“Since these sheets have been prepared for the press, I have seen a new performance of Mr. Toplady, in defence of the doctrine which is exposed in the preceding pages. As there are, in that piece, some new arguments, the plausibility of which may puzzle many readers; and as I think it my duty fully to vindicate the truth, and completely to detect error; I design to answer that book also, in a little tract, which will be a supplement to this, and which will probably see the light under the following title, ‘A Reply to the Principal Arguments by which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support the Spreading Doctrine of Absolute Necessity. In some Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Scheme of Philosophical Necessity.’”
To understand this, it must be stated, that, in 1774, Wesley published a 12mo pamphlet of 33 pages, entitled, “Thoughts upon Necessity.” This was one of Wesley’s ablest publications, and, to use Wesley’s own words, in his address “to the Reader,” it was meant to rebut the teaching of an “Essay on Liberty and Necessity,”[[338]] which he had lately read. “I would fain,” says he, “place mankind in a fairer point of view than that writer” (the author) “has done: as I cannot believe the noblest creature in the visible world to be only a fine piece of clock-work.” Toplady was not once mentioned in Wesley’s tract; but he immediately set to work to answer it, and, in the following year, his strange production was issued with the following title: “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted. In Opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that Subject. With a Dissertation concerning the Sensible Qualitys of Matter: and the Doctrine of Color in particular. By Augustus Toplady, Vicar of Broad Hembury. London, 1775.” 8vo, 216 pp.
Wesley, as already stated, had not even named Toplady in his publication, much less abused him; but the opportunity of again reviling Wesley was too tempting to be neglected. In his preface, he gives an extract from a letter, written by a London clergyman, who had sent him Wesley’s tract:—
“I went last night to the Foundery, expecting to hear Pope John; but was disappointed. After hearing a Welshman,[[339]] for an hour and twenty minutes, on Psalm lxxxiv. 11, preach up all the heresies (sic) of the place, a man, who sat in the pulpit, told him to ‘Give over:’ for he seemed to bid fair for another half hour, at least. But he came to a conclusion, as desired. Then this man, who seemed to be a local preacher,[[340]] stood up with a pamphlet in his hand, and addressed the auditory in the following manner:—
“‘I am desired to publish a pamphlet upon Necessity and Free-Will,—the best I know of in the English tongue,—by Mr. John Wesley, price threepence. I had purposed to say a good deal upon it; but the time is elapsed. But, in this threepenny pamphlet, you have all the disputes that have been bandy’d about so lately; and you will get your minds more established by this threepenny pamphlet, than by reading all the books that have been written for and against. It is to be had at both doors, as you go out.’”
It is not unlikely that this narration is true; for, in those days, Methodist preachers preached long sermons, and, from the pulpit, recommended the people to purchase Methodist publications. Toplady takes occasion to call the occurrence “a droll sort of mountebank scene,” and pretends to bewail “the unreasonable and unseasonable prolixity of the long-winded holder-forth, which cruelly, injudiciously, and despitefully prevented poor Zany from puffing off, with the amplitude he intended, the multiplex virtues of the doctor’s threepenny free-will powder.” He continues:—
“‘Never do that by delegation,’ says an old proverb, ‘which you can as well do in propria persona. Had Doctor John himself got upon the stage, and sung—
‘Come,[‘Come,] buy my fine powders; come buy dem of me;
Hare be de best powders dat ever you see:’
who knows, but the threepenny doses might have gone off at both doors,’ as rapidly as peas from a pop-gun?”