After such admissions, no other possible defence can be made for Calvinism or any other ‘ism’ than the wretched recrimination:  “Why, yours, Dr. Priestley, is just as bad!”—­Yea, and no wonder:—­for in essentials both are the same.  But there was no reason for Fuller’s meddling with the subject at all,—­metaphysically, I mean.

Ib. p. 95.

If the unconditionality of election render it unfriendly to virtue, it must be upon the supposition of that view of things, “which attributes more to God, and less to man,” having such ascendancy; which is the very reverse of what Dr. Priestley elsewhere teaches, and that in the same performance.

But in both systems, as Fuller has erroneously stated his own, man is annihilated.  There is neither more nor less; it is all God; all, all are but ’Deus infinite modificatus’:—­in brief, both systems are not Spinosism, for no other reason than that the logic and logical consequency of 10 Fullers + 10 X 10 Dr. Priestleys, piled on each other, would not reach the calf of Spinoza’s leg.  Both systems of necessity lead to Spinosism, nay, to all the horrible consequences attributed to it by Spinoza’s enemies.  O, why did Andrew Fuller quit the high vantage ground of notorious facts, plain durable common sense, and express Scripture, to delve in the dark in order to countermine mines under a spot, on which he had no business to have wall, tent, temple, or even standing-ground!

[Footnote 1:  The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems examined and compared, as to their moral tendency; in a series of Letters addressed to the friends of vital and practical religion; especially those amongst Protestant Dissenters.  By Andrew Fuller.  Market Harborough. 1793.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WHITAKER’S ORIGIN OF ARIANISM DISCLOSED. [1] 1810.

Chap.  I. 4. p. 30.

  ‘Making himself equal with God’.

Whoever reads the four verses (John v. 16-19,) attentively, judging of the meaning of each part by the context, must needs, I think, see that the [Greek:  ison heauton poion ton Theo] (18) refers,—­not to the [Greek:  patera idion elege ton Theon], (18) or the [Greek:  ho pataer mou] (17), but—­to the [Greek:  ergazetai, kago ergazomai] (17).  The 19th verse, which is directly called Jesus’ reply, takes no notice whatever of the [Greek:  ho pataer mou] (17), but consists wholly of a justification of the [Greek:  kago ergazomai].

1803.

The above was written many years ago.  I still think the remark plausible, though I should not now express myself so positively.  I imagined the Jews to mean:  “he has evidently used the words [Greek:  ho pataer mou]—­not in the sense in which all good men may use them, but—­in a literal sense, because by the words that followed, [Greek:  ergazetai, kago ergazomai], he makes himself equal to God.”  To justify these words seemed to me to be the purport of Christ’s reply.