clergy alone of the Catholic Apostolic Church. Against the Papist, however, our established clergy would repair to the impregnable fortress of the Scriptures, and say with Chillingworth, the Bible, the Bible is the religion of Protestants." On this appeal, his cause is safe: but he cannot exclusively take the whole advantage of it to himself.

In the present age, it is of no avail to endeavour to decide questions of religious controversy by the mere weight of Church Authority. Since the Reformation, men every where claim the privilege of examining for themselves, and of exercising the right of private judgment; and it becomes a matter of important consideration, whether those who exact too much are not as great enemies to Church Unity as these who are inclined to give too little. Liberty of conscience the sectary asserts, and he will examine how far the doctrines of the Church harmonize with his views of divine truth. We are of opinion, therefore, that Mr.-Nott, with all his ingenuity, will not in his mode of argumentation make any impression on the body of the Methodists. They will be displeased at the very high ground which he takes; will not thank him for his expressions of charity towards them on their having abandoned the ene Apostolic Church;' and will deem it hard that their scheme, as a schism, should be represented as having an immediate tendency to destroy the peace of civil society. Unity is certainly a most desirable object, for the preservation of which all Christians should be solicitous; and, as the natural operation of religious enthusiasm is to affix importance to points which comparatively are of very subordinate moment, the considerate part of mankind will resist the multiplication of distinct communions on frivolous pretexts: but still, while knowlege is diffused, and freedom of inquiry is exercised, a variety of opinions will necessarily prevail; and the only unity which is practicable. to any extent is the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

ART. VII. An Attempt to illustrate the Articles of the Church of England, which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical Eight Sermons preached before the University of Oxford in the Year 1804, at the Lecture founded by J. Bampton, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By Richard Lawrence, LL. D., of University College. Svo. PP. 460. 8s. Boards. Rivingtons.

WHEN

Mo-y.

7 HEN it is considered that our Reformers had just "escaped the Stygian pool" of scholastic theology, we shall be inclined to offer them no stinted measure of praise for the exertions which they made to restore a more rational and scrip

tural

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tural system of faith; and if the Christianity, at present generally professed, be not sufficiently christianized, not they but their successors must take the blame. To reduce the speculations of the schoolmen to the standard of the gospel was not an easy task; and to preserve perfect moderation in resisting the pernicious errors of Popery was scarcely to be expected. In compiling articles for a new church, our divines appear to have conducted themselves with great temper and liberality; but it was naturally impossible for them to extricate themselves from the leaven of existing controversy, and to rise absolutely superior to the spirit and complexion of the times. Their theology, though not woven in the same loom with that of the schools, was constructed of similar materials and partook of the same fashion; and therefore, in order to appreciate its merit as well as to understand its real object and tendency, it is requisite for us to look back to the writings of those authors who flourished at the reformation, and to trace the articles of the Church of England to their primitive sources. This investigation, however, is now become dry and uninteresting; it obliges us to peruse writings which are at present very little read even by the Clergy, and to familiarize ourselves with a species of metaphysics once in vogue, but now happily exploded. Dr. Lawrence has had patience and industry to dig in this neglected quarry; and those who are desirous of discovering the precise strata, on which the articles of our church were constructed, will derive information from his researches..

Several of our modern clergy have contended that the articles are calvinistic, and have assumed to themselves the appellation of " true Churchmen" on the ground of their espousing the system of Calvin: but the object of these pages is to prove, by a weight of evidence which can scarcely be resisted, that the creed of Luther and Melancthon was more respected by our reformers, than that which prevailed at Geneva; and that the repulsive tenets of Calvin and his disciples were cautiously excluded from our national formula. Dr. L. does not advert to the recent controversy on the true doctrine of the articles, nor to Dr. Kipling's excellent pamphlet (noticed by us M. R. Vol. 40. N. S. p. 433) which supports the same hypothesis that is maintained in these sermons. Dr. K. indeed took not so wide a range as the present preacher; contenting himself with shewing, by a comparison of the articles and liturgy with the writings of Calvin, that the former are not in accordance with the latter. A more laboured and more complete demonstration is here exhibited; Dr. Lawrence examines the writings of all the principal reformers on the continent; and by copious extracts from their works, (given in the form of notes at the end

of

of the volume) he shews to whom the compilers were not and to whom they were indebted. The correspondence observable between the language of the articles, and that which occurs in the compositions of Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, and particularly that which is employed in the Augsburgh and Wirtemberg Confessions, is adduced at length, to demonstrate their Lutheran origin.

The lecturer undertakes, 1st, to shew that the general principles of the reformation, from its commencement to the period of the composition of the articles, were of a Lutheran tendency; 2dly, that the same tendency is manifest in the articles. themselves, and is deducible from the history of their compilation; 3dly, he adverts to the doctrine of original sin, as maintained by the Scholastics, the Lutherans, and our own Reformers; 4thly, the tenet of the schools respecting merit de Congruo, and that of the Lutherans in opposition to it, are discussed; 5thly, the articles" of Free Will," and " of works before justification," are explained in connection with the controversy which existed at the time of their formation; 6thly, the doctrine of justification, according to the Scholastics, the Lutherans, and our church, is explained; 7thly, an outline is given of the Predestinarian system of the schools, with the subsequent amendments by Luther and Melancthon; and 8thly, the 17th article is considered in conformity with the sentiments of the latter, and elucidated by the Baptismal service.

In the first lecture, the preacher loudly complains that, interpreting the articles according to the modern meaning of certain expressions, and disregarding the characteristical "notions of the times in which they were first established, the Socinian and the Calvinist combine in giving them a sense which they were not originally intended to convey, and then accuse us (the Clergy) of departing from the creed of our ancestors, and of disbelieving that to which we have all subscribed.' To shew how unfounded this charge is with regard to our modern clergy, Dr. L. volunteers his services; and it must be confessed that he has spared no pains in order to render his defence complete. A large mass of evidence is produced in the notes, to prove the assertion in the text that our national faith was modelled after the Lutheran; and that, in the first compilation of the articles, many prominent passages were taken from the Augsburgh, and in the second from the Wirtemberg Confession *.

It

The first of our Articles was taken almost verbatim from the first of the Augsbourgh Confession.

1st Ar

It is maintained that, in the article of "original sin," no allusion to imputation in the Calvinistic sense is to be discovered; and the preacher reminds us that no actual condemnation is passed on the corruption of nature, but that it is mèrely stated to be deserving of it If this distinction be rather too nice for all palates, the following account of the object of the compilers is rational, though it will not please Mr. Wilberforce and some others:

Avoiding one extreme, they meant not to rush into another; and whatsoever use ignorant or enthusiastical men may have since made of any strong expressions which they adopted, offensive only when misapplied, they never intended so to degrade our nature, as if it were lest to every sense of moral excellence; they were alone desirous of educing its proud pretensions to the unadulterated standard of holy Scripture, to demonstrate that the Christian redemption is not use

1st Article.

Unus est vivus et verus Deus, æternus, incorporeus, impartibilis, impassibilis, immense potentiæ, sapientiæ, et bonitatis, creator et conservater omnium, tum visibilium, tum invisibilium. Et in unitate hujus divinæ naturæ tres sunt persona, ejusdem essentiæ, potentiæ, ac æternitatis, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.'

"Videlicet, quod sit una essentia divina, quæ et appellatur et est Deus, æternus, incorporeus, impartibilis, immensâ potentia, sapientiâ, et bonitate, creator et conservator omnium rerum, visibilium et invi. sibilium. Et tamen tres sunt personæ, ejusdem essentiæ et potentiæ, et coæternæ, Pater, Fillius, et Spiritus Sanctus.".

The Articles, either partly, or wholly, copied from the Wirtem-. berg Confession, are the 2d, 5th, 6th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 20th; which, indeed, contain the principal additions and elucidations upon doctrinal points, (that of the Eucharist alone excepted,) adopted at that period.'

In addition to these proofs of the intercourse of our Reformers with the Lutherans, a note is subjoined to prove their little acquaintance with Calvin:

So little known was the fame of Calvin in England about this period, that one of his works was translated and published in 1549, under the following title; "Of the Life and Conversation of a Christjan Man; a right godly treatise, written in the Latin tongue, by Master John Calvin, a man of right excellent learning, and of no less conversation." Ames's Topographical Antiquities, p. 620. ed. W. H. Does not this encomium prove, that his name, in consequence, if not of its obscurity, at least of its little celebrity, stood in need of some commendation? How differently is Luther's announced in the following work, of rather an earlier period (viz. about the year 1547)! "The Disclosing of the Canon of the Popish Mass. With a Sermon annexed of the famous Clerk of worthy memory, Dr. Martin Euther." See Strype's Eccles. Mem, vol. ii. P. 28.

less,

less nor grace promised us in vain. Neither were their efforts una. vailing. In proportion as the sacred Writings, to which they con stantly referred, became more read and better understood, the credit of the theological dictators of preceding ages was gradually diminished, until at length the fairy visions and phantastical speculations, with which a credulous world had been long amused, vanished before the splendour of Gospel day. So puerile indeed were some of these eccentric writers in their glosses upon the fall of man, and the transmission of its effects, that the Church of Rome herself began to grow ashamed of such folly; and to slight in one respect at least the authority of those, who had been her instructors for centuries.'

The popular doctrine of original sin, contemplated through Dr. L.'s gloss, is certainly less objectionable than with the comment of modern Calvinists: but, if the splendor of gospel day. were thrown on it, no gloss would reconcile us to its present wording.

The language of the articles " of Free Will" and " of Works before Justification" is said to refer to the efficacy which the Church of Rome attributed to mere external performances, and to be opposed to the doctrine which this church held respecting congruous merit, and the value of the meie opus ope

ratum.

Yet (continues the preacher) obvious as this appears to be, it has not unfrequently been overlooked or disregarded; and the word Justification been contemplated only in the sense, in which it is applied by the followers of Calvin. But our Reformers entertained no such idea of its application. They believed it not to be a blessing, which we may in vain sigh to behold above our reach, granted to certain individuals alone, and always granted irrespectively, by a divine decree, fixed and immutable; but one, which we all possess. in infancy, and of which nothing but our own folly can afterwards deprive us. They never asserted the total inability of a Christian to perform a good action, er even think a good thought, until the arrival of some destined moment, when it shall please God, without his own endeavours, to illuminate his understanding, and renovate his affections. The gift of grace, not to be purchased by human merit, but always bestowed gratuitously, they confined not to a selected few, the predestinated favourites of Heaven, but extended to all, who neither by wilful perversity oppose its reception, nor, when received, by actual crime discard it. On the present occasion, indeed, they simply regarded Works before Justification as those, which were more usu ally denominated works of Congruity, adopting perhaps the former terin in preference, because it was precisely that, which had been recently used in the same sense by the Council of Trent,'

The apology for the concluding words of the 13th article is more ingenious than satisfactory: viz. they (the compilers) never intended by the appellation" sinful" to erase a moral action from the catalogue of virtues, or to consider it as neiREV. MARCH, 1807.

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