ration of those principles, which terminated in the tragical death of that unfortunate Monarch, and the entire subversion, for a time, of our Civil and Ecclesiastical Constitution. Upon the return of Charles the Second, the use of the Liturgy, which had been many years laid aside, was restored, with some improvements and additions by no means of a Calvinistic tendency, and it has remained in that state to the present time. The clandestine attempt which was made by the Calvinists of Cambridge to procure some appearance of authority to their opinions by means of the Lambeth Articles towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, was noticed in the last Chapter; and in another Work (g) I have given an account of the more public attempts of the Calvinists against our Liturgy, and Articles, at the Hampton Court Conference, in the beginning of the reign of James the First; and again at the Savoy Conference, soon after the restoration of Charles the Second. These repeated attempts to introduce alterations, conformable to the principles of Calvin, into our Public Forinularies, incontestably prove, that they were not framed according to the system of that Reformer; and what passed upon those occasions plainly shews, that the body of the Clergy and Nation, was, at all those different periods, de

(g) Elements of Christ. Theol. vol. 2.

cidedly

cidedly Anti-Calvinistic. The early Calvinists of this country having thus failed in their endea vours to obtain a change in our Public Formularies, their more modern successors, despairing of altera-« tion, have adopted a different mode of proceeding, and have boldly contended that the Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies, are already Calvinistic, and adinit of no other interpretation (h). That this is a groundless assertion, I have, I flatter myself, sufficiently proved in the former part of this Volume,

In confirmation of this Historical detail, which may be considered as a sort of external evidence of the Anti-Calvinism of our Church, and in addition to the internal positive proofs to the same purpose, which have been adduced in the first four Chapters of this Work, it may be proper to remark a circumstance of a negative kind, which seems to deserve attention, and to carry great weight with it: There is not in any part of our Book of Common Prayer, or in our Articles, a single expression which can fairly be interpreted as asserting or recognizing any one of the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism. Redemption is never de

clared

(h) On the other hand, our Articles are sometimes called Arminian; which is manifestly absurd, as they were drawn up in their present form in 1562, and Arminius was born in 1560. The same observation will apply to our Liturgy and Homilies.

clared to be irrespectively partial; Human cooperation is never excluded where the influence of the Spirit is mentioned; Divine grace is never considered as irresistible or indefectible; Good Works are never represented as unnecessary to Salvation; Sudden conversions and sensible ope rations of the Spirit are no where acknowledged. These assertions, being of a negative nature, admit not of regular proof; but it has been shewn, that doctrines opposite to those just mentioned, are contained both in our Liturgy and Articles; and therefore, if we admit that our Liturgy and Articles are consistent with themselves and with each other, the truth of these assertions necessarily follows. It is scarcely possible to imagine, that Calvinists would draw up a set of Prayers to be daily used in the Church, together with the form of administering the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, a Catechism for the instruction of Youth, an Order for Confirmation, for the Visitation of the Sick, for the Burial of the Dead, and all other offices relating to Christian worship, in which the subjects of Grace, Faith, Good Works, and Redemption, must of necessity frequently occur, without once unequivocally declaring or indicating their sentiments upon any one of those points; and I call upon the supporters of Calvinism to produce a passage from

from our Common Prayer Book, the plain and obvious sense of which is decidedly Calvinistic.

This negative argument is still stronger with respect to the Homilies, to which so confident an appeal has lately been made by certain writers, that I request the particular attention of my readers to the facts which I am going to state. Not one of the peculiar doctrines of Calvin is mentioned in either of the two Books of Homilies: the word Predestination does not occur from the beginning to the end of the Homilies; the word Election occurs upon one occasion only (i), and then it is used in its true Scriptural signification, a signification very different from that in which it is used by Calvinists; the word Reprobation does not occur at all; nothing is said of absolute decrees, partial redemption, perseverance, or irresistible grace. The former of these books was published in the reign of Edward the Sixth, and the latter in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and both are pronounced by our 35th Article, to "contain a "contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times;" that is, for the times in which they were published. If our great Reformers, the authors of these Homilies, Cranmer,

(i) "Let us by such virtues as ought to spring out of faith, shew our election to be sure and stable; as St. Peter teacheth, endeavour yourselves to make your calling and election certain by good works." p. 36.

Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Jewell, had themselves, as is sometimes pretended, held Calvinistic opinions, is it to be believed that they would have composed a set of Sermons, to be used by the Parochial Clergy in their respective churches, for the avowed purpose of establishing their congregations in a sound faith and a right practice, without even mentioning in them any one of these points? And let it be remembered, that the subjects of many of the Homilies are immediately connected with the Calvinistic system, such as, Original sin, the Salvation of mankind, Faith, Good works, Declining from God, the Nativity, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Grace of God, and Repentance.

But though the Homilies contain neither any discussion in support of the Calvinistic doctrines, nor any direct refutation of them, there is a great number of incidental passages, as we have seen, which plainly shew, that the authors were not Calvinists. The little notice taken of these points, -and the uncontroversial manner in which when noticed they are mentioned, prove, that when the Homilies were written and published, Calvinistic opinions had made very little progress in England. For, if they had been generally prevalent, or even if they had been embraced by any considerable number of persons, the framers of the Homilies

would