every one that asketh of thee; but know withal who is the good Recompenser for the reward, &e. It is therefore an excellent thing for him who learns the righteous commands of the Lord, &c, 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 all Calvinists would abhor, as they do Mr. Wesley's Minutes, if consistency 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 out 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 prevenient 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 consider 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 continuance of pardon. (2.) That the faith which is required to justification and

So far was he from Calvinian narrowness and reprobation, that when he exhorts 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 all this I see no more Calvinism than I do in Mr. Wesley's Minutes. However, Mr. Toplady's "Historic Proof" is gone forth; and it is now demonstrated that St. Clement was an orthodox and 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, 4e, 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, brethren, I write unto you concerning righteousness."

Polycarp, far from recommending the Calvinian 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 possessed 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 rightcousness, and teach ourselves in the first place to walk in the commandments 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 reward. 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 that love or repentance, which is still implied as part of the same covenant conseat, 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 prepadace 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? Are ye not as heterodox as the author of the Minutes and their Vin. dicator?

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 in 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." 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 Calvinist. 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 orthodox, I need only prove that Ignatius enforced the second Gospel axiom as well as the first. And 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 all 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, patience your whole armour, and your works your gage [your depositum] 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 for 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 Magnesians 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 unsound. Mr. Toplady depends much on the latter part of this quotation: but all we see in it is, that Ignatius believed none are actually plants of right

eousness but they who actually appear such, by actually bearing good fruit, which he calls apapros, in opposition to rotten fruit: for if the word ip means "to spoil, to corrupt, to rot," aqapros 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 sing 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 noble 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 any more to make Zelotes himself cry out, Logica Genevensis?

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 godiy, Scriptural doctrine of free grace; so far we agree with Mr. Toplady. But to prove them fathers 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 "Scripture Scales;" taking what I advance against the proper merit of works, and in defence of free grace; producing my arguments for the covenants of 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 Calvinism, 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 fifth century, before we can find Calvin the First, I mean HEATED St. Augustine. And how inconsistent a Calvinist cool St. Augustine was, has already been proved. I therefore flatter myself, that Mr. Toplady's anti-historic proof of the Calvinism of the primitive Church will no longer keep Zelotes from a Scriptural reconciliation with Honestus. But 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 fand in the following section.

(4.) We perpetually assert that God is the only first cause of all good, both natural and moral; and 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 I should have, were I to give our Lord the shameful glory of seducing Eve in the shape of a lying serpent, 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 MORAL 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, sovereignty, 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? 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 immutability, before a multitude of mistaken decretists?

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 "Hstoric Proof;" and to point out the flaw of every part.

(1.) "Arminianism paves the way for Atheism by despoiling the Divine 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 he 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