I have answered this objection at large.

(Scripture

Scales, Vol. III. Sect. vi.) However, I shall say something upon it here.-(1.) God's perfections shine in such a manner as not to eclipse one another. Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, and Truth, are the adorable and wellproportioned features 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 to be good or wicked, by decrees of Absolute Predestination to life and heaven, or of absolute Reprobation to hell and dam- . nation.

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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 judgment:' And the moment this is granted, Mr. Toplady's argument vanishes into smoke. For, supposing that God had displayed more mercy towards 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 shewn

the wicked more mercy, by shewing them no mercy at all, (which, by the by, is a contradiction in terms,) yet, such a merciless 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 talent 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 shew himself—(i.) So inconsistent, as to rule them by efficacious 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 necessitated 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 Adum; 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 eterual

decree of Finished Damnation by Adam, and the eternal decree of Finished Salvation by 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 dismounting 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: Nevertheless, for the abovementioned 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 shewn 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 meaus 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, Mr. Toplady fixes the charge of CRUELTY upon the gospel which we preach! He goes on:

ARGUMENT LX. (p. 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."-(p. 89.) "Level therefore your tragical exclamations, about unmercifulness, at your own scheme, which truly and 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 sav. ing 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 iii. 19; Tit. ii.11.) There is no medium between condemning men for not 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 gentleman 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 minis

tration 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 wilfulness is the canse 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.

ARG. LXI. (p. 89.)—" The Arminian system represents the Father of mercies as offering grace to them, who, he knows, will only add sin to sin, and make themselves two-fold 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 he 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 Calvinian 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