Predestined to Take Advice

Extract from a letter by Augustus Toplady to Mrs. Macaulay, June 11, 1773, who after exhorting her to watch after her health, said:

Say not, ‘How does this advice comport with your doctrine of predestination?’ For I hope you are predestinated to take the advice; and that a predestinated old age will be the result. Our friend, Mr. Northcote, sometimes says, ‘Mr. Toplady believes absolute predestination; and yet he is loth to ride on horseback, for fear of breaking his neck.’ I answer, ‘True.’ And, perhaps, that very fear may be an appointed means of preserving my neck unbroken.

The Works of Augustus Toplady, Bookshelf Publications, reprint from the 1794 edition, pp. 844-45.