latter appears to us the worse; seeing it is better to represent God as doing nothing, than to represent him as doing wickedness. The truth lies between these two opinions; God's providence is peculiarly concerned about sin, but it does by no means necessarily bring it about. By this reasonable doctrine we answer Mr. T.'s challenge, and strike out the middle way between his error, and that of Epicurus.

If you ask how far God's providence is concerned about sin, we reply, that it is concerned about it four ways. First, In MORALLY hindering the internal commission of it before it is committed. Secondly, In PROVIDENTIALLY hindering (at times) the external commission of it, when it has been intentionally committed. Thirdly, In making, bounding, and overruling it, while it is committed. And, Fourthly, In bringing about means of properly pardoning, or exemplarily punishing it, after it has been committed. Dwell we a moment upon each of these particulars.

1. Before sin is committed, Divine providence is engaged in morally hindering the internal commission of it. In order to this, God does two things: first, he forbids sin by natural, verbal, or written laws. And, secondly, he keeps up our powers of body and soul; enduing us with liberty, whereby we may abstain, like moral agents, from the commission of sin; furnishing us beside with a variety of motives and helps to resist every temptation to sin: a great variety this, which includes all God's threatenings and promises; all his exhortations and warnings; all the checks of our consciences, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit; all the counsels of good men and the exemplary punishments of the wicked, together with the tears and blood of Christ, and the other peculiar means of grace, which God has appointed to keep Christians from sin, and to strengthen them in the performance of their duty.

2. When sin is committed in the intention, God frequently prevents the outward commission, or the full completion of it, by peculiar interpositions of his providence. Thus he hindered the men of Sodom from injuring Lot, by striking them with blindness: he hindered Pharaoh from enslaving the Israelites, by drowning him in the Red Sea: he hindered Balaam from cursing Israel, by putting a bridle in his mouth: he hin dered Jeroboam from hurting the prophet who came out of Judah, by drying up his royal hand, when he stretched it forth, saying, "Lay hold on him:" he hindered Herod from destroying the holy child Jesus, by warning Joseph to flee into Egypt, &c, &c. The Scriptures, and the history of the world, are full of accounts of the ordinary and extraordinary interpositions of Divine Providence, respecting the detection of intended mischief, and the preservation of persons and states whom the wicked determined to destroy: and, to go no farther than England, the providential discovery of the gunpowder plot is as remarkable an instance as any, that God keeps a watchful eye upon the counsels of men, and confounds their devices whenever he pleases.

3. During the commission of sin, God's providence is engaged in marking it, in setting bounds to it, or in overruling it in a manner quite contrary to the expectation of sinners. When Joseph's brethren contrived the getting money by selling him into Egypt, God contrived the preservation of Jacob's household. Thus, when Haman contrived a gallows to hang Mordecai thereon, the Lord so overruled this cruel

design, that Haman was hung on that very gallows. Thus, when Satan wanted to destroy Job, God set bounds to his rage, and bid the fierce accuser spare the good man's life. That envious fiend did his worst to make the patient saint curse God to his face; but the Lord so overruled his malice, that it worked for good to Job: for when Job's patience had had its perfect work, all his misfortunes ended in double prosperity, and all his tempestuous tossings raised him to a higher degree of perfection for "the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment," 2 Pet. ii, 9. Thus, again, to preserve the seed of the righteous, God formerly kept one hundred prophets, and seven thousand true Israelites, from the cruelty of Jezebel; and, for the sake of the sincere Christians in Judea, he shortened the great tribulation spoken of, Matt. xxiv, 22. When the ungodly are most busy in sinning, God's providence is most employ. ed in counterworking their sin, in putting bounds to their desperate de signs, and in making " a way for the godly to escape out of temptation, that they may be able to bear it: for the rod of the ungodly cometh not [with its full force] into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hand unto iniquity," through such powerful and lasting temp. tations, as would make it impossible for them to stand firm in the way of duty, Psa. cxxv, 3.

4. When sin is actually committed, the providence of God, in conjunction with his mercy and justice, is employed, either in using means to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and pardon, or in inflicting upon them such punishments as seem most proper to Divine wisdom. To be convinced of it, read the history of man's redemption by Jesus Christ. Mark the various steps by which Providence brings the guilty to conviction, the penitent to pardon, the finally impenitent to destruction, and all to some degree of punishment. By what an amazing train of providential dispensations were Joseph's brethren, for instance, brought to remember, lament, and smart for their cruel behaviour to him! And how did God, by various afflictions, bring his rebellious people to consider their ways, and to humble themselves before him in the land of their captivity! What an amazing work had Divine Providence in checking and punishing the sin of Pharoah in Egypt; that of the Israelites in the wilderness; that of David and his house in Jerusalem; and that of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar in Babylon!.

Evangelically and providentially opening the way for the return of sinners, and repaying obdurate offenders to their face, make one half of God's work, as he is the gracious and righteous Governor of men. We cannot doubt it, if we take notice of the innumerable means by which conversions and punishments are brought about. To touch only upon punishments: some extend to the sea, others to the land: some spread over particular districts, others over whole kingdoms: some affect a whole family, and others a whole community: some affect the soul, and others the body: some only fall upon one limb, or one of the senses, others upon the whole animal frame, and all the senses: some affect our well being, others our being itself: some are confined to this world, and others extend to a future state: some are of a temporal, and others of an eternal nature. Now, since Providence, in subserviency to Divine justice, manages all these punishments, and their innumerable conse

quences, how mistaken is Mr. T. when he insinuates that our doctrine supposes God to be an idle spectator while sin is committed!

5. With respect to the gracious tempers of the righteous, we believe that they all flow, (though without Calvinian necessity,) from "the free gift which is come upon all men, and from the light which enlightens every man that cometh into the world." And as to their good works, we are so far from excluding Divine grace and providence, in order to exalt absolute free will, that we assert, Not one good work would ever be begun, continued, or ended, if Divine grace within us, and Divine Providence without us, did not animate our souls, support our bodies, help our infirmities, and (to use the language of our Church) "prevent, accompany, and follow us" through the whole. And yet, in all moral, and in many natural actions, we are as free from the laws of Calvinian necessity, as from those of the great mogul.

6. With regard to the families and kingdoms of this world, we assert that God's providence either baffles, controls, or sets bounds to the bad designs of the wicked; while it has the principal hand in succeeding the good designs of the righteous as often as they have any success: "for, except the Lord keep the city," as well as the watchman, "the watchman waketh but in vain." And with respect to the course of nature, we believe that it is ordered by his unerring counsel. With a view to maintain order in the universe, his providential wisdom made admirable laws of attraction, repulsion, generation, fermentation, vegetation, and dissolution. And his providential power and watchfulness are, though without either labour or anxiety, continually engaged in conducting all things according to those laws; except, when on proper occasions, he suspends the influence of his own natural decrees; and then fire may cease to burn; iron to sink in water; and hungry lions to devour their helpless prey. Nay, at the beck of Omnipotence, a widow's cruise of oil, and barrel of meal, shall be filled without the help of the olive tree, and the formality of a growing harvest; a dry rod shall suddenly blossom, and a green fig tree shall instantly be dried up; garments in daily use shall not wear out in forty years; a prophet shall live forty days without food; the liquid waves shall afford a solid walk to a believing apostle; a fish shall bring back the piece of money which it had swallowed; and water shall be turned into wine without the gradual process of vegetation.

If Mr. T. do us the justice to weigh these six observations upon the prodigious work, which God's providence carries on in the moral, spiritual, and natural world, according to our doctrine; we hope he will no more intimate that we Atheistically deny, or heretically defame that Divine attribute.

To conclude: we exactly steer our course between rigid free willers, who suppose they are independent on God's providence; and rigid bound willers, who fancy they do nothing but what fate or God's providence absolutely binds them to do. We equally detest the error of Epicurus, and that of Mr. Toplady. The former taught that God took no notice of sin, the latter says that God, by efficacious permissions and irresistible decrees, absolutely necessitates men to commit it. But we maintain that although God never absolutely necessitated his creatures to sin, yet his providence is remarkably employed about sin, in all the above.

described ways. And if Mr. Toplady will call us defamers of Divine Providence, and Atheists, because we dare not represent God directly or indirectly as the author of sin; we rejoice in so honourable a reproach, and humbly trust that this, as well as all manner of similar evil, is rashly said of us for righteousness' sake.

SECTION XII.

Some encouragements for those who, from a principle of conscience, bear their testimony against the Antinomian doctrine of Calvinian election, and the barbarous doctrine of Calvinian reprobation.

I HUMBLY hope that I have, in the preceding pages, contended for the truth of the Gospel, and the honour of God's perfections. My conscience bears me witness, that I have endeavoured to do it with the sincerity of a candid inquirer after truth; and I have not, knowingly, leaped over one material difficulty, which Mr. T. has thrown in the way of the laborious divine, whose evangelical principles I vindicate. And now, judicious reader, as I have done my part as a detecter of the falacies by which the modern doctrines of grace are "kept upon their legs," let me prevail upon thee to do thy part as a judge, and to say if the right leg of Calvinism (i. e. the lawless election of an unscriptural grace) so draws thy admiration as to make thee overlook the deformity of the left leg, i. e. the absurd, unholy, sin-insuring, hell-procuring, mer. ciless, and unjust reprobation which Mr. T. has attempted to vindicate. Shall thy reason, thy conscience, thy Bible-and (what is more than this) shall all the perfections of thy God, and the veracity of thy Saviour, be sacrificed on the altar of a reprobation which none of the prophets, apos tles, and early fathers ever heard of? A barbarous reprobation, which heated Augustine drew from the horrible error of Manichean necessity, and clothed with some Scripture expressions detached from the context, and wrested from their original meaning? A Pharisaic reprobation which the Church of Rome took from him, and which some of our reformers unhappily brought from that corrupted society into the Protestant Churches? In a word, a reprobation which disgraces Christianity, when that holy religion is considered as a system of evangelical doctrine, as much as our most enormous crimes disgrace it, when it is considered as a system of pure morality? Shall such a system of reprobation, I say, find a place in thy creed? yea, among thy "doctrines of grace!" God forbid!

Dii meliora piis! erroremque hostibus illum! I hope better things of thy candour, good sense, and piety. If prejudice, human authority, and voluntary humility, seduce many good men into a profound reverence for that stupendous dogma, be not carried away by their number, or biassed by their shouts. Remember that all Israel, and good Aaron at their head, danced once round the golden calf; that deluded Solomon was seen bowing at the shrine of Ashtaroth, the abomination of the Sidonians; that all our godly forefathers worshipped a consecrated wafer four hundred years ago; that "all the world wandered after the beast;" and that God's chosen people "went whoring after their own inventions, and once sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils" upon

the

altar of Moloch. Consider this, I say, and take courage: be not afraid to be pilloried in a preface, flogged at a pamphlet's tail," and treated as a knave, a felon, or a blasphemer, through the whole of the next Vindication of the deified Decrees,* which are commonly called Calvinism. This may be thy lot, if thou shouldst dare to bear thy plain testimony against the Antinomian idol of the day.

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Nor say that thou art not in Italy or Portugal; but in a Protestant land, a land of liberty-in England: for thou mightest meet with more mercy from reprobating priests in popish Naples than in orthodox Geneva. Being some years ago in the former of those cities, among the fine buildings which I viewed, one peculiarly drew my attention. It was a towering monument, several stories high, erected by the Jesuits in honour of the Virgin Mary, whose image stood on the top of the elegant structure. But what surprised me most was an Italian inscription engraven upon a stone of the monument, to this purpose: Pope Benedict the XIVth grants a plenary indulgence to all those who shall honour this holy image; with privilege to deliver one soul out of purgatory every time they shall pay their respects to this immaculate mother." While I copied this inscription in my pocket book, and dropped to my fellow traveller an innocent irony about the absurdity of this popish decree, two or three priests passed by; they smelt out our heresy, looked displeased, but did not insult us. Mr. Wesley took, some years ago, a similar liberty with a literary monument, erected in mystic Geneva, to the honour of absolute reprobation. He smiled at the severity of Calvinian bigotry; and not without reason, since popish bigotry kindly sends a soul out of purgatory if you reverence the black image which is pompously called the immaculate mother of God: whereas Calvinian bigotry indirectly sends to hell all those who shall not bow to the doctrinal image which she calls Divine sovereignty, upon as good grounds as some ancient devotees called the appetite of Bel [Baal] and the dragon Divine voracity. He [Mr. Wesley] added to his smile the publication of an ironical reproof. A gentleman who serves at the altar of absolute reprobation caught him in the fact, and said something about "transmitting the criminal to Vir. ginia or Maryland,† if not to Tyburn.". But free wrath yielded to free grace. Calvinian mercy rejoiced over orthodox judgment. Mr. Wesley is spared. The vindicator " of the doctrines of grace," after "rapping his knuckles," "pillorying him in a preface," and "flogging" him again and again in two pamphlets, and in a huge book, with a tenderness peculiar to the house of mercy, where popish reprobation checks Protestant heresy; the vindicator of Protestant reprobation, I say, has let the gray-headed heretic go with this gentle and civil reprimand, p. 10 :— "Had I publicly distorted and defamed the decrees of God; [should it not be, Had I fairly held out to public view the absurdity of the imaginary decrees preached by Calvin ?] had I, moreover, advanced so many miles beyond boldness, as to lay those distortions and defamations at the door of another; [should it not be, Had I, moreover, ironically asserted that monstrous consequences necessarily flow from monstrous premises?] bold as I am affirmed to be, I could never have looked up afterward.

* Mr. T. calls them the decrees of God, and it is an axiom among the Calvinists that "God's decrees are God himself."

+ See Mr. Toplady's Letter to Mr. Wesley, p. 6. VOL. II.

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