But the Christian, to whom much has been forgiven, will love much. In him the remembrance of the Garden of Gethsemane, and of mount Calvary, will create motives of action, and invigorate them with an energy that will rise as much superior to those of selfishness, as the heavens rise above the earth. Mount Sinai, with its blackness, and thunder, and tempest, has every thing to blast, but nothing to fertilize, or to water the parched shrubs that cling to its thirsty soil. Like mount Gilboa, it gives no rain, or dew, or fields of offerings. It is on the hills of Zion alone that the dews of Hermon fall, and it is there that God commands the blessing, even life for evermore.

ARTICLE XVII.-OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION.

nour.

"Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his council, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to hoWherefore they which be indued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose, by his Spirit working in due season. They through grace obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

"As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in them

'selves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God so for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most dangerous downfal, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.

Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture; and, in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us, in the word of God."

Never was beleagured city attacked and defended with greater obstinacy, than the intent of this Article. The Calvinists of the Church have considered it as the firm bulwark of their cause, and as presenting an impregnable front to all the artillery of their enemies. The Arminians have also taken up their post in it, and thought themselves sufficiently safe in its intrenchments to hoist the flag of defiance, and even to attack their opponents. Thus, all the war between these two parties has been transferred to this, as the citadel where the last battle is to be fought, and conquest, or defeat, to crown or to disgrace, the victors and the vanquished. It has occurred to a few, and but to a few, that by a friendly compromise, they might meet on common ground; and so far adjust their opposite claims, as to give and take mutual quarter. This observation, however, can apply only to those who

are equally the friends of Evangelical Religion. Those who in their sentiments are directly at issue on the interpretation of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth Articles, cannot find a spot of undebateable ground, in the whole compass of this Article.

The Calvinists have attempted to prove, and certainly have succeeded in proving, that the private sentiments of those who compiled the Articles, were so far Calvinistic, as decidedly to embrace the doctrine of Absolute Election, and its necessary consequence, the doctrine of Final Perseverance. To those who are conversant with the writings of the most distinguished Divines (with the exception of Latimer) of the Church of England, from the reign of Edward down to that of James, no other proof is necesgary to convince them of the fact. Those who have not attained to an extensive acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers and founders of the English Church, may obtain much satisfaction from the celebrated work of Mr. Overton, "The True Churchman ascertained." In the second Section of the second Chapter of that work, Mr. Overton has produced the testimonies of Hume, Mosheim, the Editors of the New Annual Register, the Critical Reviewers, Dr. Robertson, Bishop Burnet, and of Drs. Maclaine, Wilson, Smollet, &c. none of whom were Calvinists themselves, but barely relate the matter on their credit, as critics, or historians. To the testimony of the opponents of Calvinism, he adds that of its friends, of Davenant, Carleton, Hall, Ward, Usher, and Whitaker, who, he adds, "both held these sentiments themselves, and are unanimous in declaring that they were the common sentiments of the founders of our Church." Dr. Heylin, a celebrated Arminian, and by no means an impartial wri ter, acknowledges that in the Reformers of the English

Church there was a general tendency to Calvin's opini ons, and confesses that he could find no evidence that any one had publicly opposed these sentiments in the University of Oxford, till after the beginning of King James's reign. He even admits that during Charles the First's reign, the maintainers of the Anti-Calvinistic doetrines were but few in number, and in the History of the Church make but a very thin appearance,—

Mr. Overton quotes to the same purpose, the testimony of Bishop Cleaver, and of Mr. Gray.

Of the chain of evidence that the private sentiments of the English reformers were generally, what are now called Calvinistic, the Lambeth Articles, though of no public authority, constitute a strong link. In the year 1595, Lady Margaret's Professor, and William Barratt, fellow of Gonvill and Caius' College, in the University of Cambridge, openly preached and inveighed against the doctrines of Calvin. Articles were drawn up at Lambeth, under the eye and direction of Archbishop Whitgift, with the concurrence of some other dignitaries of the Church, and were sent down to Cambridge to be the standard of doctrine in that University. Those Articles, which are Calvinistic in a very high degree, did not advance a claim to any new imposition on the minds of those to whom they were directed. They claimed only to be a genuine exposition of the doctrines of the Church. Now, though the comment went far beyond the text, it is self-evident, that no men in their right senses would ever have attempted to force the reception of them upon an individual, much less upon a whole University, had it not

been generally allowed that the seventeenth Article of the Church was, to a certain degree, Calvinistic.-There are various parts, however, of the system of Calvin which are not admitted into the Article, as Mr. Archdeacon Welshman, and almost all others who have commented on it, observe. It makes no mention whatever of Reprobation, or of Preterition, which in Calvin's system, as Mr.. Scott confesses, occupies as prominent a place, and em-ploys as much discussion, as Election. It does not represent the fall of man as the consequence of a Divine decree. It does not confine the Redemption by the death of Christ to the Elect, but extends it to all mankind.

But if the compilers of the Articles believed in the doctrine of Absolute Election, and if they meant to express that doctrine by the seventeenth Article, as it seems: highly reasonable from their well known sentiments to suppose they did, how can those who reject that doctrine, consistently with integrity sign the Article? The Articles, it must be observed, must be signed in their literal meaning, and if the compilers of this Article have left it ambiguous whether the election they adopt, be absolute or conditional, Anti-Calvinists think that they may fairly avail themselves of the latitude which that ambiguity gives it." It is not to be denied," says Bishop Burnet in his Exposition of the Article, "but that the Article seems to be: framed according to St. Austin's doctrine. It supposes: men to be under a curse and damnation, antecedently to Predestination, from which they are delivered by it: so Nor it is directly against the Supralapsarian doctrine. does the Article make any mention of Reprobation, no, not in a hint: no definition is made concerning it. The Article does also seem to assert the efficacy of grace. That in which the whole knot of the difficulty lies, is