if not to a greater extent than hath been ftated, were the doctrine of Calvin himself, is a pofition, to which his own writings bear unquestionable teftimony: nor hath a fyllable been here advanced, which thofe writings do not expressly warrant. The auftere and rigor ous character of the doctrine, (I wish to speak of it in the most unexceptionable and inoffenfive terms,) and its tendency withal to fofter the most dangerous wickednefs, moft dangerous, because connected with an erroneous principle, may have alarmed the more timid of his profeffed followers; and have deterred them from adopting it with all its frightful confequences, however neceffarily they may refult from his fundamental tenets. There have not however been wanting thofe among his difciples, both in earlier and in recent times, who have been hardy enough to employ fuch language, as will fully justify us, not only in declining to propagate, but in deprecating the propagation of, tenets fo preposterous in themselves, and of fuch manifest injury to the cause of pure religion. Such was the cafe at the period of the Reformation, when, as a late learned Divine remarks, "Calvinifm “prevailed among a few Gofpellers, who "drew confequences from it, which Calvin "would willingly have guarded against ; but he had laid down the premifes; and not

"withstanding he ftopped there, and would "have perfuaded others to do the fame, yet "the corrupt hearts of these men boldly drew "the conclufion for him "." Such alfo was the cafe in the time of Charles the Firft; and fuch it is in the prefent time °.

?

What, for instance, fhall we fay of the flagrant Antinomian tendency of those expres fions, wherein a living Minister of. our Church, of great and extenfive popularity, afferts the doctrines of unconditional election and irrefiftible grace "Wisdom crieth aloud, not in "the temple only, and in the courts of the "Lord's houfe, but in the streets and the lanes "of the city, among the graceless and the "idle; thofe who are too graceless to attend "the ordinances of duty, and too idle to be "concerned for their falvation. And when "Jefus calls, obferve who they are he calls, "He fays, If any man thirst-if any man hear my voice: he doth not fay, If any good

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man, or any moral man; but any man. As

" Winchester on the Seventeenth Article, chap. 4.

The Author has thought it neceffary to bring forward at fome length the principal Calvinistic tenets in the words of profeffed Calvinifts, chiefly of the present day. Should the reader find this feries of quotations irkfome, and be contented with Calvin's own reprefentation of the doctrines characterized by his name, he may pass on to page 144, where the moral tendency of the fyftem is difcuffed.

"if he had faid, I will have my offer made 66 among fuch as the world may fancy too "worthlefs to be made partakers of my falva❝tion, and too far loft to be recovered. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. The fingle qualification "I expect is to believe the Gofpel: for he "that believeth fhall be faved. And even that "belief my Spirit fhall beftow: He maketh

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my people willing in the day of his power. "All that the Father giveth me, fhall come to

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me; and him that cometh, I will in no wife "caft out. Obferve again the extensiveness, "the freedom, the fovereignty of his grace. "All that the Father giveth. Not one, or two, or ten thoufand: but ALL. And they Shall come. What, if they do fuch and "fuch duties? Not a word of the kind "What, if they perform fuch obligations? "Not a fyllable like it. It is an abfolute pro"mife of the Lord Jefus, founded in his own "abfolute power. Here are neither ifs nor "buts. No conditions, nor terms. They shall

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come and if they themselves will not, the "Lord will make them willing in the day of "his power, It is he that worketh in them "both to will and to do of his own good "pleasure."

m

Prop against all Despair, by Robert Hawker, D. D. Vicar of Charles, Plymouth, p. 15, 16.

What, again, fhall we fay of the gloomy' and unhallowed picture of reprobation, exhibited by another of our brethren, not many years deceased, and ftill commemorated by his admirers as "an eminent fervant of Chrift"," a burning and a fhining light!" Who afferts concerning the reprobate, whom he elfewhere describes as "neceffarily and inevitably "condemned to infernal death hereafter," and whofe fentence he afcribes with Calvin “not "to their foreseen fins, but to the fovereign "will and determinate pleasure of God," that "God did not barely fuffer, but pofitively in"tended and decreed them, to continue in "their natural blindness and hardness of heart;" that they are "veffels of wrath fitted to de"ftruction," or, as he interprets the language of St. Paul," put together, made up, formed, "or fashioned for perdition;" that "God "chooses and pitches upon men to do the "moft execrable deeds; and that "he does "not only negatively withhold from the wick"ed his grace, which alone can restrain them "from evil; but that occafionally, in the

See the Doctrine of Abfolute Predeftination, ftated and afferted, &c. by Auguftus Toplady, A. B. late Vicar of Broad Hembury, Devon. edit. Glasgow, 1807. pages 1c9, 110, 111, 112, 160.

Evangelical Magazine, Auguft, 1803. p. 325.

Life of Toplady, prefixed to the above work, p. xvi.

"course of his providence, he puts them into "circumftances of temptation, fuch as fhall "cause the perfons fo tempted actually to "turn afide from the path of duty to commit "fin, and to involve both themfelves and "others in evil.”

What again, with refpect to the abfolute impoffibility of the non-elect attaining to falvation, fhall we fay of that monftrous pofition, that "the fentence of God, which rejects the "reprobates, is fo fixed and immutable, that "it is impoffible they fhould be faved, though

they have performed all the works of the "faints and that therefore it is not true, that "thofe, who perish through their own fault, "might have been faved through grace, if "they had not ceafed labouring for faving "grace1?"

What again, with reference to the doctrine of the impeccability and final perfeverance of the elect, or in the phrafeology of the fyftem,

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once a faint and always a faint, once a child "of God and always a child of God;" (a doctrine, let me obferve by the way after the

* See "The Refult of Falfe Principles, or Error convict❝ed by its own Evidence, extracted from the original of "Dr. Womack, fometime Lord Bishop of St. David's." edit. 1790. p. 78. An admirable exposure of the mifchievous tendency of Calvinifm.