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bring evil upon Absalom ;'-and these words of the prophet, 'Howbeit, he [the Assyrian king, turned loose upon Israel to avenge God's righteous quarrel with that hypocritical people] meaneth not so, neither does his heart think so: But it is in his heart to destroy;'-these words in the Revelation, God hath put it into their hearts [the hearts of the kings who shall hate the mystic harlot and destroy her, and burn her with fire] to fulfil his will, and to agree, and to give their kingdom to the beast, till the words of God shall be fulfilled;'—and the words of Peter, 'They [the accomplishers of the crucifixion of Christ] were gathered together to do whatsoever God's hand, and God's counsel, had predestinated to be done,' &c.

With respect to the last text, if it be rightly† translated, it is explained by these words of Peter, (Acts ii, 23,) Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God:'—By his gracious 'counsel,' that Christ should lay down his life as a ransom for all : -And by his clear foreknowledge' of the disposition

With Episcopius, and some other learned critics, I doubt it is not. Why should it not be read thus? Acts iv. 26-28, The Rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, (both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,) for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.'-By putting the clause' Both Herod, c, in a parenthesis, you have this evangelical sense which gives no handle to the pleaders for sin: Both Herod and Pilate, &c., were gathered together against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou 'hast anointed to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined before to be done.' I prefer this reading to the common one, for the following reasons: (1.) It is perfectly agreeable to the Greek; and the peculiar construction of the sentence is expressive of the peculiar earnestness with which the apostles prayed.-(2.) It is attended with no Manichean inconveniency.-(3.) It is more agreeable to the context. For, if the Sanhedrim was gathered by God's direction and decree,' in order to threaten the apostles, with what propriety could they say, (verse 29,) 'Now, Lord, behold their threatenings ?'-And (4.) It is strongly supported by verse 30, where Peter (after having observed, verse 27, 28, according to our reading, that God had anointed his holy child Jesus to do all the miracles which he did on earth,) prays, that, now Christ is gone to heaven, the effects of this powerful anoint ing may continue, and signs and wonders may still be done by the name of his holy child Jesus.'

of the Jews to take that precious life away. This passage then, and all those which Mr. T. has produced, or may yet produce, only prove:

(1.) That God foresees the evil which is in the hearts of the wicked, and their future steps in peculiar circumstances, with ten thousand times more clearness and certainty, than a good huntsman foresees all the windings, doublings, and shifts of a hunted fox; and that he over-rules their wicked counsels to the execution of his own wise and holy designs, as a good rider over-rules the mad praucings of a vicious horse, to the display of his perfect skill in horsemanship, and to the treading down of the enemy in a day of battle.—(2.) That God catches the wise in their own craftiness,' and that, to punish the wicked, he permits their wicked counsels to be defeated, and their best-concerted schemes to prove abortive.—(3.) That he frequently tries the faith, and exercises the patience of good men, by letting loose the wicked upon them, as in the case of Job and of Christ.-(4.) That he often punishes the wickedness of one man by letting loose upon him the wickedness of another; and that he frequently avenges himself of one wicked nation by letting loose upon it the wickedness of another nation. Thus he let Absalom and Shimei loose upon David. Thus a parable spoken by the prophet Micaiah informs us, that God, after having let a lying spirit loose upon Zedekiah, the false prophet, let Zedekiah loose upon wicked Ahab. Thus the Lord let loose the Philistines upon disobedient Israel, and the Romans upon the obdurate Jews, and their accursed city; using those wicked Heathen as his vindictive scourge, just as he used swarms of frogs and locusts, when he puuished rebellious Egypt with his plagues.-(5.) That he sometimes let a wicked man loose upon himself, as iu the case of Ahitophel, Nabal, and Judas, who became their own executioners. -(6.) That, when wicked men are going to commit atrocious wickedness, he sometimes inclines their hearts so to relent, that they commit a less crime than they intended. For instance, when Joseph's brethren were going to starve him to death, by providential circum

stances God inclined their hearts to spare his life: Thus Instead of destroying him, they only sold him into Egypt. -(7.) With respect to Rev. xvii. 17, the context, and the full stream of the Scripture, require, that it should be understood thus: "As God, by providential circumstances, which seemed to favour their worldly views, suffered wicked kings to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, to help the beast to execute God's judgments upon corrupted churches and wicked states; so He will peculiarly let those kings loose upon the whore, and they shall agree to hate her, and shall make her desolate and naked."

Upon the whole, it is contrary to all the rules of criticism, decency, and piety, to take advantage of the dark construction of a sentence, or to avail oneself of a parable, an hyberbole, a bold metaphor, or an unguarded saying of a good man, interwoven with the thread of Scripture history; in order to make appear, (so far as Calvinism can,) that "God worketh all things in all men; even wickedness in the wicked." Such a method of wresting the oracles of God, to make them speak the language of Belial and Moloch, is as ungenerous, as our inferring from these words, I do not condemn thee,' that Christ does not condemn adulterers; that Christianity encourages adultery, and that this single sentence, taken in a filthy Antinomian sense, outweighs all the sermon upon the mount, as well as the holy meaning of the context: For these words being spoken to an adulteress, whom the magistrates had not condemned to die, and whom the Pharisees wanted Christ to condemn to be stoned according to the law of Moses ;' it is evident that our Lord's words, when taken in connexion with the context, carry this edifying meaning: "I am come to act the part of a Saviour, and not that "of a Magistrate: If the magistrates have not 'con"demned thee to be stoned,' neither do I condemn "thee to that dreadful kind of death; avail thyself of thy undeserved reprieve: Go and' repent, and evi"dence the sincerity of thy repentance by sinuing no more.'"-Hence I conclude, that all the texts quoted

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by the fatalists, prove that God necessitates men to sin by his decrees, just as John viii. 11, proves that Christ countenances the filthy sin of adultery.

ARG. LIII. (p. 64.)—Mr. T. thinks to demonstrate, that the doctrine of the absolute necessity of all our actions, and consequently of all our sins, is true, by producing "St. Paul's case as a preacher. "Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel,' (1 Cor. ix. 16.) Yet he preached the gospel freely, &c. Necessity, therefore, and Freedom, are very good friends, notwithstanding all the efforts of Arminianism to set them at variance."-The apostle evidently speaks here of a necessity of precept on God's part, and of duty on his own part: And such a Necessity being perfectly consistent with the alternative of obedience or of disobedience, is also perfectly consistent with Freedom and with a day of Judgment: Aud Mr. T. trifles when he speaks of "all the efforts of Arminianism, to set such a necessity at variance with freedom;" for it is the distinguishing glory of our doctrine to maintain both the Freedom of the will, and the indispensable Necessity of cordial obedience. But, in the name of candour and common sense, I ask, What has a necessity of precept and duty to do with Calvinian necessity, which, in the day of God's power, absolutely necessitates the elect to obey, and the reprobate to disobey; entirely debarring the former from the alternative of disobedience, and the latter from the alternative of obedience? That the apostle, in the text before us, does not mean a Calvinian Absolute Necessity, is evident from the last clause of the verse, where he mentions the possibility of his disobeying, and the punishment that awaited him in case of disobedience: 'Woe is me,' says he, if I preach not the gospel.'— A necessity of precept was laid on Jonah to preach the gospel to the Ninevites; but THIS necessity was so far from Calvinistically binding him to preach, that, (like Demas, and the clergy who fleece a flock which they do not feed,) he ran away from his appointed work, and

incurred the woe' mentioned by the apostle. Therefore, St. Paul's words candidly taken together, far from establishing Absolute Necessity, which admits of no alternative, are evidently subversive of this dangerous error, which exculpates the sinner, and makes God the author of sin.

Hence Mr. Wesley says, with great truth, that if the doctrines of Absolute Predestination and Calvinian Necessity are true, there can be no sin; seeing "It cannot be a sin in a spark to rise, or in a stone to fall." Aud therefore, “the reprobate [tending to evil by the irresistible power of Divine Predestination, as unavoidably as stones tend to the centre, by the irresistible force of natural gravitation] can have no sin at all,”— This is a just observation, taken from the absurdity of an Absolute Necessity, originally brought on by God's absolute and irresistible decrees. Let us see how Mr. T. shows his wit on this occasion.

ARGUMENT LIV. (p. 71, 72.)-" The reprobate can have no sin at all. Indeed? They are quite sinless, are they? As perfect as Mr. Wesley himself? O excellent Reprobation! &c. What then must the elect be? &c. Besides: If Reprobates be sinless-nay, immutably perfect, so that they can have no sin at all, will it not follow that Mr. Wesley's own perfectionists áre Reprobates? For surely if Reprobates may be sinless, the sinless may be Reprobates. Did not Mr. John's malice outrun his craft, when he advanced an objection, &c., so easily retortible ?"

This illogical, not to say illiberal answer, is of a piece with the challenge, which the reader may see illustrated, at the end of Sect. 1, by my remarks upon a consequence as just as that of Mr. Wesley: For it is as evident, that if the Reprobate are 66 involuntary beings,"-beings absolutely necessitated by efficacious, irresistible predestination to act as they do,-they are as really sinless, as a mountain of gold is really heavier than a handful of feathers. And Mr. Wesley may believe, that both consequences are just, without