(8) And lastly, we grant, that according to the election of diftinguishing grace, which is the bafis of the various difpenfations of divine grace towards the children of men, Chrift died to purchase more privi leges for the chriftian Church, than for the jews, more for the jews than for the Gentiles, and more for fome gentiles than for others: For it is indubitable that God, as a fovereign Benefactor may, without fhadow of injuftice, difpenfe his favours fpiritual and temporal as he pleases; it being enough for the display of his goodnefs, and for the exciting of our gratitude, that the leaft of his heathen fervants has received a talent, with means, capacities and opportunities of improving it, even to everlating happiness (2) That God never defires to reap where he does not fow, nor to reap an hundred measures of fpiritual wheat, where he only fows a handful of fpiritual bailey: And (3) That the leaft degree of his improveable goodness is a feed,. which nothing but our avoidable unfaithfulness hinders from bringing forth fruit to eternal life in glory.

By making thefe guarded conceffions, if I mistake: not, we rectify the mistakes of Arminius; we fecure the doctrine of grace in all its branches, whilst Calvinifm fecures only the irrefiftible grace, by which infants and compleat idiots are eternally faved; we turn the edge, and break the point of all the arguments. by which the Calvinian doctrines of grace are defended; and tear in pieces the cloak with which the antinomians cover their dangerous error.

Had Arminius, and all the ancient and modern Semi-pelagians, granted to their opponents what we grant to ours; Calvinifm would never have rifen to its tremendous height. If you try to flop a great river, reiling it the liberty to flow in the deep channel which natore has affigned it, you only make it foam, rise, rage, overflow its banks, and carry devastation far and

near.

near. The only way then to make judicious Calvinifte allow us the impartial remunerative election, and the general redemption which the gofpel difplays; is to allow them with a good grace the partial, gratuitous election. And the particular redemption, which the Scriptures ftrongly maintain alfo. See the Scales: Se&. xi. xii. xiii. For my part, I glory in going as near the Calvinifts as I fafely can. Zelotes is my brother as well as Honeflus; and fo long as I do not lofe firm footing on fcripture-ground, I gladly ftretch out my right hand to him, and my left hand to his antagonists; endeavouring to help them both out of the oppofite ditches, which bound the narrow way, where Truth frequently takes a folitary walk.

I conclude this introduction by thanking Mr. Hill, for coming a little clofer to the knot of the contro. verfy in his fictitious Creed, than he has done in his Finishing-Stroke; for by this means he has ftirred me up to dig deeper into the Scriptures-Thofe unexhaufted mines of truth, which God has fet before us. I would not intimate that I have dug out new gold: No: The oracles of God are not new: But I hope that I have feparated a little drofs from fome of the richelt pieces of golden ore, which the Arminians and the Calvinists have dug out of those mines: And I flatter myself that the judicious, and unprejudiced will confefs, that fome of those pieces, which Calvinian and Arminian bigots have thrown away as lumps of drofs or of Arfenic, contain nevertheless truths more precious than thousands of gold and filver. Should thefe fheets in any degree remove the prejudices of profeffors, and prepare them for a reconciliation upon the fcriptural plan of the doctrines of grace and juftice, or of the two gofpel-axioms, 1 fhould humbly rejoice and thankfully give God the Glory.

MADELEY, Dec. 14th, 1774.

THE

FICTITIOUS AND THE GENUINE

CREED.

The Fictitious
Fictitious CREED:

BEING

"A Creed for Arminians."

Compofed by Richard Hill, Efq. and publifhed at the end of his "Three Letters "written to the Rev. J. Fletcher, Vicar "of Madely,"

ARTICLE I.

* BELIEVE that Jefus Chrift died for the whole human race, and that he had no more love "towards those who now are, or hereafter shall be in glory, than for those who now are, or hereafter shall be lifting up their eyes in torments; and that the one are 56 no more indebted to his grace than the other.”

The Genuine CREED:

BEING AN

ANTI-CALVINIAN

CONFESSION OF FAITH,

For those who believe that CHRIST tafted death for every man, and that fome men, by denying the Lord that bought them, bring upon themselves fwift deftruction.

W

ARTICLE I.

E believe that Jefus Chrift died for the whole human race with an intention, fiift, to pro-, cure abfolutely and unconditionally, a temporary redemption, or an initial falvation for all men univerfally: And. fecondly, to procure a particular redemption, or an eternal falvation, conditionally for all men, but abfolutely for all that die in their infancy, and for all the adult who obey him, and are faithful unto death.

We