it were, around which its friends are all invited to rally ; many of whom, and some of them of its highest class of heroes, have accordingly obeyed the signal, entered the field, and overcome a host of foes. I sincerely hope their pious and patriotic labours will be long continued, to the conviction of error, the discouragement of schism, and the maintenance of true religion. I much lament, when I observe, among these eminent contributors to your most useful work, any fall off, or slacken in their well-directed and powerful endeavours; and I rejoice in the strength of every new recruit, every additional aid. Of the former, all your readers have the greatest cause to regret the secession of that first of biblical critics, as from the few specimens he has given, we have just reason to think him, Dr. Hales of Killesandra, or (as he has thought proper to style himself) Inspector. We have also, of late, had cause to fear, that a truly valuable writer, who calls himself a London Curate, but whose learning and talents, if modest merit had its due, ought to exalt him to the bench of Bishops, had withdrawn from your paper his contributions. But illness, I am sorry to find, has been the occasion; and he has again, in your last number, resumed his useful support. But what, let me earnestly ask, is become of honest Jonathan Drapier, who so ably treads in the steps of his great namesake, and whose indignant and well-directed zeal, in the cause of truth, has exposed and chastized disloyalty and heresy; and silenced the effrontery of mean-spirited and temporizing Socinianism? Amidst such losses and deprivations, it must give great pleasure to all your readers to observe, that one who stands in the first rank of your coadjutors, (himself, in-” deed, an host) has lately rather increased, than diminished his most inestimable helps; I mean the excellent Rector of Rempstone. Long may he continue his labours, to the great benefit of the Church; and may his example stimulate others, who enjoy, like him, " otium cum dignitate," and are blessed like him with superior endowments. I often wonder, Mr. Editor, that his Right Reverend Brethren, many of whom, I believe, are truly learned and pious men, do not, if they will not deign themselves openly to come forward in this good cause, at least countenance and encourage to the utmost extent of their power all such patriotic and orthodox exertions. It is high time, indeed, for all true churchmen to write, with hand and heart, in their own defence, when they see their ene002

mies

mies, though of the most heterogeneous, and in other matters, discordant principles inter se, all at unity in this one malicious and diabolical attempt, the destruction of that most beautiful fabric, which is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. They should seriously consider, that it is not now a season to sleep, "as if with opium drugged," when their dearest interests are thus at stake.

Among the new contributors to your most salutary publication, I observed in the last, Magazine, one who subscribes himself Scrutator; whose further assistance, from the little sample with which he has favoured us, is earnestly to be requested. He animadverts, and with just reprobation of such disingenuous and unfair dealing, on the conduct of Barclay, the apologist for Quakerism, and that of one of his followers in a small tract lately given to the public; in garbling aud mutilating a very plain passage in the first chap. of St. Paul's 1st ep, to the Cor. to support their blind and obstinate rejection of one of the two Sacraments, the perpetual observation of which is so literally and peremptorily commanded in the infallible Word of God. Scrutator has also promised his remarks on their rejection of the other Sacrament; which, if possible, is still more positively enjoined in Holy Writ; with an express command, that it shall be continued till the second coming of Christ to judgment. Your readers will, therefore, be obliged to him for his communications, which are particularly opportune at this time, an elaborate work having been lately published, (which I hope to see reviewed in your Magazine) by Mr. Clarkson, in which he this sect unlimited praise, not being able to find any thing amiss in their tenets. Now, though I have a good opinion of the character of Quakers, heartily wishing that all Christians were such in this respect, how any man of understanding and erudition, not a member of their society, with the Bible in his hands, can professedly undertake to vindicate their doctrines, is to me a matter of the greatest astonishment! Fox, the founder of Quakerism, appears, from this writer's account of him, "not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles." And yet Nott, in his most admirable Bampton Lectures, says, "It is probable, that few of those who belong to that sect in the present day, would have entered into it, had they heard the several blasphemous opinions which were advanced and maintained by its first enthy

rev bestows upon

siastic

siastic founders. It were to be wished, therefore,' 'that?: the members of that communion would attentively consider the writings and the journals of For, and his imme diate followers, and read what has been collected on this: head by Bugg and Leslie. The unsoundness of the foundation on which their communion is built, would then appear so evident, that many probably would feel the necessity of adopting the doctrines and re-entering the pale of the Established Church."

But I find, Mr. Editor, that I have run to the end of my paper, and though I have more to remark on the present subject, and more to communicate on other matters, I have not room for the least addition. I may, however, embrace perhaps another opportunity of addressing you, if what I have already written be not too unimportant to deserve a place in a work so very interesting and benefi cial. At present I can only intreat you to accept the warm approbation and thanks of

Your sincere friend and well-wisher, w

EXTRACTS.

CORNUBIENSIS.

THE DOCTRINE OFTHE LUTHERAN CHURCHES ON THE FIVE POINTS.

[From Dr. HEYLIN's Quinquarticular History, reprinted in the Collection of his Tracts, folio, 1681.]

SHALL lay down the doctrine of the Lutheran Churches in the said Five Points, extracted faithfully out of the Augustan Confession, with the addition of one clause only to the first article (the makers of the Confession declining purposely the point of Predestination) out of the writings of Melancthon, and other learned men of the same persuasion. Now the doctrine of the said Churches so delivered is this that followeth, viz.

1.Of

1. Of Divine Predestination.

After the miserable fall of Adam, all men which were to be begotten, according to the common course of nature, were involved in the guilt of original sin, by which they are obnoxious to the wrath of God, and everlasting damnation: [In which estate they had remained, but that God, beholding all mankind in this wretched condition, was pleased to make a general conditional decree of Predestination, under the condition of Faith and Perseverance; and a special absolute decree of electing those to life, whom he foresaw would believe, and perseveré under the means and aids of Grace, Faith, and Perseverance; and a special absolute decree of condemning them whom he foresaw to abide impenitent in their sins*.]

*

2. Of the Merit and Efficacy of Christ's Death. The Son of God, who is the word, assumed our human nature in the womb of the Virgin, and being very God and very Man, he truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be the sacri fice not only for original sin, but also for all the actual sins of men.

A great part of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews is spent in the proving of this point, that only the sacrifice or oblation made by Christ, procured for others reconcifiation and remission of sins, inculcating that the Levitical sacrifices were year by year to be reiterated and renewed, because they could not take away sins, but that satisfaction once for all was made by the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of all men.

s, of Man

3. Of Man's Will in the State of depraved Nature.

The will of man retains a freedom in actions of civil justice, and making election of such things as are under the same pretension of natural reason, but hath no power without the special assistance of the Holy Ghost to attain unto spiritual righteousness, according to the saying of the apostle: That the natural man perceiveth not the things which are of the spirit of God. And that of Christ our Saviour, Without me ye can do nothing. And therefore the Pelagians are to be condemned, who teach that man is able by the mere strength of nature, not only to love God above all things, but also to fulfil the law, according to the substance of the acts thereof.

* Appel. Evang. cap. 4.

4. Of Conversion, and the Manner of it.

The righteousness which is effected in us by the operation and assistance of the Holy Ghost, we receive by yielding our assent to the word of God: according to that of St. Augustine, in the third book of his Hypognosticks, in which he grants a freedom of the will to all which have the use of Reason, not that they are thereby able either to begin or go through with any thing in the things of God, without God's assistance, but only in the affairs of this present life whether good or evil.

5. Of falling after Grace received.

Remission of sins is not to be desired in such who after Baptism fall into sins, at what time soever they are converted, and the church is bound to confer the benefit of absolution upon all such as return unto repentance. And therefore as we condemn the Novatian Hereticks, refusing the benefit of absolution unto those who having after Baptism lapsed into sin, gave public signs of their repentance; so we condemn the Anabaptists, who teach, that a man once justified can by no means lose the Holy Ghost; as also those who think that men may have so great a measure of perfection in this present life, that they cannot fall again into sin.

Passau,

Such is the doctrine of the Lutheran Churches, agreed on in the famous Augustan Confession, so called, because presented and avowed at the diet of Augsburgh in 1530, confirmed after many strugglings on the one side, and oppositions on the other, by Charles the fifth, in a general assembly of the estates of the empire holden at Pa anno 1552, and afterwards more fully in another diet held at Augsburgh, anno 1555. A Confession generally entertained not only in the whole kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but also in Prussia, and some parts of Poland, and all the Protestant churches of High Germany: neither the rigid Lutherans nor the Calvinians themselves, being otherwise tolerated in the empire, than as they shroud themselves under the patronage and shelter of this Confession,

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