For pages 1-42, see:http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/augustus-toplady-c-of-e-calvinism.html
For pages 43-82, see:
http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-from-augustus-toplady-c-of-e.html
For pages 83-96, see:
http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/augustus-toplady-vol5-pg82-97-c-of-e.html
We return to our review of Toplady's review of English, Calvinistic, Anglican, Confessional, Reformational Prayer Book Churchmanship...something to please the antiquarians, but not the Western (U.S., UK, Canadian) Anglicans. Quite a stench to the ecclesiastical politicians.
Pg. 98, Toplady and the BCP, “Make thy chosen people joyful…”
You tell us, p. 107, that some infer the doctrine of election, from that petition in our liturgy, "make thy chosen people joyful." They do: and. not only, directly, the doctrine of election; but, indirectly, that of assurance likewise. The petition evidently proceeds on this datum, that God really had a chosen people; and, agreeably to such a belief, beseeches him to make his chosen people joyful: i. e. to rejoice them with the comfortable sense and persuasion of their belonging to that chosen number. But you object (ibid.) that, "The word chosen, or elect, signifies, in Scripture, either all Christians in general, or such Christians as walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called."
Pg. 100, Toplady uses rough-handed language for his Arminian antagonist.
Your slashing treatment of Scripture-phrases and Scripture-doctrines, which you hack and mangle so unmercifully, when they happen to militate with your own preconceived opinions; unhappily realizes but too well that remark of Dr. Middleton ; " We may observe," says this able writer, "how impossible it is, for men, even of the greatest learning and piety, to interpret Scripture with success, when they come to it, prepossessed with systems…”
P.102, Toplady gets colourful about Arminianism, an effort to “fumigate the catechism.” A jarring and cheering rejoinder to the Arminian, Home Depot-styled self-improvement program, the ever-present effort to elude the fiat and dicta of Romans 3.9-20 on original sin and its extensive disablements, total disablements, e.g. Art. 9-11. I cannot imagine a single ACNA (American Anglican, e.g. Ray Sutton) Bishop speaking with this directness—theology by ecclesiastical political correctness rather than biblical exegesis such as the English Reformers. Toplady says smartly and tartly, “…fumigate our catechism:”
Still, sir, you harp on the fame beloved string; and would fain fumigate our catechism, among the rest.
Pg. 103, Toplady on “election,” the Roman breviary, Romanism, predestination, and Article 17.
Her rituals, rituals, as well as we:—so that if the use of this word will prove the compilers of our liturgy predestinarians; it will prove the Church of Rome so too, and that in this respect it is as orthodox as Calvinism itself." Not quite so fast, sir. Let us weigh premises, before we jump to conclusions. The sense of the word elect, as it stands in a reformed liturgy, is not to be determined by the sense affixed to it in a Romanistic breviary. Such an insinuation comes with a very ill grace from the pen of a Protestant divine. It would at least have saved appearances, had you referred us, for the sense in which the Church of England uses the word elect, to her own 17th article, which professedly treats of election; instead of sending us back again into Egypt, to consult mass-books and breviaries. The spouse of Christ is not to learn the meaning of her husband's language from the mother of abominations. The amount of your observation is this, if I understand it right; " By the word elect, when used by Papists, they do not mean God's predestinated children, but all good Catholics: ergo, the fame word, when used by Protestants, is to be understood as denoting all good Christians. I deny the consequence. Because Papists are perverters of language, Scripture, common sense and everything that is good, it does not follow that Protestants should be so too. Neither does it follow, that the Church of Rome are predestinarians because the word elect occurs by chance in their public offices. Popish priests, when they mutter out the word elect, are (like ladies on some occasions) to be understood by contraries: in which too many professing Protestants, who ought to know better, are not to imitate those locusts of the bottomless pit.
Pg. 108, Toplady, the sacrament of baptism, and regeneration (exactly like the Westminster Confession of Faith with its evangelical cautions, something that Diarmaid MacCullough notes about Cranmer on predestination and baptism, 1550, the date of Cranmer’s decision on the matter). These are not things you will hear in the modern, Western centres of advertisement or publicity.
Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened; but it is also a sign of regeneration, or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they, that receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church, &c." I conclude from hence, that, in the judgment of the Church of England, baptism and internal regeneration (the former being, simply considered in itself, only a sign or symbol of the latter) are two distinct things; which, though they sometimes go together (when the Holy Spirit pleases to make baptism the channel of his gracious influences), yet do not necessarily nor constantly accompany each other : and, therefore, the subsequent apostasy of some baptized persons does not in the least (as Bishop Burnet would infer, and you from him) shake the doctrine either of immutable predestination on God's part, or of infallible perseverance on the part of the truly regenerate. But, you observe, page 109, that, " With regard to infants, the rubric declares, it is certain by God's word, that children, which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." I firmly believe the same. Nay, I believe more. I am convinced, that the souls of all departed infants whatever, whether baptized or unbaptized, are with God in glory.”
Pg. 118, Toplayd, his interlocutor and Arminian antagonist, and justification by faith alone by Christ alone. Whether Arminian or Calvinist, Romanism and Orthodoxy, gets no hearing…at all! For “the obvious,” to use Toplady’s phrase, Arminianism collapses into semi-Pelagian Rome and Constantinople.
Lastly, we come to the doctrine of justification by faith. On this important subject, you deliver your judgment as follows; page 123, "We all hold, that we are justified freely by God's grace : that there is no merit in good works : that we are not to place our dependance, or rest our plea, on any works that we have done or can do ; but only on the mercy of God, and the merits of our Redeemer." And again, page 124, " We hold, as well as you, that justification is the act of God alone, conferred on us freely, by his grace : that our own good works have no proper efficiency in the act of our justification ; have no worth or merit in them : that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and can be justified and laved only by faith," which faith you immediately define to be, " a reliance on the mercies and merits of Christ." After giving us such a confession of your faith, who could have imagined that you would, almost in the same breath, blow down the whole fabric? by saying, page 123, " On the other hand, I should hope, that all, who believe the gospel, would agree, that good works are the necessary condition both of our justification and salvation." How! Justified and saved only by faith, and yet, good works the necessary condition both of our justification and salvation ! whichsoever of these two propositions is right, one of them must be wrong; because two contradictory assertions cannot be both true. If faith be, as you fay it is, neither more nor less than a reliance on the mercies and merits of Christ, and we are justified and saved by faith only; it follows, that good works cannot possibly be the necessary condition of our justification and salvation. To tell you plainly, sir, the doctrine of the Scriptures, and of our Church, is: that justification itself consists in God's esteeming and counting us righteous : that he thus esteems and counts us righteous, neither for our faith, nor for our works, nor for both . of them together; but solely and entirely on account of Christ's sacrifice and obedience imputed to us freely and fully : that the sacrifice and obedience of Christ, as the alone matter of ourjustification are to be received, embraced, and rested upon by faith only, which faith is the gift of God : and, that this faith, thus divinely given and wrought in the foul by the Holy Ghost, is lively, active and purifying ; having its fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.—Sanctification, then, and good works, are not conditions of, but consequences resulting from, interest in Christ and acceptance with God : not antecedent requisites, a p-iori, in order to our being justified; but subsequent evidences, a posteriori, of our being so. Hence, our excellent Church puts justification before good works, and makes good works follow justification. In her nth article, she treats of justification; and then, in the 12th...
No comments:
Post a Comment