Bound-willers,) it is evident that the non-elect can no more help their unbelief, than they can help their incapacity to create a world.

X. Mr. Toplady's Scheme of Necessity places matter and its impressions, far above spirit and its influence. If his philosophy be true, every material object around us, by making necessary, irresistible impressions upon our minds, necessarily determines our Will, and irre sistibly impels our Actions. According to this system, therefore, we cannot resist the powerful influence of matter: But, if we believe the scriptures, we can ' resist the Holy Ghost, and do despite to the Spirit of grace.' Now, what is this, but to represent Matter, (which is the God of the Materialists, and the evil God of the Manichees,) as more active, quick, and powerful than Spirit? Yea, than the Holy Spirit?

Mr. Toplady may indeed say, that the material objects, by which we are absolutely determined, are only God's tools, by which God himself determines us: But, though this salvo may so far reconcile the scheme of Necessity to itself; it will never reconcile it to such scriptures as these: Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did.-I would have gathered you, and ye would not.' And, what is still worse, it represents God as working Manichean iniquity by common adulterers and robbers, as forcibly as a miller grinds his corn, by the use he makes of a current of air or a stream of water.

XI. The scheme of Philosophical Necessity which I attack, supposes, that God, to maintain order in the universe, is obliged to necessitate all events, from the wagging of a dog's tail, or the rise of a particle of dust, to the murder of a king, or the rise of an empire. Thus Mr. T. tells us, in his preface to Zanchius, (p. 4,) Bishop Hopkins did not go a jot too far in asserting," that not a dust flies on a beaten road, but God raiseth it, conducts its uncertain motion, and, by his particular care, conveys it to the certain place he had before appointed for it: Nor shall the most fierce and tempestuous wind hurry it any farther." I object to this

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puerile system: (1.) Because it absurdly multiplies God's decrees; rendering them not only as numerous as the sands on the sea-shore, and the particles of dust on beaten roads; but also as countless as all the motions of each grain of sand and particle of dust in all ages. At this rate, a large folio volume could not contain all the decrees of God concerning the least particle of dust; its rises and falls;-its stops and hindrances ; -its situations and modifications ;-its whirlings to the right, or to the left, &c., &c.—And (2.) Because it represents God as being endued with less wisdom than a prudent king, who can maintain good order in his kingdom, without making particular laws or decrees to necessitate every eructation of his drunken soldiers, or every puff of his smoking subjects; and without ordaining every filthy jest which is uttered from the ale-bench, appointing every loud invective, which dis-" turbs Billingsgate, aud predestinating every wry face, which the lunatics make in Bedlam.

XII. But what I chiefly dislike in this scheme, is, its degrading all human souls in such a mauner, as to make them receive their moral excellence and depravity from the contexture of the brains by which they work, and from the place of the bodies in which they dwell. Insomuch, that all the difference there is, between one who thinks loyally, and one who thinks otherwise ;-between one who believes, that Christ is God over all, and one who believes, that he is a mere creature, consists only in the make and position of their brains. Supposing, for example, that a gentleman has honourable thoughts of his king and of his Saviour; and is ready, from a principle of loyalty and faith, to defend the dignity of George the Third, and the divinity of Jesus Christ:-Supposing also, that another gentleman breaks, without ceremony, these two evangelical precepts, Honour the king,-Let all the angels of God worship him' [Christ;]-I ask, Why is their moral and religious conduct so opposite? Is it because the first gentleman's free-willing soul has intrinsically more reverence for the king and for our Lord? Because he VOL. IV. C

keeps his heart more tender by faith and prayer, and his conscience more devoid of prejudice, through a diligent improvement of his talent, or through a more faithful use of his free agency, and a readier submission to the light, that enlightens every man ?—No such thing; if Mr. T.'s scheme be true, the whole difference consists in "mud-walls," and external circumstances.

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Page 33, "The soul of a Monthly Reviewer, if imprisoned within the same mud-walls which are tenanted by the son of Mr. John Wesley, would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act, (I verily think,) exactly like the Bishop of Moorfields."—And, (p. 34, 35,) he adds, "I just now hinted the conjecture of some, that an human spirit incarcerated in the brain of a cat, "would probably both think and behave as that animal "does. But how would the soul of a cat acquit itself, "if inclosed in the brain of a man? We cannot resolve "this question with certainty, any more than the other." -Admirable Divinity! So! Mr. Toplady leaves the orthodox in doubt:-(1.) Whether, when their souls, and the souls of cats, shall be let out of their respective brains or prisons, the souls of cats will not be equal to the souls of men.- -(2.) Whether, supposing the soul of a cat had been put in the brain of St. Paul, or of a Monthly Reviewer, the soul of "puss" would not have made as great an apostle, as the soul of Saul of Tarsus; -as good a critic, as the soul of the most sensible Reviewer. And, (3.) Whether, in case the "human spirit" [of Isaiah] "were shut up in the skull of a cat, puss would not, notwithstanding, move prone on all four, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice be her darling objects of pursuit.” (p. 34.) — Is not this a pretty large stride, for the first, towards the doctrine of the sameness of the souls of men with' the souls of cats and frogs? Wretched Calvinism, newfangled doctrines of grace, where are you leading your deluded admirers?—your principal vindicators? Is it not enough, that you have spoiled the fountain of living waters; by turning it into the muddy streams of Zeno's errors? Are ye also going to poison it by the

absurdities of Pythagoras's philosophy ?-What a sidestroke is here inadvertently given to these capital doctrines!, God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living soul,'-a soul made' in the image of God,' and not in the image of a cat:- The spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth :-But the spirit of man goeth upward It returns to God who gave it,' with an intention to judge and reward it according to its moral works.

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But I must do Mr. Toplady justice; he does not yet recommend this doctrine, as absolutely certain. However, from his capital doctrine, that human souls have no Free Will-no inward principle of self-determination; and from his avowed opinion, that the soul of one man, placed in the body of another man, "would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act exactly like❞ the man in whose mud-walls it is lodged: It evidently follows: (1.) That, had the human soul of Christ been placed in the body and circumstances of Nero, it would have been exactly as wicked and atrocious as the soul of that bloody monster was. And, (2.) That if Nero's soul had been placed in Christ's body, and in his trying circumstances, it would have been exactly as virtuous and immaculate, as that of the Redeemer: The consequence is undeniable. Thus, the merit of the man Christ did not in the least spring from his righteous soul, but from his "mud-walls," and from the happiness which his soul had of being lodged in a "brain peculiarly modified." Nor did the demerit of Nero flow from his freeagency and self-perversion; but only from his "mudwalls," and from the infelicity which his necessitated soul had of being lodged in an 66 ILL-constructed vehicle," and placed on that throne on which Titus soon after deserved to be called The darling of mankind. See, O ye engrossers of orthodoxy, to what absurd lengths your aversion to the liberty of the will, and to evangelical worthiness, leads your unwary souls! And yet, if we believe Mr. Toplady, your scheme, which is big with these inevitable consequences, is Christian Philosophy, and our doctrine of Free Will is "Philosophy run mad!"

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XIII. If our thoughts and actions necessarily flowed from the modifications of our brains, and from the impressions of the objects around us, it would necessarily follow, that as most men, throughout the whole world, see the sun bright, snow white, and scarlet red :-Or as most men taste aloes bitter, vinegar sour, and honey sweet: So most men would think, speak, and act nearly with the same moral uniformity, which is perceivable in their bodily organs, and in the objects which affect those organs: And it would be as impossible to improve in virtue, by a proper exertion of our powers, and by a diligent use of our talents, as it is impossible to improve the whiteness of the snow, or our power to see it white, by a diligent use of our sight. At this rate too, conversion would not be so much a reformation of our spiritual habits, as a reformation of our brains.

XIV. But the worst consequences are yet behind : For if God works upon our souls in the same manner in which he works upon matter; if he raises our ideas, volitions, and passions, as necessarily as a strong wind raises the waves of the sea, with their roar, their foam, and their other accidents: In a word, if he works as absolutely and irresistibly upon spirit, as he does upon matter: It follows, that spirit and matter, being governed upon the same principles, are of the same nature; and that if there be any difference between the soul and the body, it is only such a difference, as there is between the tallow which composes a lighted candle, and the flame which arises out of it. The light flame is as really matter, as the heavy tallow and the ponderous candlestick; and all are equally passive and subject to the laws of absolute necessity. Again,

If virtue and vice necessarily depend on the modifica.. tion of our brains, and the objects which surround us ; it follows, that the effect will cease with the cause, and that bodily dissolution will consign our virtue or vice to the dust, into which our brains and bodily organs will soon be turned; and that when the souls of the rightous, and the souls of the wicked, shall be removed

their "mud-walls," and from the objects which