judging our spirits, instead of weighing our arguments, and considering the scriptures which we produce; nor pass over fifty solid reasons, and a hundred plain passages, to cavil about non-essentials, . and to lay the stress of your answer upon mistakes, which do not affect the strength of the cause, and which we are ready to correct as soon as they shall be pointed out. I take the Searcher of hearts, and my judicious unprejudiced readers to witness, that through the whole of this controversy, far from concealing the most plausible objections, or avoiding the strongest arguments which are or may be advanced against our reconciling doctrine, I have carefully searched them out, and endeavoured to encounter them as openly as David did Goliath. Had our opponents followed this method, I doubt not but the controversy would have ended long ago, in the destruction of our prejudices, and in the rectifying of our mistakes. Oh! if we preferred the unspeakable pleasure of finding out the truth, to the pitiful honour of pleasing a party, or of vindicating our own mistakes, how soon would the useful fan of scriptural, logical, and brotherly controversy purge the floor of the Church! How soon would the light of truth, and the flame of love, burn the chaff of error, and the thorns of prejudice, with fire unquenchable !"

In such a temper did this saintly man address himself to the work of controversy; and he carried it on with correspondent candour, and with distinguished ability. His manner is diffuse, and the florid parts, and the unction, betray their French origin; but the reasoning is acute and clear; the spirit of his writing is beautiful, and he was master of the subject in all its bearings. His great object was to conciliate the two parties, and to draw the line between the Solifidian and Pelagian errors. For this purpose he composed a treatise, which he called an "Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism; or, Scripture Scales to weigh the gold of gospel truth, and to balance a multitude of opposite scriptures." Herein he brought together, side by side, the opposite texts, and showed how they qualified each other: the opinion which he inferred seems to correspond more nearly with that of Baxter than of any other divine. He traced, historically, the growth of both the extremes against which he contended. Luther, being an Augustinian monk, brought with him, from his convent, the favourite opinions of Augustine, to which he became the more attached, because* of the value which the Romanists affixed to their superstitious works, and the fooleries and abominations which had sprung from this cause. Most of the reformers, and more especially Calvin, took the same ground. The Jesuits, seeing their error, inclined the Romish church to the opposite extreme ; and, after a while, Jansenius formed a Calvinistic party among the Catholics, while Arminius tempered the doctrine of the reformed churches. Antinomianism was the legitimate consequence on the one part, and Mr. Fletcher thought that the English clergy were tending toward Pelagianism on the other. His great object was to trim the balance, and, above all, to promote Christian charity and

*Thus the old author of Neonomianism unmasked, places "The Calvinian Society in Graciousstreet, at the sign of the Geneva arms, just opposite to the sign of Cardinal Bellarmine's Head, at the foot of the bridge that crosses Reformation River, that divides between the Protestant and Popish cantons."

Christian union. 66 My regard for unity," said he, "recovers my drooping spirits, and adds new strength to my wasted body; (he was believed, at that time, to be in the last stage of a consumption ;) I stop at the brink of the grave, over which I bend, and, as the blood oozing from my decayed lungs does not permit me vocally to address my contending brethren, by means of my pen I will ask them, if they can properly receive the holy communion, while they wilfully remain in disunion with their brethren, from whom controversy has needlessly parted them." He was then about to leave England, for what appeared to be a forlorn hope of deriving benefit from his native air; but, before his departure, he expressed a desire of seeing those persons with whom he had been engaged in this controversy, that, all doctrinal differences apart, he might testify his sincere regret for having given them the least displeasure, and receive from them some condescending assurance of reconciliation and good-will." All of them had not generosity enough to accept the invitation; they who did were edified, as well as affected, by the interview; and some of them, who had had no personal acquaintance with him before, pressed the highest satisfaction," says his biographer, "at being introduced to the company of one whose air and countenance bespoke him fitted rather for the society of angels than the conversation of men." Upon the score of controversial offences, few men have ever had so little need to ask forgiveness.

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When Mr. Fletcher offended his antagonists, it was not by any personalities, or the slightest breathing of a malicious spirit, but by the ironical manner in which he displayed the real nature of their monstrous doctrine. For his talents were of the quick mercurial kind; his fancy was always active, and he might have held no inconsiderable rank, both as a humorous and as an impassioned writer, if he had not confined himself wholly to devotional subjects. But his happy illustrations had the effect of provoking his opponents. Mr. Wesley also, by the unanswerable manner in which he treated the Calvinistic question, drew upon himself the fierce resentment of a host of enemies. They were confounded, but they would not be convinced; and they assailed him with a degree of rancorous hatred, which, even in theological controversy, has never been exceeded. "He was as weak as he was vicious," they said: " he was like a monkey, an eel, or a squirrel, perpetually twisting and twining all manner of ways. There was little probity, or common honesty, discoverable in that man-that Arminian priest :--he was incapable of appreciating real merit; and his blasphemous productions were horror to the soul, and torture to the ear. And for his doctrine,-the cursed doctrine of free-will,-it was the most God-dishonouring and soul-distressing doctrine of the day; it was one of the prominent features of the Beast; it was the enemy of God, and the offspring of the wicked one; the insolent brat of hell. Arminianism was the spiritual pestilence which had given the Protestant churches the plague like a mortal scorpion, it carries a sting in its tail, that affects with stupefaction, insensibility and death, all whom it strikes." The unforgivable offence, which drew upon Wesley and his doctrine this sort of obloquy, with which volumes have been filled, was the sermon upon Free Grace, that had been the occasion of the

breach with Whitefield. It is one of the most able and eloquent of all his discourses; a triumphant specimen of impassioned argument. "Call it by whatever name you please,' ," said he, attacking the Calvinistic doctrine, "Election, Preterition, Predestination, or Reprobation, it comes to the same thing. The sense is plainly this; by virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned d; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved." He proceeded to show, that it made all preaching vain, as needless to the elect, and useless to the reprobate; and, therefore, that it could not be a doctrine of God, because it makes void his ordinance that it tended to produce spiritual pride in some, absolute despair in others, and to destroy our zeal for good works: that it made revelation contradictory and useless and that it was full of blasphemy,-" of such blasphemy," said he, " as I should dread to mention, but that the honour of our gracious God, and the cause of truth, will not suffer me to be silent. In the cause of God," he pursues, "and from a sincere concern for the glory of his great name, I will mention a few of the horrible blasphemies contained in this horrible doctrine. But first I must warn every one of you that hears, as ye will answer it at the great day, not to charge me, as some have done, with blaspheming, because I mention the blasphemy of others. And the more you are grieved with them that do thus blaspheme, see that ye 'confirm your love towards them' the more, and that your heart's desire, and continual prayer to God, be, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!'

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"This premised, let it be observed, that this doctrine represents our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, the righteous, the only-begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth,' as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that he every where speaks as if he were willing that all men should be saved; therefore, to say he was not willing that all men should be saved, is to represent him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler. It cannot be denied, that the gracious words which came out of his mouth are full of invitations to all sinners; to say, then, He did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent him as a gross deceiver of the people. You cannot deny that he says, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden!' If then, you say He calls those that cannot come, those whom he knows to be unable to come, those whom he can make able to come, but will not, how is it possible to describe greater insincerity ?-You represent him as mocking his helpless creatures, by offering what he never intends to give. You describe him as saying one thing and meaning another; as pretending the love which he had not. Him, in whose mouth was no guile, you make full of deceit, void of common sincerity & then, especially when drawing nigh the city, he wept over it, and said, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye (λnoa xai xeλhare.) Now, if you say they would, but he would not, you represent him (which

who could hear!) as weeping crocodile tears over the prey which he had doomed to destruction!

"Such blasphemy this, as, one would think, might make the ears of a Christian to tingle! But there is yet more behind; for, just as it honours the Son, so doth this doctrine honour the Father. It destroys all his attributes at once it overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth. Yes, it represents the Most Holy God as worse than the devil: as more false, more cruel, and more unjust. More false, because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said he willeth all mankind to be saved; more unjust, because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when you say, that God condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for continuing in sin, which, for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid and more cruel, because that unhappy spiritseeketh rest, and findeth none,' so that his own restless misery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others. But God resteth in his high and holy place ;' so that to suppose him out of his mere motion, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or not, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him, as we cannot impute even to the great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the Most High God (he that hath ears to hear, let him hear!) as more cruel, false, and unjust than the devil!

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"This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decrees of Predestination. And here I fix my foot. On this I join issue with every asserter of it. You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say, you will prove it by scripture. Hold! What will you prove by scripture ? that God is worse than the devil? It cannot be. Whatever that scripture proves, it never proves this: whatever be its true meaning, it cannot mean this. Do you ask what is its true meaning then? If I say, I know not, you have gained nothing; for there are many scriptures, the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know, till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know, better it were to say it had no sense at all, than to say it had such a sense as this. It cannot mean, whatever it mean beside, that the God of truth is a liar. Let it mean what it will, it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works: that is, whatever it prove beside, no scripture can prove Predestination.

"This is the blasphemy for which I abhor the doctrine of Predestination; a doctrine, upon the supposition of which, if one could possibly suppose it for a moment, call it election, reprobation, or what you please, (for all comes to the same thing,) one might say to our adversary the devil, Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching.-Hearest thou not, that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands, and that he doth it more effectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee; but he can irresistibly destroy both body and soul in hell! Thou canst only entice; but his unchangeable decree to leave thousands of souls in death, compels them to continue in sin, till they

drop into everlasting burnings. Thou temptest: he forceth us to be damned, for we cannot resist his will. Thou fool! why goest thou about any longer, seeking whom thou mayest devour? Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the destroyer of souls, the murderer of men? Moloch caused only children to pass through the fire, and that fire was soon quenched; or, the corruptible body being consumed, its torments were at an end; but God, thou art told, by his eternal decree, fixed before they had done good or evil, causes not only children of a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fire of hell; that fire which never shall be quenched : and the body which is cast thereinto, being now incorruptible and immortal, will be ever consuming and never consumed; but the smoke of their torment, because it is God's good pleasure, ascendeth up for ever.

"Oh, how would the enemy of God and man rejoice to hear these things were so ! How would he cry aloud, and spare not! How would he lift up his voice, and say, To your tents, O Israel! flee from the face of this God, or ye shall utterly perish. But whither will ye flee! Into heaven? He is there. Down to hell? He is there also. Ye cannot flee from an omnipresent, almighty tyrant. And whether ye flee or stay, I call heaven, his throne, and earth, his footstool, to witness against you ye shall perish, ye shall die eternally! Sing, O hell, and rejoice, ye that are under the earth! for God, even the mighty God, hath spoken, and devoted to death thousands of souls, from the rising of the sun, unto the going down. thereof. Here, O death, is thy sting! They shall not, cannot escape, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Here, O grave, is thy victory! Nations yet unborn, or ever they have done good or evil, are doomed never to see the light of life, but thou shalt gnaw upon them for ever and ever. Let all those morning stars sing together, who fell with Lucifer, son of the morning! Let all the sons of hell shout for joy; for the decree is past, and who shall annul it?

"Yes! the decree is past; and so it was before the foundation of the world. But what decree? Even this: I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing;' and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death die.' This decree, whereby whom God did foreknow, he did predestinate,' was indeed from everlasting; this, whereby all who suffer Christ to make them alive, are 'elect according to the foreknowledge of God,' now standeth fast, even as the moon, and the faithful witness in heaven; and when heaven and earth shall pass away, yet this shall not pass away, for it is as unchangeable and eternal as the being of God that gave it. This decree yields the strongest encouragement to abound in all good works, and in all holiness; and it is a well-spring of joy, of happiness also, to our great and endless comfort. This is worthy of God. It is every way consistent with the perfection of his nature. It gives us the noblest view both of his justice, mercy, and truth. To this agrees the whole scope of the Christian Revelation, as well as all the parts thereof. To this Moses and all the prophets bear witness; and our blessed Lord, and all his apostles. Thus Moses, in the name of the