Historic Proof Doctrinal Calvinism Church of England by Augustus Toplady

INTRODUCTION.

Before I enter on the principal design of the present undertaking, it may he proper to throw together some preliminary observations, by way of preface, that the main thread of our historic enquiry may, afterwards, proceed the more evenly and uninterruptedly.

In February, 1769, I published a pamphlet, en­titled, “The Church of England vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism, and the Case of Arminian Subscription particularly considered:" which I ad­dressed to a learned and respectable Oxonian, who had lately presented us with an apology for the Ar­minian principles; and whose arguments against the real doctrines of our established church, my counter vindication was designed to obviate.

That omniscient Being, to whom “all hearts are open," knows, that a feeling regard to his glory, and a tender solicitude for the honour of truth, were my sole determining motives to that humble attempt. I could sincerely adopt the appeal of archbishop Brad-ward in, who wrote on a similar occasion, and in de­fence, of the same doctrines: Scis, quòd nusquam virtute meâ, sed tuâ, corifisus, tantillus aggredior tantam causam[1]. Far, exceeding far, from pre­suming on any imaginary abilities of my own, and equally remote from wishing to distinguish myself on the stage of public observation, I resolved to conceal my name; though I could not resolve, by continuing entirely silent, to forego my allegiance to God, and my duty to the church.

The controversy had, indeed, been recently in the hands of a person, whose zeal for the principles of the reformation adds dignity to his rank, and lustre to his talents; I mean the able and learned [[170]] author of Pietas Oxoniensis: And I freely confess, that I was under some doubt, whether it might not carry an implication of self-confidence, should I glean up, and lay before the public, a few of those authentic facts and testimonies, the mention of which had, for the most part, been omitted by that masterly writer. Considering, however, that of old, even those persons who had but a mite to throw into the treasury, were not therefore wholly ex­empted from the duty of contribution; I fluctuated no longer; but hastily threw together such ob­servations as then occurred, and in a few weeks transmitted them to the printer. I have much reason to bless God for their publication. That tract, hurried and unfinished as it was, met with a reception, which, in such an age as the present, I could neither expect nor imagine.

Upwards of two years after, i. e. in the summer of 1771, a Mr. Walter Sellon (who stands in the same relation to Mr. John Wesley, as Celestius did to Pelagius, and Bertius to Arminius; viz. of Re­tainer-general and White-washer in Ordinary) hands a production into the world, designed to prove, that Arminianism and the church of England are as closely connected, as the said Messieurs Walter and John arc with each*other. The piece itself is the joint-offspring of the two associated heroes. As, therefore, in its fabrication, those gentlemen were united, even so in its confutation, they shall not be parted.

Arminianism is their mutual Dulcinea del Toboso. And, contrary to what is usually observed among co-inamoratos, their attention to the same favourite object creates no jealousy, no uneasiness of rivalship, between themselves. High mounted on Pine's Rosinante, forth sallies Mr. John from Wine-street, Bristol, brandishing his reed, and vow­ing vengeance against all who will not fall down and [[171]] worship the [2] Dutch image which he has set up. With almost an equal plenitude of zeal and prowess, forth trots Mr. Walter from Ave-mary-lane, low mounted on Cabe's halting dapple. The knight and the squire having met at the rendezvous appointed, the former prances foremost, and, with as much haste as his limping steed will permit, doth trusty Walter amble after his master. . How successful these combatants are, in their at­tack on my first defence of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, I cheerfully leave to the decision of the public. This, however, I may ven­ture to say, that, after a tedious incubation of six-and-twenty months, they ought to have hatched an answer that might carry some show, at least, of plausible argument. But even craft itself seems, in the main, to have discharged them from her service. Here is neither subtlety, nor solidity. I am, in fact, going to encounter a phantom. No laurels, there­fore, will crown the conquest; and the poor phan­tom should, for me, have stalked unmolested, had not the importance of the subject retrieved, in some measure, the insignificancy of the performance.

One of them (for it is not always easy to distin­guish the immediate speaker) charges me with “crying up the abilities of some against whom I have written, only that I myself may appear to have greater abilities of my own, in vanquishing such able antagonists." Malice has here forged an accusation, too ignoble even for malice to believe. The brace of brothers are, indeed, either too blind to see, or too disingenuous to acknowledge, the excellencies of any from whom they dissent; else they would never have termed those great reformers, Luther and Calvin, a pair of “weathercocks[3];" nor [[174]] have contemptuously styled St. Austin the “giddy apostle of the Calvinists[4]." For my own part, I acknowledge, with pleasure, the eminent talents of very many worthy persons, from whom I differ ex­tremely in opinion. Mr. Sellon, however, may make himself easy as to this particular. Unless he should improve miraculously, I shall never cry up Ids abilities. I must want common sense, to suppose him a man of parts; and I must want common mo­desty, to represent him as such. I can distinguish a barber's basin from a helmet; of course, all the fruit to be reaped from the contest now depending, is, not an ovation for myself, but the acquisition of a tributary pepper-corn to the doctrines of the church.

Mr. Wesley should have lain the burden of his alliance on other shoulders than those of Mr. Sellon. The lot could not possibly have fallen on a more incompetent man. He is much too unknowing, and too hot, to come off, with any degree of cre­dit, in an engagement which has foiled so many of the wise and prudent. He should have remembered the example of Dr. Waterland and others.

As the church is now internally constituted, her Calvinism is impregnable; while she lives, this is immortal. The legislature have it, indeed, in their power (God forbid they should ever have the in­clination), to melt down her liturgy, homilies, and articles; and, when her component particles are severed by state chemistry, to cast her into the Arminian mould: but, until this is really done, all the artifice of man will never be able to fix the banner of Arminius in the citadel, how daringly soever some of his disciples may display it on the walls. Our pulpits may declare for free-will; but the desk, our prayers, and the whole of our standard writings as a church, breathe only the doctrines of grace.

[[173]] Several respectable men have reduced themselves to a state of pitiable embarrassment, in attempting to disprove this, during and since, what has been properly enough denominated, the ecclesiastical reign of archbishop Laud. Had that prelate been a Calvinist, and had the Calvinists of. that age joined hands with the enemies to civil and religious liberty, the Calvinism of the church of England would pro­bably have passed uncontested to the present hour; but that prelate attached himself to the new system (and it was then very new indeed) of Arminius; and, which weighed still more against them in the court balance, the Calvinists were friends to the civil rights of mankind; they (observe, I speak-only of the doctrinal, not of the disciplinarian Cal­vinists) were steady to the true religious and poli­tical constitution of their country. They opposed, with equal firmness, Laud's innovations in the church, and Charles' invasions of civil freedom. Unhappily both for the nation and the church, and no less fatally for himself, Charles, nurtured in de­spotism, deemed it his interest to support the Arminians, for purposes of state. I shall have oc­casion, in the progress of the ensuing Essay, to trace this evil to its source. In the mean while, I return to Mr. Wesley and his understrapper; whom though I shall not constantly persist to mention together, but hold them up to view, sometimes singly, some­times conjointly, as just occasion may require; the intelligent reader will not fail to notice, that every exhibition of Mr. John involves his man Walter; and that Walter cannot be exhibited without in­volving Mr. John.

Monsieur Bayle has an observation, perfectly ap­plicable to the two furiosos above-mentioned; had the cap been made for them, it could not have fitted them more exactly. “In hot constitutions," says that able critic, “zeal is a sort of drunkenness, which so disorders the mind, that a man sees every [[174]] thing double and the wrong way. The priestess of Bacchus, who fell upon her own son, whom she mistook for a wild boar, is an image of that giddi­ness which seizes the zealots[5]." I am very far from peremptorily affirming, that Mr. Sellon is as intimately connected with Bacchus, as was the above priestess; but his conduct certainly bears a strong resemblance of hers. He pretends that the church of England is his mother; now, his supposed mo­ther is an avowed, thorough-paced Calvinist: but Mr. Sellon abominates Calvinism, and yet wishes to be thought a churchman. What can he do, in so distressful a dilemma? Necessity dictates an expe­dient. Amidst some qualifying professions of filial respect, this petty Nimrod bends his twelve-penny bow against her he calls his mother; and pretends, all the while, that he is only combating a wild beast, which has chanced to find its way from Ge­neva to England.

But the church, and the truths of God, have nothing to fear from the efforts of this ejaculator. Parthians might aim their arrows at the sun; wolves may exhaust their strength, by howling at the moon; yet, neither the weapons of those could wound the one, nor can the clamour of these so much as alarm the other. The sun persists to shine, and the moon to roll, unextinguished and unimpeded by the impotence of rage, and the emptiness of menace from below.

I have heard, or read, of a picture, which exhi­bited a view of the apostate angels, just fallen from their state of blessedness. Every attitude and fea­ture were expressive of the extremest horror, indig­nation, and despair. An artist, into whose posses­sion it came, by only a few touches with his pencil, transformed the shocking representation into a masterpiece of loveliness and beauty; so that [[175]] seraphs seemed to smile and sing, where tormented fiends appeared before, to blaspheme tor rage, and to gnaw their tongues for pain. Mr. Sellon has pursued a plan directly contrary to that of the amiable artist. The Methodist's grand business (in which, however, he utterly fails) is, to deform the gospel picture, and to disfigure the beauty of the church. He labours to metamorphose, if it were possible, the wisdom and glory of God into a cari­cature equally frightful and ridiculous: but all his cavils are infra jugulum; they come not up to the point. Mr. Wesley and his auxiliaries resemble the army of Mithridates, who lost the day, by mistakenly aiming their arrows, not at the persons, but at the shadows of the Roman soldiers.

Supposing the principles of the church of Eng­land to be ever so exceptionable in themselves, the mode of assault, adopted by the mock vindicators, is by no means calculated to gain its end. The far greater part of mankind can readily distinguish fury from zeal, and abuse from argument. A writer, like Mr. Sellon, who dips his pen in the common-sewer, injures and disgraces the cause he seeks to advance. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." It is so far from being a part, that it is the very reverse of that righteous­ness which the example of God prescribes, and his written will enjoins.

I am charged with violating the meekness I recom­mend, and with being no less than “a persecutor" of the Arminians[6]. Aggressors are often the first to complain. When Mr. Wesley thinks proper to scatter his firebrands, “zeal for the Lord of hosts," and "earnest contention for the faith deli­vered to the saints," arc the varnish which his abu­sive rage assumes: but if no more than a finger he lifted up in self-defence, the cry is, “Oh, you are 170]] without gospel love; you are a persecutor of Mr. John; you will not let the good old man descend quietly to his grave."

As to intolerancy and persecution, I have already declared this to he my steadfast opinion, that “the rights of conscience are inviolably sacred, and that liberty of private judgment is every man's birth­right:" yet Mr. Wesley cannot fully avail himself of this concession; for, by having solemnly set his hand to the articles, homilies, and liturgy of the established church, he comes within the exception immediately added, and which I here repeat: “If, however, any like Esau have sold their birthright, by subscribing to articles they do not believe, merely for the sake of temporal profit or aggrandize­ment, they have only themselves to thank, for the little ceremony they are entitled to[7]."

It is not necessary to be timid in order to be meek. There is a false meekness, as well as a false charity. Genuine charity, according to the apostle's description of it, rejoiceth in the truth. The con­duct of our Lord himself, and of the first disciples, on various occasions, demonstrated, that it is no part of Christian candour, to hew millstones with a feather. Rebuke them sharply (ἀποτόμως, cut­tingly), says the apostle, concerning the depravers of doctrinal Christianity; wish well to their persons, but give no quarter to their errors. The world have long seen, that unmixed politeness, conde­scending generosity, and the most conciliating be­nevolence, can no more soften Mr. Wesley's rugged rudeness, than the melody of David's harp could lay the north wind, or still the raging of the sea. Mr. Hervey, in Ins famous Eleven Letters, has handled Mr. Wesley with all the delicacy and tenderness that a virtuoso would show in catching a butterfly, whose plumage he wishes he preserve uninjured; [[177]] or a lady, in wiping a piece of china, which she dreads to break. Did Mr. Wesley profit by the en­gaging meekness of his amiable and elegant refuter? nay, but he waxed worse and worse; like Saul, he strove to stab the name of that inestimable friend, whose gospel music was calculated to dispossess him of his evil spirit. Like the animal, stigmatized in the lviiith Psalm, he stopped his ears, and refused to hear the voice of the charmer, though the strains were no less sweet than wise. Every artifice that could be invented has been thrown out, to blacken the memory of the most exemplary man this age has produced. Mr. Wesley insulted him, when living, and continues to trample upon him, though dead. He digs him, as it were, out of his grave, passes sen­tence on him as a heretic, ties him to the stake, burns him to ashes, and scatters those ashes to the four winds. Rather than fail, the wretched Mr. Walter Sellon is stilted to oppose the excellent Mr. Hervey; and most egregiously hath the living sinner acquitted himself against the long departed saint! In much the same spirit, and with just the same success, as the enemy of mankind contended with Michael the archangel, about the body of Moses,

Every reader may not, perhaps, know the true cause (at least, one of the principal causes) of Mr. Wesley's unrelenting enmity to Mr. Hervey; an enmity, which even the death of the latter has not yet extinguished. When that valuable man was writing his Theron and Aspasio, his humility and self-diffidence were so great, that he condescended to solicit many of his friends to revise and correct that admirable work, antecedently to its publi­cation. He occasionally requested this favour even of some who were enemies to several of the doctrines asserted in the dialogues; among whom was Mr. John Wesley. The author imagined, that the un­sparing criticism of an adversary might observe de­fects, and suggest some useful hints, which the [[178]] tenderness and partiality of friendship might overlook, or scruple to communicate. Several sheets having been transmitted to Mr. John (an honour of which he soon showed himself quite unworthy), he altered, added, and retrenched, with such insolence and wantonness of dictatorial authority, as disgusted even the modest and candid Mr. Hervey. The consequence was, Mr. Wesley lost his supervisor-ship, and in return, sat himself to depreciate the performance he was not allowed to spoil.

By what spirit this gentleman and his deputies are guided in their discussion of controverted subjects, shall appear, from a specimen of the horrible asper­sions which, in “The Church vindicated from Predestination," they venture to heap on the Al­mighty himself. The recital makes me tremble; the perusal must shock every reader, who is not steeled to all reverence for the Supreme Being. May the review cause the daring and unhappy writers to fall down, as in the dust, at the footstool of insulted Deity! Wesley and Sellon are not afraid to declare, that, on the hypothesis of divine decrees, the justice of God is “no better than the tyranny of Tiberius[8]." That God himself is “little better than Moloch[9]."—”A cruel, unwise, un­just, arbitrary, and self-willed tyrant[10]."—”A being void of wisdom, justice, mercy, holiness, and truth[11]."—A devil, yea, worse than the devil[12]." Did the exorbitances of the ancient ranters, or the impieties of any modern blasphemers, ever come up to this? Surely, if such Methodists should finally be converted and saved, we can need no stronger proof that grace is infinitely free, and its operation absolutely invincible! Observe, reader, that these are also the very men who are so abandoned to all sense of shame, as to charge me with blasphemy, [[179]] for asserting, with scripture, that God worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will; and that whatever God wills, is right.

We have seen their portrait of the great and Messed God: let us next hear Mr. Sellon's ac­count of his own self; this he has tacked to the fag-end of his work. Be it my humble office, to rescue so brilliant a passage from the ignominy of its pre­sent situation, and place it (where it deserves to stand) in the front.

“As to myself," says the Arminian, “I make no scruple to tell you, I am what some call an exotic; one [13] destitute of the honour of an aca­demical education. The highest degree I lay claim to, is that of a poor fellow of Jesus College, in the university of Christianity[14]."

Never, surely, till now, did such low, whining cant ooze from the pen of meanness!

And is the pretended vindicator of a national church dwindled by his own confession into an exotic? That his doctrines are exotic, or foreign and far-fetched, I always knew; but I was, hi­therto, not botanist enough to ascertain the exoti­cism of the man. I hope, in his next vindication, he will inform us, to what class of exotic plants he belongs, and whether himself be not as Dutch as his principles.

He adds, that he never had an “academical education;" I believe him; nor is he in any dan­ger of being mistaken for a man of learning. He will never frighten his brother enthusiasts with that horrible bugbear (so alarming to most fanatics) [[180]] called human literature. He does not so much as know the difference between a degree and a fellow­ship: “The highest degree I lay claim to," says this pigmy on stilts, “is that of a poor fellow, &c." You should have said, of the Foundery college, in Moorfields, whereof Mr. John Wesley is president, and wherein Thomas Olivers the preaching shoe-mender hath taken his degree in ignorance: that, Mr. Sellon, is the college to which you belong: for into what you cantingly style the “University of Christianity," it does not appear that you are so much as entered. In proof of this, I appeal to your preceptor, Mr. Wesley himself; and to your fellow-pupils, his followers. Your own Arminian friends, for whom you falsify through thick and thin, will not acknowledge you for a believer[15]. How­ever, as you seem to insist on passing for “a poor fellow," I shall, in the following sheets, attentively consider what the poor fellow has to say against the doctrines of the church of England.

One who has drawn so blasphemous a character of God, and who has, moreover, given the public so contemptible a sketch of himself, can hardly be thought likely to draw a very favourable account of his opponents. His representation of me, in parti­cular, is so very curious, and composed of such contradictory ingredients, that I must, for the reader's amusement, submit it to his view. I had before been delineated, by an Arminian help­meet of Mr. Wesley's, as “sitting in my easy chair, and enjoying all the comforts of life." One would think, that the see of Durham had been transferred to Broad-Hembury, and that the De­vonshire Vicar was warmly enrobed in lawn and black satin. So much for my attitude and enjoy­ments; next for my titles; these Mr. Sellon enu­merates. I am, it seems,

    [[181]] “A Flaming Calvinist[16].
    “A Dragon[17].
    “An Hooter[18].
    “A Venomous Slanderer[19].
    “A Persecutor, possessing the same butcherly spirit that was in bishop Gardiner; yea, ten times more[20].
    “A Perfectionist[21].
    “A malapert Boy, severely scratching and claw­ing with venomous nails[22].
    “A Papist[23].
    “A Socinian[24].
    “A Mahometan[25].
    “The greatest Bigot that ever existed, without one grain of candour, benevolence, forbearance, moderation, good-will, or charity[26].
    “A wild Beast of impatience and lion-like fury[27].
    “A Materialist[28];" that is, an Atheist.

A goodly string of appellations! and not a little extraordinary, that they should all centre in one and the same man! Being so uncommon a person myself, my writings too must be something singular. Take a description of them in" the words of the said Sellon: “I find sophistry, fallacy, false insi­nuation, raillery, perversion of scripture and the church articles, self-contradiction, self-sufficiency, haughtiness, pride and vanity, glaring in almost every page[29]."

Thus, enthroned in my easy chair, dignified with titles, and accurately developed as a writer, I only want a suitable address, to render my magnificence complete; and who so well qualified to prepare it, as the eloquent Mr. Sellon? Lo, he attends; and, [[182]] respectfully advancing, pays me the following com­pliments: “Unhappily daring, and unpardonably bold, thy tongue imagineth wickedness, and with lies thou cuttest like a sharp razor. Thou hast loved unrighteousness more than goodness; and to talk of lies more than righteousness. Thou hast loved to speak all words that may do hurt, O thou false tongue[30]." Such are the candour and politeness of these Methodists; and such are the arguments, by which they would persuade us, that Arminianism is the religion of the church of England.

These are the men that set up for “universal love;" who call one another by the cant names of “precious believers," “most excellent souls," “charming children of God," “sweet Christians," and “the clean-hearted." If their hearts are no cleaner than their mouths, they have little reason to value themselves on their “sinless perfection."

These are they who seek to bottom election on faith and goodness foreseen; of which foreseen good­ness, humility and benevolence, meekness and for­bearance, are, I suppose, some of the ingredients. Woe be to those “sweet Christians," if their election has no better foundation than their “sweet" tempers, words, and works.

And why all this torrent of abuse? The plain truth is this: I detected Mr. Wesley's forgeries, and chastised the forger. Hinc ille lacrymææ. Hence the outcries of John himself, together with those of Thomas Olivers and Walter Sellon. The camp of the Philistines gave a scream, when they saw the levelled stone penetrate the brass of their Goliath's forehead: but of all the tribe, none screamed so loud as the frighted Walter; of whose talent at screaming, a specimen has been exhibited to the reader. Let me whisper a friendly hint to this notable screamer. If you wish your scurrilities to [[183]] obtain belief, restrain them within the banks of probability; malice, when too highly wrought, resem­bles a cannon too highly charged, which recoils on the engineer himself, instead of reaching its intended object of direction.

I might, with the most justifiable propriety, have declined joining issue, in controversy, with a person of Mr. Sellon's cast, who is, by those that know him, deemed ignorant and unpolished even to a proverb: he is, indeed, to borrow the language of another, “a small body of Pelagian divinity, bound in calf, neither gilt nor lettered." I once hoped, that his friends were too severe, in branding him with such a character; but he has been so weak as to publish; he has gibbeted himself in print. I am fully convinced, that his friends were in the right, and my charitable hope mistaken.

Let none, however, suppose, that I harbour any degree of malevolence against either him or his master. Whatever I have already written, or may hereafter have occasion to write, in opposition to them, or to any others, on whom the toil of defending them may devolve, has been, and, I trust, ever will be, designed, not to throw odium on their persons, nor to wound their cause unfairly, but, simply, to strip error of its varnish; to open the eyes of delusion; to pluck the visor from the face of hypocrisy; to bring Arminian Methodism to the test of fact and argument; to wipe off the aspersions thrown, by the despairing hand of defeated hetero­doxy, on the purest church under heaven; and to confirm such as have believed through grace.

Indeed, the purity of my intention speaks for itself. At a time of such general defection from the doctrines of the church established, I cannot pos­sibly have any sinister ends to answer, by asserting those doctrines. It cannot be to gain applause; for, was that my motive, I should studiously swim with the current, and adopt the fashionable system: [[184]] neither can it be to acquire preferment; for the doctrines of grace are not the principles to rise by. In the reigns of Edward VI. Elizabeth, and the for­mer part of James I. the Calvinistic points were ne­cessary steps to advancement, and led directly to the top of the church: but the stairs have been long turned another way: what was, once, the causa sine qua, non of ascending, is now a causa propter quam non; or, considered as a reason for keeping unfa­shionable divines as low on the ecclesiastical ladder as possible.

I bless God, for enabling me to esteem the reproach of Christ greater treasure than all the applause of men, and all the preferments of the church. When I received orders, I obtained mercy to be faithful; and, from that moment, gave up what is called the world, so far as I conceived it to interfere with faith and a good conscience. The opposition which I have met with, in the course of my ten years ministry, has been nothing, compared with what I expected would ensue, on an open, steady attachment to the truths of God: and what insults have been thrown in my way, came, for the most part, from a quarter equally abusive and contemptible; I mean from Mr. John Wesley, and a few of his unfledged disciples; whose efforts give me no greater apprehension, than would a fly that was to settle on my hat.

Some readers may suppose, possibly, that, in the course of the annexed Treatise, I have handled my assailants too severely: I request, that such will sus­pend their judgment, until they have perused the performance which gave rise to the present. Their opinion, I am persuaded, will then be reversed; and they will wonder, either at my deigning to take any notice at all, of an invective so exceedingly low and frivolous; or, at my not chastising the authors of it, with a severity proportioned to their demerits: but, for abstaining from the latter, I had, among others, two reasons: 1. I should have sinned against [[185]] meekness; and, 2. The poverty of Mr. Sellon's ta­lents, in particular, is so extreme, as to render him an object rather of pity than of resentment. As the man cannot reason, nor even write grammatically, I often allow him to rail with impunity. If a mali­cious ignoramus comes against me with a straw, self-defence does not oblige me, and Christian charity forbids me, to knock him down with a bludgeon.

Moreover, the period may arrive, when this very person, as also his commander in chief, may see the justness, and experience the energy, of those hea­venly truths, which they now unite to blaspheme: they may even preach the faith to which they have subscribed, and which they impotently labour to destroy. If having once been an Arminian, were incompatible with future conversion and salvation, we might indeed ask, who then can be saved? For every man is born an Arminian. Unrenewed na­ture spurns the idea of inheriting eternal life as the mere gift of divine sovereignty, and on the footing of absolute grace. I will not affirm, that all who heartily embrace the scripture system of Calvinism, are savingly renewed by the holy Spirit of God; for St. Stephen teaches us to distinguish between the circumcision of the ears, and the circumcision of the heart. Thus much, however, I assert, without he­sitation, that I know, comparatively, very few Calvinists, of whose saving renewal I have reason to doubt. I will even go a step farther: sincerely to admit and relish a system so diametrically opposite to the natural pride of the human heart, is, with me, an incontestable proof, that a man's judgment, at least, is brought into subjection to the obedience of Christ: and, to every such person, those words may be accommodated, “flesh and blood have not re­vealed this to thee, but my Father who is in heaven."

I cannot give the two Pelagian gentlemen stronger evidence of my concern for their welfare, than by [[186]] wishing them to renounce those unhappy principles, which, under pretence of extending the grace of God, by representing it as a glove accommodated to every hand, and which lies at the option of free­will either to make use of, or to fling behind the fire, do, in fact, annihilate all grace whatever, by ultimately resolving its efficacy into the power, me­rits, and caprice of man. Mr. Wesley and Mr. Sellon may find, in Strype's Collections, a form of recantation, ready drawn' to their hands. The historian introduces it thus:

“Another letter there was, wrote (A. D. 1555) by one in prison (for the protestant faith, during the Marian persecution), who had lately been one of these free-willers[31], but now changed in his judg­ment, to certain of that persuasion, in prison also for the gospel." The persecution of protestants was so indiscriminate, that not only the bishops, clergy, and members of the church of England, felt its iron hand, but even some of the free-will men (as they were then called), who dissented from the church and had formed a separate conventicle of their own, came in for a taste of the common trouble: but, though a few of the few free-willers (for their whole number was then exceeding small) were imprisoned for a while, I cannot find that so much as one of them either died in confinement, or was brought to the stake. If Mr. Wesley and his friend can give authentic evidence, that so much as a single free-wilier was burned by the papists, let them point [[187]] him out by name; and, at the same time, remember to adduce their proofs. Such an instance, or in­stances, if producible, will reflect some honour on the Pelagians of that sera, though unable to turn the scale in favour of pelagianism itself. I now return to the letter of the converted free-will man. In it, says the historian, be lamented “the loss of the gospel (i. e. the revival of popery by queen Mary); showing the reasons of it: whereof one he made to be, that they (viz. himself and his Pelagian brethren) had professed the gospel (i.e. Protestantism) with their tongues, and denied it in their [32] deeds: another, that they were not sound in the doctrine of predestination. In this letter he mentioned what a grief it was to him, that be had endeavoured so much to persuade others into his error of free-will; and that divers of that congregation of free-will men began to be better informed; as namely, Ladley and Cole, and others unnamed: the report of whom gave him and his prison fellows much rejoicing (adding); that be was convinced (i. e. converted from being a free-will man) by certain preachers in prison with him, who reconciled St. Paul and St. James to­gether, to his great satisfaction[33]."

A great part of this choice letter is published by Mr. Strype, at the close [34] of the volume referred to below. For Mr. Wesley's sake, and for the sake of those who are led captive by him at his will, I here transcribe the following passages, which may serve him [[188]] as a model of retractation, in case it should please God to grant him repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth.

“What high lauds, thanks and praise, am I bound to give always to God, who hath certified my con­science, by his Spirit, that he will not impute my sins unto me, for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, in whom he hath chosen his elect before the foundations of the world were laid; and preserveth us all, so that there shall never any of us finally perish, or be damned.

“I, for my part, repent, that ever I was so bitter unto them that were the teachers of this undoubted truth: verily, I am not able to express the sorrows that I have in my heart: most especially, in that I went about, by all means, to persuade others, whereby they might be one with me in that error of free-will. With joy unspeakable I rejoice, giving thanks to God, night and day, in that it hath pleased him to vouch me worthy his fatherly correction at this pre­sent, showing me what I am by nature; that is to say, full of impiety and all evil: therefore, the great grief, which I daily feel, is, because I see the horribleness and the great dishonour, that the filthy free-will of man doth render unto God. I sigh and am grieved, because I spake evil of that good I knew not.

“Wherefore, my beloved, I am provoked by the Holy Ghost, to visit you with my letter; hoping, and believing, that God will give it good success: whereby God's glory may be the more set forth. For I have a good opinion of you, my dear brethren; trusting in God, that he will reveal unto you the knowledge of himself: for I believe verily, that you be vessels of God's mercy; therefore I am assured, that you shall lack no necessary article of your salvation. I have good cause so to judge of you; not only because God hath opened his truth to me alone, but I also sec how mercifully he hath dealt with many of our brethren, whom you do know well enough, as well as though I did recite them by name. God forbid [[189]] that I should doubt you, seeing it hath pleased God to reveal himself, in these days, to them that here­tofore were deceived with that error of the Pelagians, yea, and suffered [35] imprisonment in defence of that which now they detest and abhor. God be thanked for them. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

“Like as you have the truth, as concerning the papists' sacrament, in despising and haling that, as I do, it is well worthy: so likewise is free-will a great untruth, undoubtedly.

“I think that God will receive me home unto himself shortly; therefore, I am moved to signify unto you, in what state I stand, concerning the controversy between the opinions of the truth of God's predestination and election in Christ. I do not hold predestination to the end to maintain evil, as there be some have full ungodly affirmed that we do; God forgive them, if it be his will. We are sure that none, who have the full feeling of their [[190]] election in Christ, can love or allow those things which God hateth.

“I would wish, that men should not allow the fruit of faith to be the cause of faith. Faith bringeth forth good works, and not good works faith; for then of necessity we must attribute our salvation to our good works; which is great blas­phemy against God and Christ so to do.

“But, I thank God, I do allow good works in their (proper) place. For I was created in Christ unto good works; wherefore I. am bound to allow them, according to the scriptures; and not to the end to merit by them any thing at all; for then I were utterly deceived: for Isaiah saith, all our righ­teousnesses are as a filthy cloth, and are not as the law of God requireth them; wherefore, I acknow­ledge, that all salvation, justification, redemption, and remission of sins, cometh to us wholly and solely by the mere mercy and free grace of God in Jesus Christ, and not for any of our own works, merits, or deservings. I myself could not understand St. Paul and St. James, to make them agree together, till our good preachers, who were my prison fellows, did open them unto me. I praise God for them, most humbly; and yet I cannot be so thankful for them as I ought to be.

“Paul saith, faith only justified], and not the deeds of the law: and St. James saith, faith with­out deeds, is dead. Here are contraries to the carnal man. When I saw these two scriptures plainly opened, I could not stand against the truth therein: and thus were they opened unto me; that faith only doth justify before God; and the good deeds which St. James speaketh of, justify before the world.

“I thank God that they, who I thought would have been my enemies, are become my friends in the truth: as in sample, by our brethren Ladley and Cole, and such like: if it had lain in their own [[191]] wills, they would have been enemies to that ex­cellent truth which they do now allow: praised be God for them; for it is he who worketh both the will and the deed. If he bad not been merciful unto them and to me, and prevented our wills, we had been still wallowing in the mire. The prophet Jeremy saith, Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; heal thou me, and I shall be healed. And David saith, The Lord hath prepared the hearts of the poor, and his ear hearkeneth unto them: so that it is the Lord who doth all that good is. And again, David saith, Ascribe all honour and glory to God, who alone is worthy: for no man cometh unto me, saith Christ, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. And again he saith, All that the Father hath given me, shall come unto me; and him that cometh unto me, I cast not away.

“Therefore, I believe that we shall, every one, be preserved and kept, in him and for him, accord­ing to his own word. I dare boldly say, with our everlasting Saviour Jesus Christ, that all the elect shall be preserved and kept for ever and ever: so then none of them shall be damned at any time. They who say that any of them may be lost for ever, do as much as in them lieth to make (i. e. to represent) Christ unable to preserve and keep them: denying the power of Christ, in so saying: for he saith, he loveth his unto the end: which love remaineth, and shall never be extinguished, or put out: and is not as the love of man, which is some­times angry, and sometimes pleased. God, at no time, is so displeased with any of his elect, to the end that he will deprive them of the purchased possession, which he hath laid up in store for them in Christ before, and were elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sancti­fying of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: which Lamb was killed from the beginning, according to God's divine will [[192]] and providence. Christ was ordained to die in the flesh; and all was for our sins. Christ was or­dained in this respect; that the Father, seeing the fall of Adam, for that purpose only he ordained Christ, to the end that he would preserve a remnant of the posterity of Adam, even as it pleased his godly wisdom.

“What, will some say a remnant, and not all? St. Paul saith, Like as all died in Adam, &c. And St. John saith, Not for our sins only, &c. Ah! will these free-will men say, Where is your rem­nant now become? To whom I answer by the scrip­tures, whereas Christ shall say, in the last day, De­part from me, ye cursed; I know you not: I pray you, tell me, did not God know them, as con­cerning their creation, and also their wickedness? Yes, verily: but he knew them not for his elect children.

“The true church of Christ doth understand these all (viz. the all, and the whole redeemed world, mentioned by St. Paul and St. John), and all other such like scriptures, to include all the elect children of God. None otherwise, I am sure, that these all can be understanded, except we should make the scripture repugnant to itself; which were too much ignorance, and too great an absurdity, to grant.

“I affirm, that all they be blasphemers to God, that do slander the truth in predestination; that say, If I be once in, I cannot be out, do what evil I will or can: all such do declare themselves to be reprobates, and children of God's ire and wrath, rather than any of his. For whosoever delighteth in those things which God hateth and abhorreth, doth declare himself to be none of God's: but, if he be any of his, he will give him repentance, for to know the truth, by his Spirit. For the Spirit maketh in­tercession for the saints, according to the pleasure of God. For we know that all things work for the [[193]] best, unto them that love God, who are called of purpose. For those which he knew before, he also ordained before, that they should be like fashioned unto the shape (i. e. here, to the gracious, hereafter to the glorious, resemblance) of his Son.

“And, seeing God hath made all his elect like to the shape (the spiritual and moral similitude) of Jesus Christ, how is it possible, that any of them can fall away? Whosoever be he, that doth so hold, is against God and Christ; and may as well say, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may perish as any them; for Christ said unto the Father, Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me: although Christ spake these words to the comfort of his disci­ples at the present, so likewise is it to the comfort of all us, his chosen. Those that St. Paul speaketh of, that God knew before, he meant by it, all his elect; and immediately he addeth, saying, Whom he appointed before, them also be called; and whom be called, them also he justified; and whom he justified, them also he glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who can be against us? That is to say, if God have appointed to glorify us and to save us, who can then deny (deprive) him of any of us, or take us out of his hands?

“My sheep, saith Christ, hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. O most worthy scriptures! which ought to compel us to have a faithful remembrance, and to note the tenor thereof; which is, the sheep of Christ shall never perish.

“Doth Christ mean part of his elect, or all, think you? I do hold, and affirm, and also faithfully be­lieve, that he meant all his elect, and not part, as some do full ungodly affirm. I confess and believe assuredly, that there shall never any of them perish: for I have good authority so to say; because Christ [[194]] is my author, and saith, if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived. Ergo, it is not possible that they can be so deceived, that they shall ever finally perish, or be damned: wherefore, whosoever doth affirm that there may be any (i. e. any of the elect) lost, doth affirm that Christ hath a torn body[36]."

The above valuable letter of recantation is thus inscribed: “A Letter to the Congregation of Free-willers, by One that had been of that Persuasion, but come off, and now a Prisoner for Religion:" which superscription will hereafter, in its due place, supply us with a remark of more than slight im­portance.

To occupy the place of argument, it has been alleged that “Mr. Wesley is an old man;" and the church of Rome is still older than he. Is that any reason why the enormities, either of the mother or the son, should pass unchastised?

It has also been suggested, that “Mr. Wesley is a very laborious man:" not more laborious, I pre­sume, than a certain active being, who is said to go to and fro in the earth, and walk up and down in it[37]: nor yet more laborious, I should imagine, than certain ancient sectarians, concerning whom it was long ago said, Woe unto you scribes, pharisees, hypocrites; for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte[38]: nor, by any means, so usefully laborious, as a certain diligent member of the com­munity, respecting whose variety of occupations the public have lately received the following intelli­gence: “The truth of the following instance of industry may be depended on: a poor man, with a large family, now cries milk, every morning, in Lothbury, and the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange; at eleven, he wheels about a barrow of [[195]] potatoes; at one, he cleans shoes at the Exchange; after dinner, cries milk again; in the evening, sells sprats; and at night, finishes the measure of his labour as a watchman[39].”

Mr. Sellon, moreover, reminds me (p. 128.) that, “while the shepherds are quarrelling, the wolf gets into the sheepfold;" not impossible: but it so happens, that the present quarrel is not among “the shepherds," but with the “wolf" himself: which “quarrel" is warranted by every maxim of pastoral meekness and fidelity.

I am farther told, that, while I am “he-rating the Arminius, Rome and the devil laugh in their sleeves." Admitting that Mr. Sellon might derive this anecdote from the fountain head, the parties themselves, yet, as neither they nor he are very conspicuous for veracity, I construe the intelligence by the rule of reverse, though authenticated by the deposition of their right trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor.

Once more: I am charged with “excessive super­ciliousness, and majesty of pride:" and why not charged with having seven heads and ten horns, and a tail as long as a hell-rope? After all, what has my pride, or my humility, to do with the argument in hand? Whether I am haughty, or meek, is of no more consequence either to that, or to the public, than whether I am tall or short: however, I am, at this very time, giving one proof, that my “majesty of pride" can stoop; stoop even to ventilate the impertinences of Mr. Sellon.

But, however frivolous his cavils, the principles for which he contends are of the most pernicious nature and tendency. I must repeat, what already seems to have given him so much offence, that Arminianism “came from Rome, and leads thither again." Julian, bishop of Eelana, a cotemporary [[196]] and disciple of Pelagius, was one of those who en­deavoured, with much art, to gild the doctrines of that heresiarch, in order to render them more sightly and palatable. The Pelagian system, thus varnished and palliated, soon began to acquire the softer name of Semi-Pelagianism. Let us take a view of it, as drawn to our hands by the celebrated Mr. Bower, who was himself, in the main, a pro­fessed Pelagian, and therefore less likely to present us with an unfavourable portrait of the system he ge­nerally approved.

Among the principles of that sect, this learned writer enumerates the following:

“The notion of election and reprobation, inde­pendent on our merits or demerits, is maintaining a fatal necessity, is the bane of all virtue, and serves only to render good men remiss in working out their salvation, and to drive sinners to despair.

“The decrees of election and reprobation arc posterior to, and in consequence of, our good or evil works, are foreseen by God from all eter­nity[40]."

Is not this too the very language of modern Arminianism? Do not the partisans of that scheme argue on the same principles, and express their ob­jections against Calvinism even in the same identical terms? Should it he said, “true, this proves that Arminianism is pelagianism revived; but it does not prove, that the doctrines of Arminianism are originally popish:" a moment's cool attention will make it plain that they are. Let us again hear Mr. Bower, who, after the passage just quoted, imme­diately adds, “on these two last propositions, the Jesuits found their whole system of grace and free­will; agreeing therein with the Semipelagians, against the Jansenists and St. Austin[41]." The Jesuits were molded into a regular body, towards the middle [[197]] of the sixteenth century: toward the close of the same century, Arminius began to infest the protestant churches. It needs therefore no great pene­tration, to discern from what source he drew his poison. His journey to Rome (though Monsieur Bayle affects to make light of the inferences which were at that very time deduced from it) was not for nothing. If, however, any are disposed to believe, that Arminius imbibed his doctrines from the Socinians in Poland, with whom, it is certain, he was on terms of intimate friendship, I have no objection to splitting the difference: he might import some of his tenets from the Racovian brethren, and yet be indebted, for others, to the disciples of Loyala.

Certain it is, that Arminius himself was sensible, how greatly the doctrine of predestination widens the distance between Protestantism and popery. “There is no point of doctrine (says he) which the papists, the Anabaptists, and the (new) Lutherans more fiercely oppose, nor by means of which they heap more discredit on the reformed churches, and bring the reformed system itself into more odium; for they (i. e. the papists, &c.) assert, that no fouler blas­phemy against God can be thought or expressed, than is contained in the doctrine of predestina­tion[42]." For which reason, he advises the re­formed world to discard predestination from their creed, in order that they may live on more bro­therly terms with the papists, the Anabaptists, and such like.

The Arminian writers make no scruple to seize and retail each others arguments, as common pro­perty. Hence, Samuel Hoord copies from Van Harmin the self-same observation which I have now [[198]] cited. “Predestination (says Samuel) is an opinion odious to the. papists, opening their foul mouths against our church and religion[43]:" consequently, our adopting the opposite doctrines of universal grace and free-will, would, by bringing us so many degrees nearer to the papists, conduce to shut their mouths, and make them regard us, so far at least, as their own orthodox and dearly beloved brethren: whence it follows, that, as Arminianism came from Rome, so “it leads thither again."

If the joint verdict of Arminius himself, and of his English proselyte Hoord, will not turn the scale, let us add the testimony of a professed Jesuit, by way of making up full weight. When archbishop Land's papers were examined, a letter was found among them, thus endorsed with that prelate's own hand: “March, 1628. A Jesuit's Letter, sent to the Rector at Bruxels, about the ensuing Parlia­ment." The design of this letter was to give the Superior of the Jesuits, then resident at Brussels, an account of the posture of civil and ecclesiastical affairs in England; an extract from it I shall here subjoin: “Father Rector, let not the damp of asto­nishment seize upon your ardent and zealous soul, in apprehending the subjoin and unexpected calling of a Parliament. We have now many strings to our bow. We have planted that sovereign drug, Arminianism, which we hope will purge the protestants from their heresy; and it flourisheth and bears fruit in due season. For the better prevention of the Puritans, the Arminians have already locked up the duke's (of Buckingham) ears; and we have those of our own religion, which stand continually at the duke's chamber, to see who goes in and out: we cannot be too circumspect and careful in this regard. I am at this time transported with joy, to see how happily all instruments and means, as [[199]] well great as lesser, co-operate unto our purposes. But, to return unto the main fabric:—Our foundation is Arminianism. The Arminians and projectors, as it appears in the premises, affect mutation. This we second and enforce by probable arguments[44]."

The “sovereign drug, Arminianism," which, said the Jesuit, “we (i. e. we papists) have planted" in England, did indeed bid fair “to purge" our protestant church effectually. How merrily popery and Arminianism, at that time, danced hand in hand, may be learned from Tindal: “The churches were adorned with paintings, images, altar-pieces, &c. and, instead of communion tables, altars were set up, and bowings to them and the sacramental elements enjoined. The predestinarian doctrines were forbid, not only to he preached, but to he printed; and the Arminian sense of the articles was encouraged and propagated[45]." The Jesuit, therefore, did not exult without cause. J ne “so­vereign drug," so lately “planted," did indeed take deep root downward, and bring forth fruit upward, under the cherishing auspices of Charles and Land.

Heylin, too, acknowledges that the state of things was truly described by another Jesuit of that age, who wrote thus: “Protestantism waxeth weary of itself The doctrine (by the Arminians, who then sat at the helm) is altered in many things, for which their progenitors forsook the church (of Rome): as limbus patrum; prayer for the dead; the possibility of keeping God's commandments; and the ac­counting of Calvinism to be heresy at least, if not treason[46]."

The maintaining of these positions, by the court divines, was an “alteration" indeed; which the abandoned Hey]in ascribes to “the ingenuity and [[200]] moderation found in some professors of our religion." If we sum up the evidence that has been given, we shall find its amount to be, that Arminianism came from the church of Rome, and leads back again to the pit from whence it was digged.

The mention of Rome naturally enough paves the way for saying something about John Goodwin: and the rather, as Mr. Sellon seriously supposes that I paid his friend Wesley a very great compliment, when I styled him, which I still do, the John Good­win of the present age. The greatness of this com­pliment will appear, from the following short particulars, which some historians have transmitted to posterity, concerning the said Goodwin.

About the year 1652, when Cromwell's design of usurping the sovereign power became more and more apparent, a set of visionaries, known by the name of fifth-monarchy men[47], grew very [[201]] turbulent and conspicuous. Their grand ring-leader was John Goodwin, the Arminian; who had also [[202]] rendered himself remarkable, by aspersing the Calvinistic doctrines of the church of England, and by publishing a folio Vindication of King Charles' Beheaders: yet, behold the art of this crafty Arminian! though the fifth-monarchy men were not a little odious and formidable to Oliver Cromwell, and though John Goodwin was actually at the head of those odious and formidable fanatics; Goodwin, notwith­standing, plied Cromwell so assiduously with flattery and obsequiousness, as to gain no small measure of that usurper's confidence: even the dissembling Oliver was, in part, over-reached by the still more exquisite dissimulation of master Goodwin.

Let not the candid reader imagine, that my co­louring is too strong, or laid on too thickly: to cut off the very possibility of such a surmise, I shall ex­press what I farther have to observe concerning the sly fifth-monarchy man, in the words of others: not forgetting, at the same time, to subjoin from bishop Burnet, as much as may suffice to authenticate what has been already placed to John Goodwin's account.

“The fifth-monarchy men seemed (viz. A. D. 1652 and J653,) to he really in expectation, every day, when Christ should appear. John Goodwin [[203]] headed these; who first brought in Arminianism among the sectaries. None of the preachers were so thorough-paced for him (i. e. for Cromwell) as to temporal matters, as Goodwin was; for he (Good­win) not only justified the putting the king to death, but magnified it as the gloriousest action men were capable of. He (Goodwin) filled all people with such expectation of a glorious thousand years speedily to begin, that it looked like a mad­ness possessing them[48]." Such being the principles of John Goodwin, what a masterpiece of political cunning must his conduct have been, which could fix him so tightly in the saddle of Cromwell's esteem! On the one hand, Cromwell was taking large strides toward the throne; and, soon, actually acquired kingly power, though (by spinning his thread of affected moderation too finely) he missed the name of king. On the other hand, Goodwin, “who had long represented kingship as the great Antichrist which hindered Christ's being set on his throne[49]," carried himself fairly with the Pro­tector, who was, every day, visibly approximating nearer and nearer to that very “kingship" which Goodwin abhorred as “the great Antichrist" that excluded the Messiah from possessing his light. A little to save appearances, Cromwell canted, occa­sionally, to Goodwin, and the rest of the fifth-monarchy men; and, in return, Goodwin as cantingly pretended to be convinced of Cromwell's holy and upright intentions!

It surprised every body, says Burnet, that John Goodwin, who had been so furious and active against Charles I. should come off with impunity after the restoration of Charles II. “But, (adds the right reverend historian), Goodwin had been so zealous an Arminian, and had sown such division among all the sectaries, on these heads, that it was said, this [[204]] procured him friends[50]." It has long been uni­versally known and acknowledged, that Charles II. himself had been, for some time before the com­mencement of his reign, a concealed papist; and that he continued such, to the last moment of his life. No wonder, therefore, that Goodwin's Arminianism [51] atoned for the rancour and frenzy of his political principles and behaviour. “Goodwin had, so often, not only justified, but magnified, the putting the king to death, both in his sermons and books, that few thought he could have been either forgot or excused; for (Hugh) Peters and he were the only preachers who spoke of it in that strain[52]." Who will say, that John Goodwin knew not how to balance a straw? During the civil commotions, the ranter kept himself secure, by his abhorrence of monarchy. After the nation was resettled, he pre­served his neck, and his treasons were overlooked, on account of his zeal for Arminianism. He had been already serviceable to the popish cause, by “sowing divisions" among protestants; and he was suffered to live, by a popish prince who aimed at arbitrary power, in order to his being farther useful in the same laudable department.

So much for Goodwin, as a politician: a word or two, now, concerning him as a divine, and an indi­vidual; for it is chiefly in these latter respects, that I have honoured Mr. John Wesley with, what Mr. Sellon calls “the great commendation" of being the John Goodwin of the present age.

[[205]] Dr. Calamy informs us, that, on the restoration, Goodwin, “not being satisfied with the terms of the uniformity act, lived and died a non-conformist. He was a man by himself; was against every man, and had every man almost against him. He was very warm and eager (in) whatsoever he engaged in[53]." The same writer observes, that Goodwin “wrote such a number of controversial pieces, that it would be no easy thing to reckon them up with any exactness[54]." If, instead of the word “wrote," we only substitute the word “pilfered," the whole of these two passages will fit both the Mr. Johns as neatly as their skins.

A very humorous circumstance, respecting Good­win, is related by Anthony Wood: an ingenious writer of that age published a book against Good­win, with this facetious title: “Coleman-street Conclave visited; and that grand Impostor, the Schismatic's Cheater in Chief (who hath long slily lurked therein) truly and duly discovered; con­taining a most palpable and plain Display of Mr. John Goodwin's Self-conviction, and of the notorious Heresies, Errors, Malice, Pride, and Hypocrisy, of this most huge Garagantua. London, Kits." The title is curious; but the frontispiece, prefixed, was exquisitely laughable, and most justly descriptive of the original. “Before the title (continues Wood) is John Goodwin's picture, with a windmill over his head, and a weathercock upon it, with other hieroglyphics, or emblems, about him, to show the instability of the man. [55]" The writer of the above piece was Mr. John Vicars, the famous author of “The Schismatic sifted;" who, if he sifted all schismatics as searching])' as he appears to have sifted John Goodwin, the schismatics of that age had no great reason to be much in love either [[206]] with the sifter, or the sieve. What a masterly sifting would such a man have given to John Wesley and Walter Sellon! But they must not content them­selves with Goodwin's legacy of the windmill surmounted by a weathercock.

Goodwin had an excellent talent at scurrility and abuse; whereof take the following concise example: Mr. Nedham had written two treatises against him; the one entitled, “Trial of Mr. John Goodwin at the Bar of Religion and right Reason:" the other, “The great Accuser cast down;" on which the inflammable Arminian immediately took fire, and gave vent to his rage in explosions not the most gentle. He characterized Nedham as having “a foul mouth, which satan hath opened against the truth and mind of God;" as being “a person of infamous and unclean character for the service of the triers;" as "a man that curseth whatsoever he blesseth, and blesseth whatsoever he curseth[56]." And yet John Goodwin is represented as having been, like Mr. John Wesley, "a meek, loving-hearted" Arminian! Let me add, concerning the first of these Jolns, that (among a multitude of other refuters) he was taken to task, in 1655, by the learned Mr. Obadiah Howe, in a performance entitled, “The Pagan Preacher silenced[57]." I question, if any of Goodwin's pagan preachments are still extant: but such of his pagan treatises as have reached the present times, are, I find, the very Bible and Common Prayer Book of Mr. Walter Sellon. I shall close these remarks on Goodwin with some of the encomiums heaped on him by his said admirer. John Goodwin, saith this sagacious critic, was a man “whom envy itself cannot but praise; a glorious champion for the truth of the gospel, and for the genuine doctrines of the church of England[58]." Thus chaunts the godly and [[207]] loyal Mr. Sellon: the veracity, the modesty, and the propriety of whose panegyric, may be amply collected from the foregoing testimonies, which I have produced, concerning the ranting fifth-mo­narchy man, J. Goodwin.

Mr. Sellon is no happier in deducing conclusions, than in the drawing of characters: witness his judi­cious commentary on a passage of mine, from whence he labours to distil no less than the doctrine of uni­versal salvation. In my remarks on Dr. Nowell, I testified my firm belief, that the souls of all de­parted infants are with God in glory: that, in the decree of predestination to life, God hath included all whom he intended to take away in infancy; and that the decree of reprobation hath nothing to do with them[59]. From these premises, says Sellon, it follows, that “Mr. Toplady himself maintains general redemption, and even the universal salvation of mankind." Logica Selloniana! As if all mankind died in infancy. “Oh, but you quoted Mat­thew xviii. 14. to prove the salvation of infants:" true; I did so. Let us review the text itself. “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." Sup­posing this to be spoken of infants, literally so called, it certainly proves, that all who die in that state are saved. “Oh, but our Lord says nothing about their dying in that state; he speaks of little ones in general, whether they live long, or die soon." Does he indeed? Consult verse 10. “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that their angels (i. e. as I understand it, the souls of such of them as die in infancy) do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." Now, I should imagine it impossible for the angels, or souls, of little children, always to behold the face [[208]] of God in heaven, unless their souls were previously dislodged from their bodies by death: consequently, according to my view of the passage, our Lord, in the 14th verse, speaks of such little ones, and of such only, as actually die in infancy. “Oh, but the word angels means guardian angels, appointed to take care of children." Before I can subscribe to this, I must see a grain or two of that necessary thing called proof. That children, no less than adults, are objects of angelic attention, in the course of providence, I am far from denying: but, in my present conceptions of the passage under con­sideration, I cannot believe that exposition to con­vey the true sense of this particular text. Among other reasons, the following is one: how can those superior spirits, who are (upon very probable grounds) supposed, very frequently, if not constantly, to attend on infants, be yet said to behold always the face of our Father, in heaven? In order, therefore, to prove, that the word angels, in this declaration of our Lord, means angels, properly so termed, it must be first proved, that angels, properly so termed, can be present in more places than one, at one and the same time. “Oh, but angels may sometimes attend children on earth, and at other times be present in heaven:" likely enough: but the angels, here spoken of, are said always to behold the face or glory of God, and that in heaven; an affirmation which can never be reconciled to propriety, or even to truth, if they are supposed to be absent from heaven at any period, or on any occasion. “Oh, but if angels are long-sighted, they may see into heaven while they are on earth." I never met with a treatise on the optics of angels, and therefore can­not say much to this hypothetical objection. On the whole, if "little ones in general," whether they die young, or live to maturity, be (as Mr. Sellon contends) entitled to salvation, his own title to hap­piness is incontestable. If little reasoning, less [[209]] knowledge, and no regard to truth or decency, be a pass­port to the skies, this exotic star will glitter there, like a diamond of the first water. In the mean While, I should be obliged to the said star, if he would, with the help of Mr. Wesley's irradiation, show me what becomes of departed infants, upon the Arminian plan of conditional salvation, and election on good works foreseen.
From two Arminians, let me, for a moment, pass to a third. It will be found, in the following Histo­rical Disquisition, that I have made some use of Dr. Peter Heylin's testimonies in favour of the grand argument: and I admit his depositions, on the same principle by which men, of the most ex­ceptionable cast, are sometimes allowed to turn king's evidence.

Footnotes:

[1] In Pref, ad libros De Causâ Dei.

[2] Pelagianism was revived in Holland, under the new name of Arminianism, toward the beginning of the last century.

[3] Page 11.

[4] Page 7.

[5] Hist. Dict. vol. iii. p. 538. Art. Hunnius.

[6] Page 32.

[7] See my Caveat against Unsound Doctrines, p. 14.

[8] Page 3.

[9] Page 45.

[10] Page 59. 71.

[11] Page 74.

[12] Page 107.

[13] And true enough it is. Mr. Sellon is, in very deed, destitute of the said honour. His education was as illiberal as ore his prin­ciples: he was, at his first setting out in life, a low mechanic; he then got himself enrolled on the list of Mr. Wesley's lay-preachers: he next insinuated himself into the favour of a certain person of distinction, who (not being endued with the gift of foresight) pro­cured him admission into holy orders: and thus he came to wear prunella.

[14] Page 126.

[15] See the Gospel Magazine, for March, 1771, p. 135.

[16] Page 77.

[17] Page 117.

[18] Page 17, 18.

[19] Page 38.

[20] Page 31, 52.

[21] Page 49.

[22] Page 79.

[23] Page 118.

[24] Page 84.

[25] Page 18.

[26] Page 117.

[27] Page 124.

[28] Page 113.

[29] Page 126.

[30] Page 225.

[31] During the preceding reign of king Edward VI. there had been a congregation of free-willers, in some part of London, who were separatists from the church of England; and, indeed, all free-willers were then accounted dissenters, and openly professed themselves to be such. Certain salvoes for duplicity, which have since been adopted, were not then invented. The free-willers of that age were, with all their mistakes, too honest, either to subscribe to the articles and homilies of the church, or statedly to frequent her public worship.—I shall have occasion to mention the free-will congregation hereafter.

[32] This is one proof, among a million, that the doctrines of free-will and of justification by works (both which were stiffly con­tended for by these Pelagians, and to which most of them added the belief of sinless perfection) are not doctrines really calculated to promote holiness of life, whatever the assertors of those tenets may pretend. Observe, they “were not sound in the doctrine of predestination;" and “their deeds'' were so dishonourable to a gospel profession, as to amount even to a “denial" of it—As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever will he; generally speaking.— Unsoundness and unholiness seldom fail to walk arm in arm.

[33] Strype's Eccles. Memorials, vol. iii. p. 317. edit. 1721.

[34] Ibid, Append. No. xliii. p. 110-133.

[35] It appears from hence, that, in the foregoing reign of king Ed­ward, i. e. from the very first establishment of the protestant chine!] of England, pelagianism, or holding and maintaining the doctrine of free-will and its connected principles, was punished with imprison­ment. I acknowledge, that such a method of dealing with the “Free­will men" reflects very great dishonour on the moderation of those times. It demonstrates, however, the high Calvinism of the church of England, whose, secular and spiritual governors (among the latter of whom were the principal reformers themselves) could proceed, with such extreme rigour, against the abettors of those very tenets, which some modern Arminians, more rash than wise, would persuade us, were, even ab origine, the doctrines of the church herself. I must add, that the usage of “the Free-will men" was very severe, both on the right hand, and on the left. In the protestant reign of Edward VI. they had been imprisoned for being too popish, in the articles of justification, election, and grace; all three of which they supposed to he conditional and admissible. In the catholic reign of Mary, they were liable to imprisonment, and some of them actually were im­prisoned, for not being popish enough, in the articles of image-worship and transubstantiation. Their troubles, under Mary, were no more than might he expected; but their sufferings under Edward and the reformers, were absolutely unnatural and inexcusable.

[36] Strype, u. s.

[37] Job i. 7. with 1 Pet. v. 8.

[38] Matt. xxiii. 15.

[39] Bath Chronicle, for Feb. 6, 1772.

[40] Bower's Hist, of the Popes, vol. i. p. 350.

[41] Bower, ibid.

[42] Porro, nullum est doctrinæ caput, quod Papistæ, Anabaptistæ, et Lutheran! acriùs oppugnent; perque cujus latus ecrlesiis nostris gravius invidiam concilient, tõtamque adeò doctrinam in odium vocent: statuentes, nullam tam fœdam adversus Deum blasphemiam excogitari ant verbis proferri posse. Arminius, in Oper. p. 145. Ludg. 1629.

[43] Hoord, in bishop Davenant's Animadversions, Camb. 1641.

[44] Hidden Works of Darkness, p. 89, 90. edit. 1645.

[45] Tindal's Contin. of Rapin, vol. iii. octavo, 1758.

[46] Life of Laud, p. 238.

[47] The leading principle, and the extravagant spirit, of these double-dyed enthusiasts, will appear, in part, from the titles of two famous Tracts published by them, about this sera:—1. "The sounding of the last Trumpet; or, several Visions, declaring the universal overturning and rooting up of all earthly Powers in Eng­land: with many other Things foretold, which shall come to pass in this Year 1650, lately showed unto George Foster, who was com­manded to print them."—2. “Zion’s -approaching Glory; or, the great and glorious Day of the Lord King Jesus' appearing; before whom all the Kings of the Nations must fall, and never rise again. Accurately described, according to the Prophets, Christ, and his Apostles, in Three and forty Sections: by James Froze, Merchant, 1652." See Grey's Notes on Hudibras, vol. ii. p. 245.

The fifth-monarchists were not entirely extinguished, at the re­storation of Charles II. “That king (says bishop Burnet) had not been many days at Whitehall, when one Venner, a violent fifth-monarchy man, who thought it was not enough to believe, that Christ was to put the saints into the possession of the kingdom, lint added to this, that the saints were to take the kingdom themselves, gathered some of the most furious of the party to a meeting in Coleman-street (which, by the way, was the very part of the town where John Goodwin, at that very time, privately exercised his ministry; and it is not improbable, but Goodwin’s own meeting-house might he the place of rendezvous, to which Venner convened his brother conspirators. See Calamy's Account of the Ejected

Ministers, p. 53. edit. 1713). There they concerted the day and the manner of their rising to set Christ on his throne, as they called it: but, withal, they meant to manage the government in his name; and were so formal, that they had prepared standards and colours, with their devices on them, and furnished themselves with very good arms; but, when the day came, there was but a small appearance, not exceeding twenty: however, they resolved to venture out into the streets, and cry out, No king but Christ. Some of them seemed persuaded, that Christ would come down and head them. They scoured the streets before them, and made a great progress; they killed a great many; but were at last mastered by numbers; and were all either killed, or taken and executed." Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. p. 160, 161. folio.

Bishop Kennett justly observes, that the fifth-monarchy men were "the most hold and bloody of all sorts of enthusiasts." Complete Hist, of Engl. vol. iii. p. 225.

Dr. Echard will, more than any historian yet quoted, let us into the true knowledge of the unparalleled exorbitancies, which marked the temper and proceedings of this species of fanatics. Venner himself was, it seems, a Preaching Cooper, and used to hold forth in John Goodwin's pulpit (that tub without hoops), in Coleman-street. The topics, on which Venner and his associates usually ha­rangued their Arminian auditory, were, the expedience and necessity of “taking up arms for king Jesus (1 shudder at the blasphemy), against the powers of the earth, the king, the duke of York, general Monk, &c. assuring them, that no weapons formed against them (i. e. against their own sect) should prosper, not a hair of their heads he touched; for one should chace a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. Upon which they got a declaration printed, entitled, A Door of Hope opened: in which they said and declared, that they would never sheath their swords, till Babylon (as they called monarchy) became a hissing and a curse; and (till) there be left neither remnant, son, nor nephew: that, when they had led captivity captive in England, they would go into France, Spain, Germany, &c. and rather die, than take the wicked oaths of supremacy and alle­giance: that they would not make any leagues with monarchists, but would rise up against the carnal, to possess the gate, or the world; to Bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron." The historian then gives a circumstantial account of Venner's insurrection, in consequence of these godly resolutions: but he and nineteen others, being at length overpowered and taken, were tried at the Old Bailey, “for treason and murder; which being fully proved on Venner and sixteen of the rest, when sentence was pronounced against them, and lord chief Justice Foster seriously charged Venner with the blood of his unhappy accomplices, Venner impudently replied, It was not he, but Jesus, that led them. Being sentenced to he hanged, drawn, and quartered, Venner and Hodgkins were, on the 19th of January, executed over against their meeting-house, in Coleman-street." Echard's Hist, of Engl. vol. iii. p. 42—44.

Bishop Kennett affirms, that most of the fifth-monarchy men, who were executed on account of Venner's insurrection, died “raving, and threatening judgment, and calling down vengeance on the king, the judges, and the city" of London. Complete Hist. u. s.

And yet Mr. John Wesley and Mr. Walter Sellon are for referring us to the writings of John Goodwin (the very man who was at the head of the fifth-monarchy men, and whose meeting-house in Cole­man-street appears to have been the rendezvous and head quarters of the party), as the school of orthodoxy, wherein we are to learn what are the “genuine doctrines of the church of England!"—Credat Judaaus apella: nou ego.

[48] Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 67.

[49] Burnet, ibid.

[50] Burnet, ibid. p. 163.

[51] Goodwin, however, soon after the coming in of Charles II. trembled for his neck, and thought proper to he hid for a season. The immediate occasion of which panic was this, in August, 1660, “was called in a hook of John Goodwin (then lately a minister in Coleman-street, London), entitled, The Obstructers of Justice; written in defence of the sentence against his majesty Charles I. At which time also the said Goodwin absconded, to prevent justice." (Wood's Athenæ, vol. i. col. 882. edit. 1691.) The fox, however, at length, ventured out of his hole, and was not earthed till 1665.

[52] Burnet, ibid.

[53] Account of Ejected Ministers, p. 33.

[54] Continuation, vol. i. p. 78.

[55] Athena, vol. ii. col. 85.

[56] Athenæ, vol. ii. col. 469.

[57] Ibid. 558.

[58] Sellon, p. 26.

[59] See my Vindication of the Church of England from Arminianism.

Free-willers the first Separatists from the Church of England.— Character and Vindication of King Edward VI.

Time has been, when Arianism was more generally predominant throughout the Christian church, than even Arminianism is at present. The whole world, says history, wondered to see itself become Arian. It was Athanasius against all the world, and all the world against Athanasius.

Hardly were the clouds of Arianism dispersed, when the Pelagian darkness overspread a considerable part of the ecclesiastical horizon; and its influence has continued, more or less, to obscure the glory of the Christian faith, from that period to this. Yet is the eclipse far from total. We have a multitude of names, even in our present Sardis, who defile not either their doctrinal or their moral garments; and there is very good reason to believe, that their number, in this kingdom, both among clergy and laity, is continually increasing.

It is no novelty for the doctrines of grace to meet with opposition; and, indeed, few doctrines have [[212]] been so much opposed as they. Swarms of fanatical sectarists were almost coeval with the reformation itself. Such is the imperfect state of things below, that the most important advantages are connected with some inconveniences. The shining of truth, like the shining of the sun, wakens insects into life, which otherwise would have no sensitive existence. Yet, better for a few insects to quicken, than for the sun not to shine.

I shall not here review the tares which sprang up with the protestant corn in Germany; but content myself with just observing, that there was one congregation of free-willers in London, during the reign even of the pious king Edward VI. and notwithstanding the vigilance of our first protestant bishops—I say, there was one congregation of free-willers; or, as they were then most usually called, free-will-men: and it should seem, that there was then, in the metropolis, no more than one conventicle of this kind, held by such as made profession of Protestantism. For that valuable letter of recantation, preserved by the impartial Sir. Strype, and of which so large a part has been quoted in our Introduction, was inscribed (as before observed) with the following remarkable title: “A Letter to the Congregation of Free-willers."

London, however, was not the only place in England where pelagianism began to nestle, while good king Edward was on the throne. Some of the fraternity appeared likewise in two of the adjoining counties: viz. in Kent and Essex. Observe, I call the free-willers of that age Pelagians; because the new name of Arminians was not then known. The appearance of free-will-men in Kent and Essex is assigned by Strype to the year 1,350, which was ten years before Arminius himself was born.

“Sectarists," says the historian, “appeared now (viz. A. D. 1550,) in Essex and Kent, sheltering themselves under the profession of the gospel. Of [[213]] whom complaint was made to the council. These (i.e. these free-willers) were the first that made separation from the church of England; having gathered congregations of their own[1];" viz. one in London, one at Feversham in Kent, and another at Booking in Essex. Besides which, they used to hold some petty bye meetings, when a few of them could assemble with secrecy and safety.

Before we proceed, let me interpose a short remark. So far is the church of England from asserting the spiritual powers of free-will, and from denying predestination, that the deniers of predestination, and the asserters of free-will, were the very first persons who separated from her communion, and made a rent in her garment, by “gathering" three schismatical “congregations of their own." Thus, the free-willers were the original, and are to this day some of the most real and essential, dissenters from our evangelical establishment.

I now return to the historian, who thus goes on: “The congregation in Essex was mentioned to be at Bocking; that in Kent was at Feversham, as I learn from an old register. From whence (i. e. from which same old register) I collect, that they held the opinions (so far as free-will and predestination are concerned) of the Anabaptists and Pelagians[2]."

These free-willers were, it seems, looked upon in so dangerous a view by the church of England, that they were complained of to the privy council, and, for the more peaceful security of the reformed establishment, their names and tenets were authentically registered and enrolled.

Mr. Strype, after giving us the names of fifteen of them, adds as follows: “Their teachers and divers of them were taken up, and found sureties for their [[214]] appearance; and at length brought into the ecclesiastical court, where they were examined in forty-six articles, or more[3]." Were (which God forbid) all free-will-men to suffer equal molestation in the present age; were all Anti-predestinarians to be “taken up," “registered," “find sureties for their appearance," and at length be “examined in the ecclesiastical court;" what work would it make for constables, stationers, notaries, and bishops' officers!

But to resume the thread. “Many of those, before named, being deposed (i. e. put to their oath) upon the said articles, confessed these to be some sayings and tenets among them:

“That the doctrine of predestination was meeter for devils than for Christian men.

“That children were not born in original sin.

“That no man was so chosen, but he might damn himself; neither any man so reprobate, but he might keep God's commandments, and be saved.

“That St. Paul might have damned himself if he listed.

“That learned men were the cause of great errors.

“That God's predestination was not certain, but upon condition.

“That to play at any manner of game for money is sin, and a work of the flesh.

“That lust after evil was not sin, if the act were not committed. That there were no reprobates. And,

“That the preaching of predestination is a damnable thing[4]."

So much for these free-willers, who were the first separatists from the church of England; and whose tenets Mr. Strype (though not a Calvinist himself) justly allows to be Anabaptistical and Pelagian. How exactly do the doctrines of Wesley and Sellon, on the points of election, reprobation, and [[215]] free-agency, chime in with the hot and muddy ideas of their Pelagian forefathers! I cannot help indulging a very suitable speculation. What a delicious pastor would Mr. Sellon in particular have made, to the free-willers of Booking,1 or Feversham, had the rera of his nativity commenced about 200 years sooner! He would have fed them, not, indeed, with knowledge and understanding, but, after their own hearts. His lack of learning, his being “an exotic without academical education," would have been no impediment to that piece of promotion: nay, the flock would have liked him the better for it; seeing, in their estimation, “learned men are the cause of great errors." The spirit of which maxim, aided by his blasphemies against predestination, would have made him (next to free-will itself) the very idol of the sect.

O tibi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos!

Instead of being, as now, Mr. John Wesley's pack-horse, you might have sat up for yourself; and, as a reward for your meritorious denial of election, been elected Tub Orator to the Pelagians of Feversham, or Booking.

From such samples, as history has recorded, of the vigour (not to say the rigour), with which free-will men were proceeded against, in the days of Edward VI. under whom the reformation of the church was accomplished, it necessarily and unanswerably follows, that the church herself was reformed from popery to Calvinism, and held those predestinarian doctrines, which she punished (or, more properly, persecuted) the Pelagians for denying.

The persons who bore the main sway in church and state at the time last referred to, were the king, the duke of Somerset, and archbishop Cranmer. Over and above the matters of fact, in which that illustrious triumvirate were concerned, and which [[216]] neither would nor could have been directed into such a channel, had not those personages been doctrinal Calvinists; there are also incontestable written evidences, to prove that they were, conscientiously and upon inward principle, firm believers of the Calvinistic doctrines. This shall be proved of Cranmer, in its proper place, when I come to treat of the Reformers. The same will sufficiently appear, as to Somerset, under the section which is to treat of the influence which Calvin had on the English Reformation. The epistolary intimacy, which subsisted between Calvin and Somerset; the high veneration in which that foreign reformer was held by the latter; and the readiness with which the first liturgy was altered, in consequence of the same reformer's application; plainly demonstrate, that the duke of Somerset, no less than his royal nephew king Edward, and good archbishop Cranmer, had (happily for the church) heartily adopted Calvin's doctrine, though (no less happily) not proselyted to Calvin's favourite form of ecclesiastical regimen. To these considerations let me add another, drawn from that most excellent prayer, written by himself, upon his being declared protector of the realm, and governor of the king's person during his majesty's minority. It is entitled, “The Lord Protector's Prayer for God's Assistance in the high Office of Protector and Governor, new committed to him[5]." A man of the duke's extraordinary piety can never be thought to trifle with God, and to prevaricate on his knees. The prayer itself, therefore, proves him to have been a Calvinist. Part of it runs thus: “Lord God of hosts, in whose only hand is life and death, victory and confusion, rule and subjection; I am the price of thy Son's death; for thy Son's sake thou wilt not lese (i. e. lose) me. I am a vessel for thy mercy; thy justice [[217]] will not condemn me. I am recorded in the book of life; I am written with the very blood of Jesus; thy inestimable love will not then cancel my name: for this cause, Lord God, I am bold to speak to thy Majesty: thou, Lord, by thy providence, hast called me to rule; make me therefore able to follow thy calling: thou, Lord, by thine order, hast committed an anointed king to my governance; direct me therefore with thine hand, that I err not from thy good pleasure: finish in me, Lord, thy beginning, and begin in me that thou wilt finish." When this illustrious peer fell, afterwards, a sacrifice to the machinations and state intrigues of Warwick (who, himself, within a short time, paid dearly for his insidiousness and ambition), Somerset, during Ins imprisonment in the Tower, and a little before his death, “translated, out of French into English, an epistle wrote to him by John Calvin, (on the subject) of Godly Conversation, which he received while under his confinement, and was printed at London[6]."

As to the Calvinism of king Edward himself, every religious transaction of his reign sets it beyond a doubt. The reformation of the church upon the principles she still professes, might suffice to comprehend all proofs in one: but this excellent prince was not content to establish the church of England; he himself voluntarily and solemnly subscribed her articles. “A book, containing these articles, was signed by the king's own hand[7]." And Edward was too sincere a Christian, to sign what he did not believe; a species of prevarication reserved for the more accomplished iniquity of after-times; and which bids fair to end in the utter extirpation of all religion from amongst us.

Neither would king Edward have honoured what is commonly called Ponet's catechism (of which, [[218]] more hereafter) with his own prefixed letters of recommendation, had his majesty not been a thorough Calvinist: nor would he, just before the agonies of death came upon him, have set his seal, as he did, to the doctrine of election, had not that doctrine been an essential and predominant article of his faith. “Lord God (said the royal saint, a little before he expired), deliver me out of this miserable and wretched life, and take me among thy chosen[8]."

I unwillingly descend from one of the most wonderful and valuable princes that ever adorned a throne, to the meanest and most rancorous Arminian priest that ever disgraced a surplice. How extreme, how immense the transition, from king Edward VI. to Mr. Walter Sellon! But I must let the reader sec, in what way this factor for Methodism pretends to account for the Calvinistic measures of king Edward's administration. Even thus: "Some rigid Calvinists in power had imposed upon that good young king, and made use of his authority to impose their notions upon the church (Sell. p. 53)." A certain sort of people stand in particular need of good memories. Mr. Sellon's forsakes him in the very next page; where the “some rigid Calvinists" are dwindled into one. “Up starts rigid Ponet, and gets poor young king Edward, whom he had brought to his lure, to command all schoolmasters within his dominions to teach the youth this catechism (ibid. p. 54)." What is this, but calling “poor young king Edward" a poor young fool? An insinuation as false and unjust to the real character of that extraordinary prince, as I should be guilty of, were I to insinuate that Mr. Sellon is a man of sense, learning, and good manners. But supposing we should, for a moment, admit (contrary to all fact and truth), that the “poor young king" was [[219]] indeed a flexible piece of tape, which Ponet, bishop of Winchester, could easily twist round his finger at pleasure; yet, can it be imagined, that Ponet was an absolute monopolizer of the tape royal? Was he the only haberdasher who made property of the said tape? Could not a soul beside come in for a yard or two? Where (for instance) were Cranmer, and Ridley, and Hooper, and Latimer? Was it possible, that a transaction of such consequence to the church of England, as the public sanction of Ponet's catechism, could take effect, without the participation and concurrence of the other English bishops, and of the Convocation, and of the king's council itself? Every reasonable man will say no: besides, however liable to imposition "poor young king" Edward may be represented, by the Arminians of the present age, yet, surely, his majesty's next successor but one (under whom that same catechism was revived, and published with enlargements, by Dr. Nowell, dean of London) cannot be thought to have been very soft and pliable: but, I dare say, Mr. Sellon, by way of answer to this remark, will content himself with crying out, poor young queen Elizabeth!

King Edward was by no means that ductile, undiscerning prince, for which Mr. Sellon's cause requires him to pass. As this defamer, under the impulse of his inspirer, Mr. Wesley, has. thought proper to fasten this obliquity on that king's memory, I shall give a short summary of his character, drawn by the best authorities; and the rather, as Edward's reputation is very closely interwoven with the credit of the church of England, which chiefly owes her present purity and excellence to the pious and paternal authority of that young, but most respectable Josiah.

Bishop Latimer had the honour to know him well; and no man was ever less prone to flatter, than that honest, unpolished prelate. “Blessed (said he) [[220]] is the land, where there is a noble king; where kings be no banqueters, no players, and where they spend not their time in hunting and hawking. And when had the king's majesty a council, that took more pains, both night and day, for the setting forth of God's word, and profit of the commonwealth? And yet there he some wicked people that will say (and there are still some wicked Pelagians who continue to say), Tush, this gear will not tarry; it is but my lord Protector's and my lord of Canterbury's doing: the king is a child, and ho knoweth not of it. Jesu, have mercy! how like are we Englishmen to the Jews, ever stubborn, stiff-necked, and walking in bye ways! Have not we a noble king? Was there ever king so noble, so godly brought up, with so noble counsellors, so excellent and well learned schoolmasters? I will tell you this, and speak it even as I think; his majesty hath more godly wit and understanding, more learning and knowledge, at this age, than twenty of his progenitors, that I could name, had at any time of their life[9]."

Bishop John Bale, the Antiquarian, could also speak of the king upon personal knowledge; and his testimony is this: “He is abundantly replenished with the most gracious gifts of God; especially, with all kinds of good learning, far above all his progenitors, kings of this imperial region. The childhood of youth is not in him to be reproved; for so might king Josiah have been reproved, who began his reign in the eighth year of his age." The occasion of Bale thus vindicating king Edward, was the petulance of one whom he styles “a frantic papist of Hampshire," who had insolently termed his majesty, “a poor child:" which was much the same with Mr. Sellon's contemptuous language of, “poor young king Edward." Mr. Strype, to whom [[221]] I am indebted for the above quotation from Bale, goes on: “Then he (i.e. Bale) conies closer to this papist, so blasphemously reporting the noble and worthy king Edward, then in the fifteenth year of his age, and the fifth of his reign." Bale added, “His (majesty's) worthy education in liberal letters, and godly virtues, and his natural aptness in retaining of the same, plenteously declared him to be no poor child, but a manifest Solomon in princely wisdom[10]."

Even bishop Burnet offers the following chaplet at Edward's tomb: “Thus died king Edward VI. that incomparable young prince. He was then in the sixteenth year of his age, and was counted the wonder of that time. He was not only learned in the tongues, and other liberal sciences, but knew well the state of his kingdom. He kept a hook, in which he wrote the characters that were given him of all the chief men of the nation, all the judges, lord-lieutenants, and justices of the peace, over England; in it he had marked down their way of living, and their zeal for religion. He had studied the matter of the mint, with the exchange and value of money, so that he understood it well, as appears by his journal. He also understood fortification, and designed well. He knew all the harbours and ports, both of his own dominions, and of France and Scotland; and how much water they bad, and what was the way of coming into them. He had acquired great knowledge in foreign affairs, so that he talked with the ambassadors about them, in such a manner, that they (viz. the foreign ambassadors) filled all the world with the highest opinion of him that was possible; which appears in most of the histories of that age. He had great quickness of apprehension; and, being mistrustful of his memory, used to take notes of almost everything [[222]] he heard. He wrote these, first, in Greek characters, that those about him might not understand them: and, afterwards, wrote them out in his journal. He had a copy brought him of every tiling that passed in council: which he put in a chest, and kept the key of that always himself. In a word, the natural and acquired perfections of his mind were wonderful. But his virtues and true piety were yet more extraordinary[11]."

Mountagu, bishop of Winchester, in his Preface to the Works of king James I. makes very observable mention of Edward, considered even as a writer. “Edward the Sixt, though his dayes were so short, as he could not give full proofe of those singular parts that were in him; yet he wrote divers epistles and orations, both in Greek and Latin. He wrote a treatise de fide, to the duke of Somerset. He wrote an history of his owne time. Which are all yet extant, under his owne hand, in the king's library, as Mr. Patrick Young, his majestie's learned Bibliothccarius, hath showed me. And, which is not to bee forgotten, so diligent an hearer of sermons was that sweet prince, that the notes of the most of the sermons he heard, are yet to be seene, under his own hand; with the preacher's name, the time, and the place, and all other circumstances[12]."

It were endless, to adduce the praises which have been deservedly accumulated on this most able and most amiable monarch. But I must not overpass the character given of him by Jerom Cardan, the famous Italian physician, who, the year preceding king Edward's death, spent some months in England. That foreigner, amidst all his acknowledged oddities, was still a person of very extraordinary genius and learning; so that his ability, to judge of [[223]] the king's capacity and attainments, is indisputable. And the consideration of his being also a papist, will not suffer us to suppose, that his encomiums have any mixture of party prejudice in this prince's favour. Moreover, Cardan wrote and published his testimony in a country, and at a time, which rendered it [13] impossible for him to have any sinister interest in view. “All the Graces," says he, “were apparent in king Edward; and, for the tongues, he was not only exact in the English, French, and Latin; but understood the Greek, Italian, and Spanish. Nor was he ignorant of logic, the principles of natural philosophy, or music: being apt to learn every thing. The sweetness of his temper was such as became a mortal; his gravity becoming the majesty of a king; and his disposition suitable to his high degree. In short, that child was so bred, had such parts, and was of such expectation, that he looked like a miracle of a man. These things are not spoken rhetorically, and beyond the truth; but are indeed short of it. He began to love the liberal arts, before he knew them; to know them, before he could use them. And in him there was such an effort of nature, that not only England, but the world, has reason to lament his being so early snatched away. How truly was it said, of such extraordinary persons, that their lives are short! He gave us an essay of virtue, though he did not live to give us a pattern of it. When the gravity of a king [[224]] was needful, be carried himself like a man in years: and yet was always affable and gentle, as became his youth. In bounty be emulated his father, who in some cases may appear to have been bad; but there was no ground for suspecting any such thing in the son, whose mind was cultivated by the study of philosophy[14]."

Mr. Guthrie's character of him is far from being excessive. The outlines of Edward's portrait, as drawn by the masterly hand of that able historian, shall terminate our present review of this great prince. “Henry VIII. was the Romulus, and Edward VI. the Numa Pompilius, of English Reformation. The former laid its foundation in blood and rapine; the latter reared its fabric, by justice and moderation. Learning is the most trifling part of Edward's character. The rod may make a scholar; but nature must form a genius. Edward had genius. His learning, indeed, was extraordinary; but in that he was equalled, if not excelled, by others of equal years, and of a different sex. Perhaps his sister Elizabeth, and his designed successor, the lady Jane Gray, at his age, knew the languages better than he did. But Edward discovered a genius for government, beyond what, perhaps, ever was known in so early a bloom of life. He soon fell in with those walks of knowledge, which lead to the glory and happiness both of prince and people. He understood the principles of trade, and the true maxims which the English ought to pursue with foreign countries, to much greater perfection than any author who wrote at that time on those subjects. The papers which remain in his writing, concerning a mart, and the reformation of abuses, might be suspected not to be of Ins composition, did we know of any person, in those days, who could write so clearly and intelligibly, and, by consequence, so elegantly.

[[225]] His journal contains, so far as it goes, an account of all the important transactions falling within it; penned in such a manner, as amply proves its author to have known the bottom of every subject he touches. His perpetual attention to commerce gave him, towards the end of his reign, a true notion of that conduct which England ought to pursue, in those disputes upon the continent, which endanger the balance of power there. It helped him to form great schemes for the improvement of his maritime force, for the security of his coasts, for the protection of his ships; and, in his project of opening free marts in England, there is somewhat that points towards introducing a new and a better system of mercantile affairs, than has yet, perhaps, been pursued. He acquired a taste for elegant magnificence; and, in this, he seems to have been single in his court. His appearances, on public occasions, were sometimes, perhaps, too Eastern: but he seems to have corrected this extravagance, by striking oft' a great deal of useless expence. Had providence been so well reconciled to England, as to have indulged Edward in a longer reign, he had private virtue sufficient to have brought private virtue once more into reputation: while his judgment was so strong, as at once to reanimate, and employ the public spirit of his people. The application of this royal youth laid the corner stones on which the commerce of England is founded, and which alone gives her the rank of a queen among nations. It was his piety that purged her religion from superstition; it was his good sense, getting the better of his prejudices, that saved her possessions from ruin, and rescued her clergy from contempt. It was his example which fired the young nobility and gentry of his own years, with that generous emulation which pushed then] into every glorious pursuit, when their manly qualities, in a following reign (viz. in the reign of Elizabeth), raised their drooping country to glory and [[226]] to empire. It is owing to Edward's compassion, that, at this day, in England's capital, the helpless orphan finds a father; that erring youth are provided with instruction; and that heaven receives the sounds of praise and gratitude from the mouth of the infant. His wisdom prepared a check for the intemperate, and correction for the idle. His cares make grey hairs go down, without sorrow, to the grave. His bounty embellishes those places, which his charity endowed. And his own person was the habitation where love and learning, the graces and the virtues, delighted to dwell[15]."

Let me just add, that whoever has read king Edward's Treatise against the Supremacy of the Bishops of Rome (published at London, in 1682), will cease to be surprised at that admiration, with which the English historians celebrate the parts and piety of the royal author. The merits of that performance, in particular, are so transcendent, that a most ingenious acquaintance of mine once doubted, whether it was possible for so young a prince to be the composer of so learned and masterly a work. But my friend (eminent for possessing one of the finest collections of natural and artificial curiosities, that ever fell to the lot of a private person) has been so happy as to add to his treasures the original manuscript, in Edward's own hand writing; which places the authenticity of the book above dispute.

Judge now, whether Edward, thus endued with the whole circle of princely qualifications, could be that weak, supple, facile, waxen image of a king, which Mr. Wesley's malice and Mr. Sellon's ignorance combine to represent. In trying at which, they not only violate all historic truth, but labour also to blacken the church of England; by defaming the protestant monarch who was, under God, its father and visible head: a monarch, who, like Alfred, [[227]] was born for the good of mankind; and the lustre of whose crown was eclipsed by the virtues of him that wore it. King Edward's being a Calvinist, is the unpardonable crime for which. Arminian Methodism seeks to lay his memory in the dust. Under him it was, that the English liturgy was compiled, reformed, and perfected; the homilies composed; the articles of religion framed; and Ponet's catechism drawn up: which two latter, viz. the articles and the said catechism, “were in general received and subscribed to, all over the kingdom[16]." These were the crimes of Edward and his reforming bishops; for which, Peter Heylin, John Wesley, and Walter Sellon, labour to heap odium on the best of princes and the best of prelates.
Footnotes:

[1] Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. ii. b. i. ch. 29. p. 236.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Strype, u. s. p. 236, 237.

[5] See Strype's Repository of Originals, annexed to the second vol. of Eccles. Memor. p. 18.

[6] Collins' Peerage, vol. i. p. 160. Edit. 176S.

[7] Strype's Eccles. Memor. vol. ii. p. 368.

[8] Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 212.

[9] Latimer's Sermons, vol. i. p. 89, 90. octavo, 1758.

[10] See Strype's Eccles. Memor. vol. ii. p. 377, 378.

[11] Burnet's Hist of the Reform, vol. ii. p. 212. & alibi.

[12] Bp. Mount, u. s. edit. 1610.

[13] Cardan refused to offer the incense of (what he thought would have been) adulation to king Edward, even in the prince's life-time, and during his (Cardan's) residence at the English court. Much less would he be induced to fawn upon his memory. The philosopher's conduct on that occasion, though it resulted from a mistaken principle, reflects some honour on his integrity and disinterestedness. “I refused (says he), a purse of five hundred pieces (some tell me, it was a thousand; but I cannot ascertain the precise sum), because I would not acknowledge one of the king's titles, in prejudice of the pope's authority." See Bayle's Diet. vol. ii. p. 310. note (d).

[14] See the Acta Regia, p. 430. Edit. 1734.

[15] Guthrie's Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 1. 121-123.

[16] Guthrie, u. s. p. 114.