the Antichrist, the Son of Perdition, and the Man of Sin: And therein also interweave the Calvinian rigours, in reference to the writings of modern divines, and especially from those of the Church of Eng land. This Edict and the Pietas Ordinum, which Grotius was soon after compelled to publish in defence of it, were of the greatest service to the cause of Arminianism in every nation of Europe. And I am bound in charity to conclude, that neither the early nor the modern vilifiers of Arminius perused this excellent exposition of his system; for if they had, they could not as Christians have mis-stated and maligned, in the manner they have done, the plain and scriptural principles, which it expounds.

The pleasure which a perusal of this very impartial and learned document imparted to King James,is well known: The famous Isaac Casaubon expressed to Grotius his Majesty's approbation of the Edict and of its design, declaring its great utility in turning aside the minds of the people from two rocks, which are equally dangerous in the doctrine of Predestination,-that of the Manichees and of the Pelagians," &c. In a few months afterwards, the King resolved to publish something that might have the same beneficial tendency; and accordingly thought no method better suited to his purpose than to guard the sacred fountains of learning from Calvinistic contamination. This was effected by his Majesty's DIRECTIONS, addressed to the English Universities on the 18th of January, 1616, the Seventh and Eighth of which are here subjoined: "That young students in divinity be directed to study such books as be most agreeable in doctrine and discipline to the Church of England, and incited to bestow their times in the FATHERS and Councils, Schoolmen, Histories and Controversies, and not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviatures, making them the grounds of their study in divinity. That no man, either in pulpit or schools, be suffered to maintain dogmatically any point of doctrine that is not allowed by the Church of England." This measure was adopted long before Dr. Laud had acquired any reputation at court; and it was intended to diminish the deleterious influence which the Institutes of Calvin had then obtained among students and doctors. In Dr. Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud it is said: "It was withal insinuated to him [King James] what dangers would proceed by the training up of young students in the grounds of Calvinism, if some directions were not issued from his Majesty for the course of their studies; that there was no readier way to advance the Presbyterial government in this kingdom, than by suffering young scholars to be seasoned with Calvinian doctrines; that it was very hard to say, whether of the two, either the Puritan or the Papist, were more destructive of monarchical government, &c. This was the first step toward the suppressing of that reputation unto which Calvin and his writings had attained in that University [Oxford]; and a good step it might have been, if Dr. Goodwin, Dean of Christ Church, who was then Vice-Chancellor, had not been father-inlaw to Prideaux, or rather if Prideaux himself had approved the Articles; or that Dr. Benfield of Corpus Christi, the other Professor for divinity, a grave but sedentary man, had been active in it. But, howsoever, being published, though it went no farther, it gave such a general alarm to the Puritan faction, that the terror of it could not be forgotten for twenty years after. Certain Í am, that, in the year 1636, it was charged by H. Burton of Friday Street, for an innovation, one of the many innovations introduced by Laud and others "of the Prelatical party to subvert religion.'

999

Such, in brief, is the history of the proper and subordinate attachment which the Church of England has always manifested for the writings of the early Christian Fathers. In a subsequent part of this volume it will be shewn, that the esteem of Arminius for the ancient writers of the Church was much greater than that of some among his Dutch successors; and that while he was gradually deducing from those venerable Fathers, as the best and safest interpreters of Holy Writ, the principles of his christian system,―other divines in England his co-temporaries were drawing from the same pure sources the doctrines of General Redemption, which received the strongest sanction from the scriptural formularies of the Church of England, both of them bearing an equal impress of primitive antiquity.

The usefulness and necessity of studying the writings of the Ancient Fathers have been demonstrated by many persons eminent for their learning

absolute decree of Predestination, Grace, Free-will, &c. But knowing that they served such masters as were resolved to part with no one branch of their own authority, they attribute a power to the civil magistrate, not only of calling Synods and Churchassemblies, but also of being present at them, and to provide that

and piety. This note commenced with a quotation from an English Archbishop, and I conclude it with one from the Lord Primate of Ireland. Archbishop Usher was one who beyond all men then living knew the vast importance of these studies, and had derived the greatest benefits from them: The following brief advice, in the language of his erudite biographer, will convey his sentiments on this very interesting subject. Indeed he had so great an esteem of the ANCIENT AUTHORS, for the acquiring any solid learning, whether sacred or profane, that his advice to young students, either in Divinity or Antiquity, was, Not to spend too much time in Epitomes, but to set themselves to read the Ancient Authors themselves; as, to begin with the FATHERS, and to read them according to the ages in which they lived, (which was the method he had taken himself,) and, together with them, carefully to peruse the CHURCH HISTORIANS that treated of that age in which those Fathers lived: By which means the student would be bet'ter able to perceive the reason and meaning of divers passages in their writings, (which otherwise would be obscure,) when he knew the original and growth of those heresies and heterodox opinions against which they wrote, and may also better judge what doctrines, ceremonies, and opi'nions prevailed in the church in every age, and by what means introduced. So likewise for profane authors,""&c.

* In that masterly production, the Archbishop of Cashel's Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England, which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical, his lordship most judiciously observes : "On one hand it has been contended, that our articles are consonant with the creed of Calvin; on the other, with that of Arminius. It is not my intention to follow this controverted question into particulars. Yet perhaps it should be cursorily remarked, that even the Calvinist has proved, in the most convincing mode, that they are not in their necessary construction completely Calvinistical; that something is wanting in them to produce entire satisfaction; for repeatedly has he laboured, although constantly laboured in vain, first to render them explicit on this head, and afterwards to get his favourite emendations approved and established by public authority. "This is sufficiently evinced by the well knowu attempts of the Calvinists, both in the reign of Elizabeth and James, to procure the insertion of the Lambeth articles among the established articles of our Church. Upon the accession of the latter Prince, a conference was publicly held at Hampton Court, in which the innovations alluded to, with others of equal importance, was suggested.

"Although the Calvinists failed under James in their attempt to correct what they deemed to be the errors and inperfections of the Church, as well ' in matter of doctrine as discipline,' nevertheless, under his unhappy successor, or rather under the authority of a Parliament in opposition to the Sovereign, they commenced an actual reformation of our Articles. In the year 1643 the Assembly of Divines,' as the committee alluded to has been usually styled, revised the first fifteen, with a design,' as the historian of the Puritans himself observes, to render their sense more express, and determinate in favour of Calvinism.' (Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 48. ed. 1754.) The 9th Article of Original Sin was thus amended by them; "Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, as the Pelagians 'do vainly talk, but [together with his first sin imputed] it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is propagated from Adam, whereby man is wholly deprived of [not as before, very far gone from] original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined [only] to evil...... yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust is 'truly and properly sin' [instead of, hath of itself the nature of sin.] In

whatsoever is therein contracted, be done agreeably to the mind and will of God.* But as to the matter of Church-Government, the Divine Right of their Presbyteries, the setting of Christ upon his

the 10th Art. upon Free-Will they made only one interpolation, but that of some inportance. After the words, withont the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will,' they inserted, and working so effectually in us, as that it determineth our will to that which is good. And again in the 11th Art. upon Justification, another explana tion of no less importance was introduced: We are justified,' it was said, that is, we are accounted righteous before God, and have remission of sins not for nor by our own works or deservings, but freely by his grace, only for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's sake, his whole obedience and satisfaction being by God imputed unto us, and Christ with his righteousness being apprehended and rested on by faith only. '(Ibid. Appendix, No. 1.) Do not these emendations prove, that the respective opinions introduced were not, in the judgment of those who proposed them, at least necessarily contained in the original Articles? An unprejudiced Calvinist might perhaps admit a stronger conclusion to be warrantable.

"That the Assembly of Divines proceeded no further in their labours than to the review of the 15th Article, might be owing to a persuasion of the attempt being hopeless, from the incorrigibility of the ancient creed; or perhaps to a prospect, which then began rapidly to open upon the Puritanical cause, not merely of reforming the Church, but altogether of subverting it."

Much has been written concerning the arbitrary measures of Archbishop Laud, and his endeavours to render Arminianism triumphant in the Church of England. But where is the instance to be found of his attempts to alter the Thirty-Nine Articles, or to make them speak in a more Arminian tone than that in which they had always spoken? By an ingenious species of sophistry, it has been contended, that the manner in which he caused King Charles's Declaration in 1626 to be executed, was, in fact, an establishing of Arminianism: But a lame case was assuredly never more lamely supported than this is, by Dr. Maclaine, in his long note on Mosheim. (Cent. xvii, sec. 2, pt. 2.) In reference to the repeated and bold attempts at innovation on the Established Creed, the Bishop of Winchester observes, in his excellent Refutation of Calvinism: "The early Calvinists of this country having thus failed in their endeavours to obtain a change in our public formularies, their more modern successors, despairing of alteration, have adopted a different mode of proceeding, and have boldly contended that the Articles, Liturgy and Homilies are already Calvinistic, and admit of no other interpretation. What Remarks on this statement has the Rev. Thomas Scott published? He says: "That some persons, in former times, have wished to render our Articles, &c., more exactly agreeable to the tenets of Calvin, or even Calviniores Calvino, cannot be denied: but the evangelical clergy are not 'their successors.' They do not despair of alteration;' for a man never despairs of what he does not desire, but most earnestly deprecates. The despair of alteration is found among those who devise a variety of ingenious schemes, to reconcile men's consciences to subscribe what they almost openly avow they do not believe. The evangelical clergy do not contend, that our Articles, Liturgy and Homilies are in every tittle exactly co-incident with the sentiments of Calvin; but that they contain, in a more unexceptionable form, all that they deem essential in his doctrine." This kind of argument reminds me of a fable, familiar to all school-boys, about a fox that called the sweet and ripe grapes "sour," when he found them placed beyond his reach.

The British Calvinists who composed the Westminster Assembly of Divines, endeavoured to found their proceedings, as far as possible, on the precedents afforded to them by the Synod of Dort In the Works of Arminius, (vol. i, p. 642,) I have exposed the contrivance of the Dutch Calvinists "to elevate to a greater height their national standards of Predestinarian Orthodoxy, when they established new formularies of consent in their voluminous Canons or Articles, the subtle character of which is accurately described by Bishop Womack." Dr. Heylin and Archbishop Laurence have

throne, the parity or imparity of ministers in the church of Christ, not a word delivered: Their mighty masters were not then resolved upon those particulars; and it was fit the Holy Ghost

here adverted to "the incorrigibility of the ancient creed" of the Church England; and, in the Westminster Synod, Calvinism obtained an easier triumph than it had done at Dort, by the establishment of its new Confession of Faith and its two Predestinarian Catechisms, without any of the gainsaying arguments of such courageous and accomplished adversaries as Episcopius and the other cited Remonstrants.

In some of the subsequent notes it will be shewn, that the Dutch Calvinists, who always maintained (in opposition to the Arminians) the independent rights of the church, had in this respect a marked superority over their British brethren; and it was a happy circumstance for the remaining liberties of Englishmen, that the lay members of the Westminster Assembly resisted the exorbitant demands of these ambitious ecclesiastics, who wished to see Calvinism settled in England according to the model of the United Provinces and Scotland.

On this subject much useful information is conveyed in the following extract from the Cases of Conscience, which were written by Bishop Sanderson during the Inter-regnum at the request and under the patronage of the Right Honourable Robert Boyle: "Since the time that the Divines have divided themselves into several parties, it cannot easily be agreed upon amongst them to understand unto whom it doth belong to make Ecclesiastical laws.-The PAPISTS, who would have the Clergy to be exempted from all jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, do affirm, that Bishops only, and amongst them the chief Bishop especially, whom they call the Bishop Oecumenical, hath the right and power to make laws, which may not only oblige the consciences of the clergy, but of the laity also, and that without any consent or licence of the politic magistrate.'-There are some who (the person only, but not the opinion being changed,) do embrace this Tenet, as also many others of the PAPISTS, who, notwithstanding, do profess themselves most bitter enemies unto Popery; but in the mean time the Disciplinary Reformers our new Davusses do disturb all things, and, having taken away all power, authority, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the King, they do challenge it only to themselves, and to their own classes and conventions.-The ERASTIANS on the other side, and our new reformers no less than they, under the pretence of reformation, having altogether disinvested the clergy of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, do wholly attribute the universal right of the external government of the church to the civil magistrate: And moreover as for these our own disciplinarians at home, good God! what monsters of names and opinions, as full of deformity as of difformity, have these last seven years fruitful of prodigies brought forth, and nursed under the pretence of reformation.-But in these (as in many other debates) that opinion seemeth to be the truer, and is truly the safer, which is lodged in the middle betwixt the two extremes; and I am confident you will be so much the more willing to imbrace it, by how much it is more agreeable to the doctrine of the English Church, as also to the laws of the kingdom, which is, that the right of making Ecclesiastical laws is in the power of Bishops, Elders and other persons duly elected by the Clergy of the whole kingdom: But so nevertheless that the exercise of the same right and power in all christian common-wealths ought to depend on the authority of the supreme magistrate, both a parte ante (as the schoolmen have it) and a parte post, on the part precedent, and on the part subsequent, to wit, that they ought not of themselves to assemble for the making of Ecclesiastical Canons and laws, unless they be called to it by his mandate or command, or at least defended by his authority; a full and free leave being both asked, and obtained: And being thus called and warranted, their laws or canons to which they have consented, are not ratified, nor have any power of obliging, until the assent of the supreme magistrate be obtained; by whose approbation and authority, as soon as they are confirmed, they are presently to pass for laws, and do oblige the subject."

*

should stay their leisure, and not inspire their journey-men with any other instruction than what was sent them from the Houses.

"But this Confession, though imperfect, and performed by halves, was offered in the way of an humble advice to the Lords and Commons; that by the omnipotency of an ordinance it might pass for current, and be received for the established doctrine of the church of England. The like was done also in the tendry of their Larger Catechism, which seems to be nothing in a manner but the setting-out of their Confession in another dress, and putting it into the form of questions and answers, that so it might appear to be somewhat else than indeed it was. But being somewhat of the largest to be taught in schools, and somewhat of the hardest to be learned by children, it was brought afterwards into an epitome, commonly called the Lesser Catechism, and by the authors recommended to the use of the church, as far more orthodox than Nowel's, more clear than that contained in the Common-prayer book, and not inferior to the

:

The profane expressions, here employed, of "the Holy Ghost staying their leisure,' And of "every thing being done agreeably to the mind and will of God," are borrowed from the desecrating practice of the republican Calvinists And Dr. Heylin intended by the use of them to stigmatize at once the hypocrisy of the Westminster Assembly and their extreme servility. In Bishop Sanderson's second lecture, On a Good Intention, the following remarks occur: "All pious men must take heed, lest, being transported by a zeal to the glory of God, they be carried away to unlawful acts. Being transported with too hasty and too preposterous a zeal to the glory of God, what contumelies, what slaughters did not those men of that faction amongst the people of the Jews commit, who peculiarly were called Zealots! And among Christians in the memory of our fathers, the same things have been recorded (by men worthy of belief, and who were no ways ignorant of the transactions of the affairs of their times,) to have been done in Germany, and other places, by the Anabaptists, in whose chronologies such horrid acts, and so far from all humanity, are reported, that we should hardly have given any belief unto them, if we had not of late seen the same tragedies every day to be prodigiously acted to the life, by their unhappy offspring, the dismal scene being translated into our Britannies. That none of you may be deceived therefore with so splendid a deceit, and that you may not deceive others, consider with yourselves, in the first place, that all seducers, the ministers of Satan and instructed by Satan himself, (the chief seducer, who is accustomed to transform himself into an angel of light,) have not more advanced themselves by any artifice, nor imposed more upon the belief of the common people of Christendom, nor more vigorously troubled the peace of our churches and commonwealths, than under the pretence of the glory of God, and of the reformation of religion, and of the propagation of the gospel, and of rooting out superstition, and of the exalting of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In those days it was a common saying among the royalists, in allusion to the pretences of sanctified motives under which the most rebellious of the Calvinists acted," All mischief has its commencement IN THE NAME OF THE LORD." The author of Sphinx Lugduno-Genevensis imposes on them the name of the Sanctified Legion, and adds, "Why, he [the Presbyterian] bears this denomination thou wilt less wonder, if thou call to mind that he was formerly an army-saint, and fought the devil s battles in the name of the Lord. He once blew the trumpet to rebellion in the pulpit, and afterwards charged majesty with ordnance of both kinds, and all in the name of the Lord," &c. On this topic consult the note page 359.