore, love is the
fulfilling of the law, Rom. xiii, 8, 10. This commandment we have
from him, that he who loves God, love his brother also, 1 John iv, 21.
If ye fulfil the royal law, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself, ye
do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are
convinced of the law as transgressors, James ii, 8, 9. Circumcision is
nothing, uncircumcision is nothing [comparatively speaking ;] but [under
Christ] the keeping of the commandments of God [is the one thing
needful,] 1 Cor. vii, 19. For the end of the commandment is charity,
out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned,
1 Tim. i, 5. Though I have all faith, &c, and have not charity, I am
nothing, 1 Cor. xiii, 2. Whosoever shall keep the whole law [of liberty]
and yet offend in one point [in uncharitable respect of persons] he is
guilty of all, &c. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged
by the law of liberty," [which requires perfect love, and therefore makes
no allowance for the least degree of uncharitableness,] James ii, 10, 12.
When the right foot of your faith stands on these evangelical precepts
and proclamations, lest she should stagger for want of a promise every
way adequate to such weighty commandments, let her place her left
foot upon the following promises, which are extracted from the Old
Testament : " The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, Deut.
xxx, 6. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and
they shall be my people, and I will be their God, [in a new and peculiar
manner,] for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. This
shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and
write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my
people, Jer. xxiv, 7 ; xxxi, 33. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness and from all your
idols will I cleanse you : a new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you : arid I will take away the heart of stone
out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put
my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall
keep my judgments and do them," Ezek. xxxvi, 25-27.
Arid let nobody suppose that the promises of the circumcision of the
heart, the cleansing, the clean water, and the Spirit, which are mentioned
in these scriptures, and by which the hearts of believers are to be made
new, and God's law is to be so written therein, that they shall " keep his
judgments and do them ;" let none, I say, suppose that these glorious
promises belong only to the Jews ; for their full accomplishment pecu
liarly refers to the Christian dispensation. Beside, if sprinklings of the
Spirit were sufficient, under the Jewish dispensation, to raise the plant
of Jewish perfection in- Jewish believers, how much more will the reve
lation of " the horn of our salvation," and the outpourings of the Spirit,
raise the plant of Christian perfection in faithful, Christian believers !
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 629
4.nd that this revelation of Christ in the Spirit as well as in the flesh,
these effusions of the water of life, these baptisms of fire which burn up
the chaff of sin, thoroughly purge God's spiritual floor, save us from all
our uncle anness, and deliver us from all our enemies ; that these bless
ings, I say, are peculiarly promised to Christians, is demonstrable by the
following cloud of New Testament declarations and promises : —
" Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, — for he hath raised up a horn
of salvation for us, — as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets,
— that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve
him without [unbelieving] fear, [that is, with perfect love,] in holiness
and righteousness before him all the days of our life, Luke i, 68, 75.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, who thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filled, Matt, v, 3, 6. If thou knewest the gift of God, &c, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water :
and the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water
springing up to everlasting life, John iv, 10, 14. Jesus stood and cried,
saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drinlc. He that
believeth on me, [when I shall have ascended up on high to receive gifts
for men,] out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, [to cleanse
his soul, and keep it clean.] But this he spake of the Spirit, which
they that believe on him should receive ; for the Holy Ghost was not
yet given, [in such a manner as to raise the plant of Christian perfec
tion,] because Jesus was not yet glorified," [and his spiritual dispensa
tion was not yet fully opened,] John vii, 37, &c. Mr. Wesley, in his
Plain Account of Christian Perfection, has published some excellent
queries, and proposed them to those who deny perfection to be attain
able in this life. They are close to the point, and therefore the two
first attack the imperfectionists from the very ground on which I want
you to stand. They run thus : " (1.) Has there not been a larger mea
sure of the Holy Spirit given under the Gospel than under the Jewish
dispensation ? If not, in what sense was the Spirit not given before
Christ was glorified ? John vii, 39. (2.) Was that glory which followed
the sufferings* of Christ, 1 Peter i, 11, an external glory, or an internal,
viz. the glory of holiness ?" Always rest the doctrine of Christian per
fection on this Scriptural foundation, and it will stand as firm as revela
tion itself.
It is allowed on all sides that the dispensation of John the Baptist
exceeded that of the other prophets, because it immediately introduced
the Gospel of Christ, and because John was not only appointed to
" preach the baptism of repentance," but also clearly to point out the
very person of Christ, and to give knowledge of salvation to God's people
by the remission of sins, Luke i, 77 ; and nevertheless. John only pro
mised the blessing of the Spirit, which Christ bestowed when he had
received gifts for men. " I indeed," said John, " baptize you with water
unto repentance ; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, — he
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," Matt, iii, 44.
Such is the importance of this promise, that it is particularly recorded
not only by the three other evangelists, see Mark i, 8 ; Luke iii, 16 ;
and John i, 26, but also by our Lord himself, who said just before his
ascension, " John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence," Acts i, 5.
630 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOM1 A.NISM.
So capital is this promise of the Spirit's stronger influences to raise
the rare plant of Christian perfection, that when our Lord speaks of this
promise, he -emphatically calls it, The promise of the Father; because it
shines among the other promises of the Gospel of Christ, as the moon
does among the stars. Thus, Acts i, 4, " Wait," says he, " for the
promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me." And again,
Luke xxiv, 49, " Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you."
Agreeably to this, St. Peter says, " Jesus being by the right hand of
God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost, he hath shed forth this :" he has begun abundantly to fulfil " that
which was spoken by the Prophet Joel : And it shall come to pass in the
last days, saith God, that I will pour out [bestow a more abundant mea
sure] of my Spirit upon all flesh. Therefore repent and be baptized
[i. e. make an open profession of your faith] in the name of the Lord
Jesus, for the remission of sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost ; for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to
as many as the Lord our God shall call" to enjoy the full blessings of
the Christian dispensation, Acts ii, 17, 33, 38. This promise, when it
is received in its fulness, is undoubtedly the greatest of all the " exceed
ing great and precious promises, which are given to us, that by them
you might be partakers of the Divine nature," [that is, of pure love
and unmixed holiness,] 2 Peter i, 4. Have therefore a peculiar eye to
it, and to these deep words of our Lord : " I will ask the Father, and
he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for
ever, even the Spirit of truth [and power] whom the world knows not,
&c, but ye know him, for he remaineth with you, and shall be in you.
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and
I in you : for if any man [i. e. any believer] love me, he will keep my
words, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and
make our abode with him," John xiv, 15, 23 : " Which," says Mr.
Wesley, in his note on the place, " implies such a large manifestation
of the Divine presence and love, that the former, in justification, is as
nothing in comparison of it." Agreeably to this the same judicious
divine expresses himself thus in another of his publications : " These
virtues [meekness, humility, and true resignation to God] aie the only
wedding garment; they are the lamps and vessels well furmuhed with
oil. There is nothing that will do instead of them : they must have
their full and perfect work in you, or the soul can never be delivered
from its fallen, wrathful state. There is no possibility of salvation but
in this. And when the Lamb of God has brought forth hij own meek
ness, &c, in our souls, then are our lamps trimmed, and oui virgin hearts
made ready for the marriage feast. This marriage feast signifies the
entrance into the highest state of union that can be between God and
the soul in this life. This birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls,
whenever we attain it, will feast our souls with such peace and joy in
God, as will blot out the remembrance of every thing that we called
peace or joy before."
To make you believe this important promise with more ardour, con
sider that our Lord spent some of his last moments in sealing it with
his powerful intercession. After having prayed the Father to sanctify
his disciples through the truth, firmly embraced by their faith, and
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 631
powerfully applied by his Spirit, he adds, " Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them who will believe on me through their word." And
what is it that our Lord asks for these believers ? Truly, what St.
Paul asked for the imperfect believers at Corinth, " even their per
fection," 2 Cor. xiii, 9. A state of soul this, which Christ describes
thus : — " That they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in
thee, that they may be made one in us, &c, that they may be one
as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected
in one, and that the world may know that thou hast loved them as
thou hast loved me," John xvii, 17, 23. Our Lord could not pray in
vain : it is not to be supposed that the Scriptures are silent with respect
to the effect of this solemn prayer, an answer to which was to give the
world an idea of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, a
specimen, of the power which introduces believers into the state of
Christian perfection ; and therefore we read that on the day of pente-
cost the kingdom of Satan was powerfully shaken, and the kingdom of
God, " righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," began to
come with a new power : then were thousands wonderfully converted,
and clearly justified : then was the kingdom of heaven taken by force ;
and the love of Christ and of the brethren began to burn the chaff of
selfishness and sin with a force which the world had never seen before :
see Acts ii, 42, &c. Some time after, another glorious baptism, or
capital outpouring of the Spirit, carried the disciples of Christ farther
into the kingdom of grace which perfects believers in one. And there
fore we find that the account which St. Luke gives us of them after this
second, capital manifestation of the Holy Spirit, in a great degree answers
to our Lord's prayer for their perfection. He had asked " that they all
might be one, and that they might be one as the Father and he are one,
and that they might be perfected in one," John xvii, 17, &c. And now
a fuller answer is given to his deep request. Take it in the words of
an inspired historian : — " Arid when they had prayed, the place was
shaken where they were assembled together, and they were [once more]
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word with [still greater]
boldness ; and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart,
and of one soul ; neither said any of them, that aught of the things
which he possessed were his own ; but they had all things common,
&c, and great grace was upon them all!" Acts iv, 31-33. Who
does not see in this account a specimen of that grace which our Lord
had asked for believers, when he had prayed that his disciples, and
those who would believe on him through their word, might be " per
fected in one ?"
It may be asked here, whether " the multitude of them that believed,"
in those happy days, were all perfect in love ? I answer, that if pure
love had cast out all selfishness, and sinful fear from their hearts, they
were undoubtedly " made perfect in love :" but as God does not usually
remove the plague of indwelling sin till it lias been discovered and
lamented ; and as we find, in the two next chapters, an account of the
guile of Ananias and his wife, and of the partiality or selfish murmuring
of some believers, it seems that those chiefly, who before were strong in
the grace of their dispensation, arose then into sinless fathers ; and
that the first love of other believers, through the peculiar blessing of
63*2 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
Christ upon his infant Church, was so bright and powerful for a time,
that little children had, or seemed to have, the strength of young men,
and young men the grace of fathers. And, in this case, the account
which St. Luke gives of the primitive believers ought to be taken with
some restriction. Thus, while many of them were perfect in love,
many might have the imperfection of their love only covered over by a
land flood of peace and joy in believing. And, in this case, what is said
of their being " all of one heart and mind, and of their having all things
common," &c, may only mean that the harmony of love had not yet
been broken, and that none had yet betrayed any of the uncharitable,
ness for which Christians in after ages became so conspicuous. With
respect to the " great grace which was upon them all," this does not
necessarily mean that they were all equally strong in grace ; for great
unity and happiness may rest upon a whole family where the difference
between a father, a young man, and a child, continues to subsist.
However, it is not improbable that God, to open the dispensation of the
Spirit, in a manner which might fix the attention of all ages upon its
importance and glory, permitted the whole body of believers to take an
extraordinary turn together into the Canaan "of perfect love, and to
show the world the admirable fruit which grows there, as the spies sent
by Joshua took a turn into the good land of promise before they were
settled in it, and brought from thence the bunch of grapes which
astonished and spirited up the Israelites, who had not yet crossed Jordan.
Upon the whole, it is, I think, undeniable, from the four first chapters
of the Acts, that a peculiar power of the Spirit is bestowed upon believers
under the Gospel of Christ ; that this power, through faith on our part,
can operate the most sudden and surprising change in our souls ; and
that when our faith shall fully embrace the promise of full sanctification,
or of a complete " circumcision of the heart in the Spirit," the Holy
Ghost, who kindled so much love on the day of pentecost, that all the
primitive believers loved or seemed to love each other perfectly, will not
fail to help us to love one another without sinful self seeking ; and as
soon as we do so, " God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us,"
1 John iv, 12 ; John xiv, 23.
Should you ask, how many baptisms, or effusions of the sanctifying
Spirit are necessary to cleanse a believer from all sin, and to kindle his
soul into perfect love ; I reply, that the effect of a sanctifying truth
depending upon the ardour of the faith with which that truth is em-
braced, and upon the power of the Spirit with which it is applied, I
should betray a want of modesty if I brought the operations of the
Holy Ghost, and the energy of faith, under a rule which is not expressly
laid down in the Scriptures. If you ask your physician how many
doses of physic you must take before all the' crudities of your stomach
can be carried off, and your appetite perfectly restored; he would
probably answer you, that this depends upon' the nature of those
crudities, the strength of the medicine, and the manner in which your
constitution will allow it to operate ; and that in general you must repeat
the dose, as you can bear, till the remedy has fully answered the desired
end. I return a similar answer : if one powerful baptism of the Spirit
" seal you unto the day of redemption, and cleanse you from all [moral]
fUthiness," so much the better. If two or more be'necessury, the Lord
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM:. 633
can repeat them : " His arm is not shortened, that it cannot save ;" nor
is his promise of the Spirit stinted : he says, in general, " Whosoever
will, let him come and take of the water of life freely. If you, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 'how much more
will your heavenly Father [who is goodness itself] give his Holy [sancti
fying] Spirit to them that ask him!" I may, however, venture to say,
in general, that before we can rank among perfect Christians, we must
receive so much of the truth and Spirit of Christ by faith, as to have the
pure love of God and man shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost given unto us, and to be filled with the meek and lowly mind
which was in Christ. And if one outpouring of the Spirit, one bright
manifestation of the sanctifying truth, so empties us of self, as to fill us
with the mind of Christ, and with pure love, we are undoubtedly
Christians in the full sense of the word. From the ground of my
soul I therefore subscribe to the answer which a great divine makes to
the following objection : —
" But some who are newly justified, do come up to this [Christian
perfection :] what then will you say to these ?" Mr. Wesley says with
great propriety : "If they really do, I will say, they are sanctified,
saved from sin in that moment ; and that they never need lose what God
has given, or feel sin any more. But certainly this is an exempt case.
It is otherwise with the generality of those that are justified. They
feel in themselves, more or less, pride, anger, self will, arid a heart bent
to backsliding. And till they have gradually mortified these, they are
not fully renewed in love. God usually gives a considerable time for
men to receive light, to grow in grace, to do and to suffer his will
before they are either justified or sanctified. But he does not invari
ably adhere to this. Sometimes he * cuts short his work.' He does
the work of many years in a few weeks ; perhaps in a week, a day, an
hour. He justifies, or sanctifies both those who have done or suffered
nothing, and who have not had time for a gradual growth either in light
or grace. And may he not * do what he will with his own ? Is thine
eye evil, because he is good V It need not therefore be proved by forty
texts of Scripture, either that most men are perfected in love at last, or
that there is a gradual work of God in the soul ; and that, generally
speaking, it is a long ti?ne, even many years, before sin is destroyed.
All this we know. But we know, likewise, that God may, with man's
good leave, « cut short his work,' in whatever degree he pleases, and
do the usual work of many years in a moment. He does so in a great
many instances. And yet there is a gradual work both before and
after that moment. So that one may affirm, the work is gradual;
another, it is instantaneous, without any manner of contradiction."
(Plain Account, page 115, &c.) Page 155, the same eminent Divine
explains himself more fully thus : " It [Christian perfection] is con
stantly preceded and followed by a gradual work. But is it in itself
instantaneous or not? In examining this, let us go on step by step.
An instantaneous change has been wrought in some believers. None
can deny this. Since that change, they enjoy perfect love. They feel
this, and this alone. They rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in
every thing give thanks. Now this is all that I mean by perfection.
Therefore these are witnesses of the perfection which I preach. * But
034 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
in some this change was not instantaneous.' They did not perceive
the instant when it was wrought ; it is often difficult to perceive the
instant when a man dies. Yet there is an instant in which life ceases.
And if ever sin ceases, there must be a last moment of its existence,
and a first moment of our deliverance from it. ' But if they have this
love now, they will lose it.' They may; but they need not. And
whether they do or no, they have it now ; they now experience what
we teach. They now are all love. They now rejoice, pray, and praise
without ceasing. ' However, sin is only suspended in them ; it is not
destroyed.' Call it which you please. They are all love to-day; and
they take no thought for the morrow." To return : —
2. When you firmly assent to the truth of the precepts and promises,
on which the doctrine of Christian perfection is founded ; when you
understand the meaning of these scriptures, " Sanctify them through
thy truth, thy word is truth. I will send the Comforter, [the Spirit of
truth and holiness,] unto you ; God hath chosen you to [eternal] salva
tion through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth :" when
you see that the way to Christian perfection is by the word of the Gos
pel of Christ, by faith, and by the Spirit of God ; in the next place, get
tolerably clear ideas of this perfection. This is absolutely necessary.
If you will hit a mark, you must know where it is. Some people aim
at Christian perfection ; but mistaking it for angelical perfection, they
shoot above the mark, miss it, and then peevishly give up their hopes.
Others place the mark as much too low ; hence it is that you hear
them profess to have attained Christian perfection, when they have not
so much as attained the mental serenity of a philosopher, or the candour
of a good-natured, conscientious heathen. In the preceding pages, if
I am not mistaken, the mark is fixed according to the rules of Scrip
tural moderation. It is not placed so high, as to make you despair of
hitting it,, if you do your best in an evangelical manner ; nor yet so low,
as to allow you to presume that you can reach it, without exerting all
your abilities to the uttermost, in due subordination to the efficacy of
Jesus' blood, and the Spirit's sanctifying influences.
3. Should you ask, " Which is the way to Christian perfection ? Shall
we go on to it by internal stillness, agreeably to this direction of Moses
and David 1 < The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace ;
stand still and see the salvation of God. Be still and know that I am
God. Stand in awe and sin not ; commune with your own heart upon
your bed, and be still.' Or shall we press after it by an internal wrest
ling, according to these commands of Christ ? « Strive to enter in at
the strait gate : the kingdom of heaven sufTereth violence, and the vio
lent take it by force.' " &c.
According to the evangelical balance of the doctrines of free grace
and free will, I answer, that the way to perfection is by the due combi
nation of prevenient, assisting free grace ; and of submissive, assisted
free will. Antinomian stillness, therefore, which says that free grace
must do all, is not the way. Pharisaic activity, which will do most, if
not all, is not the way. Join these two partial systems, allowing free
grace the lend and high pre-eminence which it so justly claims, and
you have the balance of the two Gospel axioms. You do justice to
the doctrines of mercy and justice, of free grace arid free will, of
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 635
Divine faithfulness in keeping the covenant of grace, and of human
faithfulness in laying hold on that covenant, and keeping within its
bounds : in short, you have the Scripture method of waiting upon God,
which Mr. Wesley describes thus : —
Restless, resigned, for God I wait,
For God my vehement soul stands still.
To understand these lines, consider that faith, like the Virgin Mary,
is alternately a receiver and a bestower : first, it passively receives the
impregnation of Divine grace, saying, " Behold the handmaid of the
Lord : let it be done to me according to thy word ;" and then it actively
brings forth its heavenly fruit with earnest labour. " God worketh in
you to will and to do," says St. Paul : here he describes the passive
office of faith, which submits to, and acquiesces in every dispensation
and operation. " Therefore work out your salvation with fear and
trembling," and, of consequence, with haste, diligence, ardour, and faith-
fulness : here the apostle describes the active office of that mother
grace, which carefully lays out the talent she has already received.
Would you then wait aright for Christian perfection? Impartially ad
mit the Gospel axioms, and faithfully reduce them to practice. In
order to this, let them meet in your hearts, as the two legs of a pair of
compasses meet in the rivet, which makes them one compounded in
strument. Let your faith in the doctrine of free grace and Christ's
righteousness fix your mind upon God as you fix one of the legs of
your compasses immovably in the centre of the circle which you are
about to draw : so shall you " stand still," according to the first text
produced in the question, and then let your faith in the doctrine of free
will, and evangelical obedience, make you steadily run the circle of duty
round that firm centre : so shall you imitate the other leg of the com
passes, which evenly moves around the centre, and traces the circum
ference of a perfect circle. By this activity, subordinate to grace, you
will " take the kingdom of heaven by force." When your heart quietly
rests in God by faith, as it steadily acts the part of a passive receiver,
it resembles the leg of the compasses which rests in the centre of the
circle ; and then the poet's expressions, " restless — resigned," describe
its fixedness in God. But when your heart swiftly moves toward God
by faith, as it acts the part of a diligent worker, when your ardent soul
follows after God as a thirsty deer does after the water brooks, it may
be compared to the leg of the compasses which traces the circumfer
ence of the circle ; and then these words of the poet, " restless and
vehement," properly belong to it. To go on steadily to perfection, you
must therefore endeavour steadily to believe, according to the doctrine
of the first Gospel axiom ; and (as there is opportunity) diligently to
work, according to the doctrine of the second ; and the moment your
faith is steadily fixed in God as in your centre, and your obedience
swiftly moves in the circle of duty from the rest and power which you
find in that centre you have attained, you are made perfect in the faith
which works by love. Your humble faith saves you from Pharisaism,
your obedient love from Antinomianism, and both, in due subordination
to Christ, constitute you a just man made perfect according to your
dispensation.
4. Another question has also puzzled many sincere perfectionists ; and
636 LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM.
the solution of it may remove a considerable hinderance out of your
way :— " Is Christian perfection," say they, « to be instantaneously
brought down to us, or are we gradually to grow up to it ? Shall we be
made perfect in love by a ha"bit of holiness suddenly infused into us, or
by acts of feeble faith and feeble love so frequently repeated as to be
come strong, habitual, and evangelically natural to us, according to the
well-known maxim, A strong habit is a second nature?"
Both ways are good ; and instances of some believers gradually per
fected, and of others [comparatively speaking] instantaneously fixed in
perfect love, might probably be produced, if we were acquainted with
the experiences of all those who have died in a state of evangelical per
fection. It may be with the root of sin, as it is with its fruit : some souls
parley many years before they can be persuaded to give up all their
outward sins, and others part with them, as it were, instantaneously.
You may compare the former to those besieged towns which make a
long resistance, or to those mothers who go through a tedious and
lingering labour : and the latter resemble those fortresses which are sur
prised and carried by storm ; or those women who are delivered almost
as soon as labour comes upon them. Travellers inform us that vegeta
tion is so quick and powerful in some warm climates, that the seeds of
some vegetables yield a salad in less than twenty-four hours. Should a
northern philosopher say, " Impossible !" and should an English gar
dener exclaim against such mushroom sallad, they would only expose
their prejudices, as do those who decry instantaneous justification, or
mock at the possibility of the instantaneous destruction of indwelling sin.
For where is the absurdity of this doctrine ? If the light of a candle
brought into a dark room can instantly expel the darkness ; and if, upon
opening your shutters at noon, your gloomy apartment can instantane
ously be filled with meridian light ; why may not the instantaneous
rending of the veil of unbelief, or the sudden and full opening of your
faith, instantly fill your soul with the light of truth, and the fire of love ;
supposing the Sun of righteousness arise upon you with powerful heal
ing in his wings ? May not the Sanctifier descend upon your waiting
soul, as quickly as the Spirit descended upon your Lord at his baptism*?
Did it not descend « as a dove," that is, with the soft motion of a dove,
which swiftly shoots down, and instantly lights ? A good man said once,
with truth, « A mote is little, when it is compared with the sun ; but I
am far less before God." Alluding to this comparison, I ask, If the sun
could instantly kindle a mote ; nay, if a burning glass can in a moment
calcine a bone, and turn a stone to lime ; and if the dim flame of a candle
can in the twinkling of an eye destroy the flying insect which comes
within its sphere, how unscriptural and irrational is it to suppose that,
when God fully baptizes a soul with his sanctifying Spirit and with the
celestial fire of his love, he cannot in an instant destroy the man of sin,
burn up the chaff of corruption, melt the heart of stone into a heart
of flesh, and kindle the believing soul into pure, seraphic love !
An appeal to parallel cases may throw some light upon the question
which I answer. If you were sick, and asked of God the perfect reco
very of your health, how would you look for it ? Would you expect to
have your strength restored to you at once, without any external means,
as the lepers who were instantly cleansed ; and as the paralytic, who at
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIANISM. 637
our Lord's word took up the bed upon which he lay, and carried it away
upon his shoulders ? Or by using some external means of a slower opera'-
tion, as the " ten lepers" did, who were more « gradually cleansed as they
went to show themselves to the priests ?" Or as King Hezekiah, whose
gradual, but equally sure recovery, was owing to God's blessing upon
the poultice of figs prescribed by Isaiah ? Again : if you were blind,
and besought the Lord to give you perfect human sight, how should
you wait tor it ? As Bartimeus, whose eyes were opened in an instant ?
Or as the man who received his sight by degrees ? At first he saw
nothing ; by and by he confusedly discovered the objects before him,
but at last he. saw all things clearly. Would ye not earnestly wait for
an answer to your prayers now, leaving to Divine wisdom the particular
manner of your recovery ? And why should ye not go and do likewise
with respect to the dreadful disorder which we call indwelling sin 1
If our hearts be purified by faith, as the Scriptures expressly testify
if the faith which peculiarly purifies the hearts of Christians be a faith
in " the promise of the Father," which promise was made by the Son
and directly points at a peculiar effusion of the Holy Ghost, the purifiei
of spirits ; if we may believe in a moment ; and if God may, in a
moment, seal our sanctifying faith by sending us a fulness of his sancti
fying SPirit : if this, I say, be the case, does it not follow, that to deny
the possibility of the instantaneous destruction of sin, is to deny, con-
trary to Scripture and matter of fact, that we can make an instantaneous
act of faith in the sanctifying promise of the Father, and in the all-
cleansing blood of the Son, and that God can seal that act by the instan
taneous operation of his Spirit? which St. Paul calls the "circumcision
of the heart in [or by] the Spirit," according to the Lord's ancient pro
mise, " I will circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart." Where is the absurdity of believing that " the God of all
grace" can give an answer to the poet's rational and evangelical
request ?
Open my faith's interior eye ;
Display thy glory from above :
And sinful self shall sink and die,
Lost in astonishment and love.
If a momentary display of Christ's bodily glory could, in an instant,
turn Saul, the blaspheming, bloody persecutor, into Paul, the praying,
gentle apostle ; if a sudden sight of Christ's hands could in a moment
root up from Thomas' heart that detestable resolution, " I will not be
lieve,"^ and produce that deep confession of faith, « My Lord and my
God !" what cannot the display of Chrisr's spiritual glory operate in a
believing soul, to which he manifests himself " according to that power
whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself?" Again : if Christ's
body could in an instant become so glorious on the mount, that his very
garments partook of the sudden irradiation, became not only free from
every spot, but also " white as the light, shining exceeding white as
snow ; so as no fuller on the earth could whiten them ;" and if our
bodies " shall be changed, if this corruptible shall put on incorruption,
and if this mortal shall put on immortality, in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump ;" why may not our believing souls, when
they filly submit to God's terms, be fully changed — fully turned from
638 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
the power of Satan unto God ? When the Holy Ghost says, " Now is
the day of salvation," does he exclude salvation from heart iniquity ? If
Christ now deserves fully the name of JESUS, " because he fully saves
his believing people from their sins ;" and if now the Gospel trumper
sounds, arid sinners arise from the dead, why should we not, upon the
performance of the condition, be changed in a moment from indwelling
sin to indwelling holiness ? Why should we not pass, in the twinkling
of an eye, or in a short time, from indwelling death, to indwelling life ?
This is not all. If you deny the possibility of a quick destruction of
indwelling sin, you send to hell, or to some unscriptural purgatory, not
only the dying thief, but also all those martyrs who suddenly embraced
the Christian faith, and were instantly put to death by bloody persecutors,
for confessing the faith which they had just embraced. And if you
allow that God may " cut his work short in righteousness" in such case,
why not in other cases ] Why not, especially when a believer confesses
his indwelling sin, ardently prays Christ would, and sincerely believes
that Christ can, " now cleanse him from all unrighteousness ?"
Nobody is so apt to laugh at the instantaneous destruction of sin as
the Calvinists, and yet (such is the inconsistency which characterizes
some men!) their doctrine of purgatory is built upon it. For, if you
credit them, all dying believers have a nature which is still morally cor-
rupted, and a heart which is yet desperately wicked. These believers,
still full of indwelling sin, inslantaneoiisly breathe out their last, and,
without any peculiar act of faith, without any peculiar outpouring of the
sanctifying Spirit, corruption is instantaneously gone. The indwelling
"man of sin" has passed through the Geneva purgatory, he is entirely
consumed ! And behold ! the souls which would not hear of the instan
taneous act of a sanctifying faith, which receives the indwelling Spirit
of holiness — the souls which pleaded hard for the continuance of in
dwelling sin, are now completely sinless ; and, in the twinkling of an
eye, they appear in the third heaven among the spirits of just Christians
made perfect in love ! Such is the doctrine of our opponents : and yet
they think it incredible that God should do for us, while we pray in faith,
what they suppose death will do for them, when they lie in his cold arms,
perhaps delirious or senseless !
On the other hand, to deny that imperfect believers may and do
gradually grow in grace, and of course that the remains of their sins
may, and do gradually decay, is as absurd as to deny that God waters
the earth by daily dews, as well as by thunder showers : it is as ridicu
lous as to assert that nobody is carried off by lingering disorders, but
that all men die suddenly or a few hours after they are taken ill.
I use these comparisons about death, to throw some light upon the
question which I solve, and not to insinuate that the decay and destruc
tion of sin run parallel with the decay and dissolution of the body, and
that of course sin must end with our bodily life. Were I to admit this
unscriptural tenet, I should build again what I have all along endeavoured
to destroy, and, as I love consistency, I should promise eternal salvation
to all unbelievers ; for unbelievers, I presume, will die, i. e. will go into
the Geneva purgatory, as well as believers. Nor do I see why death
should not be able to destroy the van and the main body of sin's forces,
if it can so readily cut the rear (the remains of sin) in pieces.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 639
From the preceding observations it appears, that believers generally
go on to Christian perfection, as the disciples went to the other side of
the sea of Galilee. They toiled some time very hard, and with little
success. But after they had " rowed about twenty-five, or thirty fur
longs, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. He said to them, It is I, be
not afraid : then they willingly received him into the ship, and imme
diately the ship was at the land whither they went." Just so, we toil
till our faith discovers Christ in the promise, and welcomes him into our
hearts ; and such is the effect of his presence, that immediately we
arrive at the land of perfection. Or, to use another illustration, God
says to believers, " Go to the Canaan of perfect love : arise, why do ye
tarry ? Wash away the remains of sin, calling, i. e. believing, on the
name of the Lord." And if they submit to the obedience of faith, he
deals with them as he did with the Evangelist Philip, to whom he had
said, "Arise and go toward the south." For when they "arise arid run,"
as Philip did, " the Spirit of the Lord takes" them, as he did the evan
gelist ; and they are found in the New Jerusalem, as " Philip was found
at Azotus." They "dwell in God, [or in perfect love,] and God [or
perfect love] dwells in them."
Hence it follows, that the most evangelical method of following after
the perfection to which we are immediately called, is that of seeking it
nou', by endeavouring fully to lay hold on the promise of that perfection
through faith, just as if our repeated acts of obedience could never help
us forward. But, in the meantime, we should do the works of faith, and
repeat our internal arid external acts of obedience with as much earnest
ness and faithfulness, according to our present power, as if we were sure
to enter into rest merely by a diligent use of our talents, and a faithful
exertion of the powers which Divine grace has bestowed upon us. If
we do not attend to the first of these directions, we shall seek to be
sanctified by works like the Pharisees ; and if we disregard the second,
we shall fall into Solifidian sloth with the Antinomians.
This double direction is founded upon the connection of the two Gos
pel axioms. If the second axiom, which implies the doctrine of free
will, were false, I would only say, " Be still, or rather do nothing ; free
grace alone will do all in you and for you." But as this axiom is as
true as the first, I must add, " Strive in humble subordination to free
grace : for Christ saith, « To him that hath' initiating grace to purpose,
' more grace shall be given, and he shall have abundance :' his faith
ful and equitable Benefactor will give him the reward of perfecting
grace."
5. Beware therefore of unscriptural refinements. Set out for the
Canaan of perfect love with a firm resolution to labour for the rest which
remains on earth for the people of God. Some good, mistaken men,
wise above what is written, and fond of striking out paths which were
unknown to the apostles, — new paths marked out by voluntary humility,
and leading to Antinomianism : some people of that stamp, I say, have
made it their business, from the days of heated Augustine, to decry
making resolutions. They represent this practice as a branch of what
they are pleased to call legality. They insinuate that it is utterly incon
sistent with the knowledge of our inconstancy and weakness : in a word,
they frighten us from the first step to Christian perfection ; from an
640 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIATS'ISM.
humble evangelical determination to run till we reach the prize, or, if
you please, to go down till we come to the lowest place. It may not
be amiss to point out the ground of their mistake. Once they broke
the balance of the Gospel axioms by leaning too much toward free will,
and by not laying their first and principal stress upon free grace. God,
to bring them to the evangelical mean, refused his blessing to their un-
evangelical willing and running ; hence it is that their self-righteous
resolutions started aside like a broken bow. When they found out their
mistake, instead of coming back to the line of moderation, they fled to
<he other extreme. Casting all their weights into the scale of free
grace, they absurdly formed a resolution never to form a resolution ;
and, determining not to throw one determination into the scale of free
will, they began to draw all the believers they met with into the ditch
of a slothful quietism and Laodicean stillness.
You will never steadily go on to perfection, unless you get over this
mistake. Let the imperfectionists laugh at you for making humble
resolutions ; but go on " steadfastly purposing to lead a new life," as
says our Church ; and in order to this, " steadfastly purpose" to get a
new heart in the full sense of the word : for so long as your heart con
tinues partly unrenewed, your life will be partly unholy. And, therefore,
St. James justly observes that " if any man offend not in word, he is a
perfect man," he loves God with all his heart, his heart is fully renewed;
it being impossible that a heart, still tainted in part with vanity and guile,
should always dictate the words of sincerity and love. Your good reso
lutions need not fail : nor will they fail, if, under a due sense of the
fickleness and helplessness of your unassisted free will, you properly
depend upon God's faithfulness and assistance. However, should they
fail, as they probably will do more than once, be not discouraged, but
repent, search out the cause, and, in the strength of free grace, let your
assisted free will renew your evangelical purpose, till the Lord seals it
with his mighty fiat, and says, " Let it be done to thee according to thy
resolving faith." It is much better to be laughed at as "poor creatures,
who know nothing of themselves," than to be deluded as foolish virgins,
who fondly imagine that their vessels are full of imputed oil. Take
therefore the sword pf the Spirit, and boldly cut this dangerous snare in
pieces. Conscious of your impotence, and yet laving out your talent of
free will, say with the prodigal son, " I will arise and go to my father :"
say with David, " I will love thee, O Lord my God : I will behold thy
face in righteousness : I am purposed that my mouth shall not trans-
gress : I will keep it, as it were, with a bridle : I have said that I would
keep thy word : the proud," and they who are humble in an unscriptural
way, " have had me exceedingly in derision, but I will keep thy precepts
with my whole heart. 1 have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will
keep thy righteous judgments :" say with St. Paul, " I am determined
net to know any thing save Jesus, and him crucified." And with Jacob,
"I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me !" Arid, to sum up all good
resolutions in one, if you are a member of the Church of England, say,
u I have engaged to renounce all the vanities of this wicked world, all
the sinful lusts of the flesh, and all the works of the devil : to believe all
the articles of the Christian faith ; and to keep God's commandments
\.\\ the days of my life ;" that is, I have most solemnly resolved to be a
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. 641
perfect Christian. And this resolution I have publicly sealed by receiv
ing the two sacraments upon it : baptism, after my parents and sponsors
had laid me under this blessed vow : and the Lord's Supper, after I had
personally ratified, in the bishop's presence, what they had done. Nor
do I only think that I am bound to keep this vow ; but " by God's grace
so I will ; and I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he has called'
me to this state of salvation [and Christian perfection ;] and I pray unto,
him to give me his grace, that I may not only attain it, but also continue
in the same unto my life's end." (Church Catechism.]
" Much diligence," says Kempis, " is necessary to him that will profit
much. If he who firmly purposeth, often faileth, what shall he do who
seldom or feebly purposeth any thing ?" But, I say it again and again,
do not lean upon your free will and good purposes, so as to eneroach
upon the glorious pre-eminence of free grace. Let the first Gospel
axiom stand invariably in its honourable place. Lay you* principal
stress upon Divine mercy, and say with the good man, whom; I have just
quoted, « Help me, O Lord God, in thy holy service, and grant that I
may now this day begin perfectly."
In following this method, ye will do the two Gospel axaogas justice :
ye will so depend upon God's free grace as not to fall into Pharisaic
running : and ye will so exert your own free will as not to slide into
Antinomian sloth. Your course lies exactly between these rocks.. To
pass these perilous straits, your resolving heart must acquire a heavenly
polarity. Through the spiritually magnetic touch of Christ, the corner
stone, your soul must learn to point toward faith and works, or, if you
please, toward a due submission to free grace, and a due exertion of free
will, as the opposite ends of the needle of a compass point toward the
north and the south.
G. From this direction flows the following advice. Re-solve to be
perfect in yourselves, but not of yourselves : the Antinamians boast that
they are perfect only in their heavenly representative. Christ was filled
with perfect humility and love : they are perfect in his person : they
need not a perfection of humble love in themselves. To avoid their
error, be perfect in yourselves and not in another : let your perfection
of humility and love be inherent; let it dwell in you. 'Let it fill your
own heart and influence your own life : so shall you avoid the delusions
of the virgins, who give you to understand that the oil of their perfection
is all contained in the sacred vessel which formerly hung on the cross,
and therefore their salvation is finished, they have oil enough in that rich
vessel ; manna enough and to spare in that golden pot. Christ's heart was
perfect, and therefore theirs may safely remain imperfect, yea, full of in
dwelling sin, till death, the messenger of the bridegroom, come to cleanse
them, and fill them with perfect love at the midnight cry ! Delusive hope !
Can any thing be more absurd than for a sapless, dry branch to fancy
that it has sap and moisture enough in the vine which it cumbers? or for
an impenitent adulterer to boast that « in the Lord he has" chastity and
righteousness? Where did Christ ever say, "Have salt in another?"
Does he not say, « Take heed, that ye be not deceived ! Have salt in
yourselves ?" Mark ix, 50. Does he not impute the destruction of stony
ground hearers to their "not having root in themselves?" Matt, xiii, 21.
If it was the patient man's comfort, that " the root of the matter was
Vox H. 41
642 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
found in him," is it not deplorable to hear modern believers say, without
any explanatory clause, that they have nothing but sin in themselves ?
But is it enough to have " the root in ourselves ?" Must we not also
have the fruit, — yea, " be filled with the fruits of righteousness ?"
Phil, i, 1 1. Is it not St. Peter's doctrine, where he says, " If these things
be in you, and abound, ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the
knowledge of Christ 1" 2 Peter i, 8. And is it not that of David, where
he prays, "Create in me a clean heart," &c? Away, then, with all
Antinoinian refinements ! And if, with St. Paul, you will have salvation
and rejoicing in yourselves, and not in another, make sure of holiness
and perfection " in yourselves, and not in another."
But while you endeavour to avoid the snare of the Antinomians, do
not run into that of the Pharisees, who will have their perfection of
themselves ; and therefore, by their own unevangelical efforts, self-con-
certed willings, and self-prescribed runnings, endeavour to " raise sparks
of their own kindling, and to warm themselves" by their own painted
fires and fruitless agitations. Feel your impotence. Own that "no
man has quickened [and perfected] his own soul." Be contented to
invite, receive, and welcome the light of life : but never attempt to form
or to engross it. It is your duty to wait for the morning light, and to
rejoice when it visits you : but if you grow so self conceited as to say,
" it will create a sun : let there be light :" or if, when the light visits
your eyes you say, " I will bear a stock of light : I will so fill my eyes
with light to-day, that to-morrow I shall be almost able to do my work
without the sun, or at least without a constant dependence upon its
beams ;" would ye not betray a species of self-deifying idolatry and
Satumcal pride ? If our Lord himself, as " Son of man," would not have
one grain of human goodness himself; if he said, " Why cailcst thou me
(rood? There is none good [self good, or good of himself ] but God:"
who can wonder enough at those proud Christians who claim some self-
originated goodness ; boasting of what they have received, as if they
had not received it : or using what they have received without an hum-
ble sense of their constant dependence upon their heavenly Benefactor
To avoid this horrid delusion of the Pharisees, learn to see, to feel, ant.
to acknowledge, that of the Father, through the Son, and by the Ilo\
Ghost, are all your urim and thummim, your lights and perfections
and while the Lord says, " From me is thy fruit found," Hosea xiv, 6.
bow at his footstool, and gratefully reply, " Of thy fulness have all we
received, and grace for grace," John i, 16. For thou art "the Father
of lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift," James i, 17
Of thee, and through thee, and to thee are all things : to thee, therefoic
be the glory for ever. Amen" Romans xi, 36.
7. You will have this humble and thankful disposition if you let you
repentance cast deeper roots. For if Christian perfection implies a
forsaking all inward, as well as outward sin ; and if true repentance is
a grace whereby we forsake sin, it follows, that, to attain Christian
perfection, we must so follow our Lord's evangelical precept, " Repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," as to leave no sin, no bosom sin,
no indwelling sin unrepented of, and, of consequence, unforsaken. He.
whose heart is still full of indwelling sin, has no more truly repented of
indwelling sin, than the man whose mouth is still defiled with filthy
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIAXISM. 643
talking and jesting has truly repented of his ribaldry. The deeper our
sorrow for, and detestation of indwelling sin is, the more penitently do
we confess the plague of our hearts ; and when we properly confess it,
we inherit the blessing promised in these words : « If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness."
To promote this deep repentance, consider how many spiritual evils
still haunt your breast. Look into the inward " chamber of imagery,"
where assuming self love, surrounded by a multitude of vain thoughts,
foolish desires, and wild imaginations, keeps her court. Grieve that your
heart, which should be all flesh, is yet partly stone ; and that your soul,
which should be only a temple for the Holy Ghost, is yet so frequently
turned into a den of thieves, a hole for the cockatrice, a nest for a brood
of spiritual vipers, — for the remains of envy, jealousy, fretfulness, anger,
pride, impatience, peevishness, formality, sloth, prejudice, bigotry, carnal
confidence, evil shame, self righteousness, tormenting fears, uncharitable
suspicions, idolatrous love, and I know not how many of the evils which
form the retinue of hypocrisy and unbelief. Through grace detect these
evils by a close attention to what passes in your own heart at all times,
but especially in an hour of temptation. By frequent and deep con-
fession, drag out all these abominations : thes.e sins, which would not
have Christ to reign alone over you, bring before him : place them in
the light of his countenance ; and (if you do it in faith) that light and
the warmth of his love will kill them, as the light and heat of the sun
kill the worms which the plough turns up to the open air in a dry
summer's day.
Nor plead that you can do nothing : for, by the help of Christ, who
is always ready to assist the helpless, ye can solemnly say upon your
knees what ye have probably said in an airy manner to your professing
friends. If ye ever acknowledged to them that your heart is deceitful,
prone to leave undone what ye ought to do, and ready to do what ye
ought to leave undone ; ye can undoubtedly make the same confession
to God. Complain to him who can help you, as ye have done to those
who cannot. Lament, as you are able, the darkness of your mind, the
stubbornness of your will, the dulness or exorbitancy of your affections,
arid importunately entreat the God of all grace to " renew a right spirit
within you. If ye sorrow after this godly sort, what carefulness will be
wrought in you ! what indignation ! what fear ! what vehement desire !
what zeal ! yea, what revenge !" Ye will then sing in faith, what the
imperfectionists sing in unbelief: —
O how I hate those lusts of mine,
That crucified my God :
Those sins that pierced and nail'd his flesh
Fast to the fatal wood !
Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die,
My heart hath so decreed ;
Nor will I spare those guilty things
That made my Saviour bleed.
While with a melting, broken heart,
My murder'd Lord I view,
I'll raise revenge against my sins,
And slay the murderers too.
644 LAST CHECK TO ANTESOMIANISM.
8. Closely connected with this deep repentance is the practice of a
judicious, universal self denial. " If thou wilt be perfect," says our
Lord, " deny thyself, take up thy cross daily, and follow me. He that
loveth father or mother [much more he that loveth praise, pleasure, or
money] more than me, is not worthy of me :" nay, " Whosoever will
save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose it for my sake, shall
find it." Many desire to live and reign with Christ, hut few choose to
suffer and die with him. However, as the way of the cross leads to
heaven, it undoubtedly leads to Christian perfection. To avoid the cross,
therefore, or to decline drinking the cup of vinegar and gall, which God
permits your friends or foes to mix for you, is to throw away the aloes
which Divine wisdom puts to the breasts of the mother of harlots, to
wean you from her and her witchcrafts : it is to refuse a medicine which
is kindly prepared to restore your health and appetite : in a word, it is
to renounce the Physician who " heals all our infirmities," when we take
his bitter draughts, submit to have our imposthumes opened by his sharp
lancet, and yield to have our proud flesh wasted away by his painful
caustics. Our Lord " was made a perfect Saviour through sufferings,"
and we may be made perfect Christians in the same manner. We may
be called to suffer, till all that which we have brought out of spiritual
Egypt is consumed in a howling wilderness, in a dismal Gethsemane,
or on a shameful Calvary. Should this lot be reserved for us, let us not
imitate our Lord's imperfect disciples, who " forsook him and fled ;" but
let us stand the fiery trial, till all our fetters are melted, and our dross is
purged away. Fire is of a purgative nature : it separates the dross from
the gold ; and the fiercer it is the more quick and powerful is its opera-
tion. " He that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem,
shall be called holy, &c, when the Lord shall have washed away the
filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jeru
salem by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning," Isa. iv, 4.
" I will bring the third part through the fire, saith the Lord, and will
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried ; they
shall call on my name, and I will hear them : I will say, It is my people ;
and they shall say, The Lord is my God," Zech. iii, 9. Therefore, if
the Lord should suffer the best men in his camp, or the strongest men
in Satan's army, to cast you into a furnace of fiery temptations, come
not out of it till you are called. " Let patience have its perfect work :"
meekly keep your trying station till your heart is disengaged from all
that is earthly, and till the sense of God's preserving power kindles in
you such a faith in his omnipotent love as few experimentally know but
they who have seen themselves, like the mysterious bush in Horeb,
burning and yet unconsumed ; or they who can say with St. Paul, " We
are killed all the day long — dying, and behold we live !"
" Temptations," says Kempis, " are often very profitable to men,
though they be troublesome and grievous : for in them a man is humbled,
purified, and instructed. All the saints have passed through and profited
by many tribulations : and they that could not bear temptations, became
reprobates and fell away." " My son," adds the author of Ecclesiasticus,
(chap, ii, 1,) " if thou come to serve the Lord" in the perfect beauty of
holiness, " prepare thy soul for temptation. Set thy heart aright ; con-
stantly endure ; and make not haste in the time of trouble. Whatever
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 645
is brought upon thee take cheerfully ; and be patient when thou art
changed to a low estate : for gold is tried and purified in the fire, and
acceptable men in the furnace of adversity." And therefore, says St.
James, " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation ; for, when he is
tried, [if he stands the fiery trial,] he shall receive the crown of life,
which the Lord has promised to them that love him" [with the love
which endureth all things, that is, with perfect love,] Jarnes i, 12.
Patiently endure, then, when God " for a season (if need be) suffers you
to be in heaviness through manifold temptations." By this mean, " the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than that of gold which
perisheth, thougli it be tried in the fire, will be found unto praise, and
honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ," 1 Pet. i, 7.
9. Deep repentance is good, Gospel self denial is excellent, and a
degree of patient resignation in trials is of unspeakable use to attain the
perfection of love ; but as " faith immediately works by love," it is of
far more immediate use to purify the soul. Hence it is that Christ, the
prophets, and the apostles, so strongly insist upon faith ; assuring us
that, " if we will not believe, we shall not be established ;" that, " if we
will believe, we shall see the glory of God ; we shall be saved ; and
rivers of living water shall flow from our inmost souls ; and that our
hearts are purified by faith ; and that we are saved by grace through
faith." They tell us that " Christ gave himself for the* Church, that he
might sanctify and cleanse it — by the word ; that he might present it to
himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ;
but that it should be holy and without blemish." Now, if believers are
not to be " cleansed and made without blemish" by the word, (which tes
tifies of the all-atoning blood, and the love of the Spirit,) it is evident that
they are to be sanctified by faith ; for faith, or believing, has as neces
sary a reference to the word, as eating has to food. For the same reason
the apostle observes that " they who believe enter into rest ; that a pro
mise being given us to enter in, we should take care not to fall short of
it" through unbelief ; that we ought to take warning by the Israelites,
who " could not enter" into the land of promise " through unbelief;"
that we are "filled with all joy and peace in believing;" and that
" Christ is able to save to the uttermost them who come unto God through
him." Now " coming," in the Scripture language, is another expres
sion for believing : " He that cometh to God," says the apostle, " must
believe." Hence it appears that faith is peculiarly necessary to those
who will " be saved to the uttermost," especially a firm faith in the capital
promise of the Gospel of Christ, the promise of " the Spirit of holiness"
from the Father, through the Son. For " how shall they call on him, in
whom they have not believed ?" Or, how can they earnestly plead the
truth, and steadily wait for the performance of a promise, in which they
have no faith ? This doctrine of faith is supported by Peter's words : —
" God who knoweth the hearts [of penitent believers] bare them witness,
giving them the Holy Ghost, and purifying their hearts by faith," Acts
xv, 8, 9. For the same Spirit of faith, which initially purifies our hearts
when we cordially believe the pardoning love of God, completely cleanses
them when we fully believe his sanctifying love.
10. This direction about faith being of the utmost importance, I shall
confirm and explain it by an extract from Mr. Wesley's sermon, which
646 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
points out the Scripture way of salvation : " Though it be allowed," says
this judicious divine, "that both this repentance and its fruits are neces
sary to full salvation, yet they are not necessary either in the same sense
with faith, or in the same degree. Not in the same degree ; for these fruits
are only necessary conditionally, if there be time and opportunity for
them, otherwise a man may be sanctified without them. But he cannot
be sanctified without faith. Likewise, let a man have ever so much of
this repentance, or ever so many good works, yet all this does not at all
avail ; he is not sanctified till he believe. But the moment he believes,
with or without those fruits, yea, with more or less of this repentance, he
is sanctified. Not in the same sense ; for this repentance and these
fruits are only remotely necessary in order to the continuance of his
faith, as well as the increase of it ; whereas faith is immediately and
directly necessary to sanctification. It remains that faith is the only
condition which is immediately and proximately necessary to sanctifi
cation.
" But what is that faith whereby we are sanctified, saved from sin,
and perfected in love? (1.) It is a Divine evidence and conviction, that
God hath promised it in the Holy Scriptures. Till we are thoroughly
satisfied of this, there is no moving one step farther. And one
would imagine there needed not one word more to satisfy a reason
able man of this, than the ancient promise, ' Then will I circumcise thy
heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul.' How clearly doth this express the being
perfected in love ! How strongly imply the being saved from all sin !
For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for
sin therein? (2.) It is a Divine evidence and conviction, that what God
has promised he is able to perform. Admitting, therefore, that ' with
men it is impossible to bring a clean thing out of an unclean,' to purify
the heart from all sin, and to fill it with all holiness ; yet this creates no
difficulty in the case, seeing ' with God all things are possible.' (3.) It
is an evidence and conviction that he is able and willing to do it NOW.
And why not ? Is not a moment to him the same as a thousand years ?
He cannot want more time to accomplish whatever is his will. We may
therefore boldly say at any point of time, « Now is the day of salvation !
Behold J all things are now ready ! Come to the marriage !' (4.) To
this confidence, that God is both able and willing to sanctify us now,
there needs to be added one thing more, a Divine evidence and convic
tion that he doth it. In that hour it is done. God says to the inmost
soul, ' According to thy faith, be it unto thee !' Then the soul is pure
from every spot of sin ; it is clean from all unrighteousness."
Those who have low ideas of faith will probably be surprised to see
how much Mr. Wesley ascribes to that Christian grace, and to inquire,
why he so nearly connects our believing that God cleanses us from all
sin, with God's actual cleansing us. But their wonder will cease, if
they consider the definition which this divine gives of faith in the same
sermon. " Faith in general," says he, " is defined by the apostle, an
evidence, a Divine evidence * and conviction [the word used by the apostle
means both] of things not seen ;' not visible, nor perceivable either by
sight, or by any other of the external senses. It implies both a super
natural evidence of God and of the things of God. a kind of spiritual
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. 647
light exhibited to the soul, and a supernatural sight or perception thereof.
Accordingly the Scriptures speak of God's giving sometimes light, some
times a power of discerning it. So St. Paul, « God who commanded
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ.' And elsewhere the same apostle speaks of 'the eyes of our
understanding being opened.' By this twofold operation of the Holy
Spirit, having the eyes of our souls both opened and enlightened, we see
the things which the natural < eye hath not seen, neither the ear heard.'
We have a prospect of the invisible things of God : we see the spiritual
world, which is all round about us, and yet is no more discerned by our
natural faculties, than if it had no being ; and we see ike eternal world,
piercing through the veil which hangs between time and eternity. Clouds
and darkness then rest upon it no more, but we already see the glory
which shall be revealed."
From this striking definition of faith, it is evident that the doctrine of
this address exactly coincides with Mr. Wesley's sermon ; with this ver
bal difference only, that what he calls faith, implying a twofold opera
tion of the Spirit productive of spiritual light and supernatural sight, I
have called faith, apprehending a sanctifying " baptism (or outpouring)
of the Spirit." His mode of expression savours more of the rational
divine, who logically divides the truth, in order to render its several parts
conspicuous : and I keep closer to the words of the Scriptures, which, I
hope, will frighten no candid Protestant. I make this remark for the
sake of those who fancy that when a doctrine is clothed with expressions
which are not quite familiar to them, it is a new doctrine, although these
expressions should be as Scriptural as those of a " baptism, or outpour
ing of the Spirit," which are used by some of the prophets, by John the
Baptist, by the four evangelists, and by Christ himself.
I have 'already pointed out the close connection there is between an
act of faith which fully apprehends the Spirit of Christ, which makes an
end of moral corruption by forcing the lingering " man of sin" instan
taneously to breathe out his last. Mr. Wesley, in the above-quoted
sermon, touches upon this delicate subject in so clear and concise a
manner, that while his discourse is before me, for the sake of those who
have it not at hand, I shall transcribe the whole passage, and thus put
the seal of that eminent divine to what I have advanced, in the pre
ceding pages, about sanctifying faith and the quick destruction of sin.
" Does God work this great work in the soul gradually or instanta
neously 1 Perhaps it may be gradually wrought in some : I mean in this
sense ; they do not advert to the particular moment wherein sin ceases
to be. But it is infinitely desirable, were it the will of God, that it should
be done instantaneously ; that the Lord should destroy sin by the breath
of his mouth, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And so he
generally does ; a plain fact, of which there is evidence enough to satisfy
any unprejudiced person. Thou therefore look, for it every moment.
Look for it in the way above described ; in all those good works, \\ here
unto thou art created anew in Christ Jesus. There is then no danger :
you can be no worse, if you are no better for that expectation. For
were you to be disappointed of your hope, still you lose nothing. But
vou shall not be disappointed of your hope : it will come, and will not
648 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
tarry. Look for it then every day, every hour, every moment. Why
not tliis hour, this moment 1 Certainly you may look for it now, if you
believe it is by faith. And by this token you may surely know whether
you seek it by faith or by works : if by ivories, you want something to
be done first, before you are sanctified. You think, " I must first be or
do thus or thus." Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. If
you seek it by faith, you expect it as you are, and if as you are, then
expect it now. It is of importance to observe that there is an insepa
rable connection between these three points, — expect it by faith, expect
it as you are, and expect it now ! To deny one of them, is to deny them
all : to allow one, is to allow them all. Do you believe we are sanctified
by faith ? Be true then to your principle : and look for this blessing just
as you arc, neither better nor worse : as a poor sinner, that has still
nothing to plead but Christ died. And if you look for it as you are, then
expect it now. Stay for nothing : why should you ? Christ is ready ;
and he is all you want. He is waiting for you : he is at the door ' Let
your inmost soul cry out, —
Come in, come in, thou heavenly Guest !
Nor hence again remove :
But sup with me, and let the feast
Be everlasting love."
11. Social prayer is closely connected with faith in the capital pro
mise of the sanctifying Spirit : and therefore I earnestly recommend that
mean of grace, where it can be had, as being eminently conducive to the
attaining of Christian perfection. When many believing hearts are lifted
up, and wrestle with God in prayer together, you may compare them to
many diligent hands, which work a large machine. At such times,
particularly, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, the windows
of heaven are opened, and " rivers of living water flow" into the hearts
of obedient believers.
In Christ when brethren join,
And follow after peace,
The fellowship Divine
He promises to bless,
His chiefest graces to bestow
Where two or three are met below.
Where unity takes place,
The joys of heaven we prove ;
This is the Gospel grace,
The unction from above,
The Spirit on all believers shed,
Descending swift from Christ their Head.
Accordingly we read, that when God powerfully opened the kingdom
of the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost, the disciples " were all with
one accord in one place." And when he confirmed that kingdom, they
" were lifting up their voices to God with one accord :" see Acts ii, 1,
and iv, 24. Thus also the believers at Samaria were filled with the
Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier, while Peter and John prayed with them, and
laid their hands upon them.
12. But perhaps thou art alone. As a solitary bird which sitteth on
the housetop, thou lookest for a companion who may go with thee through
the deepest travail of the regeneration. But, alas ! thou lookest in vain :
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 649
all the professors about thee seem satisfied with their former experiences,
and with self-imputed or self-conceited perfection. When thou givest
them a hint of thy want of power from on high, and of thv hunger and
thirst after a fulness of righteousness, they do not sympathize with thee.
And indeed how can they ? They are full already, they reign without
thee, they have need of nothing. They do not sensibly want that " God
would grant them, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened
with might in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by
faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, may comprehend with
all saints [perfected in love] what is the breadth, and length, and depth,
and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,
that they might be filled with all the fulness of God," Eph. iii, 16, &c.
They look upon thee as a whimsical person, full of singular notions, and
they rather damp than enliven thy hopes. Thy circumstances are sad ;
but do not give place to despair, no, not for a moment. In the name
of Christ, who could not get even Peter, James, and John, to watch with
him one hour ; and who was obliged to go through his agony alone ; —
in his name, I say, " Cast not away thy confidence, which has great
recompense of reward." Under all thy discouragements, remember
that, after all, Divine grace is not confined to numbers, any more than
to a few. When all outward helps fail thee, make the more of Christ,
on whom sufficient help is laid for thee — Christ, who says, " I will go
with thee through fire and water ;" the former shall not burn thee, nor
the latter drown thee. Jacob was alone when he wrestled with the
angel, yet he prevailed ; and if the servant is not above his master,
wonder not that it should be said of thee, as of thy Lord, when he went
through his greatest temptations, " Of the people there was none with
him."
Should thy conflicts be " with confused noise, with burning and fuel
of fire ;" should thy " Jerusalem be rebuilt in troublesome times ;"
should the Lord " shake, not the earth only, but also heaven ; should
deep call unto deep at the noise of his water spouts ; should all his waves
and billows go over thee ;" should thy patience be tried to the uttermost ;
remember how in years past thou hast tried the patience of God, nor be
discouraged : an extremity and a storm are often God's opportunity.
A blast of temptation, and a shaking of all thy foundations, may introduce
the fulness of God to thy soul, and answer the end of the rushing wind,
and of the shaking, which formerly accompanied the first great mani
festations of the Spirit. The Jews still expect the coming of the Messiah
in the flesh, and they particularly expect it in a storm. When lightnings
flash, when thunders roar, when a strong wind shakes their houses, and
the tempestuous sky seems to rush down in thunder showers ; then some
of them particularly open their doors and windows to entertain their
wished-for Deliverer. Do spiritually what they do carnally. Constantly
wait for full " power from on high ;" but especially when a storm of
affliction, temptation, or distress overtakes thee ; or when thy convictions
and desires raise thee above thyself, as the waters of the flood raised
Noah's ark above the earth ; then be particularly careful to throw the
door of FAITH, and the window of HOPE as wide open as thou canst ;
and, spreading the arms of thy imperfect LOVE, say with all the ardour
and resignation which thou art master of, —
650 LAST CHECK TO ANT1NOMIANISM.
" My lieart strings groan with deep complaint,
My flesh lies panting, Lord, for thee ;
And every limb, and every joint,
Stretches for perfect purity."
But if the Lord be pleased to come softly to thy help ; if he make an
end of thy corruption by helping thee gently to sink to unknown depths
of meekness ; if he drown the indwelling man of sin, by baptizing, by
plunging him into an abyss of humility ; do not find fault with the sim
plicity of his method, the plainness of his appearing, and the common,
ness of his prescription. Nature, like Naaman, is full of prejudices. She
expects that Christ will come to make her clean with as much ado,
pomp, and bustle, as the Syrian general looked for, " when he was wroth
and said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand
and call on his God and strike his hand over the place and
recover the leper." Christ frequently goes a much plainer way to
work ; and by this mean he disconcerts all our preconceived notions
and schemes of deliverance. " Learn of me to be meek and lowly in
heart, and thou shalt find rest to thy soul," the sweet rest of Christian
perfection, of perfect humility, resignation, and meekness. Lie at my
feet, as she did who loved much, and was meekly taken up with " the
good part, and the one thing needful." But thou frettest ; thou despisest
this robe of perfection ; it is too plain for thee ; • thou slightest " the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of
great price :" nothing will serve thy turn but a tawdry coat of many
colours, which may please thy proud self will, and draw the attention
of others, by its glorious and flaming appearance ; and it must be brought
to thee with lightnings, thunderings, and voices. If this be thy disposi
tion, wonder not at the Divine wisdom which thinks fit to disappoint thy
lofty prejudices ; and let me address thee, as Naaman's servants ad
dressed him : " My brother, if the prophet had bid thee do some great
thing, wouldst thou not have done it ? How much rather then, when he
says to thee, I am the meek and lowly Lamb of God; wash in the stream of
my blood — plunge in the Jordan of my humility, and be clean !" Instead
therefore of going away from a plain Jesus in a rage, welcome him in
his lowest appearance, and be persuaded that he can as easily make an
end of thy sin, by gently coming in " a still, small voice," as by rushing
in upon thee in " a storm, a fire, or an earthquake." The Jews rejected
their Saviour, not so much because they did not earnestly desire his
coming, as because he did not come in the manner in which they ex
pected him. It is probable that some of this Judaism cleaves to thee.
If thou wilt absolutely come to Mount Sion in a triumphal chariot, or
make thine entrance into the New Jerusalem upon a prancing horse,
thou art likely never to come there. Leave then all thy lordly miscon.
ceptions behind ; and humbly follow thy King, who makes his entry into
the typical Jerusalem, " meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, yea, upon
a colt, the foal of an ass." I say it again, therefore, while thy faith and
hope strongly insist on the blessing, let thy resignation and patience
leave to God's infinite goodness and wisdom the peculiar manner of be
stowing it. When he says, " Surely I come quickly to make my abode
with thee," let thy faith close in with his word ; ardently and yet meekly
embrace his promise. This will instantly beget power ; and with that
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 651
power thou mayest instantly bring forth prayer, and possibly the prayer
which opens heaven, which humbly wrestles with God, inherits the
blessing, and turns the well-known petition, " Amen ! Even so, come
Lord Jesus !" into the well-known praises, He is come, he is come, O
praise the Lord, O my soul, &c. Thus repent, believe, and obey ; and
" he that cometh will come" with a fulness of pure, meek, humble love ;
" he will not tarry," or if he tarry, it will be to give thy faith and desires
more time to open, that thou mayest, at his appearing, be able to take
in more of his perfecting grace and sanctifying power : beside, thy ex
pectation of his coming is of a purifying nature, and gradually sanctifies
thee. " He that has this hope in him," by this very hope " purifies him
self even as God is pure :" for " we are saved [into perfect love] by
hope as well as by faith." The stalk, as well as the root, bears " the
full corn in the ear."
Up then, thou sincere expectant of God's kingdom ! Let thy humble,
ardent free will meet prevenient, sanctifying free grace in its weakest
and darkest appearance, as the father of the faithful met the Lord,
" when he appeared to him on the plain of Mamre" as a mere mortal.
" Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo ! three men stood by
him." So does free grace (if I may venture upon the allusion) invite
itself to thy tent : nay, it is now with thee in its creating, redeeming,
and sanctifying influences. " And when he saw them, he ran to meet
them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground." Go
and do likewise : if thou seest any beauty in the humbling grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, in the sanctifying love of God, and in the comfort
able fellowship of the Holy Ghost, let thy free will run to meet them,
and bow itself toward the ground. O for a speedy going out of thy tent,
thy sinful self! O for a race of desire in the way of faith ! 0 for in-
cessant prostrations ! O for a meek and deep bowing of thyself before
thy Divine Deliverer ! " And Abraham said, My Lord, if now I have
found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant!"
O for the humble pressing of a loving faith ! O for the faith which
stopped the sun, when God avenged his people in the days of Joshua !
O for the importunate faith of the two disciples who detained Christ,
when " he made as though he would have gone farther ! They con
strained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the
day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them." He soon indeed
vanished out of their bodily sight, because they were not called always
to enjoy his bodily presence. Far from promising them that blessing,
he had said, " It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not
away, the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send
him unto you, that he may abide -with you for ever. He dwelleth with
you, and shall be in you." This promise is " YEA and AMEN in Christ ;"
only plead it according to the preceding directions, and as sure as the
Lord is the true and faithful Witness, so sure will the God of hope and
love soon fill you with all joy and peace, that ye may abound in pure
love, as well as in confirmed hope, "through the power of the Holy
Ghost." Then shall you have an indisputable right to join the believers
who sing at the Tabernacle, and at the Lock Chapel, in the words of
Messrs. J. and C. Wesley : —
652 LAST CHECK TO ANTOOMIANISM.
" MANY are we now and ONE,
We who Jesus have put on.
There is neither bond nor free,
Male nor female, Lord, in thee.
Love, like death, hath all destroy'd,
Render'd all distinction void ;
Names, and sects, and parties fall .
Thou, O Christ, art all in all."
In the meantime you may sing with the pious countess of Hunting
don, the Rev. Mr. Madan, the Rev. Dr. Conyers, the Rev. Mr. Ber-
ridge, Richard Hill, Esq., and the imperfectionists who use their
collections of hymns : ye may sing, I say, with them all, the two fol
lowing hymns, which they have agreed to borrow from the hymns of
Messrs. J. and C. Wesley, after making some insignificant alterations.
I transcribe them from the collection used in Lady Huntingdon's chapels,
(Bristol edition, 1765, p. 239, dec.)
O for a heart to praise my God !
A heart from sin set free :
A heart that 's sprinkled with the blood
So freely spilt for me :
A heart resign'd, submissive, meek,
My dear Redeemer's throne ;
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone:
An humble, lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true, and clean ;
Which neither life nor death can part
From him that dwells within :
A heart in every thought renew'd,
And fill'd with love Divine;
Perfect, and right, and pure, and good ;
A copy, Lord, of thine !
My heart, thou know'st, can never rest.
Till thou create my peace •
Till of my Eden repossess'd,
From self and sin I cease.
Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart,
Come quickly from above ;
Write thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new, best name of LOVE.
Here is undoubtedly an evangelical prayer for the LOVE which re.
stores the soul to a state of sinless rest and evangelical perfection.
Mean ye, my brethren, what the good people who dissent from us print
and sing, and I ask no more. Nor can ye wait for an answer to the prayer
contained in the preceding hymn, in a more Scriptural manner, than by
pleading " the promise of the Father" in such words as these : —
Love Divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down !
Fix in us thine humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown :
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art ;
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.
LAST CHECK TO ANTITs'OMIANISM. 653
Breathe ! O breathe thy loving Spirit
Into every troubled breast !
Let us all in thee inherit,
Let us find thy promised* rest.
Take away the powerf of sinning,
Alpha and Omega be ;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.
Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all thy life receive !
Suddenly return, and never,
Never more thy temples leave !
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve thee as thine hosts above ;
Pray and praise thee without ceasing,
Glory in thy precious love.t
Finish then thy new creation,
Pure,§ unspotted may we be ;
Let us see thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored by thee ;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place ;
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Lift up your hands which hang down ; our Aaron, our heavenly High
Priest, is near to hold them up. The spiritual Amalekites will riot
always prevail ; our Samuel, our heavenly prophet, is ready " to cut
them and their king in pieces before the Lord. The promise is unto
you." You are surely called to attain the perfection of your dispensa
tion, although you still seem afar off. Christ, in whom that perfection
centres — Christ, from whom it flows, is very near, even at the door :
" Behold, says he, [and this he spake to Laodicean loiterers,] I stand at
the door and knock. If any man pear my voice and open, I will come
* Mr. Wesley says, second rest, because an imperfect believer enjoys a first,
inferior rest : if he did not, he would be no believer.
t Is not this expression too strong ? Would it not be better to soften it as Mr.
Hill has done, by saying, "Take away the love of [or the bent to] sinning?"
Can God take away from us our power of sinning, without taking away our
power of free obedience ?
t Mr. Wesley says, perfect love, with St. John.
§ Mr. Wesley says, indeed, pure and sinless; but when Mr. Hill sings pure,
unspotted, he does not spoil the sense. For every body knows that the pure,
unspotted Jesus does not differ from the sinless, immaculate Lamb of God. This
fine hymn (I think) is not in Mr. Madan's collection, but he has probably sung
it more than once. However, it is adopted in the Shrewsbury collection, of
which Mr. Hill is the publisher, in conjunction with Mr. De Courcy. Is it not
surprising, that in his devotional warmth that gentleman should print, give out,
and sing, Mr. Wesley's strongest hymns for Christian perfection ; when, in his
controversial heat, he writes so severely against this blessed state of heart ? And
may not I take my leave of him by an allusion to our Lord's words, Out of thy
own mouth, thy own pen, thy own publications, thy own hymns, thy own prayers,
thy own Bible, thy own reason, thy own conscience, and, (what is most aston
ishing!) thy own professional and baptismal vow, I will judge thy mistakes!
Nevertheless, I desire the reader to impute them, as I do, not to any love for
indwelling sin, but to the fatal error which makes my pious opponent turn his
back upon tl e genuine doctrines of grace and justice, and espouse the spurious
doctrines of Calvinian grace and free wrath.
654 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
in and sup with him," upon the fruits of my grace, in their Christian
perfection ; and he shall sup with me upon the fruits of my glory, in
their angelical and heavenly maturity.
Hear this encouraging Gospel : " Ask, and you shall have ; seek,
and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every
one that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him
that knocketh, it shall be opened. If any of you, [believers] lack wis
dom — indwelling wisdom, [Christ the wisdom and the power of God
dwelling in his heart by faith,] let him ask of God, who giveth to all
men, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask
[as a believer] in faith, nothing wavering ; for he that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed : for let not that
man think that he shall receive" the thing which he thus asketh. " But
whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them. For all things [commanded and pro
mised] are possible to him that believeth." He who has commanded
us to be perfect " in love, as our heavenly Father is perfect," and he
who has promised " speedily to avenge his elect, who cry to him night
and day ;" he will speedily avenge you of your grand adversary, in
dwelling sin. He will say to you, " According to thy faith, be it done
unto thee ; for he is able to do far exceedingly abundantly, far. above
all that we can ask or think, and of his fulness we may all receive grace
for grace" — we may all witness the gracious fulfilment of all the pro
mises, which he has graciously made, that by " them we might be par
takers of the Divine nature," so far as it can be communicated to
mortals in this world. You see that, with men, what you look for is
impossible : but you show yourselves believers : take God into the ac
count, and you will soon experience, that " with God all things are pos
sible." Nor forget the omnipotent Advocate whom you have with him.
Behold ! he lifts his once pierced hands, and says, " Father, sanctify
them through [thy loving] truth, that they may be perfected in love :"
and showing to you the fountain of atoning blood, and purifying water,
whence flow the streams which cleanse and gladden the hearts of be
lievers, he says, " Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name — what
soever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Ask,
then, that your joy may be full." If I try your faith by a little delay :
if I hide my face for a moment, it is only to gather you with everlasting
kindness. '• A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her
hour is come : but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remem-
bereth no more the anguish for joy. Now ye have sorrow, but I will
see you again, and your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you." In that day ye shall ask me no question, for you
shall not have my bodily presence. But my urim and thummim will
be with you ; and the " Spirit of truth will himself lead you into all
[Christian] truth."
O for a firm and lasting faith,
To credit all the Almighty oaith,
To embrace the promise of his Son,
And feel the Comforter our own !
In the meantime be not afraid to give glory to God by " believing in
hope against hope." Stagger not " at the promise [of the Father and
LAST CHECK TO ANTIXOMIANISM. . 655
the Son] through unbelief:" but trust the power and faithfulness of your
Creator and Redeemer, till your Sanctifier has fixed his abode in your
heart. Wait at mercy's door, as the lame beggar did at the beautiful
gate of the temple. " Peter fastening his eyes upon him, wkh John,
said, Look to us : and he gave heed to them, expecting to receive some
thing of them." Do so too : give heed to the Father in the Son, who
says, " Look unto me and be ye saved." Expect to receive " the one
thing now needful" for you, — a fulness of the sanctifying Spirit : and
though your patience may be tried, it shall not be disappointed. The
faith and power, which, at Peter's word, gave the poor cripple a perfect
soundness in the presence of all the wondering Jews, will give you, at
Christ's word, a perfect soundness of heart in the presence of all your
adversaries.
Faith — mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone,
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries, " It shall be done !"
Faith asks impossibilities ;
Impossibilities are given :
And I — e'en I, from sin shall cease,
Shall live on earth the life of heaven.
Faith always " works by love," — by love of desire at least ; making
us ardently pray for what we believe to be eminently desirable. Arid if
Christian perfection appears so to you, you might perhaps express your
earnest desire of it in some such words as these : — How long, Lord,
shall my soul, thy spiritual temple, be a den of thieves, or a house
of merchandise? How long shall vain thoughts profane it, as the
buyers and sellers profaned thy temple made with human hands ?
How long shall evil tempers lodge within me ? How long shall
unbelief, formality, hypocrisy, envy, hankering after sensual plea
sure, indifference to spiritual delights, and backwardness to painful or
ignominious duty, harbour there? How long shall these sheep and
doves, yea, these goats and serpents, defile my breast, which should be
pure as the holy of holies ? How long shall they hinder me from being
one of the worshippers whom thou seekest, — one of those who worship
thee in spirit and in truth ? O help me to take away these cages of
unclean birds. " Suddenly come to thy temple." Turn out all that
offends the eyes of thy purity ; and destroy all that keeps me out of
" the rest which remains for thy Christian people :" so shall I keep a
Spiritual Sabbath, — a Christian jubilee to the God of my life. So shall
I witness my share in the oil of joy with which thou anointest perfect
Christians above their fellow believers ; I stand in need of that oil,
Lord : my lamp burns dim : sometimes it seems to be even gone out, as
that of the foolish virgins ; it is more like " a smoking flax" than " a
burning and shining light." O! quench it not: raise it to a flame.
Thou knowest that I do believe in thee. The trembling hand of my
faith holds thee ; and though I have ten thousand times grieved thy
pardoning love, thine everlasting arm is still under me, to redeem my
life from destruction ; while thy right hand is over me, to crown me with
mercies and loving kindness. But, alas ! I am neither sufficiently
thankful for thy present mercies, nor sufficiently athirst for thy future
%vours. Hence I feel an aching void in my soul, being conscious that
656 LAST CHECK TO A
I have not attained the heights of grace described in thy word, and
enjoyed by thy holiest servants. Their deep experiences, the diligence
and ardour with which they did thy will ; the patience and fortitude
with which they endured the cross, reproach me, and convince me of
my manifold wants. I want " power from on high ;" I want the pene
trating, lasting "unction of the Holy One." I want to have my vessel
(my capacious heart) full of oil, which makes the countenance of wise
virgins cheerful. I want a lamp of heavenly illumination, and a fire of
Divine love, burning day and night in my breast, as the typical lamps
did in the temple, and the sacred fire on the altar ; I want a full appli
cation of the blood which cleanses from all sin, and a strong faith in thy
sanctifying word, — a faith by which thou mayest dwell in my heart, as
the unwavering hope of glory, and the fixed object of my love. I want
the internal oracle, — thy still, small voice, together with urim and thum-
mim,* — " the new name which none knoweth but he that receiveth it."
In a word, Lord, I want a plenitude of thy Spirit, the full promise of the
Father, arid the rivers which flow from the inmost souls of the believers,
who have gone on to the perfection of their dispensation. I do believe
that thou canst and wilt thus " baptize me with the Holy Ghost and with
fire :" help my unbelief: confirm and increase my faith, with regard to
this important baptism. Lord, I have need to be thus baptized of thee, and
I am straitened till this baptism is accomplished. By thy baptisms of tears
in the manger — of water in Jordan — of sweat in Gethsemane — of blood,
and fire, and vapour of smoke, and flaming wrath on Calvary, baptize—
O, baptize my soul, and make as full an end of the original sin which I
have from Adam, as thy last baptism made of the likeness of sinful
flesh, which thou hadst from a daughter of Eve. Some of thy people
look at death for full salvation from sin ; but, at thy command, Lord,
I look unto thee. " Say to my soul, / am thy salvation:" and let me
feel with my heart, as well as see with my understanding, that thou
canst save from sin to the uttermost, oil that come to God through thcc. I
am tired of forms, professions, and orthodox notions ; so far as they are
not pipes or channels to convey life, light, and love to my dead, dark,
and stony heart. Neither the plain letter of thy Gospel, nor the sweet
foretastes and transient illuminations of thy Spirit, can satisfy the large
desires of my faith. Give me thine abiding Spirit, that he may continually
shed abroad thy love in my soul. Come, O Lord, with "that blessed
Spirit : come thou, and thy Father, in that holy Comforter, — come to
make your abode with me ; or I shall go meekly mourning to my grave.
Blessed mourning ! Lord, increase it. I had rather wait in tears for
thy fulness than wantonly waste the fragments of thy spiritual bounties,
or feed with Laodicean contentment upon the tainted manna of my
former experiences. Righteous Father, " I hunger and thirst after thy
righteousness :" send thy Holy Spirit of promise to fill me therewith, to
sanctify me throughout, and to " seal me centrally to the day of eternal
redemption" arid finished salvation. " Not for works of righteousness
which I have done, but of thy mercy," for Christ's sake, « save thou mo
by the complete washing of regeneration, and the full renewing of the
Holy Ghost." And in order to this, pour out of thy Spirit ; shed it
* Two Hebrew words, which mean lights and perfections.
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 657
abundantly on me till the fountain of living water abundantly spring up
in my soul, and I can say, in the full sense of the words, that thou
" livest in me, that my life is hid with thee in God, and that my spirit is
returned to him that gave it ; to thee, the first and the last, — my author
and my end, — my God and my all !"
SECTION XX.
An address to perfect Christians.
YE have not sung the preceding hymns in vain, O ye men of God,
who have mixed faith with your evangelical requests. The God, who
says, " Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it ;" the gracious God who
declares, " Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness, for they
shall be filled;" that faithful, covenant-keeping God has now filled you
with all " righteousness, peace, and joy in believing." The brightness
of Christ's appearing has destroyed the indwelling " man of sin." He
who had slain the lion and the bear (he who had already done so great
things for you) has now crowned all his blessings by slaying the Goliath
within. Aspiring, unbelieving self is fallen before the victorious Son
of David. " The quick and powerful word of God, which is sharper
than any two-edged sword, has pierced even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit." The carnal mind-is cut off: the circumcision of the heart,
through the Spirit, has fully taken place in your breasts ; and now
** that mind is in you which was also in Christ Jesus ; ye are spiritually
minded :" loving God with all your heart, and your neighbour as your
selves, " ye are full of goodness, ye keep the commandments," ye observe
tJie law of liberty, ye fulfil the law of Christ. Of him ye have
" learned to be meek and lowly in heart." Ye have fully " taken his
yoke upon you ;" in so doing ye have found a sweet, abiding rest unto
your souls ; and from blessed experience ye can say, " Christ's yoke is
easy, and his burden is light. His ways are ways of pleasantness, and
all his paths are peace. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and
truth, unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies." The
beatitudes are sensibly yours : and the charity, described by St. Paul,
has the same place in your breasts which the tables of the law had in
the ark of the covenant. Ye are the living temples of the trinity : the
Father is your life ; the Son your light ; the Spirit your love ; ye are
truly baptized into the mystery of God, ye continue to " drink into one
spirit," and thus ye enjoy the grace of both sacraments. There is an
end of your Lo here ! and Lo there ! The kingdom of God is now-
established within you. Christ's " righteousness, peace, and joy" are
rooted in your breasts " by the Holy Ghost given unto you," as an
abiding guide, and indwelling comforter. Your introverted eye of faith
looks at God, who gently " guides you with his eye" into all the truth
necessary to make you " do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with
your God." Simplicity of intention keeps darkness out of your mind,
and purity of affection keeps wrong fires out of your breast : by the
former, ye are without guile ; by the latter, ye are without envy. Your
VOL. II. 42
058 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
passive will instantly melts into the will of God ; and on all occasions
you meekly say, " Not my will, O Father, but thine be done '" Thus
ye are always ready to suffer what you are called to suffer. Your
active will evermore says, " Speak, Lord ; thy servant heareth : what
wouldst thou have me to do ? It is my meat and drink to do the will of
my heavenly Father !" Thus are ye always ready to do whatsoever ye
are convinced that God calls you to do ; arid " whatsoever ye do, whe
ther ye eat, or drink, or do any thing else, ye do all to the glory of God,
and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ; rejoicing evermore ; praying
without ceasing ; in every thing giving thanks ;" solemnly looking for
and hasting unto the hour of your dissolution, and the " day of God,
wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved," and your soul,
being clothed with a celestial body, shall be able to do celestial services
to the God of your life.
In this blessed state of Christian perfection the holy " anointing,
which ye have received of him, abideth in you, and ye need not that
any man teach you, unless it be as the same anointing teacheth."
Agreeably, therefore, to that anointing, which teaches by a variety of
means, which formerly taught a prophet by an ass, and daily instructs
God's children by the ant, I shall venture to set before you some impor
tant directions which the Holy Ghost has already suggested to your
pure minds : " for I would not be negligent to put you in remembrance
of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present
truth. Yea, I think it meet to stir you up, by putting you in remem
brance," and giving you some hints, which it is safe for you frequently
to meditate upon.
I. Adam, ye know, lost his human perfection in paradise ; Satan lost
his angelic perfection in heaven ; the devil thrust sore at Christ in the
wilderness, to throw him down from his mediatorial perfection : and St.
Paul, in the same epistles where he professes not only Christian, but
apostolic perfection also, (Phil, iii, 15; 1 Cor. ii, 6 ; 2 Cor. xii, 11,)
informs us that he continued to " run for the crown of heavenly perfec
tion" like a man who might not only lose his crowrn of Christian per
fection, but become a reprobate, and be cast away, 1 Cor. ix, 25, 27.
And, therefore, "so run ye also, that no man take your crown" of
Christian perfection in this world, and that ye may obtain your crown
of angelic perfection in the world to come. Still keep your body
under. Still guard your senses. Still watch your own heart, and,
" steadfast in the faith, still resist the devil that he may flee from
you ;" remembering that if Christ himself, as Son of man, had con
ferred with flesh and blood, refused to deny himself, and avoided taking
up his cross, he had lost his perfection, and sealed up our original
apostasy.
" We do riot find," says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account of Chris
tian Perfection, " any general state described in Scripture, from which
a man cannot draw back to sin. If there were any state wherein this
is impossible, it would be that of those who are sanctified, who are
fathers in Christ, who ' rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in
every thing give thanks.' But it is not impossible for these to draw
back. They who are sanctified may yet fall and perish, Heb. x, 29.
Even « fathers in Christ' need that warning, * Love not the world '
LAST CHECK TO ANTOOMIANISM. 659
1 John ii, 15. They who 'rejoice, pray, and give thanks without
ceasing,' may nevertheless 'quench the Spirit,' 1 Thess. v, 16, &c.
Nay, even they who are ' sealed unto the day of redemption,' may yet
'grieve the Holy Spirit of God,' Eph. v, 30."*
The doctrine of the absolute perseverance of the saints is the first
card which the devil played against man : — " Ye shall not surely die, if
ye break the law of your perfection." This fatal card won the game.
Mankind and paradise were lost. The artful serpent had too well suc
ceeded at his first game to forget that lucky card at his second. See
him " transforming himself into an angel of light on the pinnacle of the
temple." There he plays over again his old game against the Son of
God. Out of the Bible he pulls the very card which won our first
parents, and swept the stake — paradise — yea, swept it with the besom
of destruction : — " Cast thyself down," says he, " for it is written, [that
all things shall work together for thy good, thy very falls not excepted,]
he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they
shall bear tJiee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."
The tempter (thanks be to Christ !) lost the game at that time, but he
did not lose his card : and it is probable that he will play it round against
you all only with some variation. Let me mention one among a thou
sand : — He promised our Lord that God's " angels should bear him up
in their hands, if he threw himself down ;" and it is not unlikely that he
will promise you greater things still. Nor should I wonder if he was
bold enough to hint, that when you cast yourselves down, " God himself
shall bear you up in his HANDS, yea, in his ARMS of everlasting love."
O ye men of God, learn wisdom by the fall of Adam. O ye anointed
sons of the Most High, learn watchfulness by the conduct of Christ.
If he was afraid to " tempt the Lord his God," will ye dare to do it ?
If he rejected, as poison, the hook of the absolute perseverance of the
saints, though it was baited with Scripture, will ye swallow it down as if
it were " honey out of the rock of ages ?" No : "through faith in Christ,
the Scriptures have made you wise unto salvation :" you will not only
flee with all speed from evil, but from the very appearance of evil : and
when you stand on the brink of a temptation, far from " entering into it,"
under any pretence whatever, ye will leap back into the bosom of him
who says, " Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; for though
the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak." I grant that, evangelically
speaking, " the weakness of the flesh" is not sin ; but yet the " deceit-
fulness of sin" creeps in at this door : and in this way not a few of
God's children, " after they had escaped the pollutions of the world,
through the" sanctifying knowledge of Christ, under plausible pretences,
' have been entangled again therein and overcome." Let their falls
* We do not hereby deny that some believers have a testimony in their own
breasts that they shall not finally fall from God. " They may have it," says
Mr. Wesley, in the same tract, " and this persuasion that ' neither life nor death
shall separate them from God,' far from being hurtful, may in some circum
stances be extremely useful." But wherever this testimony is Divine, it is
attended with that grace which inseparably connects holiness and good works,
the means, with perseverance and eternal salvation, the end : and, in this respect,
our doctrine widely differs from that of the Calvinists, who break the necessary
connection between holiness and infallible salvation, by making room for the
foulest fal^s — for adultery, murder and incest.
660 LAST CHECK TO AJfTIXOMIANISM.
make you cautious. Ye have " put on the whole armour of God ;"
O keep it on, and use it " with all prayer," that ye may to the last
*« stand complete in Christ, and be more than conquerors through him
that has loved you."
II. Remember that " every one who is perfect shall be as his Master."
Now if your Master was tempted and assaulted to the last ; if to the last
he watched and prayed, using all the means of grace himself, and en-
forcing the use of them upon others ; if to the last he fought against the
world, the flesh, and the devil, and did not " put off the harness" till he
had put off the body ; think not yourselves above him ; but " go and do
likewise." If he did not regain paradise, without going through the
most complete renunciation of all the good things of this world, and
without meekly submitting to the severe stroke of his last enemy, death,
be content to be " perfect as he was :" nor fancy that your flesh and
blood can inherit the celestial kingdom of God, when the flesh and blood
which Emmanuel himself assumed from a pure virgin, could not inherit
it without passing under the cherub's flaming sword : I mean, without
going through the gates of death.
III. Ye are not complete in wisdom. Perfect love does not imply
perfect knowledge ; but perfect humility, and perfect readiness to receive
instruction. Remember, therefore, that if ever ye show that ye are
above being instructed, even by a fisherman who teaches according to
the Divine anointing, ye will show that ye are fallen from a perfection
of humility into a perfection of pride.
IV. Do not confound angelical with Christian perfection. Unin
terrupted transports of praise, and ceaseless raptures of joy, do not
belong to Christian, but to angelical perfection. Our feeble frame can
bear but a few drops of that glorious cup. In general, that new wine is
too strong for our old bottles ; that power is too excellent for our earthen,
cracked vessels ; but weak as they are, they can bear a fulness of meek-
ness, of resignation, of humility, and of that love which is willing to
" obey unto death." If God indulge you with ecstacies, and extra
ordinary revelations, be thankful for them : but be " not exalted above
measure by them ;" take care lest enthusiastic delusions mix themselves
with them ; and remember that your Christian perfection does not so
much consist in " building a tabernacle" upon Mount Tabor, to rest and
enjoy rare sights there, as in resolutely taking up the cross, and fol
lowing Christ to the palace of a proud Caiaphas, to the judgment hall
of an unjust Pilate, and to the top of an ignominious Calvary. Ye never
read in your Bibles, " Let that glory be upon you which was also upon
St. Stephen, when he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and said, Be
hold ! I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right
hand of God." But ye have frequently read there, " Let this mind be
in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who made himself of no reputa
tion, took upon him the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as
a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross."
See him on that ignominious gibbet ! He hangs — abandoned by his
friends — surrounded by his foes — condemned by the rich — insulted by
the poor ! He hangs — " a worm and no man — a very scorn of men, and
the. outcast of the people ! All that see him laugh him to scorn ! They
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANIS3I. 661
ehoot out their lips and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God,
that he would deliver him ; let him deliver him, if he will have him /"
There is none to help him : one of his apostles denies, another sells
him ; and the rest run away. " Many oxen are come about him : fat
bulls of Bashan close him on every side ; they gape upon him with their
mouths as it were a ramping lion ; he is poured out like water ; his
heart in the midst of his body is like melting wax ; his strength is dried
up like a potsherd ; his tongue cleaveth to his gums ; he is going into
the dust of death ; many dogs are come about him ; and the counsel of
the wicked layeth siege against him ; his hands and feet are pierced ;
you may tell all his bones ; they stand staring and looking upon him ;
they part his garments among them, and cast lots for the only remains
of his property, his plain, seamless vesture. Both suns, the visible and
the invisible, seem eclisped. No cheering beam of created light gilds
his gloomy prospect. No smile of his heavenly Father supports his
agonizing soul ! No cordial, unless it be vinegar and gall, revives his
sinking spirits ! He has nothing left except his God. But his God is
enough for him. In his God he has all things. And though his soul is
seized with sorrow, even unto death, yet it hangs more firmly upon his
God by a naked faith, than his lacerated body does on the cross by the
clenched nails. The perfection of his love shines in all its Christian
glory. He not only forgives his insulting foes and bloody persecutors,
but, in the highest point of his passion, he forgets his own wants,
and thirsts after their eternal happiness. Together with his blood,
he pours out his soul for them ; and, excusing them all, he says,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." O ye adult
sons of God, in this glass behold all with open face the glory of your
Redeemer's forgiving, praying love ; and, as ye " behold it, be changed
into the same image from glory to glory, by the loving Spirit of the
Lord."
V. This lesson is deep ; but he may teach you one deeper still. By a
strong sympathy with him in all his sufferings, he may call you to " know
him every way crucified." Stern justice thunders from heaven, " Awake,
O sword, against the man who is my fellow !" The sword awakes ; the
sword goes through his soul ; the flaming sword is quenched in his
blood. But is one sinew of his perfect faith cut, one fibre of his perfect
resignation injured by the astonishing blow ? No ; his God slays him,
and yet he trusts in his God. By the noblest of all ventures, in the most
dreadful of all storms, he meekly bows his head, and shelters his depart
ing soul in the bosom of his God. " My God, my God /" says he,
"though all my comforts have forsaken me, and all thy storms and
waves go over me, yet * into thy hands I commend my spirit. For thou
wilt not leave rny soul in hell ; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to
see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life, in thy presence is
fulness of joy, and at thy right hand [where I shall soon sit] there are
pleasures for evermore.' " What a pattern of perfect confidence ! O ye
perfect Christians, be ambitious to ascend to those amazing heights of
Christ's perfection : for hereunto are ye called ; because Christ also
suffered for us ; leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps ,
who knew no sin, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he
suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth
662 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
righteously." If this is your high calling on earth, rest not, O ye fathers
in Christ, till your patient hope, and perfect confidence in God have got
their last victory over your last enemy — the king of terrors.
" The ground of a thousand mistakes," says Mr. Wesley, " is, the not
considering deeply that love is the highest gift of God, humble, gentle,
patient love: that all visions, revelations, manifestations whatever, are
little things compared to love. It were well you should be thoroughly
sensible of this ; the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher
in religion : there is, in effect, nothing else. If you look for any thing
but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of
the royal way. And when you are asking others, « Have you received
this or that blessing ?' if you mean any thing but more love, you mean
wrong ; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them upon a
false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God
has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing but more of that
love described in the thirteenth of the Corinthians. You can go no higher
than this, till you are carried into Abraham's bosom."
VI. Love is humble. « Be therefore clothed with humility," says
Mr. Wesley : " let it not only fill, but cover you all over. Let modesty
and self diffidence appear in all your words and actions. Let all you
speak and do show that you are little, and base, and mean, and vile in
your own eyes. As one instance of this, be always ready to own any
fault you have been in. If you have at any time thought, spoke, or
acted wrong, be not backward to acknowledge it. Never dream that
this will hurt the cause of God : no, it will farther it. Be therefore
open and frank when you are taxed with any thing : let it appear just as
it is ; and you will thereby not hinder, but adorn the Gospel." Why
should ye be more backward in acknowledging your failings, than in
confessing that ye do not pretend to infallibility ? St. Paul was perfect
in the love which casts out fear, and therefore he boldly reproved the
high priest : but when he had reproved him more sharply than the fifth
commandment allows, he directly confessed his mistake, and set his seal
to the importance of the duty, in which he had been inadvertently wanting.
Then Paul said, " I knew not, brethren, that he was the high priest : for
it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." St.
John was perfect in the courteous, humble love which brings us down
at the feet of all. His courtesy, his humility, and the dazzling glory
which beamed forth from a divine messenger (whom he apprehended to
be more than a creature) betrayed him into a fault contrary to that of
St. Paul : but, far from concealing it, he openly confessed it, and pub-
lished his confession for the edification of all the Churches : " When I
had heard and seen," says he, " I fell down to worship before the feet
of the angel who showed me these things. Then saith he unto me,
See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant." Christian perfection
shines as much in the childlike simplicity with which the perfect readily
acknowledge their faults, as it does in the manly steadiness with which
they " resist unto blood, striving against sin."
VII. If humble love makes us frankly confess our faults, much more
does it incline us to own ourselves sinners, miserable sinners before that
God whom we have so frequently offended. I need not remind you
that your "bodies are dead because of sin." You see, you feel it, and
LAST CHECK TO A-NTIXOMIANISM
therefore, so long as you dwell in a prison of flesh and blood, which
death, the avenger of sin, is to pull down ; so long as your final justifica
tion, as pardoned and sanctified sinners, has not taken place : yea, so
long as you break the law of paradisiacal perfection, under which you
were originally placed, it is meet, right, and your bounden duty to
consider yourselves as sinners, who, as transgressors of the law of
innocence and the law of liberty, are guilty of death, — of eternal death.
St. Paul did so after he was " come to Mount Sion, and to the spirits of
just men made perfect." He still looked upon himself as the chief of
sinners, because he had been a daring blasphemer of Christ, and a fierce
persecutor of his people. " Christ," says he, " came to save sinners, of
whom I am chief." The reason is plain. Matter of fact is, and will be
matter of fact to all eternity. According to the doctrines of grace and
justice, and before the throne of God's mercy and holiness, a sinner
pardoned and sanctified must, in the very nature of things, be considered
as a sinner ; for if you consider him as a saint absolutely abstracted
from the character of a sinner, how can he be a pardoned and sanctified
sinner? To all eternity, therefore, but much more while death (the
wages of sin) is at your heels, and while ye are going to " appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, to receive" your final sentence of absolution
or condemnation, it will become you to say with St. Paul, " We have all
sinned, and come short of the glory of God ; being justified freely [as
sinners] by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ ;"
although we are justified JUDICIALLY as believers, through faith ; as
obedient believers, through the obedience of faith ; and as perfect Chris-
tians, through Christian perfection.
VIII. Humble love " becomes all things [but sin] to all men," although
it delights most in those who are most holy. Ye may, and ought to set
your love of peculiar complacence upon God's dearest children ; upon
" those who excel in virtue ;" because they more strongly reflect tht
image of " the God of love, the Holy One of Israel." But, if ye despise
the weak, and are above lending them a helping hand, ye are fallen
from Christian perfection, which teaches us to " bear one another's
burdens," especially the burdens of the weak. Imitate then the tender,
ness and wisdom of the good Shepherd, who " carries the lambs in his
bosom, gently leads the sheep which are big with young," feeds with
milk those who cannot bear strong meat, and says to his imperfect
disciples, " I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them
now."
IX. " Where the loving Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Keep
therefore at the utmost distance from the shackles of a narrow, preju
diced, bigoted spirit. The moment ye confine your love to the people
who think just as you do, and your regard to the preachers who exactly
suit your taste, you fall from perfection and turn bigots. " I entreat
you," says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account, " beware of bigotry. Let
not your love, or beneficence, be confined to Methodists (so called) only ;
much less to that very small part of them who seem to be renewed in
love ; or to those who believe yours and their report. O make not this
your Shibboleth." On the contrary, as ye have time and ability, " do
good to all men." Let your benevolence shine upon all : let your
charity send its cherishing beams toward all, in proper degrees. So
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
shall ye be perfect as your heavenly Father, " who makes his sun to
shine upon all ;" although he sends the brightest and warmest beams of
his favour upon " the household of faith," and reserves his richest
bounties for those who lay out their five talents to the best advantage.
X. Love, pure love, is satisfied with the Supreme Good — with GOD.
" Beware then of desiring any thing but him. Now you desire nothing
else. Every other desire is driven out : see that none enter in again.
4 Keep thyself pure : let your eye remain single, and your whole body
shall remain full of light.' Admit no desire of pleasing food, or any
other pleasure of sense ; no desire of pleasing the eye or imagination ;
no desire of money, of praise, or esteem ; of happiness in any creature.
\ ou may bring these desires back ; but ye need not ; you may feel them
no more. « O stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
you free !' Be patterns to all, of denying yourselves, and taking up
your cross daily. Let them see that you make no account of any
pleasure which does not bring you nearer to God, nor regard any pain
which does ; that you simply aim at pleasing him, whether by doing or
suffering ; that the constant language of your heart with regard to
pleasure or pain, honour or dishonour, is,
All 's alike to me, so I
In my Lord may live and die !"
XI. The best soldiers are sent upon the most difficult and dangerous
expeditions : and as you are the best soldiers of Jesus Christ, ye will
probably be called to drink deepest of his cup, and to carry the heaviest
burdens. " Expect contradiction and opposition," says the judicious
divine, whom I have just quoted, " together with crosses of various kinds.
Consider the words of St. Paul, « To you it is given in behalf of Christ,'
for his sake, as a fruit of his death and intercession for you, * not only
to believe, but also to suffer for his sake,' Phil, i, 23. It is given ! God
gives you this opposition or reproach : it is a fresh token of his love.
And will you disown the giver ? Or spurn his gift, and count it a misfor
tune ? Will you not rather say, < Father, the hour is come, that thou
shouldst be glorified. Now thou givest thy child to suffer something for
thee. Do with me according to thy will.' Know that these things, far
from being hinderances to the work of God, or to your souls, unless by
your own fault, are not only unavoidable in the course of Providence,
but profitable, yea, necessary for you. Therefore receive them from
God (not from chance) with willingness and thankfulness. Receive
them from men with humility, meekness, yieldingness, gentleness,
sweetness."
Love can never do, nor suffer too much for its Divine object. Be
then ambitious, like St. Paul, to be made perfect in sufferings. I have
already observed that the apostle, not satisfied to be a perfect Christian,
would also be a perfect martyr ; earnestly desiring to " know the fellow
ship of Christ's sufferings." Follow him, as he followed his suffering,
crucified Lord. Your feet " are shod with the preparation of the Gos
pel of peace ;" run after them both, in the race of obedience, for the
crown of martyrdom, if that crown is reserved for you. And if ye miss
the crown of those who are martyrs in deed, ye shall, however, receive
the reward of those who are martyrs in intention — the crown of right.
eousness and angelical perfection.
LAST CHECK TO AXTINOMIAXISM. 665
XII. But do not so desire to follow Christ to the garden of Gethsemane,
as to refuse following him now to the carpenter's shop, if Providence
now call you to it. Do not lose the present day by idly looking back at
yesterday, or foolishly antedating the cares of to-morrow : but wisely use
every hour ; spending it as one who stands on the verge of time, on the
border of eternity, and one who has his work cut out by a wise Provi
dence from moment to moment. Never, therefore, neglect using the two
talents you have now, and doing the duty which is now incumbent upon
you. Should ye be tempted to it, under the plausible pretence of wait-
ing for a great number of talents : remember that God doubles our talents
in the way of duty, and that it is a maxim, advanced by Elisha Coles
himself, " Use grace and haye [more] grace." Therefore, " to continual
watchfulness and prayer, add continual employment," says Mr. Wes
ley, " for grace flies a vacuum as well as nature ; the devil fills what
ever God does not fill." " As by works faith is made perfect, so the com
pleting or destroying of the work of faith, and enjoying the favour, or
suffering the displeasure of God, greatly depend on every single act of
obedience." If you forget this, you will hardly do now whatsoever your
hand findeth to do. Much less will you do it with all your might, for
God, for eternity.
XIII. Love is modest : it rather inclines to bashfulness and silence,
than to talkative forwardness. " In a multitude of words there wanteth
not sin ;" be therefore " slow to speak ;" nor cast your pearls before
those who cannot distinguish them from pebbles. Nevertheless, when
you are solemnly called upon to bear testimony to the truth, and to
say " what great things God has done for you ;" it would be cow
ardice, or false prudence, not to do it with humility. Be then " always
ready to give an answer to every man who [properly] asketh you a rea
son of the hope that is in you, with meekness [without fluttering anxiety]
and with' fear" [with a reverential awe of God upon your minds,] 1 Pet.
iii, 15. Perfect Christians are "burning and shining lights," and our
Lord intimates that, as " a candle is not lighted to be put under a bushel,
but upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all the house ;" so God
does not light the candle of perfect love to hide it in a corner, but to
give light to all those who are within the reach of its brightness. If
diamonds glitter, if stars shine, if flowers display their colours, and
perfumes diffuse their fragrance, to the honour of the Father of lights,
and Author of every good gift ; if without self seeking they disclose his
glory to the utmost of their power, why should " ye not go and do like
wise ?" Gold answers its most valuable end when it is brought to light,
and made to circulate for charitable and pious uses ; and not when it
lies concealed in a miser's strong box, or in the dark bosom of a mine.
But when you lay out your spiritual gold for proper uses, beware of
imitating the vanity of those coxcombs who, as often as they are about
to pay for a trifle, pull out a handful of gold, merely to make a show of
their wealth.
XIV. Love or "charity rejoiceth in the [display of an edifying] truth."
Fact is fact, all the world over. If you can say to the glory of God, that
you are alive, and feel very well, when it is so ; why should you not also
testify to his honour, that you " live not, but that Christ liveth in you,"
if you really find that this is your experience ? Did not St. John say,
666 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
" Our love is made perfect, because as he is, so are we in this world ?"
Did not St. Paul write, " The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us,
who walk after the Spirit?" Did he not, with the same simplicity, aver,
that although " he had nothing, and was sorrowful, yet he possessed all
things, and was always rejoicing ?"
Hence it appears, that, with respect to the declaring or concealing what
God has done for your soul, the line of your duty runs exactly between
the proud forwardness of some stiff' Pharisees, and the voluntary humility
of some stiff mystics. The former vainly boast of more than they ex.
perience, and thus set up the cursed idol, SELF : the latter ungratefully
hide "the wonderful works of God," which the primitive Christians
spoke of publicly in a variety of languages ; and so refuse to exalt their
gracious benefactor, CHRIST. The first error is undoubtedly more
odious than the second ; but what need is there of leaning to either ?
Would ye avoid them both ? Let your tempers and lives always de
clare that perfect love is attainable in this life. And when you have
a proper call to declare it with your lips and pens, do it without for
wardness, to the glory of God ; do it with simplicity, for the edification
of your neighbour ; do it with godly jealousy, lest ye should show the
treasures of Divine grace in your hearts, with the same self complacence
with which King Hezekiah showed his treasures, and the golden vessels
of the temple to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon, remembering
what a dreadful curse this piece of vanity pulled down upon him : " And
Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord, Behold the days
come, that all that is in thine house shall be carried into Babylon :
nothing shall be left, saith the Lord." If God so severely punished
Hezekiah's pride, how properly does St. Peter charge believers to " give
with fear an account of the grace which is in them !" and how careful
should ye be to observe this important charge !
XV. If you will keep at the utmost distance from the vanity which
proved so fatal to good King Hezekiah, follow an excellent direction of
Mr. Wesley. When you have done any thing for God, or received any
favour from him, retire, if not into your closet, into your heart, and say,
" I come, Lord, to restore to thee what thou hast given, and I freely
relinquish it, to enter again into my own nothingness. For what is the
most perfect creature in heaven or earth in thy presence, but a void,
capable of being filled with thee and by thee, as the air which is void
and dark, is capable of being filled with the light of the sun ? Grant
therefore, O Lord, that I may never appropriate thy grace to myself,
any more than the air appropriates to itself the light of the sun which
withdraws it every day to restore it the next ; there being nothing in
the air that either appropriates his light or resists it. O give me the
same facility of receiving and restoring thy grace and good works ! I
say thine, for I acknowledge that the root from which they spring is in
thee, and not in me." " The true means to be filled anew with the
riches of grace, is thus to strip ourselves of it ; without this it is ex
tremely difficult not to faint in the practice of good works." " And,
therefore, that your good works may receive their last perfection, let
them lose themselves in God. This is a kind of death to them, resem
bling that of our bodies, which will not attain their highest life, their
immortality, till they lose themselves in the glory of our souls, or rathei
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMINAISM. 607
of God, wherewith they shall be filled. And it is only what they had
of earthly and mortal, which good works lose by this spiritual death."
XVI. Would ye see this deep precept put in practice ? Consider St.
Paul. Already possessed of Christian perfection, he does good works
from morning till night. He warns every one night and day with tears.
He carries the Gospel from east to west. Wherever he stops, he plants
a Church at the hazard of his life. But instead of resting in his present
perfection, and in the good works which spring from it, " he grows in
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" unweariedly
" following after, if that he may apprehend that [perfection] for which
also he is apprehended of Christ Jesus," — that celestial perfection, of
which he got lively ideas when he was " caught up to the third heaven,
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter."
With what amazing ardour does he run his race of Christian perfection
for the prize of that higher perfection ! How does he forget the works
of yesterday, when he lays himself out for God to-day ! " Though dead,
he yet speaketh ;" nor can an address to perfect Christians be closed by
a more proper speech than his. " Brethren," says he, " be followers of
me — I count not myself to have apprehended [my evangelical perfec
tion ;] but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
[settling in none of my former experiences, resting in none of my good
works,] and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press
toward the mark for the [celestial] prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded ;
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this
unto you." In the meantime you may sing the following hymn of the
Rev. Mr. Charles Wesley, which is descriptive of the destruction of
corrupt self will, and expressive of the absolute resignation which cha
racterizes a perfect believer : —
To do, or not to do ; to have,
Or not to have, I leave to thee :
To be or not to be, I leave :
Thy only will be done in me !
All my requests are lost in one,
"Father, thy only will be done !"
Suffice that for the season past,
Myself in things Divine I sought;
For comforts cried with eager haste,
And murmur'd that I found them not
I leave it now to thee alone,
Father, thy only will be done !
Thy gifts I clamour for no more,
Or selfishly thy grace require,
An evil heart to varnish o'er:
JESUS, the giver, I desire,
After the flesh no longer known :
Father, thy only will be done !
Welcome alike the crown or cross,
Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace,
Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss,
Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease,
Nor life, nor death ; but ever groan,
" Father, thy only will be done !"
608 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.
This hymn suits all the believers who are at the bottom of Mount
Siou, and begin to join " the spirits of just men made perfect." But
when the triumphal chariot of perfect love gloriously carries you to the
top of perfection's hill ; when you are raised far above the common
heights of the perfect ; when you are almost translated into glory, like
Elijah, then you may sing another hymn of the same Christian poet,
with the Rev. Mr. Madan, and the numerous body of imperfectionists
who use his collection of Psalms, &c : —
Who in Jesus confide,
They are bold to outride
All the storms of affliction beneath :
With the prophet they soar
To that heavenly shore,
And outfly all the arrows of death.
By faith we are come
To our permanent home ;
And by hope we the rapture improve :
By love we still rise,
And look down on the skies —
For the heaven of heavens is love !
Who on earth can conceive,
How happy we live
In the city of God, the great King ? ,
What a concert of praise,
When our Jesus's grace
The whole heavenly company sing !
What a rapturous song,
When the glorified throng
In the spirit of harmony join !
Join all the glad choirs,
Hearts, voices, and lyres,
And the burden is mercy Divine !
But when you cannot follow Mr. Madan, and the imperfectionists oi
the Lock Chapel, to those rapturous heights of perfection, you neea not
give up your shield. You may still rank among the perfect, if you can
heartily join in this version of Psalm cxxxi : —
Lord, thou dost the grace impart !
Poor in spirit, meek in heart,
I shall as my Master be,
Rooted in humility.
Now, dear Lord, that thee I know,
Nothing will I seek below,
Aim at nothing great or high,
Lowly both in heart and eye.
Simple, teachable, and mild,
Awed into a little child,
Quiet now without my food,
Wean'd from every creature good.
Hangs my new-born soul on thee,
Kept from all idolatry ;
Nothing wants beneath, above,
Resting in thy perfect love.
That your earthen vessels may be filled with this love till they break,
LAST CHECK TO AXTIXOMIANISM. 6G9
and you enjoy the Divine object of your faith without an interposing veil
of gross flesh and blood, is the wish of one who sincerely praises God
on vour account, and ardently prays, —
" Make up thy Jewels, Lord, and show
The glorious, spotless Church below :
The fellowship of saints make known;
And O ! my God, might I be one !
O might my lot be cast with these,
The least of Jesus' witnesses !
O that my Lord would count me meet,
To wash his dear disciples' feet !
To wait upon his saints below !
On Gospel errands for them go !
Enjoy the grace to angels given ;
And serve the royal heirs of heaven I"
END OF VOL.
Fletcher, John William
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