people of God, in those who, when God was a little displeased, did, as adversaries, help forward this affliction? And (5.) Whether the Psalmist lay not the like ill character on all who persecute those whom God hath smitten, and who talk how they may vex them whom God hath wounded?* By all which it is most evident,

generally commission GOOD MEN to be the executioners of his wrathful purposes; but He over-rules the wrong dispositions and the unrighteous practices of the wicked, to effect his own inscrutable yet beneficent designs.

* Were we to give credence to all that has been written by Calvinistic Dissenters in prejudice of the Episcopal Clergy, prior to the commencement of the Civil Wars, we must account the latter to have been an abandoned race of evil-doers. The following is one of the mildest descriptions, of the multitude of those which Richard Baxter has given to the world: "In some places, it was much more dangerous for a minister to preach a lecture, or twice on the Lord's Day, or to expound the Catechism, than never to preach at all. Hundreds of congregations had ministers that never preached, and such as were common drunkards and openly ungodly." Common prudence will however suggest the usual caution to be observed in receiving the testimony of sworn adversaries, many of whom were" fattening on sequestrations." If any impartial man will peruse the productions of those Arminian Diviues who flourished at that period, and who on account of their attachment to the Episcopal Church were refused the common benefit of Toleration conceded to other religious denominations under the Protectorate, he will discover that their ARMINIANISM, their enforcement of Christian duties as well as Christian privileges, was the real cause of the obloquy to which they were exposed and the persecution which they endured. A few of them, indeed, to avoid the cant phraseology of the times, seem to have insisted too much on the fruits of saving faith, without describing its nature and the necessity of its reception: But it must be recollected, that the auditors whom they addressed had been strongly charged with solifidian doctrines, and were consequently the less liable to incur the charge of LEGALITY.-Yet the great body of these Divines were the real saints of the Most High, and God's peculiar treasure; and their writings prove them to have been, of all men, the least addicted to "time-serving and soul-lulling practices." They were, therefore, as Dr. Hammond observes in the text, not fit subjects for persecution; and though under the visible chastisements of the Almighty on account of a nation's crimes and offences, they were not to be vexed by Calvinistic task-masters with impunity. It was well said by Richard Baxter, when in possession of his usurped benefice: "God will not be satisfied with words when his servants are persecuted, his churches destroyed, or his interest trodden under-foot." The retribution of Divine Providence speedily demonstrated the truth of this remark, but in a manner exactly the reverse of good Richard's meaning,-for his words were intended to apply only to "the servants of God" who held the opinions of Calvin.

While some of their cotemporaries were wasting their energies in lamenting the decline of high Calvinistic principles and the prevalence of Arminianism, these good men sighed and cried for all the abominations that were done in the midst of Jerusalem, and sedulously endeavoured to effect their expulsion. Where can be found a more eloquent and scriptural specimen of this ministerial faithfulness, than in the subjoined paragraph from a Lent Sermon, entitled CHRIST AND BARABBAS, preached in 1643, by Dr. Hammond, before the Court at Oxford? It is scarcely necessary to premise, that, by a very reprehensible practice which had obtained, the bigh Cavaliers generally distinguished themselves from their adversaries in conversation by uttering a multitude of profane oaths, instead of interlarding their common discourse with scriptural phrases, and profanely introducing the name of God on trivial occasions, which was the almost equally reprehensible custom of the Roundheads. The alarming extent to which this feeling of aversion was actually carried by the Royalists after the restoration, is scarcely credible: It was this which caused Dean Swift to read family

(without any necessity of defining or demonstrating any thing of the justice of the cause,) that most commonly the prosperity of arms hath not been the lot of the most righteous, but that either the chastisement of the sword is thought fit to be their discipline, or that the comforts of peace (and not the triumphs of war) their blessing in this life."

Towards the conclusion the pious Doctor adds, "The last principle to be reviewed is this, that there having been much blood spilt in this kingdom in the late wars, there must now be some sacrifice offered to God, (that is, some more blood shed,) for the expiation of that sin of bloodguilliness, before God can be pacified or reconciled to the land. On which particular, it will (1.) be worth your serious enquiry, how it should appear that that great issue of blood, let out in the late wars, (which hath with great reason been looked on as the sharpest of God's plagues, and the saddest part of punishment of the former sins of this nation,) is now the main and only sin of the land with which God is not reconciled. Or, (2.) if it were supposed to be so, yet how it can be thought that a general reformation of that sin, an humiliation before God for it through the whole land, and a resolution never to spill one drop more, were not a more christian probable means to pacify God, than the proceeding in cold blood to the effusion of more: The blood of men being never thought a fit sacrifice for any but the evil spirit; and peaceable-mindedness, charity, and

prayers to his domestics in the most private part of his mansion; and which induced some (otherwise) excellent men to neglect many pious observances, that they might escape the dreaded imputation of being Puritans and hypocrites.

Consider but a few of that glittering train of reigning sins in this our land, in this my auditory, and be astonished, O earth, that they should ever be received in competition with Christ! The oaths, that all the importunity of our weekly sermons [when] turned into satires against that sin, cannot either steal or beg from us,-what gain or profit do they afford us? which of our senses do they entertain, which of our faculties do they court? An empty, profitless, temptationless sin, sensuality only to the devil-part in us, fumed out of hell into our mouths, in a kind of hypochondriacal fit: an affront to that strict command of Christ to his disciples, But I say unto you, Christians, swear not at all: The best quality that it can pretend to, is that which Hierocles of old mentions with indignation, to fill up the vacuities of the speech,' to express and man a rage; that is, to act a madman the more perfectly. What shall that man give in exchange for his soul to get it back again, which he hath parted with so cheap without any barter, sold it for nought and taker no money for it, (in the Psalmist's phrase,) and now cannot redeem it with all his patrimony? It would grieve one, I confess, that did but weigh this sin in this balance, and observe the Tekel on the wall over against it, how light and kexy and impertinent a sin this is, to hear that any body should be damned for it in another world, part with such treasures for such trifles, make such African voyages, carry out the substantial commodities of a good land and return with a freight of toys or monsters, pay so hugely dear for such perfect nothings! And yet it would grieve one more, that this sin should glit ter in a Protestant Court, and become part of the gallantry and civility of the place, ay and defame and curse our armies; that the improsperousness, ruin, perhaps Пavoλe@pia [the destruction], of a whole kingdom should be imputable to one such; and [that] all our prayers to heaven for you be outsounded and drowned by that most contrary eloquence!"

the contrite heart, being the special, if not only sacrifices, which we find mentioned in the gospel. Or, (3.) how it can appear that if God require any such sacrifice, you, or any but those whom the known laws of the land have placed in a tribunal, (and that legally erected for such cognizances,)* have any right to put yourselves into the office of Gentile Priests, as the only persons appointed to slay that sacrifice. Nay, (4.) it will be worth your observing, that CHRIST disclaimed the office of a judge; and thereby rendered it very unfit for any of you to put yourselves into that office by virtue of no other title but that of being his disciples. And, lastly, it is worth your saddest thoughts, whether by your present councils, and the necessity by you supposed of changing the former Government, it do not now appear, that the defence of the established laws was on the KING'S part the occasion of his taking arms, and on your parts, the design of altering those laws, and introducing others more suitable to your inclinations."+

"Yet for a few military men, of their own accord, to control the Parliament, to put the sovereign to death, and completely to overthrow the civil constitution of the country, was an atrocious assumption of power, which no concurrence of circumstances could possibly justify. The life of any ruler can only be at the disposal of the constitution; or of that system of laws and regulations by which his subjects should be governed. If his life be taken away by any means but those provided by the constitution, it is murder: No pretended or even proved acts of tyranny, can justify his being put to death in any other way. And what constitution in the civilized world provides for the infliction of death upon the supreme magistrate? Every such infliction either against law, or without its sanction, is murder, by whomsoever perpetrated." JACKSON'S Life of Goodwin.

+For this constitutional appeal, in defence of the rights of his sovereign, Dr. Hammond was stigmatized by those whose feet were swift to shed blood, and by their republican defenders, as an advocate of tyranny. But after all the advantages which we, as a nation, have derived from our political experience in the subsequent epochs of our national history, we can find no proposition in the Doctor's Address which will not be readily approved in our days by men of moderation and piety, whether they be Whigs or Tories.

He had urged it as an objection to one of his adversaries, who afterwards became a rigid defender of the regicides,-that, according to the testimony of the Ancient Fathers, all the primitive christians, in the various persecutions which had devastated the infant church, imitated their Lord and Master in meekly giving their backs to the smiters, and their cheeks to them that plucked off the hairs,' (Isa. 1, 6.) and were memorable examples of patient and unresisting suffering. But this Christian doctrine did not suit the hot spirits of Calvin's followers; and Dr. Hammond's antagonist, who had learnt his levelling principles in the predestinarian school of those times, coolly replied, that God had hidden from the first christians this liberty of RESISTING SUPERIORS, as part of his counsel to bring Antichrist into the world: but that he had then manifested it to his people [the Calvinists] as a means of casting Antichrist out. It is unnecessary to state what was understood by the English Antichrist.

I might have elucidated this part of the revolutionary history from the productions of many able Arminian writers; but I have preferred Dr. Hammond, because he was accounted the most heretical of his brethren by the Calvinists of that period. In 1648 he had the HONOUR of having his name inscribed with disgrace in A Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to our solemn League and Covenant; as also against the errors, heresies, and blasphemies of these times, and the toleration of them: Subscribed by the mi

Bishop Womack has also observed in his Arcana Dogmatum Anti-Remonstrantium: " This opinion [the necessary and infallible determination of the will is a great and ready inlet to all

nisters of Christ within the Province of London. This was signed by fiftytwo Presbyterian ministers, and made mention of "NEW LIGHTS and new truths which are broached and maintained here in England among us,-all of them repugnant to the Sacred Scriptures, the scandal and offence of all the Reformed Churches abroad, the unparalleled reproach of this Church and nation, totally inconsistent with the Covenant and the Covenanted Reformation," &c. Of the three abominable errors, damuable heresies, and horrid blasphemies," which they ascribed to Dr. Hammond, the first (says that reverend divine,) is recited by them, page 9, and it is this, Christ was given to undergo a shameful death voluntarily upon the cross, 'to satisfy for the sin of Adam, and for all the sins of all mankind.' This is thus plainly set down in their catalogue of infamous and pernicious errors, but without the least note to direct what part of this proposition is liable to that charge, any farther than may be collected from the title of the ERRORS under which it is placed, viz. Errors touching Universal or General Redemption. From whence I presume to discern their meaning to be, that to affirm, Christ to have satisfied for or redeemed ALL MANKIND,' is this pernicious error by them abominated. And such I confess I should acknowledge it to be, if it had any right to be joined with that other, by these men set under the same head, THE DAMNED SHALL BE SAVED; but I hope that error bath received no patronage from that [Practical] Catechism, nor sure from that assertion of Christ's redeeming all munkind."

Such was part of the good doctor's defence in his "View of some Exceptions to the Practical Catechism," &c., and I have repeated it in this place not merely to shew the kind of heresies which these intolerant Calvinists condemned, but the double-dealing of which they were guilty in their mode of classification. But their evident intention to fasten upon the doctor the charge of favouring the unscriptural doctrine of the final restoration of all lapsed intelligences, was but a stale trick, which they had learnt of the Dort Synodists. In the Works of Arminius, (vol.1, page 577,) I have exposed the highly disingenuous and inferential character of a similar mode of implication, adopted against an equally plain and scriptural assertion by Arminius on this very subject, which the Dort divines chose to couple with one of the assertions of Vorstius, to give it the semblance of an apology for the doctrine of "Universal Restoration," instead of GENERAL REDEMPTION!-But the reader will in this work meet with many other instances of the servility with which the English Calvinists aped the manners of the successful Dutchmen, A circumstance which arose from this interference of the Presbyterian ministers, is thus related by Isaac Walton: "After which there were many letters passed betwixt the said Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sanderson, and Dr. Pierce, concerning God's grace and decrees. Dr. Sanderson was with much unwillingness drawn into this debate; for he declared it would prove uneasy to him, who, in his judgment of God's decrees, differed with Dr. Hammond, (whom he reverenced and loved dearly,) and would not therefore engage himself in a controversy, of which he could never hope to see an end: nevertheless they did all enter into a charitable disquisition of these said points in several letters, to the full satisfaction of the learned. I think the judgment of Dr. Sanderson was by these debates altered from what it was at his entrance into them; for in the year 1632, when his excellent sermons were first printed in quarto, the reader may on the margent find some accusation of Arminius for false doctrine; and find, that upon a review and reprinting those sermons in folio in the year 1657, that accusation of Arminius is omitted. And the change of his judgment seems more fully to appear in his said letter to Dr. Pierce. And let me now tell the reader, which may seem to be perplexed with these several affirmations of God's decrees before mentioned, that Dr. Hammond in a postscript to the last letter of his to Dr. Sanderson, says, 'God can reconcile his own contradictions, and therefore advises all men, as the Apostle does, to study moderation, and to be wise to sobriety.' And let me add further, that if these 52 ministers of Sion Col

enthusiasms; and it is not only easy but ordinary for men to intitle their diabolical delusions to the determinations of God's Spirit; and his broad seal is frequently stampt upon that commission (to authorize it), which is drawn up by a lying, and one haply a great deal worse than their own private spirit. When men of high ambition, and hot brains, and strong phantasies, and passionate appetites, will not acquiesce (as you know, many times they will not) in God's clear and distinct revelations concerning their duty; but entertain new designs, pretended to a good end, though the only means visibly conducible to carry them on be apparently unwarrantable; what methods do they follow in this case? God is earnestly sought and wrestled with, for obtaining a dispensation and success in a course of disobedience, against his own express command. When God, (who is not so much called upon to counsel, as to countenance and assist in the affair [which] such men have resolved upon, and

lege were the occasion of the debates in these letters, they have, I think, been the occasion of giving an end to the quinquarticular controversy; for noue have since undertaken to say more; but seem to be so wise, as to be content to be ignorant of the rest, till they come to that place, where the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open. And let me here tell the reader also, that if the rest of mankind would, as Dr. Sanderson, not conceal their alteration of judgment, but confess it to the honour of God and themselves, then our nation would become freer from pertinacious disputes, and fuller of recantations."

Nearly four years prior to the Restoration, and while the Church of England was still under the rod of the oppressor, the Rev. Dr. Pierce remarked, in his Divine Purity Defended," Mr. Barlee saith, that God is not a mere legislator of conditional decrees, laws and statutes, but an ABSOLUTE DETERMINER in a sovereign way of the several acts of disobe'dience in relation to them.' And though he saith also, that God himself is without sin, and DETERMINES the several acts of disobedience also, yet that doth not lesson, but rather aggravate his blasphemy; because he makes no difference betwixt God's determining the acts of obedience and disobe. dience, whilst he saith he is an absolute unconditional determiner' of both the one and the other.-Whether James Nayler hath said any thing like it, I have not hitherto been informed; but they who adored him as a Christ did give the Magistrate this reason, that they were forced thereunto by the power of the Lord; and commanded so of the Lord; and thereunto moved of the Lord; and directed by the Spirit of the Lord.' (The Grand Impostor.) And when the Presbyterian Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland sent a letter to the Lord Hamilton inviting him to head their forces, (which, without the least pretence of authority of Parliament, the Preachers and THEY ONLY had made to rise,) they told his Lordship in their letter, that the people were animated by the word and motion of GOD'S SPIRIT to take up arms; that is, to rebel. (SPOTSWOOD Hist. Scot.) Now by what principles and opinions they were betrayed to these things, I leave it to be judged by other men. For the peace and safety of Church and State, as well as for the interest and good of souls, I am obliged and concerned to deliver mine own soul by giving fair warnings to other men's. And may it for ever be remembered by such as are of a party, which they are kind to, and extremely willing to excuse, that he who justifieth the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, as well as he who condemueth the just! (Prov. xvii, 15.) To shew my innocence from so great a transgression as the latter, I have not whispered my accusations in a corner, but spoken them out unto the world; nor have I urged them from giddy rumours and reports, (as one sort of men are wont to do,) but from the published writings which I accuse."