by Rev. Bill Langerak
pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan
from the British Reformed Journal, part 1 - September 2003; part 2 - November 2003; part 3 - April 2004
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears (II Tim. 4:3).
What’s the Use of Preaching the Doctrines of Grace? An Introduction
In 1773, while the Americans defiantly tossed King George’s tea into the harbour, two theological titans were already engaged in a more important war on English soil. Both were protestant clergymen in the Anglican church and intellectually gifted. Both were known for their hymn writing, sharp polemics, and lively preaching. The similarities end there. The one, John Wesley, was a sprightly 70-year-old preacher without a fixed charge, who traveled throughout the British Isles disseminating his Arminianism. The other, Augustus M. Toplady, was a sickly, young, Calvinist pastor of 32, who rarely left his country parish. Toplady opposed the burgeoning American revolution. Wesley, who at first opposed it, came to support it because it advanced his Methodist cause. Toplady was a committed churchman, who defended the apostolic faith developed through Augustine, Calvin, and embodied in the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.1 John Wesley, in his vigorous promotion of rank heresy within the church, stooped to forgery, lying, plagiarism, and slander.
Our purpose is not to document all the gross public sins of Mr. John Wesley. This could be done. It would even be worthwhile, if only to expose his highly touted perfectionism as a sham. Nor do we intend to prove the unorthodoxy of Wesley, because it is unnecessary. Unlike many timid Protestant theologians today, Wesley forthrightly acknowledged his allegiance to James Arminius. Wesley spoke of the Dutchman with fondness and even promoted his doctrine in a periodical aptly named The Arminian Magazine.2 Wesley was equally frank concerning his abhorrence of Calvinism. Calvinism, he said, was “not the gospel,” but “the greatest hindrance to the work of God,” “the antidote to Methodism— the most deadly and successful enemy it ever had,” and the worst device “Satan threw in the way” for it “strikes at the root of salvation from sin.”3
If we would evaluate this theological battle according to present standards of evangelical success, Wesley won hands down. It ended with Toplady’s death at 37, his frail body battered by an intense schedule of pastoral labor, late-night study, prolific writing, and faithful preaching against the onslaught of Wesley. Wesley lived to be almost 90. His vast writings quickly became the credo of the Methodist churches formed soon after his death.4 Within 50 years of Wesley’s passing, the Methodist Episcopal Church was the largest denomination in America.5 The new holiness movement of Wesley eventually spawned the immensely popular charismatic churches.6 Concerning Wesley’s wide influence, Chris Armstrong of Christianity Today writes, “Methodists spread Wesley’s Arminian emphasis on the place of human will and responsibility in the religious life— touching and changing almost all other Protestant denominations in America … Here, perhaps, are the roots of the modern American ‘megachurch.’”7 More than Armstrong may be aware, Wesley has influenced even his former enemies, the Calvinists, especially those who jealously eye the growing membership within the modern mega-church.
In two parts, we will briefly relate the history and doctrinal issues in the Wesley-Toplady controversy to demonstrate their continued relevance in the present Reformed ecumenical climate. Calvinists’ attitudes towards Arminianism have reversed since Toplady’s day. Then, influential Calvinists of every flavour presented a united front against Wesley. Today, attitudes range from sickening indifference to public sympathy for Wesley, including urgent pleas for evangelical cooperation with Arminians. Although some may wince at Wesley’s bold rejection of predestination, or may criticize his wild notion of perfectionism, they are charmed by his supposed evangelistic success. Surely it is no coincidence that where this has occurred, the marrow of Wesley’s theology has also been adopted, or viewed simply as an exegetical nuance of one gospel—God loves everyone and desires the salvation of all—and inconsequential for evangelism. While the ranks of Arminians swell to untold millions, most Calvinists now visualize only one enemy, the dreaded specter of hyper-calvinism, which, real or imagined, is blamed for the supposed evangelical failure of Calvinism. Meanwhile, the doctrine of grace defended by Toplady is branded “fanatical” and his manner of defense “unloving.” It now holds true for modern Calvinists what Toplady once attributed only to Arminians: “They ask, What’s the use of preaching the doctrines of grace, even supposing them to be true? We respond, Who would wish to go upon thorns when his way may be strewed with roses?”8
PART 1 - Encountering a Wind-mill in Lieu of a Giant: The History of the Controversy
Although the Wesley-Toplady dispute did not break out in print until 1769, both were well aware of their respective differences long before. Although Toplady’s childhood diary exhibits extraordinary Christian piety and godly rearing, he claimed the Word of God was fixed in his conscience by a Methodist preacher at the age of sixteen.9 He also claimed that a mere two years later his “Arminian prejudices received an effectual shock.”10 He writes: “I well remember that in 1758 … I first began to discern something of the absurdities and impieties of Arminianism … I shall, when in heaven, remember [that year] with gratitude and joy.”11 Ironically, 1758 was the same year Toplady and Wesley first corresponded. Toplady, forty-four years Wesley’s junior and in Ireland completing his B.A., somehow become acquainted with the Methodist preacher. Later that year, Wesley would inquire into Toplady’s future, hinting at a possible career as an itinerant preacher.12 He would soon learn Toplady was far from considering Methodism, let alone preaching the circuit.
Contrary to common opinion, their controversy did not begin with Toplady’s translation of Jerome Zanchius’ Absolute Predestination. The trouble began two years before, when, in March of 1768, six students were expelled from Oxford, allegedly for not being proper gentlemen. The real reason was that they were Calvinists.13 Lady Huntingdon and others took their dismissal as an affront to Calvinism and a battle soon ensued over the theological roots of the church. When Sir Richard Hill defended the students, he was answered by an Anglican divine, Dr. Nowell, who had kept the minutes of the proceedings which expelled the students. In justifying Oxford’s actions, Dr. Nowell foolishly claimed Arminianism to be the historical doctrine of the church. When Toplady, an avid student of church history, saw a copy of the tract he entered the fray with his first major publication, The Church of England Vindicated From the Charge of Arminianism.14 In it, he demonstrated that officially the church was indeed Calvinistic and no Arminian could in good conscience subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Incensed his church was attacked by one on her own payroll, Toplady exclaimed:
Good God! What shall we come to at last! A protestant; a protestant divine; a protestant divine of the Church of England; dares … spatter the doctrines of the reformed church whose bread he eats and whose raiment he wears! … I only as a protestant and as a churchman, feel a becoming indignation at this part of your conduct and indignation which candor warrants and justice demands.15
Although specifically answering Nowell, Toplady clearly had kept an eye on Wesley for some time. Wesley, he claimed in his tract, was “one of the most furious Arminians now living,” a view taken because five years earlier, Wesley had claimed the Thirty-Nine Articles did not teach predestination but only defined it.16 With his brief comment, therefore, Toplady correctly identified both the leading proponent of Arminianism in England and the main doctrinal issue in all future exchanges with Wesley, the doctrine of absolute predestination.
Full scale war broke out later that year (1769), when Toplady published his translation of Zanchius’ magisterial work, Absolute Predestination, to which he attached a short biography of Zanchius and a preface explaining his reason for publication.17 Shrewdly, Toplady recognized that Arminianism gained adherents because it appealed to the Pelagianism inherent in the depraved heart of every man. He also understood that, as he put it, “the Scripture doctrine of predestination lays the axe to the very root of this potent delusion,” namely, “the pride of impotent, degenerate man, who is so prone to consider himself as a being possessed of sovereign freedom, and invested with a power of self-salvation, able … to defeat the agency of Omnipotence itself.”18 Deftly wielding the axe himself, Toplady made two assertions: First, the Arminian rejection of predestination rested on one presupposition, namely, that reprobation was unbecoming a just and loving God, a charge Zanchius proved false;19 secondly, predestination could not be rejected without rejecting God, who could not be separated from the decrees. “God’s sovereign will is the first link,” he wrote, “his unalterable decree is the second, and his all-active providence the third in the great chain of causes.”20 Thus, the Arminian dethroned providence and set up chance as god. “What is chance?,” he asked. “A name for nothing. Arminianism … is Atheism.” And Arminian principles, he said, “inevitably terminate in the rankest Atheism.”21 Subsequent history has affirmed the veracity of Toplady’s charge: the bloody claw of rank humanism has always first pierced Calvinistic walls with doubt or embarrassment concerning predestination, until soon thereafter the whole hideous monster is inside.
Although Toplady deliberately avoided mentioning Wesley in the Zanchius piece, Wesley responded immediately, obviously threatened that, as Toplady put it, “[Zanchius] was likely to give the Arminian Babel a shake.” At least three editions of Toplady’s tract were quickly sold, indicating the amount of interest in the controversy. Ella is certainly correct when he notes, “Wesley believed that Toplady was the one man who could challenge his Arminian empire and perhaps even bring it down. He saw Zanchius as a dangerous weapon in Toplady’s hand. He thus planned a strategy of negative propaganda and disinformation to combat his foe.”22 Characteristically, Wesley refused to meet head on the biblical arguments raised by Zanchius. Instead, he chose an especially sick scheme— he published a deformed abridgement of Zanchius ending as follows:23
The sum of all this; one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will: the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Reader believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand, A . . . . . T . . . . . 24
But neither Zanchius nor Augustus Toplady (A…T…) had written or taught any such thing.25
Furious, Toplady immediately published a stinging rejoinder, A Letter to Rev. Mr. John Wesley; Relative to his Pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination. In it he addressed two issues: the evil tactics of his opponent and Wesley’s slander of the gospel of grace. According to Toplady, Wesley’s tactics were evil because they were illegal—illegal because by presenting someone else as its author he committed forgery.26
Unsatisfied with carefully and totally suppressing every proof alleged by Zanchius … a false colouring must likewise be superinduced, by inserting a sentence or two now and then of your own foisting. After which you close the motley piece, with an entire paragraph, forged every word of it by yourself: and conclude all, as you began, with subjoining the initials of my name: to make the ignorant believe that the whole, with your omissions, additions, and alterations, actually came from me.—An instance of audacity and falsehood hardly to be paralleled … a similar forgery would transmit the criminal to Virginia or Maryland, if not to Tyburn.27
Wesley’s tactics, Toplady charged, were also sinful—sinful because Wesley had not only stolen the work, but committed literary butchery.
Zanchius, if you chose to buy him, was yours to read; and if you thought yourself equal to the undertaking, was yours to answer: but he was not yours to mangle … You ought not, with Ahab, to kill as well as take possession.28
Such tactics Toplady abhorred, not so much out of personal concern, but for two principled reasons. First, he considered them bad form for battle, an indication of theological cowardice, the most despicable behaviour on any battle-ground, especially for a gospel preacher.
I shall have no objection (if life and health continue) to measuring swords, or breaking a pike with you. Controversy properly conducted is a friend to truth, and no enemy of benevolence. When the flint and the steel are in conflict some sparks may issue, which may both warm and enlighten.—But I have no notion of encountering a wind-mill in lieu of a giant. If, therefore, you come against me (as now) with straws instead of artillery, and with chaff in the room of ammunition, I shall disdain to give you battle: I shall only laugh at you from the ramparts.29
Secondly, Wesley’s castrated citations were deliberately intended to make the gospel offensive. “Wrench the finest eye that ever shone in a lady’s head from its socket,” Toplady wrote, “and it will appear frightful and deformed.”30 Wesley had made predestination hideous by severing it from the beauty of God’s perfections. It is not true, as Lawton asserts, that Toplady could have diffused such a situation with “ironical laughter.”31 According to Toplady, Wesley made God look worse than sinners. “To say that any shall be saved, do what they will, and others damned, do what they can: is, in the first instance, blasphemy against the holiness of God, and in the second, blasphemy against his goodness.”
In August 1771, Wesley fired more “chaff” at Toplady in a tract, The Consequence Proved.32 If Toplady was expecting Wesley to confess his transgressions, he would be sadly disappointed. Wesley not only remained unrepentant, but compounded his crime. This tract began where the first left off: “Mr. Toplady, a young, bold man, lately published a pamphlet, an extract from which was soon printed, concluding with these words: ‘The sum of all this: One in twenty, suppose, of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated …” Again, Toplady never wrote or taught those words, nor did he ever publish such a pamphlet. Wesley knew it. In The Consequence Proved, he further implicated himself with almost comical reasoning. On the one hand, he maintained Toplady actually wrote “nineteen in twenty are damned, do what they can …” On the other hand, the burden of his tract is to prove, that “this consequence does naturally and necessarily follow from the doctrine of absolute predestination.” Apparently, he thought it necessary to prove what Toplady supposedly wrote with his own pen.
The Consequence Proved would be the last Wesley published directly against Toplady. Thereafter, he adopted a frustrating tactic Toplady referred to as “the silent sap,” whereby he answered indirectly through two associates, whom Toplady belittled as “understrappers” or “pertlings.” One man was Walter Sellon.33 After the Zanchius piece was published, Wesley advised Sellon (at the time writing against Elisha Coles): “Do not make too much haste in dealing with Elisha … And pray add a word or two to Mr. Toplady, not only in regard to Zanchius, but his slander on the Church of England.”34 A few months later, convinced more must be done, Wesley urged Sellon to publish another pamphlet aimed specifically at Toplady.
Do not make too much haste. Give everything the last touch … I believe it will be the best way to bestow a distinct pamphlet on Mr. Toplady. Surely wisdom will die with him! I believe we can easily get his other tract, which it would be well to sift to the very foundation, in order to stop the mouth of that vain boaster.35
Sellon would oblige, but largely by name-calling, among other things labeling Toplady as a malapert boy, hooter, dragon, venomous slanderer, papist, greatest bigot that ever existed, wild beast of impatience, and materialist.36
The hand-picked champion of Wesley, however, was Thomas Olivers, a former cobbler who lived at the Foundry, the hub of Wesley’s operations next to the infamous Bedlam insane asylum. In The Consequence Proved, Wesley wrote: “I can only make a few strictures and leave the young man [Toplady] to be farther (sic) corrected by one that is full his match, Mr. Thomas Olivers.” But neither Olivers nor Sellon was any match for Toplady’s verbal, intellectual, and polemical skills. Furthermore, Toplady wanted battle only with the old fox himself. “The master does me an injury, by subjoining my name to what I never wrote … I publicly call the aggressor himself to account. The aggressor slinks behind one of his dredges [Olivers], who says, ‘Fight me in my master’s stead.’ I answer, No. Ne sutor ultra crepidam [He is nothing more than a cobbler wearing sandals].”37
Toplady would publish five more pamphlets directed specifically at Wesley. In late 1771, he published the most important of the five, a work entitled More Work for Mr. John Wesley. It would be his most lengthy reply, over three times the size of his first publication. The center-piece of it was his assertion that Wesley’s supposed consequence of predestination—that the elect shall be saved, do what they will: the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can—was an illusion. The biblical truth, Toplady argued, was that as a consequence of their own depravity the reprobate desire neither salvation nor holiness; conversely, the elect do not live wickedly simply because they know they are saved, since faith and sanctification are consequences of election.
The point of inquiry then is, Whether the elect themselves can be ultimately saved without being previously sanctified by inherent grace … without evidencing that sanctification ... by walking in the way of God’s commandments? … I affirm with Scripture that they cannot be saved without sanctification and obedience … that very decree of election by which they were nominated and ordained to eternal life, ordained their intermediated renewal after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness … Sanctity, therefore, of heart and life is not barely a prelude to, but even a part and initiatory anticipation of the glory which shall be revealed. Election is always followed by regeneration and regeneration is the source of all good works … Works are not the fountain of grace, but streams flowing from it. Election does not depend upon holiness, but holiness depends upon election. So far therefore is predestination from being subversive of good works, that predestination is the primary cause of all the good works, which have been and shall be wrought from the beginning to the end of time … As I have elsewhere observed, they [the reprobate] trust in good works without doing them; while the peculiar people [the elect] do good works without trusting in them.38
In 1775, Toplady would publish three more times, the first which was entitled An Old Fox Tarred and Feathered. It had nothing at all to do with predestination, but concerned the American Revolution and was prompted by another incident of Wesley’s forgery. In it, he rebuked Wesley’s treasonous support of the rebellion and documents 31 paragraphs Wesley lifted from Dr. Samuel Johnson’s, Taxation no Tyranny, and had published as his own under the title, A Calm Address to our American Colonies.39 The last two pamphlets Toplady published that year were released together. Both were more philosophical than theological, and written in response to a treatise in which Wesley argued against Jonathan Edwards while defending Thomas Reid. The first was entitled The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted, and was closely related to Toplady’s affirmation of predestination. The second, A Dissertation Concerning the Sensible Qualities of Matter, he penned as an afterthought because he felt Wesley’s arguments on the subject were “weak and puerile.” These would be Toplady’s last publications against Wesley, excepting the letter he wrote on his death-bed, The Rev. Mr. Toplady’s Dying Avowal of his Religious Sentiments.
The background of this final tract is worth recounting, if only to demonstrate Wesley’s callous attitude toward the dying Toplady. By this time, Toplady’s deteriorating health made it impossible for him to handle the extensive pastoral travel required in his parish of Broad Hembury. When he received permission to transfer his duties there, he left for London, where he remained until only months before his death, a stay of three years. During this time Toplady kept busy editing the Gospel Magazine and preaching to huge crowds of enthusiastic listeners— after April of 1776, from the elevated, three-tiered pulpit of the Huguenot Reformed Church on Orange Street. In the spring of 1778, Toplady preached his farewell sermon on Gen. 7:16, “… and the LORD shut him in.” He was so feeble that Dr. Gifford and Rev. John Ryland had to help him climb the pulpit.
This, however, was not his last sermon. When the Wesleyan camp circulated the rumour that Toplady had renounced his Calvinism, he immediately wanted to preach again. When told he would probably die in the attempt, he remarked: “I would rather die in the harness than in the stall.”40 On June 14th, an astonished congregation watched the frail preacher being assisted to the pulpit one more time. Scarcely able to stand and hindered by laboured breathing, Toplady managed to preach on II Peter 1:13-4, “Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.”
Knowing his earthly journey was near its end, Toplady returned to Broad Hembury to put his affairs in order. On Tuesday, August 11, 1778, at thirtyseven years of age, Toplady died. But Wesley refused to let him rest in peace. No sooner had Toplady’s body cooled, than jubilant Wesleyan pulpits throughout the land proclaimed that Augustus M. Toplady, great troubler of Israel, had died blaspheming God and doubting his salvation. Respected sources claimed John Wesley was the origin of the evil lie. Writing in a widely circulated newspaper, Richard Hill challenged Wesley to reveal his sources. When Wesley replied that Hill must first provide his own sources, Hill obliged. He not only gave ample evidence Wesley originated the rumor, but also presented testimony of Toplady’s convictions, authenticated by thirteen signatures of those present when he died. Wesley never replied, except to remark to two of Toplady’s friends one day, “Those that are for peace will let those things alone.”41
Although it is certainly true that, as Iain Murray writes, “Augustus Toplady was particularly provoked,” it is misleading to conclude, as does Murray, that Toplady “was to go so far as doubting whether Wesley was a Christian at all.”42 First, this cannot be concluded from the sharp language that Toplady used, or even the many names he fired at him: lying sophister; bellwether of his deluded thousands; old fox; old plagiary; and great ghost-raiser. Although they certainly describe Wesley more accurately than the belated accolades bestowed on him nowadays; although current standards of evangelical debate would rule them out; and although we may object to the wisdom of the method; nevertheless, it would be unfair to claim Toplady hated Wesley. Besides, Toplady himself denied such a conclusion.
To those who know me not, it may seem needful to declare that, much as I disapprove Mr. Wesley’s distinguishing principles and the low cunning with which he circulates them, I still bear not the least ill-will to his person. As an individual, I wish him well, both here and ever … If I anywhere, however, express myself strongly, it is owing to the necessity I was under of exposing Mr. Wesley’s unmanly and dishonest methods of attack.43
He would echo these words in a letter to John Ryland.
The envy, malice, and fury of Wesley’s party are inconceivable. But, violently as they hate me, I dare not, I cannot, hate them in return. I have not so learned Christ.—They have my prayers and my best wishes for their present and eternal salvation. But their errors have my opposition also: and this is the irremissible sin which those red-hot bigots know not how to forgive.44
Nor can we conclude that simply because he urged Wesley to repent of his sins, he believed Wesley to be unsaved. Toplady was no Antinomian. He certainly believed Wesley to be guilty of gross public sin—the worst being promulgation of false doctrine. And as a good Calvinist, he seriously called him to repentance.
The hour must shortly come, which will transmit you to the tribunal of that God on whose sovereignty a great part of your life has been one continued assault. At that bar I too must hold up my hand. Omniscience can tell which of us shall first appear before the Judge of all. I shortly may, you shortly must. The part you have been permitted to act in the religious world will, sooner or later, sit heavy on your mind … Depend upon it, a period will arrive when the Father’s electing mercy, and the Messiah’s adorable righteousness, will appear in your eyes, even in yours, to be the only safe anchorage for a dying sinner. I mean, unless you are actually given over to final obduration. Which I trust you are not and to which I most ardently beseech God you may never.45
Even as preaching faith and repentance promiscuously never imply that the preacher believes his hearers to be damned, so also Toplady’s words did not imply he believed Wesley an unbeliever. “I condemn no man,” he wrote. “I dare not pronounce concerning any man’s eternal state. Herein I judge not even Mr. Wesley himself: though I must tell him that if it be (as I most sincerely wish it may) the divine will to save him, he has an exceeding strait gate to pass through before he gets to heaven.”46 Again, this is nothing less than the attitude required by every gospel preacher. And is it not true that all have a straight gate to pass through?
Although Toplady wielded a rapier pen against Wesley, he refused—contrary to some present Calvinistic zealots—to rail on everyone who espoused Arminian teachings or variations thereof. Although he publicly condemned their doctrine, he recognized that some were simply ignorant, others confused. Many were willing to listen or conduct honest debate. Others, in which camp Toplady placed Wesley, are disgraceful hypocrites.
I speak not of all Arminians. Many there are, who, notwithstanding their entanglement in that net, stand entitled to the character of pious, moderate, respectable men. Of these I myself know more than a few and have the happiness to enjoy as much of their esteem, as they deservedly possess of mine. But I speak above of the noisy, factious, malevolent Arminians: restless bigots, whose false fire would shed disgrace on whatever party they might belong to. Who, not content with exercising their own right of private judgment, are for reviling and condemning every individual person who claims the same right of judging for himself and will not sacrifice his creed at their shrine.47
We conclude with one anecdote, which must be told for it illustrates the above concerning Toplady’s methods and attitude toward his Arminian opponents. This anecdote is the meeting with Wesley’s personal champion, Tom Olivers. One day during the heart of the controversy, Toplady went out to call on an old friend. As he passed by the Foundry, he decided to purchase a copy of Wesley’s latest. After paying for it, he was recognized by Mrs. Olivers, who immediately left to tell Tom he was there. While waiting, Toplady chatted and took out his snuff-box.48 When one of Wesley’s employees asked for a pinch, Toplady, who couldn’t resist a poke at Wesley’s legalism, asked, “Is it not against the law of this place for a believer to take snuff?” The man replied that he had a head-ache. Mrs. Olivers chimed in, “O sir, Mr. Wesley has no objection to people’s taking snuff medicinally.” Chuckling, Toplady replied, “I am glad you are allowed some latitude: I thought you were tied up by an absolute prohibition, without any loophole of exception.”
Olivers, dressed in black, finally arrived. When announced, Toplady promptly greeted him: “What, my famous antagonist? Mr. Olivers, give me your hand: cudgel players shake hands, though they mean to break each others’ heads.” Olivers bowed and nodded his head. Toplady then asked if he might have 15 minutes to talk. Olivers replied, “With all my heart, sir: I shall be very glad.” With that they both proceeded upstairs, where they enjoyed a bottle of wine and conversed for several hours about their various pamphlets, differences of opinion, and of course, Wesley. Inevitably, the subject of free-will arose.
Toplady: “You hold, that men are absolutely independent on God, so far as relates to the management and actings of their own wills?”
Olivers: “I believe it firmly.”
Toplady: “You are honest and consistent: but I cannot call you orthodox … absolute independent self-determination is an attribute truly and properly divine. If I thought you possessed of it, I should immediately fall down and worship …”
Olivers: “If man has not free-will, to what end are exhortations?”
Toplady: “Among other useful ends, they are made instrumental, under the influence of God’s Spirit, to convince men that they have, by nature, neither will nor power to do what is good.”
Olivers: “I have many strong objections against that doctrine.”
Toplady: “… let me put one question to you, which a valuable friend, now with God, once put to me.—How was it with you when God first laid hold on you by effectual grace? Had you any hand in procuring it? Nay, would you not have resisted and baffled God’s Spirit, if he had left you to your will? … What say you? Did you choose God, or did God choose you? Did he lay hold on you, or did you lay hold on him?”
Olivers: “I must own to you that, before my conversion, I was one of the most abandoned swearers and drunkards in England. I received my serious impressions from Mr. Whitefield …”
Toplady: “Then it is very clear that your conversion, at least, was not conditional.”
Olivers: “I will not say that I procured grace of myself. Nor will I say how far I might have resisted it.”
Toplady: “I plainly perceive that you are not disposed to return a direct answer to my first question. But if you will not answer it to me, let me request you to take an early opportunity of answering it on your knees before God in prayer. Go to your closet, and pour out your heart in his presence, and beg him to shew you whether you were converted by free-will, or by free-grace alone.”
PART 2: The Gangrene of the Protestant Churches.
Earlier, we promised that we would “briefly relate the … doctrinal issues in the Wesley-Toplady controversy to demonstrate their continued relevance in the present Reformed ecumenical climate.” Because the doctrinal and practical issues remain, this 18th century battle continues to be relevant. For one thing, it verifies what Dordt established long ago: Arminianism is a rebellious bastard child that despises its theological heritage. Also, it is a trumpet-blast that warns Calvinists to take seriously the threat of Arminianism within their ranks. This presence is real. As the late Presbyterian theologian, John Murray, once observed:
A very cursory survey of present-day conditions in the church will disclose that fact [that Arminianism is not dead], for there are multitudes in the Protestant church who hold and avow the tenets given vogue by James Arminius. This is true whether they are aware of it or not ...49
This presence continues to be a serious threat to Calvinism. Wesley worked within a confessionally Reformed church in the hope his Arminianism would “... leaven the whole church.”50 Arminians continue to hold this hope. Yet, few Calvinists would agree anymore with Toplady, that “Arminianism ... is the gangrene of the Protestant Churches and the predominant evil of the day.”51 Instead, growing numbers press for tolerance under the flag of catholicity, and many of the doctrines of Wesley are taught as Reformed truth.
As demonstrated earlier, the main issue in the Wesley-Toplady controversy was absolute predestination. It was the main issue because John Wesley viciously attacked predestination even though his church’s Reformed confession affirmed it. As noted earlier, he believed the Thirty-Nine Articles only mentioned the term. He also considered the Synod of Dordt’s declarations on predestination to be based on ignorance and partiality.52 Although Wesley himself would use the term “predestination,” he limited it to a divine foreknowledge that had no consequence for salvation. As he put it, “God, looking on all ages ... knows every one that does or does not believe, in every age or nation. Yet ... faith or unbelief is in nowise caused by his knowledge.”53 This is the typical Arminian evasion. His opponent, Augustus M. Toplady, loved predestination, especially as it was developed in the Canons of Dordt. He believed election to be
God’s everlasting love ... his eternal, particular, most free, and immutable choice of [some men] in Christ Jesus, without the least respect to any work, or works, of righteousness, wrought, or to be wrought, or that ever should be wrought in them or by them ...54
In keeping with his infralapsarian viewpoint, he considered reprobation to be God’s eternal decree to allow others to remain in sin. Toplady opposed Wesley primarily because he believed that any notion of salvation severed from a decretal source must be dependant upon the will of man for its realization. Thus, it was neither salvation nor grace, but pure idolatry.
My business now is with those who endeavour to save appearances by admitting the word [election], while in reality they anathematize the thing. These profess to hold an election: but then it is a conditional one ... It proceeds on a supposition that ... the resolutions of God’s will are absolutely dependent on the will of his creatures ... What is this but atheism in a mask?55
Wesley’s attack of God’s predestinating decree was rooted in pure hatred. “I abhor the doctrine of predestination,” he declared.56 There were two main reasons that Wesley abhorred the doctrine—reasons that are familiar to those who continue to know the Canons of Dordt. First, he considered it a blasphemous notion that made God the author of sin, hypocritical in the gospel call, and unjust in the distribution of salvation.57 Furthermore, it implied that God coerced men contrary to their wills. In his words, “The elect were saved, do what they will: The reprobate damned, do what they can.” Secondly, he hated predestination because he believed it made evangelism impossible. “If predestination be so,” he said, “then is all preaching vain.”58 Even if it were true, he thought predestination should not be preached because it was divisive. “Convince me that it is my duty to preach on controverted subjects, predestination in particular, and I will do it. At present I think it would be a sin ... it would create still more divisions.”59 And he thought predestination should not be preached because it was a breeding ground for Antinomism. “Absolute predestination,” he said, “naturally leads to the chambers of death ... [because the hearer will say] I may safely sin a little longer, for my salvation cannot fail.”60
Because it remains a common tactic today, it is worth noting that Wesley assailed predestination by focusing upon what he called “the cloven hoof” of reprobation.61 Shrewdly, Wesley knew that election and reprobation stand or fall together, and that reprobation was the weak link because it was naturally offensive. “If, for the sake of election, you will swallow reprobation, well. But if you cannot digest this, you must necessarily give up unconditional election.”62 He knew reprobation was difficult to stomach because it could not be reconciled with the common perception of God’s goodness and mercy. “Ill does election which implies reprobation agree with the Scripture account of God’s justice ... [And] how is God good or loving to a reprobate? ... He is, in truth and reality, only fatting the ox for the slaughter ...”63
Contrary to Iain Murray’s assertion that Wesley “preached the gospel and honoured Christ,” Wesley’s hatred of predestination exposed him as an enemy of the Reformed faith— a man who placed the free-will of man above the glory of Christ.64 As John Murray noted some time ago:
Everyone who denies unconditional election denies an aspect of truth that is of the essence of Reformed doctrine ... every failure to recognize and appreciate the absolute sovereignty of God in His saving grace is an expression of the pride of the human heart ... In its ultimate elements it means that the determining factor in salvation is what man himself does, and that is tantamount to saying ... it is not God who saves but man saves himself.65
Wesley’s objections to predestination were not original. Pelagius raised them against Augustine, and Pighius against Calvin. The Canons of Dordt, which Toplady so loved, note that these same calumnies were raised by the Remonstrants. Dordt attributes the source of this hatred of predestination to unbelief:
Satan abhors it; the world ridicules it; the ignorant and hypocrite abuse, and heretics oppose it; but the spouse of Christ hath always most tenderly loved and constantly defended it as an inestimable treasure (Canons of Dordt 5.15).
There was one more notable reason Wesley abhorred predestination: it directly contradicted his most cherished belief, namely, that God loved and sincerely desired the salvation of all men. In fact, this was his main objection to predestination. Contrary to the wildly popular opinion among professedly Reformed men today, Wesley knew it was utterly impossible that God both desired to save all men and did not desire to save all men. Furthermore, he knew it was ridiculous to preach such a thing. Besides being hypocritical, it is a contradiction that even the Almighty can not resolve. Toplady would have agreed. Many today who claim to be Reformed do not agree. Valiantly, but foolishly, they try to hold both—with devastating consequences.
Significantly, Wesley’s doctrine that “God willeth all men to be saved,” was no secondary doctrine, but fundamental to his Arminian theology, a claim he made in the very first issue of his magazine.
In The Arminian Magazine a very different opinion [from absolute predestination] will be defended in a very different manner. We maintain that “God willeth all men to be saved” ... Our design is to publish some of the most remarkable tracts on the universal love of God and his willingness to save all men from all sin which have been wrote in this and the last century.66
Wesley did not claim the purpose of his journal was to defend conditional election, resistible grace, a general atonement, or the falling away of the saints— doctrines usually considered ear-marks of Arminianism. For Wesley, the raison d’etre of Arminianism was its belief that “God willeth all men to be saved.” It was the heart that beat life into all the rest of its theology, for it was the very gospel message it preached. “Who is the Gospel preacher?” Wesley asked.
Promise-mongers [his epithet for predestinarians] are no Gospel preachers ... He, and he alone [although Wesley also ordained women] ... that does declare the whole counsel of God ... This honorable title is therefore vilely prostituted when it is given to any but those who testify “that God willeth all men to be saved”67
In a twist of irony only the devil could fully appreciate, most Reformed now say, “Amen. Mr. Wesley.” Preaching of the whole counsel of God has now become preaching that “God willeth all men to be saved.” This gospel message has become the sine qua non of Calvinism. And predestination, if it is believed at all, is stripped from the gospel and relegated to seminary classrooms or hospital beds. As one enthusiastic proponent of this gospel wrote:
... not ... every point of so-called Calvinistic belief is equally vital to the prosecution of evangelism and the conversion of sinners. Belief in predestination, for example, will comfort Christians but it is not a prerequisite for evangelism. Nor is preaching on the extent of the atonement essential for evangelism; evangelism calls men to come to Christ not because they have been saved but so that they may be saved. The seeking soul is not, after all, to be presented with systems of theology.68
At the same time, many Reformed wonder why their leaders seek ecumenical ties with Arminians. They seem mystified that the fundamentals of Calvinism—limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance, and justification by faith alone—are being challenged or rejected in their midst, especially as regards the covenant. Strangely, few question whether this rampant apostasy is related to their insistence, an insistence shared with Wesley, that the gospel message is that “God willeth all men to be saved.” But if this is their gospel, the heart of Arminianism beats in their breast. As Toplady will demonstrate, its blood cannot nourish their Calvinistic limbs. Gangrene will set in, transforming a lively body into a putrid mass.
Wesley claimed his doctrine that “God willeth all men to be saved” was thoroughly biblical. Not surprisingly, he used the same texts as Pelagius, Pighius, Arminius, and modern proponents of the free offer.
Why are not all men saved? Not because of any decree of God; not because it is his pleasure they should die; for “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth” (Eze. 18:3, 32) ... it cannot be his will if the oracles of God are true; for they declare, “He is not willing that any should perish ...” (II Peter 3:9).69
This was also the gospel he claimed Jesus sincerely preached.
To say [Christ] was not willing that all men should be saved, is to represent him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler ... To say then, he did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent him as a gross deceiver of the people ... This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination! And here I fix my foot.70
Significantly, Wesley based his doctrine of an unlimited atonement upon the notion that “God willeth all men to be saved.” He, of course, worked this out in the context of a semi-Pelagian notion of God’s justice. According to him, the justice of God would not allow anyone to be condemned only for the imputed sin of Adam.71 God’s justice also demanded that everyone be given the possibility of salvation—which is why the atonement must likewise be intended for all men. “You [Calvinists] say Christ did not die for these men. But if so, there is an impossibility ... that they should ever savingly believe.”72 Wesley therefore concluded, correctly, that if all men were to be extended the possibility of salvation in the gospel offer, then the cross must be as comprehensive as God’s intentions— a doctrine he felt verified by Scripture.
To tear up the very roots of reprobation and of all doctrines that have a necessary connection therewith, God declares in his word these three things ... 1) Christ died for all ... 2) He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world ... 3) He died for all that they should not live unto themselves.73
Wesley also realized that his doctrine “that God willeth all men to be saved” had significant implications for the covenant. He realized that the blood Christ shed was covenant blood and that the gospel conveys covenant promises. Many modern Calvinists will find Wesley’s notion of the covenant familiar—especially among those who concur with his gospel: The covenant is a bi-lateral agreement that God established unilaterally by promising certain blessings to men upon the fulfillment of conditions, notably faith and repentance.74 In other words, he taught a conditional covenant. Much like the Reformed who hold to a similar covenant today, Wesley saw no absurdity in saying that faith and repentance are both the blessings promised in the covenant, and conditions that God demanded in order to receive the promised blessings.
The gospel is both a revelation of grace and mercy, and a proposal of a covenant of terms and conditions ... Repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts. But this does not hinder their being conditions too ... It is therefore no contradiction to say, “We are justified freely by grace, and yet upon certain terms or conditions” ... For we are not accepted, nor are we qualified for, or capable of, acceptance without repentance and faith.75
However, Wesley—like the Reformed who hold to a conditional covenant— was sensitive that this conditional notion of faith in the covenant implied salvation by works, which he knew the Reformation soundly rejected. To deflect the charge that “condition” implied salvation by works or merit, he employed a number of arguments. First, he noted that certain Reformed fathers used the term “condition.” Secondly, he insisted that due to the depravity of man, faith was a necessary means in order to appropriate salvation—which he knew was the meaning of the term “condition” when the Reformed happened to use it.
Repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts. But this does not hinder their being conditions too. And neither Mr. Calvin himself, nor any of our Reformers, made any scruple of calling them so ... Can then God give that freely, which he does not give but upon certain terms and conditions? Doubtless he can; as one may freely give you a sum of money, on condition you stretch out your hand to receive it. It is therefore no contradiction to say, “We are justified freely by grace, and yet upon certain terms or conditions.”76
Thirdly, as stated above, Wesley insisted that faith was always a gracious gift of God. Wesley was quite proud of his affinity with the Calvinists in this regard.
Wherein may we come to the very edge of Calvinism? 1) In ascribing all good to the free grace of God. 2) In denying all natural freewill, and all power antecedent to grace. And, 3) In excluding all merit from man; even for what he has or does by the grace of God.77
Despite this valiant attempt to explain “conditions” in an orthodox sense, Wesley taught salvation by works because both the reception and continuance of faith were completely dependant upon the will of man. It was the logical result of the fact that he had severed every grace of salvation from an absolute decree of God, notably, because it ran counter to his belief that “God willeth all men to be saved.” Much the same thing is done today, especially in covenant theology. In the covenant, we are told, God promises every baptized member that God wills to save them on condition of faith. Yet, because membership in the covenant is not determined by the predestinating will of God, the blessings of the covenant are not determined by the predestinating will of God. Thus, the reception and continuance of faith are determined not by the will of God, but by the will of man. This is salvation by works.
Resistible grace is the smoking gun. Wesley admitted that because he severed salvation from an absolute decree of God, every grace was resistible, i.e. dependant upon the will of man. According to him, faith and all consequent blessings it receives, were forms of resistible grace that God offered to all men alike, to be accepted or rejected at their pleasure, or taken away by God due to sin.
Is faith the condition of justification? Yes ... Are works necessary to the continuance of faith? Without doubt; for a man may forfeit the free gift of God, either by sins of omission or commission ... Is faith the condition or instrument of sanctification? It is both.78
Significantly, this notion of conditional, resistible grace, severed from any decretal source, led Wesley to deny justification by faith alone.
We have received it as a maxim that “a man is to do nothing in order to justification (sic).” Nothing can be more false ... Is not this salvation by works? ... Not by the merit of works, but by works as a condition.79
Alas, this also is now being taught in Reformed churches on the same basis, that God in the covenant “wills all men to be saved.” Yet, the pundits tell us there is no connection.
The first gift of resistible grace was prevenient (or preventing) grace, a term Wesley borrowed from the Puritans.80 Prevenient grace was not the only grace Wesley said was resistible; rather, because it continues to be a necessary component of all who share Wesley’s notion of the gospel. According to Wesley, prevenient grace was given by the Spirit and common to all men.
There is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God. No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called natural conscience. But this is not natural: It is more properly termed, preventing grace. Every man has a greater or less measure of this ... everyone has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray ...81
Although Wesley insisted that prevenient grace was not saving grace, salvation depended upon it. Therefore, prevenient grace had the same amazing power as saving grace. “The preventing grace of God, which is common to all, is sufficient to bring us to Christ.”82 It drew men to Christ, by accompanying the preaching of the gospel, so that dead, unregenerated sinners are able to understand and accept the conditional gospel offers that are proposed.
At first curiosity brings many hearers: At the same time God draws many by his preventing grace to hear his word, and comforts them in hearing ... He now offers grace to all that hear; most of whom are in some measure afflicted, and more or less moved, with approbation of what they hear, desire to please God, and goodwill to his messenger.83
This grace was resistible. For all men received it through the preaching, it enabled them to react positively to the gospel, yet could fail to save them.
In fact, no grace that Wesley taught was saving grace. Although he insisted there were saving graces, none could actually do so, because all were resistible by the will of the sinner. Perseverance, therefore, was as doubtful as any of Wesley’s proposed graces. Again, Wesley was honest enough to admit this. Although the Thirty-Nine Articles of his own church affirmed perseverance, Wesley claimed no one could be certain of their salvation. There could be no perseverance of salvation in general. “If the oracles of God are true, one who was purchased by the blood of Christ may go thither (to hell) ... one who was sanctified by the blood of Christ may nevertheless go to hell ...”84 Nor, he asserted, could there even be perseverance within the covenant—the promises of God be damned.
“Is not the faithfulness of God engaged to keep all that now believe from falling away?” I cannot say that ... One who is endued with the faith that purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly ... “But how then is God faithful?” I answer, In fulfilling every promise which he hath made, to all to whom it is made, all who fulfill the condition of that promise … unless you fulfill the condition, you cannot attain the promise … God is the Father of them that believe, so long as they believe … those who live by faith in the Son of God; those who are sanctified by the blood of the covenant, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly.85
Alas, this doctrine too, is now being taught within Reformed churches. And Wesley teaches us why. Will the Reformed of the 21st century listen?
Even though he was a member of a Reformed church, Wesley placed the highest priority upon the doctrine that “God willeth all men to be saved,” with significant implications. Wesley would do practically anything to defend this doctrine. He would lie, plagiarize, and slander. He would maintain logical contradictions. He would sacrifice any biblical truth or the comfort of the believer. He was willing to dishonour the Triune God. With straight face he could say, “Christ died not only for those that are saved, but also for them that perish.”86 Likewise, he could strip the Father of his decrees, and the Spirit of his effectual grace. What mattered most to John Wesley? That “the God of love is willing to save all the souls that he has made ... But he will not force them to accept it; he leaves them in the hands of their own counsel.”87 Note well: When the counsel of God does not determine salvation, the counsel of man determines it. There are no other alternatives.
PART 3: Atheism in a Mask.
Augustus M. Toplady was far too modest. He claimed only to give Wesley’s Arminian Babel a shake, when, in fact, he demolished the whole edifice. His method was straightforward. Wesley’s vast kingdom rested upon the gospel of the well-meant offer, the proclamation that God wills to save all men through Jesus Christ. Toplady exposed that foundation as a false gospel, thus undermining and effectively toppling the entire theological structure built upon it.
His method was effective. He demonstrated by good and necessary consequence that the gospel of the well-meant offer and the gospel of Jesus Christ found in Scripture presented two different messages of salvation, proceeded from two different Fathers, were grounded in two different crosses, and worked by two different Spirits. The implication was clear: Wesley’s gospel presented an idol formed largely in his own imagination, so that in the final analysis his theology was really nothing more than “atheism in a mask.”88
Toplady’s arguments were thorough and biblical. Yet, Wesley never bothered to answer the objections raised by this honourable man. He ignored him and refused to confront the logical inferences of his own bally-hooed gospel. Oblivious of his own contradictions and seemingly uninterested in vast portions of Scripture, Wesley simply quoted his favourite texts, Ezekiel 33:11, I Timothy 2:4-6, and II Peter 3:9, as if this were the end of the matter. It seems that little has changed. Whatever their reason, modern advocates of the well-meant offer likewise seem uninterested in either listening to or defending the shameful implications of their gospel.
When Toplady unmasked the god of Wesley’s well-meant offer, a shockingly human creature was discovered behind the facade. He exposed this pseudo-god with a surprisingly simple argument. Wesley claimed that the god of the well-meant offer wills to save every human being, in time reveals that will through the preaching, and gives his grace to everyone who hears this gospel so they are empowered to accept the offered salvation. Yet, as even Wesley acknowledged, not all men will actually be saved. Toplady argued, therefore, that the god of the well-meant offer was entirely powerless to save everyone whom he willed to save and was frustrated when many spurned the grace he gave them.
Our free-willers and our chance-mongers [Toplady’s epithet for preachers of the well-meant offer] tell us that God does not do whatsoever he pleases; that there are a great number of things which God wishes to do, and tugs and strives to do, and yet cannot bring to pass: they tell us, as one ingeniously expresses it: ‘That all mankind he fain would save, but longs for what he cannot have. Industrious thus to sound abroad a disappointed changing God.’89
Although the god presented in the well-meant offer possessed a rational will, he was simply no different than the heathen idols. Like them, this god was completely unable to save. He was, Toplady charged, a god entirely unworthy of worship.
[T]rust, confidence, reliance, and dependence for salvation are all acts … of divine worship: and upon whatsoever you depend, whether in whole or in part, for your acceptance with God, and for your justification in his sight, whatsoever you rely upon, and trust in, for the attainment of grace or glory; if it be anything short of God in Christ, you are an idolater to all intents and purposes.90
Toplady also asserted that the well-meant offer stripped each of the Triune persons of their proper deity and transformed them into the original dysfunctional family. Besides the obvious fact that the will of the Father to save everyone could easily be thwarted by the stubborn wills of men, the Son’s work of atonement was also a colossal flop. Wesley recognized that if God the Father wills the salvation of all human beings, God the Son must die for them. But if so, Toplady argued, the Son must be blamed for failing to secure their salvation.
If [Wesley’s] hypothesis be true, millions of those for whom Christ died will be condemned; and what heightens the absurdity, condemned on account of those very sins for which Christ did die … The Father would purchase to himself a church of elect persons for his own peculiar residence and then leave Satan to run away with as many of the beams and pillars as he pleases.91
The clear implication of the well-meant offer was that Christ’s death really accomplished nothing. His death could not have been substitutionary. It could not have been redemption. The awful suffering and deep shame endured by the Son only made salvation possible. Toplady charged, therefore, that in the well-meant offer Jesus’ work on the cross did not actually pay for sins with His precious blood. It came down to writing a mound of blank cheques that were distributed indiscriminately but remained worthless ink on paper unless an individual happened to cash it.
The adorable Mediator, instead of having actually obtained eternal redemption for his people and secured the blessings of grace and glory to those for whom he died, is represented as bequeathing to them only a few spiritual lottery-tickets, which may come up blanks or prizes, just as the wheel of chance and human caprice happens to turn … The Messiah’s obedience and sufferings stand … for mere ciphers until our own free-will is so kind as to prefix the initial figure and render them of value … I tremble at the shocking consequences of a system which … sinks the Son of God … into a spiritual huckster, who, having purchased certain blessings of his Father, sells them out afterwards to men upon terms and conditions!92
Toplady also reasoned that in the well-meant offer, the Holy Spirit was as impotent as the Father and the Son. First, the Spirit never bothered to distribute the offered salvation to everyone whom the Father wanted to save, for untold millions in history were deprived of even hearing the gospel. Second, He was powerless to effect the salvation of everyone who heard the well-meant offer, for in the well-meant offer the grace necessary to work faith was as common as the mound of cheques Christ wrote—and therefore as worthless, too. Toplady argued that if everyone received that grace, but did not actually accept the offered salvation, then the Spirit of grace was to blame for this lack of success.
According to this tenet [of common grace] God in endeavouring (for it seems it is only an endeavour) to convert sinners, may by sinners be foiled, defeated, and disappointed … In a word, the Holy Spirit, after having for years, perhaps, danced attendance on the will of man, may at last, like a discomfited general, or an unsuccessful petitioner, be either put to ignominious flight, or contemptuously dismissed, re infecta, without accomplishing the end for which he was sent.93
So much for the Triune God presented in the well-meant offer: God the Father willed the salvation of all men, but was helpless to overcome their wills; His Son did not stand in their place or redeem them; and the Spirit did not spread the good news to all or impart a grace powerful enough to work faith in them. In Toplady’s opinion, this deity with his well-meant intentions was more abominable than that presented by Arius.
Arianism robs two of the divine persons. Arminianism robs all the three: [it] robs the Father of his sovereignty, decrees and providence: the Son of his efficacy as a Saviour: and the Spirit of his efficacy as a Sanctifier. An Arian represents the Son and Spirit as dependent on God the Father. An Arminian represents God the Father as dependent on the wills of men for the accomplishment of his desires, God the Son as dependent on the wills of men for the success of his mediation, and God the Spirit as dependent on the wills of men for the success of his agency.94
Toplady charged that the well-meant offer was exposed as a false gospel by its inherent notion of conditional faith. According to the well-meant offer, faith was a necessary condition to salvation. Wesley, of course, tried valiantly to strip this condition of any merit by calling it grace. But Toplady called this “a thin evasion: a mere barrel thrown out for the amusement of the whale to make him … lose sight of the ship.”95 Because Wesley severed both the distribution and effectiveness of it from an absolute decretal will of God, faith had to be a real meritorious condition regardless of how gracious he claimed it was. Faith was not distributed efficaciously by the Spirit according to the Father’s will to save and the Son’s redeeming work (otherwise, everyone would believe with saving faith). Faith was an action that man had to perform, upon which his salvation depended, and that was not produced efficaciously by God as a necessary part of the promised grace of salvation itself.
Toplady believed that this notion of conditional faith further demonstrated that the god presented in the well-meant offer was fashioned in the likeness of men. He claimed conditions were exclusively human constructs made necessary by men’s very changeable and limited nature. “All the promises of man to man ought to be conditional. It is only for God to make absolute promises, for he alone is unchangeable and omnipotent.”96 The notion of conditional faith implied God was mutable and limited, and the effectiveness of grace entirely random. In Toplady’s mind, the god of the well-meant offer was little different than a careless ostrich who deposits her eggs in the sand to be hatched or crushed but powerless to determine either outcome. The blessings of grace, he concluded, “were too valuable to be shuffled and dealt out by the hand of chance.”97
Another implication of conditional faith was that it destroyed the saving character of gospel preaching. Toplady’s reasoning was simple: grace and conditionality were incompatible opposites. “The one totally destroys the other,” he said. “And they can no more subsist together than two particles of matter can occupy the same individual portion of space at the same point of time.”98 They could not exist together in the mind of God, let alone on the same pulpit or in the mind of any hearers of the gospel. Where faith was preached as a condition of salvation, grace was annihilated as a saving power in that gospel and relegated to some vague notion of unmerited good.
Toplady maintained that no gospel of conditional faith could be the power of God unto salvation. First, a gospel of conditional faith relegated grace to a cheap commodity that depended upon mercantile tactics for its distribution and effectiveness. This was the inevitable result because, as Toplady expressed it, “conditions in things spiritual were analogous to a price in matters of commerce.”99 Since faith was a condition, neither preacher nor hearer could rely upon God for an irresistible, powerful grace to seize dead sinners and infuse a living faith into them. Preachers, then, became little more than spiritual hucksters who relied upon a high-pressure sales pitch to sell their worthless grace—not much different, Toplady said, than auctioneers, “who, with the hammer in their hands, are always bawling out, ‘Now is your time; now is your time: a-going, a-going, agoing.’”100
Second, Toplady claimed that a gospel of conditional faith was equally powerless to sanctify sinners unto final salvation. He argued that if faith was conditional, then every blessing of salvation received through faith was also conditional. Justification, repentance, good works, and final salvation were all as doubtful, powerless, and meritorious as the faith through which they were received. And again, neither preacher nor hearer of this gospel could be certain about their reception or continuance. Therefore, Toplady asserted, such preaching necessarily became moralistic and its hearers self-righteous. And it was especially the latter that concerned him the most, because individual spiritual lives were at stake. He warned
That grand error of the hearts … which misrepresents justification as at all suspended on causes or conditions of human performance; will and must, if finally persisted in, transmit the unbeliever, who has opportunities of better information, to that place of torment where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.101
Although Toplady sharply condemned both the well-meant offer and its preachers, it would be a mistake to think that he had little to say positively. While refuting the cavils of Wesley, Toplady eloquently articulated the Reformed faith, especially the call of the gospel. Significantly, he did this in connection with its position on predestination. Although he subscribed formally to the Thirty-Nine Articles, Toplady consciously worked out his refutation of the well-meant offer according to the significant creedal statement of the Canons of Dordt. Because the well-meant offer is today a powerful force in Reformed churches, and because proponents of the well-meant offer insist that opposition to their gospel is a relatively new, un-Reformed phenomena, we conclude by briefly outlining the solidly Reformed position on the call of the gospel as formulated by this stalwart theologian.
In keeping with the long line of Reformed theologians, Toplady was covenantal in his approach to the call of the gospel. He considered it impossible to understand the nature of the gospel call apart from God’s sovereign decree of election and the covenant. He believed election was God’s eternal choosing of some out of the human race to live in covenant union as members of Christ’s body. The covenant he understood to be a bond of love that the Triune God established in eternity with Jesus Christ and with all the elect in Christ. This covenant consisted of nothing less than the whole of salvation itself, which was gracious and everlasting, due to the nature of God who establishes and maintains it unilaterally in time. As Toplady expressed it: “Our own unbelief may occasionally tear the copies of the covenant given us by Christ, but unbelief cannot come at the covenant itself. Christ keeps the original deed in Heaven with himself, where it can never be lost.”102
The gospel call Toplady believed to be God’s efficacious drawing of his elect people into that conscious living covenant fellowship with Christ. Therefore, preaching of the gospel was the means by which, as Toplady put it so beautifully, God takes the elect who were “betrothed to Christ from everlasting in the covenant … and actually marries [them] to him … in conversion.”103
The call of the gospel had several important elements that were implied by this saving covenantal purpose of God. First, Toplady carefully distinguished between an internal aspect of the gospel call, which was issued and made effective by the Holy Spirit, and an external aspect, which was the gospel message spoken by an ordained office bearer. That external call of preaching must set forth the person and work of Jesus Christ as God’s provision for the salvation of depraved and guilty sinners. It must make known faith in Jesus as the only way of salvation for sinners. It must summons the audience with urgency and passion to believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. And it must promise full pardon and eternal life to all who obey the summons and come to Jesus Christ with a true faith, while also warning sharply that eternal damnation awaits all who refuse to repent.
Toplady strongly asserted that this external call of the gospel must be preached promiscuously, i.e. universally to all men without regard to their person or spiritual state. According to him, the preacher must be unconcerned with whether hearers were elect or reprobate—after all, the preacher had no access to such information. “The ministerial calls and exhortations of God’s ambassadors,” he said, are to be “urged and addressed as well to the awakened as the un-awakened … A Christian minister, preaches to all that come within the sphere of his address.”104 And to demonstrate that Toplady put this belief into practice, we have a sample of one such promiscuous summons he issued as a servant of the Lord:
Any of you, who are either in an unconverted state, or who are in a backsliding state, to one and the other I say this evening, seek ye the Lord while he may be found … O, that God may draw you by his power! For in vain does a preacher strike the ear, unless God’s own finger opens the heart … O! that the power of God may go with the ministration of his word, and that some wicked man, this night, may be willing to forsake his way; that some unrighteous soul may be enabled to turn to Christ; so will he experience the certainty and freeness of that promise that God will abundantly pardon all those that come to him, in the name, and trusting in the blood and righteousness of his adorable Son.105
Although this external call of grace was to be issued to all men generally, Toplady insisted the internal call itself was particular. First, it was particular in its summons. The gospel did not address everyone in the world—elect as well as reprobate. Rather, the gospel addressed only the elect. It did not, however, address them using the term “elect” (as Wesley had charged). Because the audience had no direct access to the eternal decrees of God, the gospel addressed them in terms of their experience, for example, the hungry, the weary, the thirsty, the labouring, or the heavy laden. This was not a universal call as Wesley supposed. It did not even address everyone in the audience, Toplady argued, for someone could be as dry as a bone and never want the water of life. “Take notice,” he said (expounding Isaiah 55:1), “it is addressed only to those that thirst, i.e. to those who so far know the joyful sound as to wish for an experimental participation of the blessings it proclaims.”106 Through the internal operation of the Spirit, the elect and they alone know themselves to be hungry or thirsty for righteousness. And by experiencing this, they were also comforted and assured of their election.
Secondly, the gospel call was particular as to its effect. Toplady maintained that the gospel call was particular as to its effect primarily because God’s purpose with the call was particular. It was intended to gather only those whom He had elected and for whom Jesus Christ has laid down His life. In them alone, God the Holy Spirit worked believing faith so that they would respond to the gospel call and come to living covenant communion with Christ. All others who heard this gospel were repulsed, and on them God would manifest His justice.
The purposes of divine grace are fully answered in the salvation of God’s chosen and the purposes of divine vengeance are fully answered in the perdition of the impenitent. With regard to God’s people, one great end of their being brought to and acquainted in time with the truths of the gospel is that after they have filled up their appointed place … they may in the hour of death have the celestial gates thrown open…. Divine sovereignty is the keeper of the door of heaven; free grace is the lock; and Christ’s righteousness is the key that opens it to all who are entitled to everlasting life by virtue of what Jesus has done and suffered, by a covenant grant from God the Father, settled in his counsels of old, and witnessed to the conscience, when the soul is converted to God. All who are thus entitled, through grace, shall enter by the gates …107
According to Toplady, the particular nature of the gospel call’s effect in no way hindered the minister from preaching the gospel indiscriminately to all men. Nor should the minister imagine that because the gospel call is particular as to its address and effect, that God intended to give faith to everyone within hearing of the gospel message. Not so, Toplady argued,
A fisher who stands upon the shore, and plunges his net into the sea at large, is not so frantic as to think of catching all the fishes in the sea, though he offers the net indefinitely and without exception. So when a Christian minister spreads the gospel net, he preaches to all that come within the sphere of his address; not with an expectation of catching all, but of catching as many as God shall please; knowing that it is the Holy Spirit alone who can drive souls into the net, and effectually catch them for Jesus Christ.
The duty of the preacher was simply to issue the external call to all men and then rely upon God to work faith within them according to his sovereign good pleasure. Nor should the knowledge of God’s good pleasure hinder the minister from urging all his hearers to repent and believe. God could reach them through the preaching and work that which was necessary. Through the preacher, God was serious about what He said. He promised eternal life to them that believed and threatened destruction to them that refused. But He never promises to save every wicked person.
When God says, ‘Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thought,’ the meaning is plainly this, consistent with the analogy of faith, that whatsoever will, wherever God has wrought a desire in the heart of a person, in whomsoever that desire is wrought, though ever so antecedently vile … from the instant that he is enabled to turn to God in Christ, from that instant he may conclude that he has a safe indubitable warrant, for laying claim, through grace, to all the blessings of the gospel as his own …108
Toplady also asserted that the gospel was particular in its effect due to the very nature of grace—which itself was particular. Grace, said Toplady, was always the unchangeable, irresistible power of God which He works by His sovereign Spirit to accomplish his good pleasure in those whom He wills to save.
When the Spirit begins, he carries on his work in the hearts of his people till they are made meet for the inheritance prepared for them above; for he has engaged in covenant to bow the wills, to regulate the powers, and sanctify the affections of all the elect; to lead, guide, strengthen, and direct them through this wilderness; and he never leaves the subjects of his grace till he puts them into the arms of the Redeemer in glory.109
According to Toplady, one serious error of the well-meant offer was that it confused the external gospel of grace and the internal grace of the gospel.
The gospel of grace may be rejected; but the grace of the gospel cannot. God’s written message in the Scriptures and his verbal message by his ministers may or may not be listened to … But when God himself comes, and takes the heart into his own hand; when he speaks from heaven to the soul, and makes the gospel of grace a channel to convey the grace of the gospel; the business is effectually done.110
In the call of the gospel, therefore, the grace of faith and repentance were neither conditions of salvation nor promised to everyone. According to Toplady, they were the very blessings that God promised to and powerfully works in his elect through the preaching of the gospel by the Spirit.
God’s covenant love to us in Christ is another stream, flowing from the fountain of unmingled grace … How is it possible that either God’s purposes or that his covenant concerning us, can be in any respect whatsoever suspended on the will or the works of men; seeing both his purposes and his covenant were framed, and fixed, and agreed upon, by the persons in the Trinity, not only before men existed, but before angels themselves were created, or time itself was born? All was vast eternity, when grace was federally given us in Christ ere the world began … Repentance and faith, new obedience and perseverance, are not conditions of interest in the covenant of grace (for then it would be a covenant of works); but consequences and tokens of covenant interest.111
In close connection, then, Toplady considered as utter nonsense Wesley’s claim that if God distributed faith according to election, then human responsibility was negated and God became the author of sin. Humans, Toplady responded, were fully responsible for their own sin. Besides, due to his sovereignty, God was never obligated to bestow faith or any other grace upon any individual in the fallen human race—let alone all of them.
I am not afraid to answer with the word of God that repentance, faith, and sanctification, are God’s own gifts, which he is not bound to bestow on any man and might have withheld from all men … Given they are to some, or none would have them. Given they are not to all, else none would be without them. The regenerate work the works of God with consent, freedom, and desire, in consequence of grace bestowed; the unregenerate commit evil with no less desire, freedom, and consent, in consequence of that original depravation which God (for unfathomable reasons) was pleased to permit, and which nothing but his own grace can effectually supersede.112
Even though he repudiated the notion of conditions, Toplady affirmed strongly that faith, repentance, and good works were absolutely necessary for salvation. If that was all someone meant by the word “condition,” he would have had no serious disagreement, although like Luther with the phrase “free-will,” he would rather the word “condition” was banned from the Reformed vocabulary due to the confusion it fostered. Faith, repentance, and good works were not conditions because God distributed them and made them effective according to his sovereign good pleasure. This, however, did not exclude them from being necessary for salvation. Faith was absolutely necessary due to the depravity of fallen mankind, which Toplady believed was total. An unregenerate man, he said, was absolutely dead in a spiritual sense.
He has no hearing of the promises; no sight of his own misery, of the holiness of God, of the purity of the law, nor of Christ as covenanting, obeying, dying, and interceding; no taste of God’s love in Christ and the sweetness of communion with him by the Spirit; no feeling of conviction in a way of grace, humiliation, and self-renunciation; no scent after God and glory; no hungerings and thirstings after spiritual consolations and assurance; no motion toward divine enjoyments and evangelical holiness.113
Good works and repentance were no less necessary than faith for salvation because they were “essential prerequisites to spiritual peace on earth and … preparative for the eternal happiness of heaven.” They were all necessary precisely because God ordained them to be indispensable aspects and means of salvation itself. But, Toplady insisted:
Neither repentance, or faith, or any of their practical fruits, are in the least respect causal, or conditional, or meritorious of pardon, happiness, and eternal life. Every grace and every good work are the free gifts of God … Therefore, when we say that no man can be ultimately saved without such and such qualifications; we do not mean that those qualifications have any influence in obtaining our salvation (for inherent grace and eternal glory are already obtained and infallibly secured to all God’s elect by the obedience and blood of Christ): but that those qualifications (as faith, repentance, and holiness of heart and life) are essential branches and indispensable evidences of this absolutely free salvation.114
We conclude by noting that contrary to the opinion of many Reformed preachers today, Toplady also believed that predestination must be preached as an important aspect of the gospel. By this he meant it was necessary for the gospel minister to trace salvation and its necessary fruits to their decretal source. Today, many Reformed ministers, who share Wesley’s well-meant offer but are somewhat embarrassed by his stance on predestination, nevertheless have imbibed his opinion that predestination has no place in the gospel. Toplady disagreed.
He knew from first-hand experience the dreadful result of stripping predestination from the gospel message either explicitly or implicitly. He was also well aware of the fact that to preach election was intimidating because it was offensive to the natural pride of men. In fact, he admitted that for the first four years of his own ministry, he preached little else but what he called the “general outlines of the gospel.” His reasons were simple. He thought “these were sufficient” and he was “afraid to go any further.” But, he discovered such preaching was completely ineffective. “The generality of my hearers were pleased,” he confessed, “but very were few converted.” Then, as he put it, “God himself … gradually freed me from that fear … [so that I] opened my mouth and made known the entire mystery of his gospel.” The results astounded him. In his words,
multitudes were very angry, but the conversions which God gave me reason to hope He has wrought have been at least three for one before. Thus, I can testify as far as I have been concerned, the usefulness of preaching predestination.115
Besides the fact that he thought it most effective, there were other reasons he believed preachers should preach predestination as a necessary part of the gospel. First, it comforted greatly the people of God in their battles against sin and doubt by bringing them to the very fountain head of the gospel. Preachers who did not take election into account, he said, “turned their back upon the tree of life, quenched one of the capital lights which they ought to elevate on a candlestick, and withheld from people the very root and essence of the joyful sound.”116 Second, Toplady believed that there was good precedence. That precedence was Jesus Christ himself, that “great preacher of predestination.” Christ, Toplady claimed, “considered election as a heart-reviving doctrine or He never would have commanded his disciples to rejoice because their names were written in heaven.”117 And finally, preaching predestination as a necessary aspect of the gospel demolished both Phariseeism and Antinomianism. Toplady believed that these two errors were as old as Adam because they belonged to the depraved nature everyone inherited from this first father. And only when believers understood that good works—and faith—were the fruit of election and not a condition, would they both perform them and not rely upon them for righteousness. Toplady claimed,
Predestination destroy[s] the merit of works and obedience, but not the performance of them, since holiness is itself one end of election, and the elect are as much chosen to intermediate sanctification, on their way as they are to that ultimate glory which crowns their journey’s end.118
We have now briefly presented the history and doctrinal issues involved in the eighteenth century battle between the old Arminian, Mr. John Wesley and the young Reformed pastor, Augustus M. Toplady. It has been our intent to demonstrate that with honesty to Scripture and the Reformed faith, this man defended honourably the true gospel of Jesus Christ against the onslaught of a devious and deceitful opponent who preached a false gospel that God wills all men to be saved, a gospel now known as the well-meant offer. There is a reason we have presented this material. In his day, Augustus M. Toplady was widely considered by the English-speaking, Reformed church-world to be one of the most articulate and faithful representatives of Calvinism. They snatched his pamphlets from the bookstores as fast as they were printed and thousands crowded into church when he preached. Now, this godly man is largely forgotten, which is shame enough. Much worse, he is now condemned by those (allegedly) from his own camp. In his lifetime, only John Wesley and his Arminian hoodlums were so bold as to sully the name of this good man. Now, John Wesley is praised to the high heavens while Augustus Toplady is openly castigated. This is really not all that surprising because this is done by a breed of theologians who shamelessly promote the well-meant offer while claiming to be fully Reformed. As Toplady would have said: The well-meant offer is nothing more than Arminianism in a mask. We agree. Remove it and behold … John Wesley.
Endnotes:
-+- marked up by Lance George Marshall -+- 2007 -+-