fition, which cannot be "denied without fighting about words, that holiness is a condition "of our final acceptance with God?" These inconfiftencies and difagreements of our accufers, not only with each other, but with themselves, will justify us in regarding their opinions with jealoufy; confident, as they all are, in fupport, each of his favourite doctrines; and profeffing, as fome of them have done, to have been directed to a knowledge of the truth, even in the minutest circumstances, by a special revelation from God. Amid fuch contending claims, great deliberation not only is allowable, but becomes a duty, before we embrace any fyftem of opinions, thus propofed to us, as articles of the Gospel faith left we should at length discover, that, like the moderate Calvinift, we are "halt"ing between two opinions," confiftently at tached to neither; or left, with Whitefield, conceiving ourselves to be favoured at fome future period with a more clear knowledge of divine truth, we should be compelled to retract and recant or left, having laboured in vain for years, like Wefley, "to convert "others," and teach them the truths of Chrif tianity, we fhould after all difcover, that we Wefley's Farther Appeal. See Outram's Extracts p. 104. had "never been converted ourfelves." Thus ftands the cafe, with refpect to our own fatis-faction in the mean time, as to our accufers, before we can cherish a well-grounded hope of fatisfying them, they may reasonably be re-, quired to display a greater degree of harmony, one with another, and of confiftency, each, with himself. Till then, we may be permitted to adopt for our pattern the conduct of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, on occafion of the complaint of the Difciplinarians, in Queen: Elizabeth's time, against the Liturgy then in ufe. "He demanded," as Fuller reports it, "whether they defired the taking away there"of. They answered, No; but only the amend"ment of what was offenfive therein. He 66 required them to make a better, fuch as "they would have fettled in the ftead thereof. "Whereupon, the firft claffis formed a new, 66 one, fomewhat according to the form of "Geneva. The fecond claffis, difliking it, "altered it in fix hundred particulars. The "third quarrelled at these alterations, and re"folved on a new model. The fourth claffis "diffented from the former. Thus, because "they could not agree amongst themselves," continues the hiftorian, "that wife statesman • Wesley's First Journal, p. 78. Coke's Life of Wefley, p. 133. "put them off for the prefent, until they "fhould prefent him a pattern with a perfect ❝ confent." V. I proceed to remark, that we are accufed of abandoning the doctrines of the Reformation; the doctrines of the Church of England. Now that fome of the opinions of our accufers were maintained by certain perfons at the earliest periods of the Reformation, and in this country, may readily be allowed, The doctrine of perfection, for inftance, was fo maintained, as we learn from our Articles, by which, as well as by the Augsburg Confeffion, it is condemned". The doctrine of not falling from grace had alfo its advocates; for fo we are informed by Bishop Latimer, who pointedly deprecates it, as a novel upstart opinion, Thus again, with regard to the Calvinistic tenets in general; of which an hiftorian speaks in language, well calculated to excite attention, from the correspondence which it exhibits, between those times and the prefent. "There were "fome men," he fays, "who, in the begin"ning of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, "bufily ftickled in the maintenance of Calvin's Fuller's Church History, book ix. p. 178, "doctrines. And thinking themselves to be 66 MORE EVANGELICAL than the reft of their "brethren, they either took unto themselves, or "had given by others, the name of GOSPELLERS. "Of this they were informed by the reve "rend prelate and right godly martyr Bishop "Hooper, in the preface to his Expofition of "the Ten Commandments: Our Gofpellers, "faith he, be better learned than the Holy "Ghoft; for they wickedly attribute the caufe "of punishments and adverfity to God's pro"vidence, which is the caufe of no ill, as he himfelf can do no ill; and over every mif"chief that is done, they fay, it is God's will. "In which," adds Heylyn," we have the men " and their doctrine; the name of Gofpellers, "and the reafon why that name was afcribed " unto them "" Thus far, then, it may be conceded, that the doctrines for which our accufers contend, the doctrines of Calvin efpecially, were not without their advocates, in the age of the Reformation, either at home or abroad. But is it to be understood, that thefe doctrines formed part of that fyftem of faith, which was generally adopted by thofe, who feparated from the Church of Rome? Unquestionably they did not. Earnestly as they were maintained • HiR, Quinquart. part iii, chap. xvi. p. 589. by their great patron, whofe name they bear, and by those divines, with whom he was more closely connected, and who (as judicious Hooker fays)" deemed his books almost the 66 very canon, by which both doctrine and dif"cipline were to be judged ";" let it not be fuppofed, that the establishment of these doctrines in a general view formed any part of the Reformation from the corruptions of Popery let it not be disposed, that these doctrines did in fact conftitute a part of the creed of those, whether individuals or churches, whom we are bound to regard with the most grateful and fond attachment.-Abroad ;-whatever may have been the opinions of Calvin, and his adherents, and thofe churches, in France, in Switzerland, and in the Netherlands, which were "caft according to the mould which he "made;" let it never be believed, that those were esteemed the doctrines of the Reformation, which Melancthon condemned as "the 66 dotage of Stoicifm and the ravings of Mani"chæan madnefs;" which the Confeffions of Augsburg and of Saxony unequivocally dif courage; and which the Lutherans deprecate, under the name of "the Predeftinarian pefti"lence;" from which they fhrink with even Pref. to Ecclef. Polity, p. 139. Oxford edit. i Hooker. |