Wesley Corpus

You affirm, they cannot. Again, therefore, it follows, these “shall be damned, do what they can.” “We assert, there is a predestination of particular persons to death, which death they shall inevitably undergo;” that is, “they shall be damned, do what they can.” “The non-elect were predestinated to eternal death.” (Chap. 2.) Ergo, “they shall be damned, do what they can.” “The condemnation of the reprobate is necessary and inevitable.” Surely I need add no more on this head. You see that, “The reprobate shall be damned, do what they can,” is the whole burden of the song. 5. Take only two precious sentences more, which include the whole question : “We assert, that the number of the elect, and also of the reprobate, is so fixed and determinate, that neither can be augmented or diminished;” (chap. 4;) and “that the decrees of election and reprobation are immutable and irreversible.” From each of these assertions, the whole consequence follows, clear as the noonday sun,--Therefore, “the elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can.” 6. I add a word, with regard to another branch of this kind, charitable doctrine. Mr. Toplady says, “God has a positive will to destroy the reprobate for their sins.” (Chap. 1.) For their sins ! How can that be? I positively assert, that (on this scheme) they have no sins at all. They never had; they can have none. For it cannot be a sin in a spark to rise, or in a stone to fall. And the spark or the stone is not more necessarily determined either to rise or to fall, than the man is to sin, to commit that rape, or adultery, or murder. For “God did, before all time, determine and direct to some particular end, every person or thing, to which he has given, or is yet to give, being.” God himself did “predestinate them to fill up the measure of their iniquities;” such was his sovereign, irresist ible decree, before the foundation of the world. To fill up the measure of their iniquities; that is, to commit every act which they committed. So “God decreed the Jews to be the crucifiers of Christ, and Judas to betray him.” (Chap. 4.) Whose fault was it then? You plainly say, It was not his fault, but God's.