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 “ineluctabilis 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 principles, the mischievous absurdity of that spreading doctrine, in an Answer to Mr. Toplady's Vindication of the Decrees. But as he has lately published a book entitled, "The scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity, asserted in opposition to Mr. J. Wesley'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. Therefore, 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 detestable 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. Toplady's own words.

Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity, (pages 18, 14:) "If we distinguish accurately, this seems to have been the order in which 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 sins, 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 offspring 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 necessitation, his impelling providence? And (horrible to think!) does it not unavoidably follow, that the monster SIN is the offspring of God's providence, of God's necessitation, 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 of God, rather than the work of the devil? And when preachers

* Mr. T. puts this clause in Latin: Velut unda impellitur unda. VOL. II.

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attack sin, do they not attack God's providence, God's necessitation, God's creation, God's decree, God's will, and God 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 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, unnecessitated 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 hang 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? Who can refuse to exculpate and pity the reprobates, whom all-impelling omnipotence 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? 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 necessitation, 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!" "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-man'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

mediums of recruit, he has recourse to them as freely (that is, as voluntarily, 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 necessitation, 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 them 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?

If you ask, "Where is the flaw of Mr. Toplady's argumentative illustration?" I answer, It has two capital defects: (1.) That God's will, his decree, and his providence, impel 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, impelled 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 necessitates 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. says, (page 13,) "We call that necessary which cannot be otherwise than it

Now Mr. Wesley's eating when he is hungry is by no means Calvinistically necessary: for he has a hundred times reversed the decree of his hunger by fasting; and if he were put to the sad alternative 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 preservation. 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 imperceptibly 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.