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This sophistical argument probably misled Mr. Whitefield. But the "medium" which he could not see, the medium which spoils his “inextricable 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 vindictive 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 redeeming 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 Antinomian) "propitiation for the sins of the whole world."

A third flaw in Mr. Whitefield's dilemma is the supposition that Calvinian 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 more unreasonable and unjust than to appoint millions of unborn infants to personal, conscious, unavoidable, and eternal death, through the horrible medium of a personal, unavoidable perseverance in sin; and this merely for 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

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 imputed 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 defence of Calvinian reprobation appears 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 “inextricable 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. Toplady, 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, feuished damnation for a fixed number of reprobates, all the Divine perfections (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 contains the strength of our cause with respect to the Divine perfecnons, 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, winch is over all his works,' if millions were for ever excluded from

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Zelotes' sixth objection to a reconciliation with Honestus-The reconciler answers it by showing, (1.) That the evangelical marriage of free grace and free will reflects no dishonour upon God's sovereignty. (2.) That Mr. Toplady's grand argument against that marriage is incon. clusive. (3.) That Mr. Whitefield's " inextricable dilemma," in favour of Calvinian election and reprobation, is a mere sophism. And, (4.) That Zelotes' 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 not 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? 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?' 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, embarrassment 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 i by blotting out his immutability, that they may clear the way for conditional, 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

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 broadside, 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. (1.) 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 undoubtedly 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 productive 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 shall 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 wisdom and power in the wonderful creation, wise government, and righteous judgment of free agents; and not in overpowering their will, or in destroying their free agency; much less in subverting his awful tribunal, and in obscuring all his perfections to place one of them (sovereignty) 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 contain, I add the following illustration :

If a king, wisely to try, and justly to reward the honesty of his subjects, made a statute, to insure particular rewards to thief catchers, and particular punishments to thieves; would it be any disparagement zo his wisdom, power, supremacy, and sovereignty, if he did not neces tate, 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 infallible execution, and appoint to the latter a gratuitous reward? Would ot 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 arth, maintains his righteous sovereignty by a similar conduct?..

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 was 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 majority of them? What becomes of his holiness, if, in order to condemn the 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 expostulates 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 generation? 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? 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 continue 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

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