The Rev. Mr. Polwhele’s New Scheme Of Divinity

Zion’s Trumpet 1799:

[Richard Polwhele was an Anglican clergyman who, in a letter addressed to Robert Hawker, proposed a new scheme of theology, opposed to the Sovereign Grace Articles of the Anglican Church. The editor of Zion’s Trumpet requested another clergyman (in support of the Articles) to provide an analysis of Polwhele’s theology. Here is the response to that request.]

Dear Sir,

You devolved on me a very unpleasant task, when you requested me to peruse the printed letter, which the Rev. R. Polwhele has addressed to Dr. Hawker of Plymouth, and to give you my decided opinion concerning its contents. You might as well have commissioned me to visit the plain of Colchis, and to employ myself in culling its noxious productions.

It oftentimes affords a very high gratification to the mind of an author to indulge a vein of acrimony and malevolence, when he comes forward to expose the imagined error of a Christian brother, either in faith or manners. But this procedure, instead of recommending him to the favor of a judicious and candid reader, always excites the feelings of an honest indignation; especially when the attach, as in the present instance, is unmerited and unprovoked. The, charity sides with the innocent victim, and spurns at the aggressor, till he openly repents of his crime. I shall not, however, disgrace my pen by transcribing the scurrilities, which Mr. P hath so copiously poured on the object of his resentment; nor undertake to point out, with a controversial formality, the unscriptural complexion of those arguments, by which he would convict the Doctor (Hawker) either of heresy or enthusiasm. For what the Doctor in his reply has already advanced, within the compass of a few masterly pages, not only amounts to a satisfactory vindication of himself from every foul aspersion; but substantiates the deviation of his antagonist’s novel doctrine from the primitive Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But that which raises my astonishment to the greatest height, is Mr. P’s declared avowal of sentiments, that are at variant with his past deliberate and solemn subscriptions; whereby he criminals himself, as insincere, in an affair of the most momentous and awful nature. This circumstances strikes me with the greater force, because you tell me that Mr. P’s hypothesis is becoming the fashionable delusion of the present times. I find it difficult, I confess, to give credit to your assertion; because, if true, it implicates every clergyman, who adopts that system of error, in the same unhappy charge of duplicity. For my own part, I seldom absent myself from my parish church; and have few opportunities of knowing what is preached in other pulpits. I shall therefore confine my attention to the pamphlet before me; and contrast two extracts from it with that standard of orthodoxy, which our Church presents to us in her articles, homilies and liturgy.

Page 41, “The Scriptural doctrine of the redemption is, simply, as follows. Man hath broken the first covenant between his Creator and himself; and that transgression demanded punishment from the Divine justice. It was then a Mediator appeared between God and man: and this Mediator was Christ Jesus; who, having made, by His sufferings and death, a full atonement and satisfaction fro that transgression, obtained a new covenant for man. The condition of this covenant is, Repentance from every evil work; a lively faith; and obedience to the will of God, to the best of our poor abilities; and obedience, though not perfect, yet sincere. If we perform this condition, we shall obtain, through the merits of Christ, eternal happiness. If we fail in the performance of it, we have nothing to expect but everlasting misery.”

The total inconsistency of the foregoing strain of doctrine with the following articles of our Church is so very obvious, that it will be sufficient to recite them without a comment; especially as the Doctor has already made his appeal to them.

Article 10, “Of Free Will”

Article 11, “Of The Justification Of Man”

Article 13, “Of Works Before Justification”

Article 31, “Of The One Oblation Of Christ, Finished Upon The Cross”

Wherefore, “the Scriptural doctrine of the redemption,” as erroneously stated by Mr. P comprehends three propositions:

1. Christ Jesus made by His sufferings and death a full atonement and satisfaction for the original transgression of Adam, and that only.

2. In consequence of that transgression, God entered into a new covenant of works with Adam and all his posterity.

3. Adam had, after his transgression, and therefore all his posterity have, an ability, in some degree, to perform the conditions of the said convent.

The first proposition is evidently contained in Mr. P’s statement; for he neither makes mention, nor gives the least hint, of any transgression whatever, for which Christ Jesus made an atonement, besides that single individual act. But, instead hereof, he represents Christ Jesus as acting in the capacity of a mediator between God and men, by placing men in a more favorable situation than before, and by obtaining for them a new covenant.

It will be sufficient to confront the aforesaid proposition with the following quotations from one of the homilies, and also from our liturgy.

• Homily concerning the Nativity and Birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

• Litany concerning the redeeming grace of Christ

According to Mr. P’s second proposition, after the original transgression, Christ Jesus obtained a new covenant for man; which was, nevertheless, a covenant of works. For, though it be not indeed a covenant, that rigidly exacts from us an unsinning obedience, but is founded on much milder stipulations; requiring of us “repentance from every evil work; a lively faith; and obedience to the will of God, to the best of our poor abilities; an obedience, though not perfect, yet sincere;” these terms, however, are all of them essentially works, operations, or acts, either external or internal, to be performed on our part: “which if we really perform (says Mr. P) we shall obtain, through the merits of Christ, eternal happiness; and if not, we have nothing to expect but everlasting misery.” Moreover these works are no less meritorious, than those of the Papists: for though they do not, by nurture of an intrinsic goodness, deserve any reward from God, yet, being the fulfillment of stipulated conditions, they merit and are justly entitled to the blessings promised in that covenant (if such a covenant existence); because it is impossible for God to stain his honor by a violation of His word. St. Paul must therefore appear, in Mr. P’s view, to have been under a most unhappy deception, when he said (Eph 2:8,9) “By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”

We will no enquire, how far this agrees with the tenor of our homilies and liturgy.

• Homily of the misery of man

• Of the salvation of mankind, by only Christ our Savior, from sin and death everlasting

• Communion Service petitioning forgiveness of sins on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work

From hence it is manifest, as well as from the letter and spirit of the whole liturgy, that our Church represents every sound member as blind, to the very last moment of his life, to all supposed goodness in himself; and, instead of relying for Divine acceptance on his own performance of stipulated covenant-conditions, as only supplicating mercy and a free pardon through the meritorious obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, Adam had, after his transgression, and therefore all his posterity have, an ability in some measure to perform the conditions of the new covenant. That this position is a constituent part of Mr. P’s theology, (if such it may be called) appears not only from his total silence on the agency of the Holy Ghost in the human soul, and the necessity of His influence for the production of holiness both in heart and life; but also from the circumstance of His requiring us to render a personal obedience to the will of God, “to the best of our poor abilities.” The children of apostate Adam, then, have not yet experienced that low degradation, nor are sunk to that depth of spiritual debility, in which the inspired writers and our best Divines have represented them; for of abilities to please God, however poor, they are still possessed. If Mr. P had seen the absolute need of a spiritual energy from above to be exerted on all the faculties of our fallen souls, in order to render us capable of obeying the will of God; he could not possibly have excluded so capital an article of faith from his little body of Divinity. But, indeed, the insertion of it would have clashed with his express declaration. For if man in his present state have abilities, in a certain measure, to repent, to believe, and to obey the will of God; and if the new covenant does only require, that he should do all this to the best of his abilities; a supernatural power infused into his soul, for the purpose of rendering him adequate to greater exertions, would be altogether superfluous. How erroneous then must the doctrine of our church appear to be, in the view of his superior wisdom; since it every where maintains our unqualified incapacity of forming within our bosoms any good desires, or of exhibiting in our lives any good actions, so long as we are left to ourselves, without the sanctifying virus of the Divine Spirit communicated to our understanding, our will, and affections!

• Homily of the misery of man

• Homily for Whitsunday

• Homily for rogation week. That all good things come from God

• Second Collect at Evening Prayer

We shall cease to wonder at those flagrant instances of heterodoxy, which Mr. P has advanced, and which our Church has refuted, if we give attention to what occurs in P. 49, where he tells us, without any disguise, that “the Calvinistic doctrine of original sin is false.” After such a daring confession as this, we may reasonably ask, (without making any more quotations from the Homilies) with what place can Mr. P rehearse in public, the baptismal offices of our Church; or instruct the children of his parish to say, in the repetition of their catechism, that they “were by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath?”

Thus have I, my friend, in compliance with your importunity, weighed Mr. Polwele’s pamphlet in the balance, and found it wanting. With the assistance of a plum-line, furnished by that venerable Church of which he is professedly both a member and minister, I have examined the rectitude of the walls of his fortress, which he has purposely constructed as a defensive against Divine wrath due to transgression; and proved them to over-hang from their perpendicular in a tremendous manner, threatening every moment to crush him in their fall. If I stood in the responsible situation of a bosom-friend, I would with all lowliness and tenderness address Mr. P with the following question. “Suppose, that you now felt the iron “hand of death arresting you, and summoning your soul to appear before your heavenly Judge; and suppose that your mind were struck with a deep sense of the injustice with which you have treated your Christian brother, in the many calumnies and false accusations by which you have unmercifully traduced his character; what would be the result within your pensive bosom?” On your own principles you could have no hope towards God: because “nothing can afford us comfort,” you say, “at the hour of death, but the consciousness of having done justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with our God.” The consideration of Christ’s atonement could not afford you the least relief; because that atonement, according to your creed, was only made for the single transgression of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit. Your doctrine therefore by no means corresponds with the true definition of








εὐαγγέλιον, or good news; for it has not one syllable of joy or comfort in it. To every reflecting mind, whose convictions keep pace with the confessions of our liturgy, it is the doleful message of irremediable despair.

I cannot conclude this letter without expressing my earnest with, both that of Mr. P and every clergyman who entertains the same Pelagian and Socinian sentiments, would act the part of honesty, by confessing their past duplicity, by declaring their disapprobation of our Homilies, Articles and Liturgy, and by renouncing in future their ministerial functions within the pale of our communion. Let them read the third book of Cicero’s offices on the subject of sincerity; and let them be assured, that the dolus malus, against which that pagan moralist hath pointed the shafts of his severe censure, comprehends every instance of prevarication, equivocation, and mental reserve, by which, on lucrative considerations, they vainly reconcile themselves to a continuance of their sacred employment. These gentlemen deserve the pity and the prayers of all the true people of God. For oaths of subscription are as solemn as all others; and it cannot be otherwise, than that oftentimes they feel themselves distressed with the sharp pangs of remorse, on account of a conduct which they can neither vindicate to others, nor approve to their own consciences. How happy an event would it be, both to themselves and the world around them, if God, in condescension to our charitable entreaties, would “give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth;” and we might be able to say, with fervent gratitude, what was said of Saul after his conversion, “they now preach the faith which once they destroyed!”