not affert juftification by faith only; and that the 17th does not teach everlafting, abfolute, gratuitous predeftination. How am I grieved to hear fuch gentlemen, as the writers of the Independent Whig, triumph over us in fuch ftrains as thefe! "At one time, predeftination is of high confequence, and made an article of faith, and all freewillers fhould be banished the land, or locked up in dungeons, like wild beafts; which was the judgments of the bishops, in James the Ift's days, concerning the Arminians. At a different feafon, when preferments ran high on the other fide, as in king Charles the Ift's reign, and ever fince; Arminianifm not only recovers credit but grows modifh, and, confequently, orthodox: whilft predeftination becomes an old fashioned piece of faith, and a fure fign of fanaticifm, and yet it continues one of the XXXIX Articles; and yet it must not * The fact afferted, is undoubtedly true; but there feems to be an anachronifm in affigning the date. I cannot find, that the bishops, in James the Firft's time, advifed the government to treat Arminians in this manner. It was in the reign of queen Elizabeth, that this counfel was offered by the bishops. The part of their advice, referred to, did, according to Strype, run verbatim as follows: Item, That incorrigible Arians, Pelagians or Free-will-men, be fent into fome one cattle, in North Wales, or Wallingford; and there to live of their own labour and exercise; and none other be fuffered to refort unto them, but their keepers: until they be found to repent their errors." Strype's Annals of the Reformation, &c. during the firit twelve years of Q. Eliz. chap. 17. p. 207. 1 do not quote this mortifying paragraph, from any approbation, I entertain, of the expedient recommended: for I abhor every thing that even looks like perfecution for principles merely religious. But I cannot help deducing two conclufions from this curious portion of our ecclefiaftical hiftory: ft. That free-will-men were confidered, by the Church of England, when in her purity, as fome of the most dangerous recufants fhe had to grapple with; elfe, fhe never would have advised the confining them in a remote prifon, and prohibiting them from the accefs of all perfons, their keepers only excepted. adly, That free-will-men, at that time, were very few in number: otherwife, one caftle, however fpacious, would not have been thought large enough to contain them. I heartily congratulate our prefent freewillers, on their living in an age of liberty. be be believed; and yet it must be figned and affented to with a fincere affent." [Ind. Wh. vol. ii, p. 9.] I am perfectly fhocked, that the fame writers fhould have any fhadow of ground for addreffing fome of our body in the following ftyle: "Is there one of you, that conforms to the genuine fenfe, or even to the words of the articles? Are not thofe articles Calvinistical? Were they not compofed by Calvinists? And are you not now, and have been long, Arminians? And do you not write and preach against [thofe] who defend predestination, which is one of your own articles? Will you fay that articles, will you fay that oaths, are to be taken in a fenfe different from the words, different from the meaning, of those who compofed them? If you do, then you maintain that Papifts, nay, Mahometans, may fubfcribe our Proteftant articles, and be ftill Mahometans and Papifts: and that Jacobites may take the ftate oaths, and be ftill Jacobites. What fubfcriptions, or declarations, or, indeed, what other ties, can bind men who-fubfcribe the direct contrary to what they believe? Subscribe the doctrines of Calvin, yet remain antagonifts to Calvin? Is this practice, this folemn affertion of a falfehood, for the honour of religion, or of churchmen? or is it not the direct method to harden men against truth and confcience, and to turn holy things into contempt ? yet you ftill go on to fubfcribe thofe articles; ftill to difbelieve and contradict them." [Ibid. vol. iii, P. 403, 404.] Object not, that thefe quotations are brought from men whofe attachment to our Church, and indeed to Christianity in general, was liable to fufpicion. I grant it was. Yet, Fas eft, et ab hofte doceri. And truth is truth, let it come from what quarter it will. The queftion ought not to be, "Were thefe men our enemies?" but, "Are these things fo?" If If they be, fuch writers as Dr. Nowell ought to turn their eyes inward, and recollect, that themfelves are the perfons, who give the friends of our excellent. Church reason to lament, and open the mouths of her enemies to blafpheme. But, if the expoftulations of the independent whig be repudiated, as coming from a fufpected quarter; permit me to remind you, fir, of three very remarkable paffages, the fame, in fubftance, with the preceding, though written by perfons of your own principles: I mean Dr. Heylin, bishopBurnet, and Dr. Waterland. The introducing them here, is, indeed, an anticipation, which reverfes, in fome measure, the plan I propofed at first fetting out but as I am on the fubject of Arminian fubfcription, I will difpatch it once for all. Dr. Peter Heylin, who was chaplain to archbishop Laud and king Charles the First, and was both a Laudæan and a Carolite in grain; an author, whom you closely follow, and whofe Quinquarticular History feems to have furnithed you with a confiderable part of that book you lately offered to the public; does, in that very history, Arminian as he was, exprefs himfelf thus: "The compofers of the articles of the Church of England had not fo little in them of the dove, or fo much of the ferpent, as to make the articles of the Church like an upright fhoe, which may be worn on either foot; or like to Theramenes' fhoe, as the adage hath it, fit for the foot of every man that was pleased to wear it. And therefore we may fay, of our firft reformers, in reference to the prefent book of articles, that thofe reverend and learned men intended not to deceive any, by ambiguous terms. The first reformers did not fo compofe the articles, as to leave any liberty to diffenting judgments; but did bind men to the literal and grammatical fenfe: they had not otherwife attained to the end they aimed at, which was ad tollendam opinionum diffentionem, & confenfum in verd religione fir mandum. mandum. i. e. To take away diverfity of opinions, and to establish an agreement in the true religion. Which end could never be effected, if men were left unto the liberty of diffenting, or might have leave to put their own fenfe upon the articles, as they lift themselves. For, where there is a purpose of permitting men to their own opinions, there is no need of definitions and determinations in a national Church: no more than is of making laws to bind the fubjects in an unfettled commonwealth, with an intent to leave them in their former liberty, either of keeping or not keeping them, as themselves beft pleased." [Hift. Quinq. part ii. chap. 8. fect. 12.] Bishop Burnet's teftimony is as follows: "I come, in the next place, to confider what the clergy are bound to by their fubfcriptions. The meaning of every fubfcription is to be taken from the defign of the impofer, and from the words of the fubfcription it felf. The title of the articles, bears, that they were agreed upon in convocation, for the avoiding of diverfities of opinions, and for the ftablishing confent touching true religion.' Where it is evident, that a confent in opinion is defigned. If we, in the next place, confider the declaration that the Church has made in the canons, that though, by the fifth canon, which relates to the whole body of the people, fuch only are declared to be excommunicated ipfo facio, who fhall affirm any of the articles to be erroneous, or fuch as he may not with a good confcience subscribe to; yet the thirty-fixth canon is exprefs for the clergy, requiring them to fubfcribe willingly and ex animo, and acknowledge all and every article to be agreeable to the word of God: upon which canon it is, that the form of the fubfcription runs in thofe words; which feem exprefsly to declare a man's own opinion, and not a bare confent to an article of peace, or an engagement to filence and fubmiffion. The ftatute of the 13th of queen Elizabeth, cap. 12. which gives the legal au thority thority to our requiring fubfcriptions in order to a man's being capable of a benefice; requires, that every clergyman fhould read the articles in the Church, and that with a declaration of his unfeigned affent to them. These things make it appear very plain, that the fubfcriptions of the clergy, must be confidered as a declaration of their own opinion, and not as a bare obligation to filence." [Introd. to Exp. of the Art. p. 9.] It Dr. Waterland fhall close the rear. In his Preface to his First Defence of fome Queries, page 4th, he informs his readers, that Dr. Clarke had lately published a fecond edition of his Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity; on which Waterland has this remark: "One thing I muft obferve for the Doctor [Clarke's] honour, that, in his new edition, he has left out these words of his former introduction. is plain, that every perfon may reafonably agree to fuch forms, whenever he can, in any fenfe at all, reconcile them with fcripture.' I hope, none, hereafter, will pretend to make use of the Doctor's authority, for fubfcribing to forms which they believe not according to the true and proper fenfe of the words, and the known intent of the impofers and compilers. Such prevarication is in itfelf a bad thing, and would, in time, have a very ill influence on the morals of a nation*. If either ftate oaths, on one hand, or Church fubfcriptions, on the other, once come to be made light of, and fubtilties be invented to defend or palliate fuch grofs infincerity, we may bid farewel to principles, and religion will be little elfe but difguifed Atheism."Awful, pertinent, ftriking words! Happy would it have been, had Heylin, Burnet, and Waterland but ftood throughout to their own principles ! Inftead of which, each of the learned triumvirate openly dif * We have lived to fee this prediction of Dr. Waterland's too well fulfilled. avowed,' |