The Works of Augustus M. Toplady (Volume 5)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1794. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... our Protestant bishops and clergy were then more highly Calvinistic, than, perhaps, the Scriptures will warrant: as holding, that God was the author both of man's sin and damnation. 3. That nevertheless, those persons, who did not hold this, were looked upon as differing from the rest of our Protestant Church-men. 4. That Our English divines did, in general, carry their notions of God's decrees to this great length: parson Talbot and his followers being expressly said to have imbibed their qualisied notions of predestination from foreign divines. That part, therefore, of the present sashionable system, Which would exempt moral and penal evil from salling under God's decree, is not of English, but of foreign growth. 5. Those who'held this Opinion, of God's not being any cause of sin and damnation, were, at' that time, mightily cried out against, by the main body of our reformed Church, as sautors of salse religion. 6. That Free-will-men, were ranked among Pelagians, Papists, Epicures, Anabaptists, and the enemies to God's holy predestination and providence. 7. That to be called a Free-will-man, was looked upon as a shamesul reproach and opprobrious insamy: yea, that a person, so termed, was deemed heretical, and that the doctrine and abettors of freewill, were numbered among those errors and sects, which called for the correction of the civil magistrate. 8. That the opposers of predestination were then a good deal more modest, than they are at present. The parson of Milk-street, who was agent for the rest, only requested an act of toleration, for himself and his brethren: which demonstrated a consciousness, of their differing from the Church established. 9. As those sort of people were then more modest, so they were much more orthodox, than the...