next year (1774) there was a sort of armistice between the combatants, their attention being diverted from theological to political subjects, owing to the troubles in America.  But in 1775 Toplady again took the field, publishing his ’Historic Proof of the Calvinism of the Church of England.’  Mr. Sellon, a clergyman, and Mr. Olivers, the manager of Wesley’s printing, appeared on the Arminian side.  The very titles of some of the works published sufficiently indicate their character.  ‘Farrago Double Distilled,’ ‘An Old Fox Tarred and Feathered,’ ’Pope John,’ tell their own tale.

In fact, the kindest thing that could be done to the authors of this bitter writing (who were really good men) would be to let it all be buried in oblivion.  Some of them lived to be ashamed of what they had written.  Rowland Hill, though he still retained his views as to the doctrines he opposed, lamented in his maturer age that the controversy had not been carried on in a different spirit.[786] Toplady, after he had seen Olivers, wrote:  ’To say the truth, I am glad I saw Mr. Olivers, for he appears to be a person of stronger sense and better behaviour than I had imagined.’[787] Fletcher (who had really the least cause of any to regret what he had written), before leaving England for a visit to his native country, invited all with whom he had been engaged in controversy to see him, that, ’all doctrinal differences apart, he might testify his sincere regret for having given them the least displeasure,’ &c.[788]

It will be remembered that the Deistical controversy was conducted with considerable acrimony on both sides; but the Deistical and anti-Deistical literature is amenity itself when compared with the bitterness and scurrility with which the Calvinistic controversy was carried on.  At the same time it would be a grievous error to conclude that because the good men who took part in it forgot the rules of Christian charity they were not under the power of Christian influences.  The very reverse was the case.  It was the very earnestness of their Christian convictions, and the intensity of their belief in the directing agency of the Holy Spirit over Christian minds, which made them write with a warmth which human infirmity turned into acrimony.  They all felt de vita et sanguine agitur; they all believed that they were directed by the Spirit of God:  consequently their opponents were opponents not of them, the human instruments, but of that God who was working by their means; in plain words, they were doing the work of the Devil.  Add to this a somewhat strait and one-sided course of reading, and a very imperfect appreciation of the real difficulties of the subject they were handling (for all, without exception, write with the utmost confidence, as if they understood the whole matter thoroughly, and nothing could possibly be written to any purpose on the other side), and the paradox of truly Christian men using such truly unchristian weapons will cease to puzzle us.