tween the Reprobate and the Elect."-Christ Liberteto, p. 142.

"I am not indeed ignorant that if any thing be granted to human authority, it is far more equitable that I should subscribe to you, than that you should come over to my opinion. But this is not the question, nor is even to be wished by the pious ministers of Christ. It is indeed becoming, that this should be aimed at on both sides, that we should agree in the pure truth of God. But a religious scruple, to confess ingenuously, prevents me from acceding to you in this point of doctrine, because you seem to dispute too philosophically concerning free-will ; in treating of Election, to have no other object but to accommodate yourself to the common sense of men. Nor can this be attributed to inadvertence, that you, an acute and prudent man, and well versed in Scripture, confound the Election of God with his promises, which are universal. For nothing is more generally known, than that the preaching of the word is promiscuously common to all, but that the spirit of faith is, by a singular privilege, given to the Elect alone. The promises are universal; how happens it, then, that their efficacy does not equally flourish in all? Truly, because God does not lay bare his arm to all. Nor is there any need of dispute upon this subject, with men moderately versed in Scripture,

that

that the gift of faith is peculiar; since the promises equally offer the grace of Christ to all, and God with an external voice invites whoever they may be to Salvation."-Ep. ad Melanch thonem, p. 146.

To these Quotations from Calvin, I shall subjoin the LAMBETH Articles, and also the Articles of the SYNOD OF DORT, both taken from Heylin's Quinquarticular History, that my readers may see what were considered as the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism at the end of the 16th, and at the beginning of the 17th century, and may judge whe ther any thing like these doctrines be contained in the Articles, Liturgy, or Homilies of our Church.

Speaking of what was passing at Cambridge, Heylin says, "From Barret pass we on to Baroe, betwixt whom and Dr. Whitacres there had been some clashings touching Predestination and Reprobation, the certainty of Salvation, and the possibility of falling from the grace received. And the heats grew so high at last, that the Calvinians thought it necessary, in point of prudence, to effect that by power and favour, which they were not able to obtain by force of argument. To which end they first addressed themselves to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, then being

their

their Chancellor, acquainting him by Dr. Some, then Deputy Vice Chancellor, with the disturbances made by Barret, thereby preparing him to hearken to such further motions as should be made unto him in pursuit of that quarrel. But finding little comfort there, they resolved to steer their course by another compass. And having prepossessed the most Rev. Archbishop Whitgift with the turbulent carriage of those men, the affronts given to Dr. Whitacres, whom (for his learned and laborious writings against Cardinal Bellarmine) he most highly favoured, and the great inconveniencies like to grow by that public discord, they gave themselves good hopes of composing those differences, not by the way of an accommodation, but an absolute conquest; and to this end they dispatched to him certain of their number in the name of the rest, such as were interested in the quarrel (Dr. Whitacres himself for one, and therefore like to stickle hard for the obtaining their ends;) the Articles to which they had reduced the whole state of the business being brought to them ready drawn, and nothing wanting to them but the face of authority, wherewith, as with Medusa's head, to confound their enemies, and turn their adversaries into stones. And that 'they might be sent back with the face of authority, the most Rev. Archbishop Whitgift, calling unto him

O o

him Dr. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, then newly elected unto London, and Dr. Richard Vaughan, Lord elect of Bangor, together with Dr. Tyndal, Dean of Ely, Dr. Whitacres, and the rest of the Divines which came from Cambridge, proposed the said Articles to their consideration, at his house in Lambeth, on the 10th of November A. D. 1595, by whom these Articles were agreed on in these following words:

1. God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life; certain men he hath reprobated.

2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination unto life, is not the foresight of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of any thing that is in the person predestinated, but only the good-will and pleasure of God.

3. There is predetermined a certain number of the predestinate, which can neither be augmented, nor diminished.

4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation, shall be necessarily damned for their sins.

5. A true living and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God justifying, is not extinguished, falleth not away, it vanisheth not away in the elect, either totally or finally.

6. A man truly faithful, that is, such a one who is endued with a justifying faith, is certain with the full assurance of faith, of the remission

of

of his sins, and of his everlasting salvation by Christ.

7. Saving grace is not given, is not granted; is not communicated to all men, by which they may be saved if they will.

8. No man can come unto Christ, unless it be given unto him, and unless the Father shall draw him; and all men are not drawn by the Father, that they may come to the Son.

9. It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved.

"Now in these Articles there are these two things to be considered, first, the authority by which they were made, and secondly, the effect produced by them in order to the end proposed. And first, as touching the authority by which they were made, it was so far from being legal and sufficient, that it was plainly none at all. For what authority could there be in so thin a meeting, consisting only of the Archbishop himself, two other Bishops, (of which but one had actually received consecration) one Dean, and half-a-dozen Doctors, and other Ministers, neither empowered to any such thing by the rest of the Clergy, nor authorized to it by the Queen. And therefore their determinations of no more authority, as to binding of the Church, or prescribing to the judgement of particular persons, than as if one Earl, 002

the