A.M Toplady (Vol.5, 118-132), C of E, Calvinism, Arminianism, Justification, Total Depravity

A.M Toplady (Vol.5, 118-132), C of E, Calvinism, Arminianism, Justification, Total Depravity. All the stuff you will not hear, read, see or be exposed to at other Anglican centres of review and advertisement.

The Works of Augustus Montague Toplady, Vol. 5 at:
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA11&dq=augustus%20toplady%20calvinism%20church%20of%20england&ei=CHbgTILcHIWglAeBiq2YAw&ct=result&id=ybYOAAAAIAAJ&output=text
For pages 1-42 and comments, see:
http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/augustus-toplady-c-of-e-calvinism.html

For pages 43-82 and comments, see:
http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-from-augustus-toplady-c-of-e.html

For pages 83-96 and comments, see:
http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/augustus-toplady-vol5-pg82-97-c-of-e.html

P.118, Toplady on justification

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."

P.118, Toplady deals with his Arminian interlocutor who adds works as another condition to justification. “How!” Toplady exclaims.

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! which soever 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 say 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.

P.118, Toplady, the Church of England, and justification. It is classical Protestant theology.

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 our justification 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, considers good works.

P.120, TOPLADY AND JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE

ARTICLE XI. Of the justification of man.
"We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort: as more largely is expressed in the homily of justification."

If works, if all works of our own, of every sort, and in every point of view, are not, here, totally excluded from having anything to do with justification, a parie ante; there is no such thing as meaning in language. Yet our reformers, in the next article, speak, if possible, clearer still: and, as if they thought it not enough, simply to exclude works from having the least hand in any part of our justification ; goon to acquaint us, that, until men actually are justified, they cannot so much as do a good work : good works being the effect and fruits, of which justification, previously received, is itself the source and cause. And, if justification itself is the cause of good works, then good works cannot possibly be either the cause or condition of justification; because causes and conditions necessarily precede that, which they ar« the causes and conditions of.

P.122, Toplady, the Protestant Church of England, and good works. There is no room for Anglo-Catholics, Romanists, the Orthodox or the ecumenists of varied shades.

Good works, therefore, being the effects of justification,-cannot be the cause of it: anymore than the volubility of a wheel is the cause of its rotundity. A wheel rolls, not in order to be made round, but in consequence of being already so ; in like manner, men do good works, not in order to be justified ; but in consequence of being justified already. On this grand, fundamental Church of England principle, the doctrine of conditional justification is the grossest of contradictions. For (suffer me to repeat the important remark) if no good works whatever can be done, before justification, it is absolutely impossible that justification should be at all suspended on good works: for then justification would be suspended on a non-entity. How, sir, can those good works be the condition of my justification, not one of which can have any existence until I am justified! Your assertion therefore, page 124. "That good works, though imperfect and worthless, are yet required by God as necessary terms, qualifications, and conditions, both of our justification and salvation," is flatly giving the lie, not only to Scripture, but to every article and homiiy of our Church upon the subject.

P.126, Toplady, Arminians are “ungrateful,” perfidious,” and “false to the cause” while wearing the uniform of the Church and drawing a paycheck from her—stern stuff.

I have now, so sar as the Church of England is properly concerned, touched on the most material parts of your pamphlet: and am of opinion, for my own part, that your design is not very happily executed, nor your objections very solidly founded. I really think, upon a review of the whole, that you have no great reason to sing Te Deum, for your imaginary triumph over the doctrines of the reformation. Yet is it matter of lamentation, that you should even have attempted to subvert them; and that the Church should receive any blow, how slight soever, from so respectable an hand. You have been sighting against those very truths, which, when you received ordination, you, on your knees, was solemnly commissioned to defend; and which, previous to that solemnity, you had ratified as your own belief, by the deliberate subscription of your name. Form to yourself, the idea of an English officer, who, false to the cause and service of his Britannic Majesty, should, ungratefully and perfidiously, endeavour to promote the interest of the French king, at the very time that he wears the regimentals, and receives the pay, of his own lawful sovereign. Very pertinent to the present argument, is that expostulation of the great Dr. South: "To be impugned from without, and betrayed from within, is, certainly, the worst condition, that either Church or state can fall into : and the best of Churches, the Church of England, has had experience of both. It had been to be wished, one would think, might very reasonably have been expected, that, when Providence had took the work of destroying the Church of England, out of the Papists hands, some would have been contented with her preferments, without either attempting to give up her rites and liturgy, or deserting her doctrine: but it has proved much otherwise." It has, indeed. How much farther God will suffer us to fall, is best known to him that knows all things. I only wish, that we may not part with one thing after another, till we have nothing left." How wide a difference there is, between the doctrine of the Church, and that of some churchmen (as Dr. South well distinguishes), will appear yet plainer, by the following extracts from a book, which, I fear, is subscribed by too many who have never read it: I mean, the homilies of our established Church. Let these decide, whether Calvinists or Arminians best deserve the name of churchmen.

P.132, Toplady and total depravity.

III. Man's exceeding depravation by nature, and total inability as to spiritual good, are largely and strongly asserted in our homilies. "The Holy Ghost, in writing the holy Scriptures, is in nothing more diligent, than to pull down man's vain glory and pride; which of all vices, is most universally grafted in all mankind, even from the first infection of our first father Adam. “First homily on the misery of man, p. 6. "St. Paul, in many places, painteth us out in our colours, calling us the children of the wrath of God when we be born: saying also, that we cannot think a good thought, of ourselves; much less can we say well, or do well, ourselves." Ibid. p. 8. "We be, of ourselves, of such earth as can bring forth but weeds, nettles, brambles, briars, cockles, and darnel. Our fruits be declared in the 5th chapter to the Galatians. We have neither saith, charity, hope, patience, chastity, nor anything else that good is, but of God; and therefore these virtues be called there, the fruits of the Holy Ghost, and not the fruits of man." Second homily on ditto, p. 9. "Of ourselves, and by ourselves, we have no goodness, help, nor salvation: but, contrariwise, sin, damnation, and death everlasting. Which, if we deeply weigh and consider, we shall the better understand the great mercy of God, and how our salvation cometh only by Christ ; for, in ourselves (as of ourselves), we find nothing whereby we may be delivered from this miserable captivity, into the which we were cast, through the envy of the Devil, by breaking of God's commandment in our frst parent Adam. We are all become unclean, but we all are not able to cleanse ourselves, nor to make one another of us clean. We are by nature the children of God's wrath, but we are not able to make ourselves the children and inheritors of God's glory. We are sheep that run astray…