subscribing articles usually thought to be Athanasian. In answer to this plea, Dr. Waterland shews that the cases are by no means parallel; the former doctrines being laid down only in general terms, without any specific interpretation, and therefore left, in some degree, indefinite, as to the particular sense in which they are to be received; whilst the latter are guarded most carefully and explicitly against any other interpretation, than such as is utterly inadmissible by Arian expositors.

These several pleas being dismissed, the tract concludes with a more detailed examination of Dr. Clarke's attempts to reconcile our public formularies with his own expositions of Scripture on the doctrine of the Trinity, and demonstrates how entirely his labours had failed.

To this tract an answer was soon after published by Mr. Sykes, entitled, The Case of Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles considered, occasioned by Dr. Waterland's Case of Arian Subscription. The main object of this answer was, to retort upon Dr. Waterland, and other writers on the same side, the charge of subscribing to the Articles in a private sense of their own, different from that of the framers or imposers of the Articles; and to vindicate the Arian party, upon the same ground on which Waterland had vindicated those who, in certain particular explications of doctrine, might differ from each other, though they subscribed to the same general propositions. This mode of recrimination was far from being generally approved by Dr. Clarke's friends. Mr. Whiston, Mr. Emlyn, and afterwards Archdeacon Blackburn, author of the Confessional, and Dr.

Disney, the biographer of Dr. Sykes, expressed much dissatisfaction at an attempt, which only tended to inculpate others, without acquitting the parties who had been put upon their defence. Moreover, the whole force of such reasoning depended upon satisfactory proof, that the differences in the one case were as irreconcileable as those in the other. To give it due effect, Mr. Sykes should have shewn, on the one hand, that the respective opinions of Bishop Bull, or Drs. Wallis, South, Sherlock, and Bennet, were no less at variance with the Creeds, Articles, and Liturgy of our Church, than those maintained by Dr. Clarke and Mr. Whiston; or, on the other hand, that, on the points disputed between Arminians and Calvinists, our Church had laid down the sense in which those points should be received, with the same precision and authoritative injunction, as in those which related to the doctrine of the Trinity. Such an attempt, however, had been already anticipated by Dr. Waterland, and successfully obviated, in his Case of Arian Subscription. He had there clearly stated what extent of latitude the compilers or imposers of the Articles had actually given in these respective cases: and he argued, that in proportion as the terms in which any proposition is expressed are general, comprehensive, or indefinite, in that same proportion there is room left for diversity of sentiment in the explication of the proposition; but that where the particular sense is given in plain, distinct, and specific terms, there the same latitude could not possibly have been intended. On this solid ground of distinction his objections to Arian subscription were founded; objections, appli

cable only to tenets irreconcileable with essential articles of faith, distinctly propounded, and not to minor differences of opinion, on which no such express declarations had been made.

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Upon this point Mr. Sykes avoids, as much as possible, coming into close quarters with his antagonist. Waterland had said, "both sides may sub"scribe to the same general proposition, and both "in the same sense, which sense reaches not to the particulars in dispute." This Mr. Sykes treats as a concession of principle, by which his own cause may be defended. "Is there more difference," he asks, "between two men who both acknowledge "the Trinity, but differ in the particular explica"tion of it, than there is in two men, who both acknowledge predestination, but differ in the par"ticular explication of that doctrine?" And again; "There is not a greater difference in point of the Tri"nity, betwixt a man that is allowed to be ortho"dox, and one that is called an Arian, than there "is in the point of predestination, betwixt a Cal"vinist and an Arminian." But this was not the real question in debate. It might be true, that there is no greater difference in the one case than in the other. But the point in question was this: Had the Church in her Articles, Creeds, and Liturgy, left the points in dispute equally undecided; and allowed a similar diversity in the explication of them? Had she not left those between Calvinists and Arminians more open to an acceptation of them in either sense, than those between Arians and Trinitarians? Mr. Sykes does not fairly grapple with the question, as thus stated by Waterland; and therefore his ge

neral reasoning upon this supposed concession is fallacious. This error runs through his whole performance. Much of his reasoning tends also rather to shew that the Church ought not to exercise any authority in imposing articles of faith, or in restricting the interpretation of them to her own sense; than to justify those persons who receive them in a different and contrary sense. Two questions are thus blended together, which ought to be kept asunder; since neither of them essentially depends upon the other. Nor should it pass unobserved, that Mr. S. assumes throughout, that our Articles were framed by Calvinists, and were intended to be taken exclusively in a Calvinistic sense ;-assumptions which both Bp. Bull and Dr. Waterland had strenuously controverted, and which in later times have been still more thoroughly examined and disproved.

Dr. Waterland deemed it expedient to reply to this pamphlet, in a tract entitled, A Supplement to the Case of Arian Subscription considered.

After briefly noticing that Mr. Sykes had "taken "for granted, and reasoned all the way upon the sup"position, that the Articles of our Church, so far as "concerns the Trinity, are general, indefinite, un"determinate, not particular, special, or determi"nate;" and had also manifested a disposition to exclude the Liturgy from being taken into consideration with the Articles; he proceeds to a fuller explanation of what had been advanced in his former tract. He exhibits, in contrast, the Scripturedoctrine of the Trinity, according to Dr. Clarke, and the Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity, according to the Church of England in her public forms;

-two schemes palpably irreconcileable with each other. He demonstrates, also, by several of the plainest inferences, that the abettors of Dr. Clarke's scheme do, in reality, make God the Son a creature, however they may verbally disclaim it. They speak of Him as finite, precarious in existence, dependent on the will of another; they avoid nothing but the name of creature, while they inculcate the thing. This strange incongruity between Dr. Clarke's sentiments and those of the Church of England is still further exposed, by shewing how they appear when blended together in one profession of faith. Dr. W. then proceeds to answer, seriatim, Mr. Sykes's objections to the positions laid down in the Case of Arian Subscription; more particularly with reference to what had been said on the supposed Calvinistic Articles. This part of the work is executed with admirable spirit and vivacity, as well as with sound and solid judgment. Nothing can be more satisfactory than his vindication of our Church against those who insist that her Articles will admit of no other construction, or were intended to admit of no other, than such as favours the abettors of Calvinism. He abundantly proves that no such conclusion can fairly be drawn from the words of the Articles themselves; much less from an historical view of the intent with which they were framed. The argument, therefore, in favour of Arian subscription, grounded upon this pretext, is shewn to be utterly untenable, and the attempt at recrimination, resulting from it, evasive and futile.

Mr. Sykes, however, would not thus be driven from the field. He soon put forth a Reply to Dr.