Upon the credit of this renegado Calvinist and pretended dean of Windsor (¿), we are told,

(b) Mr. Sellon seems to have been led into this mistake, respecting Potter's deanery, by the title page prefixed to a letter of Potter's, preserved in the Cambridge Tracts already mentioned. A proof, by the way, of the accuracy and faithfulness with which those Tracts were compiled. A proof, moreover, of the many inconvenient stumbles, to which such writers as Mr. Sellon are exposed, who content themselves with borrowing their information from indexes and title pages.

I have above styled Dr. Potter a renegado. Such, in outward profession at least, he certainly was; and such, no doubt, Laud esteemed him to be. But, after all his tergiversation, the Abingdon lecturer does not appear to have embraced Arminianism ex animo and upon principle. Like the magnetic needle when disturbed, he seems to have been in a state of continual vibration, uneasy till he recovered his primitive direction to the good old Calvinistic point. This I infer from his own words. In that very letter to which Mr. Sellon carries his appeal; in that very letter which underwent the necessary corrections and alterations of the good Cambridge Arminians who flourished in the year 1719; even in that letter of Christopher Potter, pruned and amended as aforesaid, I find the following passages. "You are affected," says he, to his friend Vicars (who had charged him, and not temerariously, with inconstancy in matters of religion), “ you are affected with a strong suspicion, that I am turned Arminian: and you further guess at the motive; that some sprinkling of court holy water, like an exorcism, hath enchanted and conjured me into this new shape." The virtue of court holy water, is doubtless very efficacious, as an alterative. No transformations, recorded in Ovid, can vie with the still more wonderful metamorphoses, which this potent sprinkling hath occasioned both in patriots, politicians, and divines. Potter's correspondent had exactly hit the mark. It was indeed the application of court holy water, judiciously sprinkled by the hand of Laud, which had made Christopher cast his skin, and come forth, in appearance, a sleek Arminian. But, when hard pushed by honest Mr. Vicars, he was ashamed (as well he might) to set his avowed probatum est to the powerful virtues of the said water. And how did he parry off the charge? Even by denying himself to be an Arminian at all. His words are these: "I desire you to believe, that I neither am, nor ever will be Arminian. I love Calvin very well; and, I must tell you, I cannot hate Arminius. I can assure you, I do not depart from my ancient judgment; but do well remember what I affirmed in my questions at the act, and have confirmed it, I suppose, in my sermon; so, you see, I am still where I was." The questions, which he here alludes to, and which had been maintained by him at the Oxford act in the year 1627, were these three: Efficacia gratiæ non

3. That "there are ten papists, who hold the doctrine of predestination, for one that denies it." Every man who knows what popery is; every man, who is at all acquainted either with the ancient or

pendet à libero influxu arbitrii; Christus Divinæ Justitiæ, vice nostrâ, propriè et integrè satisfecit; ipse actus fidei, rò crodere, non imputatur nobis in justitiam sensu proprio: i. e. "the efficacy of grace is not suspended on the free influence of man's will; Christ did strictly and completely satisfy God's justice in our room and stead; the act of believing is not, itself, properly imputed to us for righteousness." In his farther vindication of himself from the charge of Arminianism, Potter makes very honourable mention of seven predestinarian divines, whom (let the reader mark it well) he terms the "worthiest doctors" of the churches of England, France, and Germany. Nay (let Mr. Sellon hear it, and weep), he even styles the Arminians, what indeed they are, dissenters from our own national church. "The Arminians," continues he, "dissent from us only in these four questions [viz. concerning predestination, redemption, grace, and perseverance]. The Lutheran churches maintain against us all these four questions, and moreover a number of notable dreams and dotages, both in matters of ceremony and doctrine: among others, you remember their absurd ubiquity and consubstantiation. Now, notwithstanding all their [i. e. the Lutherans] foul corruptions, yet I presume you know, for it is apparent out of public records, that our better reformed churches in England, France, Germany, &c. by the advice of their worthiest doctors, Calvin, Bucer, Beza, Martyr, Zanchius, Ursin, Pareus, have still offered to the Lutherans all Christian amity, peace and communion: though those virulent, fiery adders of Saxony" [i. e. the Lutheran divines] "would never give ear to the voice of those wise charmers." In the mature judgment, therefore, even of Potter himself, Calvin, Zanchius, and the other five, were wise charmers, and our worthiest doctors. Let us next hear what the same gentleman thought concerning Mr. Sellon's favourite doctrine of election upon faith and works foreseen. "Can you deny," continues he, "that many learned, pious catholic bishops of the old church taught predestination for foreseen faith or works? and suppose them herein to have erred, as, for my part, I doubt not but they did; though upon other grounds, than the bare assertion of Calvin, Beza, or Senensis; yet can you deny, that, notwithstanding this error and others, they were then, and still since, accounted holy catholic bishops?" He adds: "I resolve never to be an Arminian, and ever to be moderate." For the above passages, see the Cambr. Tr. from p. 230. to p. 244.

The reader, perhaps, may think, that I have thrown away too much time on this Dr. Potter. I did it to show, on what flimsy props Mr. Sellon rests the weight of his cause. At the very utmost,

the doctor was a kind of amphibious divine.

In these matters,

present state of that church; must consider such an assertion, as the most false and daring insult that can be offered to common sense. Have not the doctrines, called Calvinistic, been condemned in form,

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Laud seems to have had no great reason to boast of him as a proselyte; any more than Mr. Wesley's friend Wat has to trust him as a referee. This will appear farther, from another very remarkable passage, occurring in a sermon, preached by this same Dr. Potter at the consecration of his uncle Barnaby to the see of Carlisle. I give the quotation, on the credit of the editors of the above letter. The passage itself is this: "For our controversies, first let me protest, I favour not, I rather suspect any new inventions; for ab antiquitate non recedo nisi invitus: especially renouncing all such" [viz. all such new inventions] as any way favour or flatter the depraved nature and will of man, which I constantly believe to be free only to evil, and of itself to have no power at all, merely none, to any act or thing spiritually good. Most heartily embracing that doctrine, which most amply commends the riches of God's free grace, which I acknowledge to be the whole and sole cause of our predestination, conversion, and salvation: abhoring all damned doctrines of the Pelagians, Semipelagians, Jesuits, Socinians, and of their rags and reliques; which help only to pride and prick up corrupt nature: humbly confessing, in the words of St. Cyprian (so often repeated by that worthy champion of grace, St. Augustin), in nullo gloriandum est, quandoquidem nostrum nihil est. It is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed: and therefore let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord." Cambr. Tr. p. 226, 227.

I cannot help thinking (for human nature is prone to speculate) how dexterously Dr. Potter played his game; and how neatly Dr. Laud, though a knowing one, was taken in. The former (if we are to believe his own solemn protestations) had still very ample mental reserves in favour of Calvinism: while the latter supposed him a sincere convert to Arminianism, and promoted him accordingly.This reminds me of another very famous instance of worldly wisdom. The elder Vossius published, in the year 1618, a learned History of Pelagianism. Wherein (say the compilers of the Biogr. Dict., vol. ii. p. 317.) "he affirmed, that the sentiments of St. Austin, upon grace and predestination, were not the most ancient; and that those of the Remonstrants [i. e. of the Arminians] were different from those of the Semipelagians." This book delighted Laud so much, that, at his earnest recommendation, Charles I. made its author a prebendary of Canterbury, with permission to reside still in Holland. Seems it not a little strange, that, rather than a vigorous effort in favour of Arminianism should pass unrewarded, a prelate, of such high principles as Laud, should obtain a stall, in the metropolitan church of all England, for one who was, by birth, a German, and, by education and connection, a Dutch Presbyterian? There was indeed

and the assertors of them pronounced accursed, by the council of Trent? Did any man ever read a single popish book of controversy, written within a century after the reformation, in which the protestants are not universally charged (as we still are by the Arminians) with making God the author of sin, only because they universally held predestination? And, for the modern popish books of controversy, I have hardly seen one, in which the writers of that communion do not exult, and impudently congratulate the church of England on her visible departure from those doctrines. And, God knows, the church of Rome has, in this respect, but too much reason for triumph. Many nominal protestants are saving papists the trouble of poisoning the people, by doing it to their hands. What Heylin quotes from a Jesuit who wrote in the time of Charles I. is in great measure, true of the present times: "the doctrines are altered in many things: as for example, the pope not Antichrist; pictures; free-will; predestination; universal grace; inherent righteousness; the merit" [which Heylin softens into, or reward rather] of good works. The XXXIX articles seeming patient, if not ambitious also, of some catholic sense; limbus patrum; justification not by faith alone, &c. (c).”

no preferment, to which Vossius' merits, as a scholar, did not entitle him his learning and virtues, however, would never have cleared his way to Canterbury cathedral, had he not contributed to the advancement of that new scheme, which Laud had so deeply at heart. But what will the reader say, should he be told, that, after all, Laud was mistaken as to the sincerity of Vossius' Arminianism? Take the account, in the words of Dr. Potter abovementioned: "He" [i. e. Vossius] "hath declared himself, in his last book, De Scriptoribus" [I suppose, it should be Historicis] "Latinis, to be of St. Augustin's mind in these questions" [viz. concerning predestination and grace]; and is allowed, by the states, public professor at Leyden, where no Arminian is tolerated." Cambr. Tr. p. 237. So convenient is it, on some certain occasions, for a divine to look (like Janus, or like the Germanic eagle) two ways at once!

(c) Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 238.

The Thirty-nine articles themselves are neither patient nor ambitious of what the Jesuit called a catholic sense. How patient, or even ambitious, of a popish sense, some of the subscribers to those articles may be, is another point. Stubborn experience and incontestible fact oblige us to distinguish, with Dr. South, between the doctrines of the church, and of some who call themselves churchmen.

Studious as I am of brevity, I cannot dismiss the shameless objection, drawn from the pretended popery of Calvinism, without additional animadversion. The slander does, indeed, carry its own refutation stamped upon its forehead: which refutation the following detail of facts may serve to confirm.

I shall demonstrate, in its proper place, that the principles of John Wickliff, and of his celebrated proselyte John Huss, were the same with what have since acquired the name of Calvinistic. An extract from the bull of pope Martin V. fraught with anathemas against the memories of those holy men, and published A. D. 1418, will evince the detestation and the alarm, with which the attempted revival of these doctrines was received by the church of Rome. Some of the articles, against which his Holiness inveighed so fiercely, were as follow (d):

"There is one only universal church, which is the university" [or entire number]" of the predestinate. Paul was never a member of the devil, although" [before his conversion] "he did certain acts like unto the acts of the church malignant."

"of

"The reprobate are not parts of the" [invisible] "church; for that no part of the same finally falleth from her because the charity" [or grace] predestination, which bindeth the church together, never faileth."

"The reprobate, although he be sometimes in grace according to present justice" [i. e. by a present p. 739. Edit. 1684.

(d) Fox's Acts and Mon. vol. i.