In the years 1584 and 1585, we find Mr. Harsnet, and the judicious Hooker, both of them condemning the Calvinistical doctrine of irrespective reprobation; and both of them received and countenanced by Archbishop Whitgift.

In the year 1603, was the famous Hampton-Court conference. The Calvinists then moved that the book of Articles might be "explained in places obscure, and en"larged where some things were defective;" that the Lambeth Articles might be taken in, and that in the sixteenth Article, after the words, "depart from grace," might be added, "but not totally, nor finally;" which would have defeated the whole intent and meaning of the Articles. It seems, the Calvinists were not yet confident of our Articles being plainly, or at all on their side; as indeed they had no reason. Yet nothing was done to satisfy their scruples, or to relieve their uneasiness on that account.

In the year 1618, our divines, at the Synod of Dort, had commission to insist upon the doctrine of universal redemption, as the doctrine of the Church of England, (though they were out-voted in it,) which one doctrine, pursued in its just consequences, is sufficient to overthrow the whole Calvinian system of the five points.

In the year 1624, Mr. Mountague (then Prebendary of Windsor) openly disclaimed the Calvinistical tenets, as being the positions of private doctors only, not of the Church in her public forms. His Appello Cæsarem, wrote in vindication thereof, was approved by King James; and Dr. White ordered to license it with this approbation; "that there was nothing contained in it but what was "agreeable to the public faith, doctrine, and discipline "established in the Church of England." This is a very considerable testimony that our Articles are not Calvinistical. And it is very observable, that when the Commons, the year after, drew up their charge against Moun

See Plaifere, Appello Evang. part iii. ch. 16.

tague', they could find no Article of the Church to ground their complaint upon (so far as concerned the five points) but the seventeenth: which yet they so understood as to make it, in sense, directly repugnant to Article the sixteenth. For they charge him with maintaining and affirming, in opposition to Article the seventeenth," that "men justified may fall away and depart from the state "which once they had," and that "they may rise again, ❝ and become new men possibly, but not certainly, nor "necessarily:" which is the plain and manifest doctrine of Article the sixteenth, which does not say shall, or must rise again, but may only; intimating plainly enough, that it is neither certain nor necessary.

Such as desire to see more of Mountague's case, may consult the historians of that time. I concern myself no farther than to relate such particulars as give light to the present question, about the sense of our Articles in the five points. And I would have it observed, that I am not inquiring whether Calvinism was the more prevailing doctrine of those times, but whether it was generally thought to be contained in, and professed by our Articles, or other public authorized forms of our Church. Many ran in with Calvinism, who did not pretend to find the whole of their doctrine in our public forms; nay, who suspected that our Articles were not only defective in those points, but even contradictory, in some measure, to them. This, I think, sufficiently appears from the complaints of the earlier Calvinists in Queen Elizabeth's time; from Whitaker's confession to Whitgift; from the conduct of the Heads, in Barret's case; and from the story of Baro; from Whitgift's procedure in the Lambeth Articles, and his frank confessions in favour of Barret; from Dr. Reynolds' proceedings at the Hampton conference, and the resolutions taken thereupon; and lastly, from the Irish Convocation of 1615, and from the case of Mountague.

I shall proceed a little farther into Charles the First's reign, and then conclude this article.

See it in Collier's Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 736, &c.

In the year 1626, the King put out a Proclamation to quiet the disputes on the five points; forbidding new opinions, and all innovation in the doctrine or discipline of the Church; commanding all to keep close to the doctrine and discipline established. This Proclamation seems to have been chiefly levelled against the Calvinists, who were then labouring to introduce innovations in doctrine and discipline.

In the year 1628, the King prefixed his famous Declaration to a new edition of the Articles: which Declaration was designed chiefly to bridle the Calvinists, but indeed to silence the Predestinarian controversy on both sides. The Calvinists made loud complaints against it: the King had confined them to the general meaning of the Articles, the plain and full meaning; had prohibited any new sense, and the drawing the Article aside. This they interpreted to be laying a restraint upon them from preaching the saving doctrines of God's free grace, in election and predestination. (See Collier, p. 747.) But why so, if Calvinism had been before incorporated into our Articles; or if it were not a new sense, and beside their plain and full meaning? This complaint, from that quarter, looks like a confession that our Articles were not, in themselves, Calvinistical; and that Calvinism could not be taught without introducing a new sense, and drawing the Articles aside; or however, not without being more particular than the Articles had been.

Soon after the King's Declaration, the Commons drew up a kind of Anti-declaration, " avowing" (as they say) "that sense of the Articles-which by the public acts "of the Church of England, and the general and current "exposition of the writers of our Church, had been de"livered to us; rejecting the sense of the Jesuits and "Arminians."

For an answer to which, I refer the reader to Archbishop Laud's short Notes, or Scholia, upon this Antideclaration, recorded by Heylin in his Life. I may observe that the Commons laid no claim to the literal or

grammatical meaning, in favour of Calvinism; and that they appealed only to extrinsic evidence: first, to the public acts of the Church, when there were really none such, properly so called; next to the current exposition of writers, wherein they appear not to have distinguished between the current doctrine of writers, and the current exposition of the Articles; as if it were necessary that the whole body of the current divinity should have been contained in our Articles. Besides that even the current doctrine was not entirely on the side of Calvinism. Absolute reprobation had been generally condemned all along by our most judicious divines: and the doctrines of universal redemption, and of departing from grace, as generally approved: which doctrines, if pursued in their consequences, (though many might not be aware of it,) tend to overthrow the Calvinian doctrines in the five points.

I may farther hint, that even the Article of Predestination has been vainly enough urged in favour of the Calvinistical tenets. For, not to mention the saving clause in the conclusion, or its saying nothing at all of reprobation, and nothing in favour of absolute predestination to life; there seems to be a plain distinction (as Plaifere has well observed) in the Article itself, of two kinds of predestination; one of which is recommended to us, the other condemned. See that part of the Article in the margin. Predestination rightly and piously considered, that is, considered (not irrespectively, not absolutely, but)

u Plaifere's Analysis of the 17th Article, p. 387, alias 198.

and

* As the godly consideration of predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things; as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation, to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God.

So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, (impurissimæ vitæ securitatem,) no less perilous than desperation.

with respect to faith in Christ, faith working by love, and persevering; such a predestination is a sweet and comfortable doctrine. But the sentence of God's predestination, (it is not here said in Christ, as before,) that sentence, simply or absolutely considered, (as curious and carnal persons are apt to consider it,) is a most dangerous downfall, leading either to security or desperation; as having no respect to foreseen faith and a good life, nor depending upon it, but antecedent in order to it. The Article then seems to speak of two subjects; first, of predestination soberly understood with respect to faith in Christ, which is wholesome doctrine; secondly, of predestination simply considered, which is a dangerous doctrine. And the latter part seems to be intended against those Gospellers whereof Bishop Burnety speaks. Nor is it imaginable that any true and sound doctrine of the Gospel should, of itself, have any aptness to become a downfall even to carnal persons but carnal persons are apt to corrupt a sound doctrine, and suit it to their own lusts and passions, thereby falsifying the truth. This doctrine, so depraved and mistaken, our Church condemns: that is, she condemns absolute, irrespective predestination, not the other. This appears to be the most probable construction of the seventeenth Article; for vindication whereof I shall refer to

y The doctrine of predestination having been generally taught by the Reformers, many of this sect (the Gospellers) began to make strange inferences from it; reckoning, that since every thing was decreed, and the decrees of God could not be frustrated, therefore men were to leave themselves to be carried by these decrees. This drew some into great impiety of life, and others into desperation. The Germans soon saw the ill effects of this doctrine. Luther changed his mind about it, and Melancthon openly writ against it. And since that time, the whole stream of the Lutheran churches has run the other way. But both Calvin and Bucer were still for maintaining the doctrine of these decrees; only they warned the people not to think much of them, since they were secrets which men could not penetrate into. But they did not so clearly show how these consequences did not flow from such opinions. Hooper and many other good writers did often dehort the people from entering into these curiosities; and a caveat to the same purpose was put afterwards into the Article of the Church about Predestination. Burnet, Hist. of the Ref. vol. ii. p. 107.