In his Philosophical Necessity Asserted, Augustus Toplady writes:
“Man can neither create nor exterminate (x) a single atom.
(x) To all her other anti-philosophical absurdities, Arminianism adds the supposed defectibility [sic] of saving grace; by giving as her opinion that the holy principle in a renewed soul is not only a corruptible and perishable seed, but that it frequently and actually does suffer a total extinction and a final annihilation. Or, as Mr. Wesley and his fraternity vulgarly expresses it, ‘He who is, today, a child of God, may be, tomorrow, a child of the devil.’ As if the principle of grace were less privileged than a particle of matter! And as if man, who cannot annihilate a single atom, were able to annihilate the most illustrious effect of the Holy Spirit’s operation!”
This is not an endorsement of Toplady as a true Christian (click the following link for more regarding Toplady’s theology: https://agrammatos.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/augustus-toplady-heretic/). Nevertheless, Toplady tersely and accurately describes the wickedness of those who exalt themselves against such passages as this:
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:22-25).
Agrammatos 