the contest between Calvinism and Arminianism; in philosophical, between free-will and necessity.  ’The reconciling,’ wrote Lord Lyttelton, ’the prescience of God with the free-will of man, Mr. Locke, after much thought on the subject, freely confessed that he could not do, though he acknowledged both.  And what Mr. Locke could not do, in reasoning upon subjects of a metaphysical nature, I am apt to think few men, if any, can hope to perform.’[778] It would have been well if the Methodists had acted according to the spirit of these wise words; but, unfortunately, they considered it necessary not only to discuss the question, but to insist upon their own solution of it in the most positive and dogmatic terms.

One would have thought that John Wesley, at any rate, considering his expertness in logic, would have been aware of the utter hopelessness of disputing upon such a point; but the key to that great man’s conduct in this, as in other matters, is to be found in the intensely practical character of his mind, especially in matters of religion.  He felt the practical danger of Antinomianism, and, feeling this, he did not, perhaps, quite do justice to all that might be said on the other side.  In point of fact, however, he shrank, especially in his later years, from the controversy more than others did, who were far less competent to manage it.

In other controversies which agitated the eighteenth century there is some compensation for the unkindly feelings and unchristian and extravagant language generated by the heat of dispute in the thought that if they did not solve, they at any rate contributed something to the solution of, pressing questions which clamoured for an answer.  The circumstances of the times required that the subjects should be ventilated.  Thus, for example, the relations between Church and State were ill understood, and some light, at any rate, was thrown upon them by the tedious Bangorian controversy.  The method in which God reveals His will to man was a subject which circumstances rendered it necessary to discuss.  This subject was fairly sifted in the Deistical controversy.  The pains which were bestowed upon the Trinitarian controversy were not thrown away.  But it is difficult to see what fresh light was thrown upon any subject by the Calvinistic controversy.  It left the question exactly in the same position as it was in before.  In studying the other controversies, if the reader derives but little instruction or edification on the main topic, he can hardly fail to gain some valuable information on collateral subjects.  But he may wade through the whole of the Calvinistic controversy without gaining any valuable information on any subject whatever.  This is partly owing to the nature of the topic discussed, but partly also to the difference between the mental calibre of the disputants in this and the other controversies.  We have at least to thank the Deists and the Anti-Trinitarians for giving occasion for the publication of some literary masterpieces.  Through their means English theology was enriched by the writings of Butler, Conybeare, Warburton, Waterland, Sherlock, and Horsley.  But the Calvinistic controversy, from the beginning to the end, contributed not one single work of permanent value to theology.