fuch as, in free and rational beings, fubfifts between the motive and the action. True and lively faith, while it continues to operate, will produce good works. But it may not always operate; and then its fruits will ceafe to be produced. The neceffity of a Calvinist is a phyfical neceffity, arifing from an irrefiftible impulfe, which has no dependence on human volition. His good works are, in no respect, the works of man, but the direct and immediate operations of God. They can, therefore, in no rational or intelligible fenfe, be called the fruits of faith; not even of, "true and lively faith :" for, as Dr. Kipling has most accurately obferved, "A Church of England-man's faith is productive; a Calvinists' is barren." The following brief quotations from our author gives a very clear view of this important diftin&tion:

*

"Good works, as the fruit of lively faith, are not a natural but moral production; and though they may be faid to be a necessary production, as essential to the perfection of a moral agent, ftill they will be produced only in proportion as moral motives, accompanied by Divine grace, exercise their proper influence on the mind of the party concerned. Regarding only the effect produced as neceffary to determine the perfection of the caufe, both phyfical and moral obligation are to be feen in the tame light. Still it is prefumed, no great degree of precision is neceff ry to difcriminate between a certain caufe, according to the regular course of nature, neceflarily produc. ing a certain effect, and the neceffity that a certain caufe fhould produce fuch an effect, in order to determine the perfection of its quality. In the one cafe, we have a phyfical agent regularly and neceffarily proceeding to the accomplishment of a pre-eltablished fyftem: in the other a moral being whole advancement towards perfection is regulated by his concurrence with the directing influence of Divine grace. (Pp. 373, 374.) Independent of Chriftian motives, there can be no fuch thing as Chriftian practice; in this sense the doctrines and duties of Chriftianity are infeparable, because the end is not to be obtained but through the means. But though the motives which the gospel furnishes are the only motives which can effectually enforce Chriftian practice, ftill Chriftian practice will always be in proportion to the continued energy of its productive caufe. The doctrine of our Church is that good works do fpring out neceffarily of a true and lively faith.' And the pofition, when properly underflood, is incontrovertible; for fo long as true lively faith exifts, in other words, fo long as the motives furnished by the go pel produce, through Divine grace, their proper influence on the party, fuch must be the confequence. Still, whilft there is a poffibility of man's refifting and quenching the Holy Spirit, of doing defpite (as the Apoftle ftrongly expreffes it), to the Spirit of Grace, of neglecting to make a proper ufe of the means of falvation, and thereby falling away from God, what may be lively faith to-day may not be equally fo to-morrow; and, confequently, the connection between faith and works is not of that fettled and invariable kind to juftify the use of epithets which, in propriety of language, apply only to to the uniform and established courfe of nature." (Pp. 375, 376.)

This is, furely, found and conclufive reasoning, and the readers of

* See ANTI-JACOBIN REVIEW, Vol. XVI. Pp. 56.

Mr

Mr. D.'s work will find much more equally fatisfactory on the fubject. Mrs. More, however, though fhe deigns not to answer Mr. D. herself, has apparently a train of writers in her fervice, on whom, if our advice were of any weight with her, we would advise her for her own fake, to impofe that prudent filence which fhe feems herfelf determined to preferve. Of these writers Mr. D., with a dignified regard to character which well becomes him, expreffes himself

thus.

"The Advocates who have exprefsly ftepped forward in Mrs. More's defence are paffed by in filence. The language (which) they have addreffed to me has, generally fpeaking, been fuch as to be entitled to no answer; and, as controverfy thus carried on is what I most dislike, I do not wish to furnish the gen lemen concerned with a provocation to enter again into a fied, in which they appear to fo little advantage. The object," he adds, "(which) Mr. O. appears to have had before him, (although his language is not quite fo coarse, perhaps, as that of the nameless writers above alluded to,) correfponds in the main with what theirs was; the obvious defign of his publica ion being to place my writings in a light, in which they might do the leaft poffible credit to their author. But on this head, I refrain from enlargement." (P. 387.)

We come now to our author's concluding chapter, which is indeed a noble one, and which, we truft, will be carefully ftudied by all, especially by ingenious young divines, for whofe advantage this work was chiefly written. This chapter is principally recapitulatory of the arguments treated in the preceding ones, and brings the whole fubject under a masterly and moft interefting review. The author begins by truly obferving, as an apology for the length to which fome of his topics have been extended, that the detection of a fallacy, can never be confined within the fame limits as its affertion, nor a vindication be made out in a form equally compendious with that of the charge." He then gives his ultimate opinion of the fairness of Mr. O. as a controverfial writer. It is fully juftified by a previous and minute induction of particulars. Entirely convinced ourselves of its truth, we shall lay it fimply, and without a comment, before our readers.

"From the analyfis of Mr. O.'s reafoning and evidence, laid before him" the reader in the preceding chapters, he must have feen that my fentiments undergo, for the most part, fuch a metamorphofe, in Mr. O.'s edition of them, as no longer to be cognizable for my own. What by the means of mifapplication and mutilation, by the expedient of words put in, and words left out; by the help of fentences divorced from their legitimate context, aided by indirect infinuations, and, in fome inftances, unequivocal affertions, relative to the princi les o his 'upposed opponents; Mr. O. has contrived to make me fpeak juft what the proof which he had to establish required that I thould speak. Indeed fo grofs have been the mifreprefentations of m text, fo notorious the iniquity of quotation', pract fed in fome instances by Mr. O., that I have been conftrained, from a respect to the profeffion, to conclude that Mr. O. has written on this occafion, (as it has been reported), from doccuments furnished from various quarters, haftily collected with

more

more zeal than judgment, and adopted without proper examination." (Pp. 389, 390.)

But the misreprefentation of the writings of an individual is of little confequence compared with that of the genuine doctrines of the Church. That the Church of England is not, as Mr. O. pretends, Calviniftic, is a point which is capable of demonftration; and Mr. O.'s confident exclamation, "We then are the true Churchmen," is only claiming a victory before it is gained: while the unceafing attempts of his reftlefs party to render the Clergy of the establishment odious, with a view to draw from their miniftry, those whom the Conftitution of their country has committed to their charge, are as little calculated to verify their pretenfions to the title of good subjects, as their Calvinifm is to prove them found Churchmen.

Το prove that our Original Reformers were Calvinifts, Mr. O. brings forward different Hiftorians, of whom, however, Strype and Burnet alone appear to have made this point an object of particular attention; and their teftimony is by no means favourable to his cause. Mofheim can be little depended on here; and his statement is in oppofition to fact. The firft Liturgy of Edward was compiled by a Committee of Bishops and divines appointed for the purpose by the King, who" refolved," fays Collier, "to govern themselves by the word of God, and the precedent of the primitive Church." It was afterwards, indeed reviewed and altered: but the Act of Parliament which, in 1552, finally established it, fpeaks of the first book as "a very godly order, agreeable to the word of God, and the Primitive Church;" and accounts for the review of it by "divers doubts having arisen for the fashion and manner of the miniftration of the fame, rather by the curiofity of the minifters and miftakers, than of any worthy caufe." Even fo late as the year 1555, Calvin expreffes his difapprobation of it with great freedom. And we have the pofitive authority of Strype, a witnefs, in this cafe, much more competent than Mofheim, that it was not till the end of Elizabeth's reign that Calvinifm became prevalent.

Mr. O. proceeds in a fimilar way to prove the attachment of our reformers to Auguftine. But the anfwer given by the venerable Latimer to the divines appointed to difpute with him at Oxford, may be fairly confidered as expreffing the collective fentiments of his colleagues: "Then you are not," faid the divines," of St. Chryfoftom's 'faith, nor of St. Auftin's?" "I have told you already," replied the good Bishop, "I am not, except when they bring fcripture for what they fay." Our reformers undoubtedly refpected Auguftine; and every lover of truth muft refpect the honefly which appears in his writings, efpecially in his retractations. But they respected other Fathers at least as much; and Mr. O. should have proved, that on the fubject of the divine decrees, they paid more regard to the authority of Auguftine than to that of the Fathers of the four first centuries of the Church. When afterwards, indeed, the opinions of Calvin be

gan

gan to prevail, the general appeal of those who embraced them was, in failure of evidence from the writings of our original reformers, and of the earlier Fathers of the Church, to the works of Auguftine.. Thus, in 1595, Hutton, Archbishop of York, having adopted the tenets of Calvinism, wrote a treatise on the subject, which he fent to Whitgift himself, fomewhat Calvinistically inclined, defiring that fome perfon might be employed who was well read in the works of Auguftine. This was certainly a way to lead divines to fee, in the public ftandards of the Church, the peculiar tenets of Auguftine, whether they were there or not. Thus again Dr. Whitaker, in his complaint against Barrett: "For the points of doctrine, we are fully perfuaded that Mr. Barrett hath taught untruth, if not against the articles, yet against the religion of our Church, publicly received." From this it appears that, according to the opinion then prevalent at Cambridge, a divine who did not teach against the articles, might yet teach against the religion of the Church, of which these articles formed the ftandard. For, continues Dr. Whitaker," although these points were not concluded and defined by public authority, yet, forafmuch as they have been hitherto evermore held in our Church, therefore ought they not to be controverted." By the confeffion, then, of this learned Calviniftic profeffor, the Calvinistic doctrines, notwithstanding the other ftrange part of his affertion, were never impofed by public authority; and, therefore, the queftion is fairly given up by him.

The Calvinifm of our Church, as deducible from the fentiments of the reformers, must be proved, if it can be proved at all, from the writings of the reformers themselves, and not, as Mr. O. has pretended to do, from writings long fubfequent, when Calvinifm, it is allowed, very much prevailed. But from Cranmer, Ridley, and La timer, Mr. O. has not produced a fingle fentence; and from Hooper only one, which he has tortured to a meaning directly contrary to that martyr's known and avowed opinions. He refers, indeed, to Jewell's Apology. But, though that work contains an able defence of our doctrines against the Church of Rome, it certainly does not reprefent them as Calviniftical. The names of Luther and of Zuingle are mentioned in it, but the name of Calvin does not once occur. And, in fhort, it is fufficient to obferve that it maintains the doctrine of univerfal redemption, which is totally, as we have often remarked, fubverfive of the fundamental tenet of Calvin's creed.

Mr. O. appeals (p. 66.) to the writings of Luther, and to the whole body of the confeffions of all the reformed churches; but this random appeal proves nothing at all. Mr. O. fhould have proved that these writings and confeffions were the ftandard by which the fentiments of our reformers were modelled. Cranmer was very intimate with Erafmus, from whom it is prefumed he received that copy of Erafmus's answer to Luther's treatife," De Servo Arbitrio," which is now extant in the British Museum, and which, from many paffages marked in it, he appears to have carefully perufed. It was printed in the fame year, 1524, in which Luther wrote his "Commentary on the Gal

N

tians,"

tians." In 1543 was published the Erudition of a Chriftian Man." From 1524 to 1543, our reformers mult have deeply studied the subjects which were then agitating the reformers on the continent; and, in the "Erudition," the doctrines of grace and of freewill are explained exactly in the fenfe of Erafmus, but in perfect opposition to that of Luther. A few years after, the paraphrafe of Erafmus, not the commentary of Luther, was fet up in our churches. All this fhews on what principles our reformation was conducted; and with refpect to the foreign confeffions, Mr. O. fhould have informed his readers that two of them at leaft, the Saxon, and that of Augfburgh, are in decided and open contradiction to his pofition.

Having given this abstract of Mr. Ö.'s evidence, and fhewn of what light materials it is made, our author conceives it incumbent upon him to ftate the point as it appears to himself. And firft, he obferves, on the fuppofition that Calvinifm was the doctrine intended to be established by our articles, the nearer we approach to the origin of these articles, the plainer will be the traces of this original doctrine; whereas, to thofe acquainted with the hiftory of our Church, the very reverfe of this is known to be the cafe. The next confideration is the character of our reformers, who were not, fays Mr. D.

"More diftinguished by their piety, than by their learning and modera tion. They knew where to draw the line between the genuine doctrines of Christianity, and the errors that had been grafted upon them; and they drew it with a strong and steady hand. Profiting by the intemperate conduct of fome foreign reformers, they carried on their work, not as those reformers for the most part did, with heat and violence, but with the deliberation and judgment beft fuited to a work of wisdom. Instead, therefore, of adopting the writings of Luther for their model, or employing Calvin as their counfel, they had recourfe to the very men who had been the diftinguished opponents of them both-Erafmus, who had written against the extravagancies of Luther, and Melan&thon, who had decidedly protested against the intemperance and peculiarities of Calvin." (Pp. 415, 416.)

It is farther to be observed, that, in 1548, Cranmer confulted MeJanethon about drawing up a book of the articles and heads of Christian faith and practice. Melanthon recommended it to be modelled according to the confeffion of Augfburgh, which had been compiled by himfelf; and it is generally understood that our fyftem of faith was formed in conformity with this noble confeffion. Now, this confellion was filent on the fubject of predeftination; and it ought to be remembered, as has already been faid, that in 1552, when our articles were first published, Melanthon erafed from a refcript of Calvin's the article" De electione," a circumstance which gave the latter reformer great offence. To this must be added, that in the fame year was inferted in the Saxon confeffion, the work alfo of Melancthon, a paffage obviously analogous to the concluding claufe of our XVIIth Article.

"And because, " fays this confeffion, "we purpose to administer confo