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was all that my charge against Mr Wesley imported. I am now about to prove it well grounded.

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Mr Wefley's fermon, intituled Free grace, printed at Bristol 1739, is defigned to expose the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, i. e. as Mr Wesley expreffes it, p.7. "The doctrine, that God did elect a certain number of men to falvation; that all these will be saved, and none else that the rest of mankind God leaves to themselves, and fo they follow the imaginations of their own hearts, and are at length justly punished with everlasting deftruction." This doctrine he endeavours to fhow makes all preaching vain, and tends to destroy the comfort of religion, nay holiness too and zeal for good works, nay to overthrow the Christian revelation, by making it contradict itself.P. 22. "It is a doctrine full of blafphemy: it represents Jefus Chrift the righteous as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common fincerity."―p. 23. "He calls thofe to come to him that cannot come, those whom he knows to be unable to come, those whom he can make able to come, but will not. How is it poffible to describe greater infincerity? You reprefent him as mocking his helpless creatures, by offering what he never intends to give."-p. 24. "It represents the most holy God as worse than the devil; as both more falfe, more cruel, and more unjuft. More false; because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said, he willeth all men to be faved: more unjust; because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when you fay, that God condemned millions of fouls to everlasting fire for continuing in fin, which, for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid and more cruel; because that unhappy fpirit feeketh rest and findeth none, fo that his own restless mifery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others; but God refteth in his high and holy place: fo that to suppose him, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or not, to endless mifery, is to impute fuch cruelty to him, as we cannot impute even to the great enemy of God and man.' —p. 26. " Upon the fuppofition of this doctrine, one might fay to our adverfary the devil, Thou fool, why doft thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for fouls

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is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands, and that he doth it much more effectually? Thou canst only intice, but his unchangeable decree, to leave thousands of fouts in death, compels them to continue in fin, till they drop into everlafting burnings. Thou tempteft; he forceth us to be damned. Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the deftroyer of fouls, the murderer of

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Never did I fee fuch bitter and unfair reflections on the Calvinists, unless in a piece of Castalio's, which I happened to glance above twenty years ago, and which left on my mind an unusual impression of horror. I am not to enter into a doctrinal controverfy with Mr Wefley. The preface and defence, like his letter to Mr Hervey, are intended for caution, not for confutation. Cole on God's fove. reignty, the Limeftreet fermons, Cooper on predeftination, and other books abundantly common, have fhown, that fuch confequences do not indeed flow from the Calvinist doctrine. If a further defence be needful, I doubt not fome who have leisure and ability will undertake it. All I fhall fay is, If doing a thing, or permitting it to be done in time, is consistent with God's moral perfections, the eter nally decreeing thus to do or permit can never be contrary to them, unless the eternally refolving to do a juft thing is unjuft. God's decree compels no man to fin, and deprives him of no power to do good. You will fay, there flows from the decree an infallible certainty of men's finning, and perishing in their fins. I allow it: but a certainty no more infallible than would flow from the divine foreknowledge, which Mr Wesley himself allows as a scripture-truth. If the last does not infer the creature constrained, neither does the first. God hath indued the will of man (as is well obferved Westminster confeffion, c. 9.) with that natural liberty that is neither forced, nor by any abfolute neceffity of nature determined, to do good or evil. If man has loft ability to spiritual good, his inability flows not from want of natural powers, but from the depraved byals of his heart: if that depraved byass were cured, duty would be eafy. Now, an inability which flows from depravity of heart, may well aggravate guilt, but

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can never excufe it; unless when wickedness becomes obftinate and incurable it ceases to be criminal; and stubborn rebels against the fovereign Lord of the universe have found a device, by their stubbornness of heart, to free themselves from all obligation to loyalty and allegiance.

From the above extracts and observations, it will appear what force there is in the apology for Mr Wesley, Appeal, p. ICO, IOг. "Neither does he fay, that predestination "is naturally deadly poifon; only, that upon fome it has "that deadly effect. Mr Wesley looks on it to be an "edged tool, (as the faculty fpeak of mercury), if not in "the hand of a wife man it may do much harm." Wrong opinions must be the least enemy of religion, or no enemy at all, if a doctrine is not naturally deadly poison, that makes preaching vain, tends to destroy holiness, represents Christ as a deceiver, and the holy God as worfe than the devil. Every perfon, according to Mr Wesley, who maintains, that God from eternity ordained whatfoever should come to pass, muft either equivocate and prevaricate, or honeftly avow that God is the author of all fin, and the destroyer of the greater part of mankind without mercy. Compare Dialogue between a predeftinarian and his friend, at the beginning, with the dedication, p. 4. Is there not deadly poifon in a doctrine, which can justly be charged with fuch fhocking blafphemy?

Mr Kershaw fays, p. 76. "If the editor imagines Mr "Wesley lays our works at the bottom of all the fabric "of redemption," (I suppose he meant to have faid predestination, of which the former fentence speaks)," he does

not understand him." Mr Wesley does not lay our works as the foundation of the conditional decree of faving fuch who fhould believe, for of that he fuppofes God's love of pity the caufe: but he does fuppofe them the cause of our actual election, and of Chrift's becoming to us in particular the author of eternal falvation. See Scripture-doctrine concerning predeftination, p. 6, 8.

I had obferved Mr Wefley's afferting, that to fay Christ died for the elect as elect, is to fay that he accomplished a folemn nothing; because the elect, as fuch, are not lost. Mr Kershaw tells us, p. 79. that a few weeks ago Mr Wef-:

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ley himself answered this to the editor, together with all that is material in the preface.

Apprehending that this ill-grounded alledgeance might have more effect than all Mr Kershaw's arguments, I fent him Mr Wesley's letter, fignifying my willingness it should be published as an appendix to his Earneft Appeal. Mr Kershaw returned me the following note.

"As Mr Kershaw had, as he apprehends, fufficient reafons for taking notice of Mr Wesley's letter to the Editor, seeing many made an ill ufe of his filence in that respect, when he was here lately; and as he apprehends the letter implicitly justifies all he said of it as wrote to the Editor, he is by no means unwilling it should be published. Nevertheless, neither the Editor nor the Public can look up. on it as Mr Wefley's full answer to the Preface. Mr Kerfhaw is fenfible Mr Wesley never intended it as fuch; for if he had, he would have precluded the neceffity of his Reply. When the note from the Editor came to hand, near three hundred copies of the Reply were gone off, so that it was impoffible to print it in the way defired."

How far Mr Welley's letter was an answer to any thing material in the preface, the reader will beft judge by perufing it.

Edinburgh, April 24. 1765.

REVEREND SIR, BEtween thirty and forty years I have had the world upon me, speaking all manner of evil. And I expected no lefs, as God had called me to testify that its deeds were evil. But the children of God were not upon me: nor did I expect they would. I rather hoped they would take knowledge, that all my defigns, and thought, and care, and labour, were directed to this one point, To advance the kingdom of Chrift upon earth. And fo many of them did, however differing from me, both in opinions and modes of worship. I have the pleasure to mention Dr Doddridge, Dr Watts, and Mr Wardrope, in particular. How then was I furprised, as well as concerned, that a child of the fame Father, a fervant of the lame Lord, a member of the fame family, and (as to the effence of it) a preacher of the fame gospel, fhould, without any provocation that I know of, declare open war against me! I was the

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more furprised, becaufe you had told me fome months fince, that you would favour me with a letter. And had this been done, I make no doubt but you would have received full fatisfaction. Instead of this, you ushered into this part of the world, one of the most bitter libels that was ever wrote against me: wrote by a dying man, (fo far as it was wrote by poor, well-meaning Mr Hervey), with a trembling hand, just as he was tottering on the margin of the grave. A great warrior refigned his crown, because there fhould be fome interval, he said, between fighting and death." But Mr Hervey, who had been a man of peace all his life, began a war not fix months before he died. He drew his fword, when he was juft putting off his body. He then fell on one to whom he had the deepest obligations, (as his own letters, which I have now in my hands, teftify), on one who had never in tentionally wronged him, who had never spoken an unkind word of him, or to him, and who loved him as his own child. O tell it not in Gath! The good Mr Hervey (if these letters were his) died curfing his fpiritual father!

And these letters another good man, Mr, has introduced into Scotland, and warmly recommended. Why have you done this? "Because you have concealed your principles, which is palpable dishonesty."

When I was first invited into Scotland, (about 14 years ago), Mr Whitefield told me, "You have no business there: for your principles are fo well known, that if you spoke like an angel, none will hear you. And if they did, you would have nothing to do but to difpute with one and another from morning to night."

I answered, "If God fends me, people will hear. And I will give them no provocation to dispute: for I will ftudiously avoid controverted points, and keep to the fundamental truths of Christianity. And if any still begin to difpute, they may: but I will not difpute with them."

I came. Hundreds and thousands flocked to hear. But I was enabled to keep my word. I avoided whatever might engender strife, and infisted upon the grand points, the religion of the heart, and falvation by faith, at all times, and in all places. And by this means, I have cut off all occafion of dispute, from the first day to this very hour.

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