was: "Good Mr. Osborne, if you have any concern for the credit of the Church of England, never tell that news to any body elfe, from henceforward, forever." Auguftus Toplady. LETTER LVI. TO FRANCIS TOPLADY, Efq. VERY DEAR SIR, YOU Broad-Hembury, March 19, 1775. U are one of the laft perfons on earth, in whose breaft I would with to occafion pain. Confequently, it gives me much concern to find, from your favour of Feb. 21, that the fubject, mentioned in my laft, "touched you to the quick." Let it refemble a drawn ftake, on each fide; and let both of us confider the matter, as if it had never been ftarted. Your kind folicitude for my health, merits my affectionate acknowledgements. Though I cannot entirely agree with you, in fuppofing that intenfe ftudy has been the caufe of my late indifpofitions; I must yet confefs, that the hill of fcience, like that of virtue, is in fome inftances, climbed with labour. But, when we get a little way up, the lovely profpects, which open to the eye, make infinite amends for the fteepnefs of the afcent. In fhort, I am wedded to thofe purfuits, as a man ftipulates to take his wife viz. for better for worie, until death us do part. My thirst for knowledge is, literally inextinguishable. And, if I thus drink myfelf into a fuperior world, I cannot help it: but muft fay, as VOL. VI. (32.) S fome fome report Ariftotle to have faid, when he threw himself into the fea (if it be true that he did fo throw himself,) quod non capere poffum, me capiet. Since I wrote to you laft, my complaints have been crowned, or rather fhod, with a fhort, but smart, touch of the gout. On this occafion, I have been congratulated, until I have loft all patience. Therefore I do, by thefe prefents, enter an exprefs caveat against your wishing me joy.-I am glad, however, that I know at laft, what is the matter with me: for I have not been right well thefe two years; and was unable, until seized by the foot, to afcertain the radical caufe. It is really one of the laft diforders, to which I fhould have fufpected myself liable. If the ftricteft temperance could have faved me from the gout, I most certainly had been exempted: for I never knew what it was to be the reverfe of fober, fo much as once, in my whole life. On a review, I am quite afhamed to perceive, that I have made myself the fole hero of my letter. But, notwithstanding the felf-important pronoun I, has already occurred too often, I must yet repeat it again; by affuring you, that I am, with tender and refpectful compliments to yourself, to my aunt, and to my coufin Charlotte, Dear fir, your affectionate nephew, Auguftus Toplady. LETTER LVII. To the Rev. Mr. Broad-Hembury, April 5, 1775. I VERY DEAR SIR, AM, both literally and figuratively, your debtor, for the welcome packet, with which you favoured me toward the close of laft January. Friendship Friendship and politenefs, lefs indulgent and extenfive than your own, would tell me, that I ought to blush, for having delayed my acknowledgements fo long. The truth is, I had been extremely ill, for feveral weeks, before the parcel arrived; and continued fo, for fome weeks afterwards: which, added to the numerous avocations, that have, fince, demanded my attention, obliged me to poftpone, until now, the pleasure of tendering my affectionate thanks to your condefcending acceptance. I have not been able to devote many hours to the perufal of Lilly's Aftrology. But I muft frankly own, that I have read enough, to deter me from falling very deeply in love with that real or fuppofed fcience. Judge, my dear fir, how exalted an idea, I must needs entertain, of your candour, ere I could prefume to teftify, in fuch blunt terms as thefe, my opinion of a study, which, in the eyes of your fuperior estimation, appears to be recommended by fo many folid and alluring charms. Among others, two obfervations, in particular, ftrike me, with great force, on this occafion. 1. Either we can, or we cannot, learn, from the ftars, the train of future events.-If we cannot, the whole bufinefs evaporates, at once, into a laborious delufion and an ingenious nothing.-If we can, it feems unwarrantable to pry into "the times and feafons, which the Father hath put in his own power," and which, the higheft authority affures us, "are not for us to know." The leaft that can be faid, is, that it is more humble, and more safe, to leave the evolution of futurity to Providence: to pray, instead of erecting a planetary figure: and, inftead of confulting the ftars, to caft all our care on him that made them. 2. Without doubt, many different infants are born into the world, at the fame precife point of time; and, confequently, under the telf tame afpects of the heavenly orbs. From which leading S2 circum circumftance, it would follow, on aftrological principles, that the caft of mind, the actions, the felicities, the adverfities, and, in fhort, the whole lives and deaths, of perfons fo born, fhould, exactly, in every pun&ilio, refemble thofe of each other. Their 'nativities being common, their fates would be the fame. But are there any two men upon the stage of the earth, though they entered it at the fame inftane, whofe minds and fates are perfectly fimilar and uniformly correfpondent throughout? Notwithstanding these free, fceptical remarks, I value Lilly's Book, as a very curious one: and fhall, with many thanks, reimburse my dear friend for its coft. Though you have not fet me to work, as an aftrologer; you have as a polemic. Mr. Wefley's Thoughts on Neceffity, which made a part of your obliging pacquet, determined me to reprefent that grand theological and philofophic article in its true point of view. Though I was then fo ill, that I could fcarcely hold my pen, Providence enabled me to begin my Effay almost immediately on my receiving Mr. John's Tract, and to finish it within a fortnight. I fhould not, however, have made fuch hafte; had I not apprehended, that, if I did not avail myself of the prefent hour, I might, probably, be in another world, before my treatife was compleated. But God has extended my reprieve. May I live, and fpeak, and act, to his glory! -- May I congratulate you, on your fuccefs, as candidate for the lectureship of St. ******? If not, I thall fill with you joy. You, and all your concerns, are in the hand of him, whofe will is wisdom, whofe heart is love, and whofe providence is omnipotence itself. Auguftus Toplady. LETTER LETTER LVIII. To the Rev. Dr. GIFFARD. Dear and Rev. SIR, IN Broad-Hembury, April 6, 1775. N obedience to your wifh, I fhall, concifely, prefent you with my extemporaneous thoughts, concerning the Arminian cavil, against perfonal election and reprobation, drawn from that relationship of God to men, by which he is denominated and confidered as the Father of the whole human race. Properly fpeaking, paternity and filiation are correlates, refulting from the production of a fimilar intelligent being, ex effentia productoris. Where this agency and effect obtain, the producer is, ftrictly, ftyled, a Father; and the produced is, ftrictly, ftyled, the offspring of that Father. Confequently, when any of mankind, or when all of them together, are termed fons, or children of God, the phrafe is, neceffarily and apparently, figurative. For, no being, lefs divine than God himfelf, can, according to the precife ideas of paternity and filiation, be literally, termed his Son. Hence, when this predicate, fons of God, is affirmed, concerning angels or men; the afirmation neither is, nor can be, philofophically ftrict. Becaufe, there is no communicated famenels of effence, from the producing party, to the party produced. Over and above which metaphyfical obfervation, holy Scripture explicitly afcertains the fenfe, in which God is reprefented as the Father of men.-Have we not, all, one Father? Hath not one God created us. Mr. Toulmin therefore, in his controverty with Mr. Rooker (a controverfy, by the way, whofe merits I have not looked into,) fhould have flared |