they might be an ornament to themselves and their country. It would require greater felicity of style and argument than these essays possess to invite our criticism to them: but we trust that the parties immediately concerned in the subject will not want such inducements to their duty; but be pleased on easier terms with a cheerful communicative writer who will give them abundance of anecdote, and mingle many good stories with his advice.

ART. XI. A Refutation of Calvinism, in which the Doctrines of Original Sin, Grace, Regeneration, Justification, and Universal Redemption, are explained; and the peculiar Tenets maintained by Calvin on those points are proved to be contrary to Scripture, to the Writings of the Antient Fathers of the Christian Church, and to the public formularies of the Church of England. By G. Tomline, D. D. F. R. S. Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and Dean of St. Paul's. London. Cadell and Davies. 1811.

FEW persons can be much conversant in theological controversy,

without frequently regretting, that discussions should have been started on many subjects decidedly above the grasp of human intellect. The Bible is a plain book, which all may understand with ease. The points of necessary belief there laid dowu, are few and simple, and the path of duty is so strait that none can miss it. Why then have Christians, in all ages, been so busily employed in tracing theological subtleties, and multiplying creeds and articles of faith? Why have they thought it necessary to stir up abstruse questions which have exasperated many bad passions, and generated many unhappy divisions, while they have been productive of no counterbalancing advantages, and have diverted the attention from solid practical duties, to thorny and fruitless speculations? Why, too, have men of the most enlarged and liberal views, and the most exempt from bigotry, added fuel to the flames of controversy, and by taking part in these discussions, given them a degree of firmness and consistency which they could not have otherwise acquired?

To these questions an answer may be given, which is fully sufficient for the defence of at least the more sound, judicious, and temperate members of the christian community who have taken part in them. The subtleties of discussion have not begun with them but with heretics and schismatics, persons of disturbed imaginations, distorted understandings, or over-weening fondness for novelty of opinion. They find perplexing disquisitions already started, nice distinctions and explanations already attempted by others. In these circumstances, it remains no longer to be considered, whether for

bearance

bearance on such subjects, be or be not generally desirable. It becomes matter of imperious necessity, to prevent corruption of faith, to pursue subtlety through its various windings, to assert truth as specifically as others have asserted error, and to oppose to every article supporting a wrong opinion, another maintaining what appears to be a right one.

Much less objection would have been started against the Athanasian creed, if the circumstances which occasioned the several expressions in it had been duly considered. This creed, it may be safely allowed, has apparently the fault which has been charged upon it, of attempting to define with accuracy, and to reduce within the compass of language, matters which are confessedly placed beyond the range of human intellect, and not to be expressed by any terms of human invention. This fault, however, did not arise from the intention of those who framed it. They were called upon to guard against the erroneous opinions of different heretics, who had introduced, on the subjects of the Trinity and the Incarnation, various subtleties of explanation, tending in fact to degrade religion, and to sanction positions inconsistent with just views of revelation. In these circumstances, it was necessary to multiply articles for the purpose of meeting heresy at every point; and to make various affirmations of truth, not so much for the purpose of defining what men ought, as of excluding what they ought not, to believe.

The case is similar, in regard to those theological points on which our church is at issue with the maintainers of Calvinistic tenets at the present day. Fixed fate, free will, fore knowledge absolute,' are subjects which might involve in mazes of endless per-plexity, beings far superior to man. Nor are discussions on these abstruse matters, at all necessary to guide the faith, or regulate the practice of the christian world. The general view of the condition of man, his relation to God, and his redemption by the son of God, afforded in every page of the Bible, is amply sufficient for his knowledge and guidance. He is there described as a corrupt and fallen creature, subject to the wrath of God by the depravation of his nature, but redeemed from the consequences of that wrath by the death of Christ. He is universally spoken of as enabled to choose between good and evil; and applications are addressed to his hopes and fears, which would be useless and unmeaning, if he were not an accountable being. The means of salvation are placed within the reach of all who are disposed to embrace them; the assistance of the holy spirit does not extinguish human endeavours, but suggests and supports them;-the deity foreknows all contingencies, and overrules human affairs by his providence, yet leaves a free agency to his creatures :-these truths, openly declared or indirectly inferred from every part of Holy Writ, may, in a general view, be main

tained and believed, without involving any difficulties, and without requiring any stretch of understanding. Happy would it have been, if men had agreed to receive those points on the authority of scripture, and never sought to define the limits of human freedom and divine prescience; to ascertain precisely what power of doing good remains to unassisted nature, in what proportions human efforts and divine grace co-operate to the same ends, or in what degree the influences of the spirit affect the human will! But when attempts are made to establish on this authority, that the eternal destinies of every individual are fixed by the absolute decrees of God, that some are elected to certain salvation, while others are left to unavoidable misery-that the spirit acts with such irresistible force as to supersede human endeavours-that some, whatever crimes they may commit, have internal assurances of salvation, while others, whatever be their endeavours to perform their duty, are placed under an impossibility of succeeding to the purposes of final salvation;-it surely becomes matter of imperious duty to inquire, whether doctrines so important to the hopes and fears of mankind, are or are not founded on just and correct views of genuine christianity.

The respectable prelate, whose work is now before us, has obeyed this call, and brought together a connected view of the grounds on which the several tenets professed by Calvinists rest. In doing this, he cannot incur the imputation of needlessly reviving a slumbering controversy; for the doctrines which he opposes are well known to be, at the present time, particularly prevalent: the press teems with publications for their support; and nothing is omitted which zeal and industry can effect, to obtain for them a more extensive credence. Nor, if these tenets be indeed founded on false views of christianity, is it unimportant that this should be fully proved; for they are confessedly pregnant with effects of great moment on the feelings and actions of mankind: causing the darkest despair to some, generating presumptuous confidence in others, and giving birth to a spirit of heated enthusiasm, which but ill consists with sound practical piety.

The foundation of Calvinism is the doctrine of absolute decrees; which implies that the Deity has from eternity, independently of all considerations of human merit or demerit, determined, in an arbitrary manner, to bring some individuals amongst mankind to certain happiness, and to leave others to inevitable misery: that those who are thus elected to salvation, are prevented from finally falling by irresistible influences of divine grace; and that those who are reprobated, are consigned to their own efforts, and left destitute of that help which might avail to save them from perdition. In necessary connexion with this doctrine, is that of partial redemption, by which is understood, that Christ died to redeem only the elect,

(those

(those who are predestined to salvation,) and that for the rest of mankind his blood purchased no atonement whatever.

To these, we may add the Calvinists' doctrine of Original Sin: namely, that by the fall of our first parents, man has become in his nature a mass of corruption, not only incapable of acquiring the least merit in the sight of God by his own endeavours, but even enhancing his guilt by his best actions and his purest affections. Thus every thing is to be effected by the influence of the spirit; an influence which, according to them, is felt sensibly, and being poured upon the elect at some period of their lives, produces in them a new birth,' a birth from a state of sin to a state of grace. Thus they are led to decry the efficacy of good works; and to uphold the necessity of spiritual influence, and the doctrine of justification by faith, to an extent which must, by a too obvious tendency, operate with bad effect on the morals of mankind. It is not to be understood, that all who favour Calvinistic opinions, maintain the whole of these doctrines in their fullest extent: persons of this persuasion frequently express themselves so vaguely and indefinitely, that it is difficult to seize their real meaning; often too, when pushed in argument, they recede from the profession of opinions, which, from their general language, they are supposed to hold. But the doctrines now mentioned, form, we believe, a correct general outline of the tenets which all Calvinists more or less maintain.

We must now descend a little into particulars, and follow the learned prelate, through the several heads of which he treats. In considering Calvinistic opinions, he had to prove, 1st, that they are entirely destitute of scriptural foundation; 2dly, that they are contradicted by the authority of the primitive church; and 3dly, that they are not maintained by the articles and liturgy of the church to which we belong. The main question of all is, whether these opinions have any real foundation in scripture. It is from scripture we derive all that we can know or believe in matters of religion; and by this test, every thing which regards our faith or our practice must be tried. But in pursuing the true sense of scripture, the opinions of the earliest members of the church are of great importance. Those persons, the more immediate successors of the apostles, had better means than later christians can have, of ascertaining the truth, and of making deductions from a right understanding of scriptural language. The proof, therefore, that particular opinions were or were not maintained in the primitive church, must always afford an important step in the proof that they are or are not grounded on scripture. The question, whether our articles and liturgy are to be understood in a Calvinistic sense, has nothing to do with the truth of Calvinistical opinions, except as it

concerns

concerns the private authority of our reformers: but it is a question of primary importance in its application to the members of our church. If it could be proved that its founders intended to maintain the doctrines of Calvin, the imputation of inconsistency would justly attach to us, for remaining members of a church of which we rejected the doctrines. And since many persons are sufficiently forward at the present day in asserting that the spirit of the articles and liturgy of the church is decidedly Calvinistic, and in representing, as false members, all who are not Calvinists, it is by no means matter of indifference, that the question should be brought to an issue and placed upon just grounds.

With these three points then in view, the learned prelate examines the doctrines of Calvinism. He proves severally, that they are not grounded on scripture, nor consistent with the articles and liturgy of our church. He afterwards proves collectively, by copious citations from the early fathers, that they are decidedly at variance with the opinions of those fathers; and again, that they remarkably coincide with the tenets of several heretics, who were uniformly condemned by the primitive church.

In considering Original Sin, the Bishop remarks that, although the mind of man was indisputably corrupted by the fall, yet, neither the holy scriptures nor experience warrant the Calvinists in their representation of it, as so thoroughly corrupted and depraved as to be under a physical impossibility of performing any duty, or. controling any evil passion. The moral sense was not annihilated; all feelings of the distinction between right and wrong were not eradicated; there remained some capacity of religious improvement, some power of advancing towards the favour of God, some disposi tions, and desires and affections which, variously exercised and cultivated, would produce varying degrees of virtue. This is the universal language of scripture. Many individuals are described. as just before God, in the Old Testament, as Enoch, Noah, Job. Many, again, of the Jews are represented as obtaining some favour in the sight of God. There are numerous texts of exhortation in the Old Testament, in which a degree of righteousness is acknowledged: but, in the New Testament, we collect, in the amplest manner, from the several discourses of our Saviour, that there are discriminations of moral character, and that men may, by their own endeavours, comply with certain obligations, moral and religious. Simeon, Zacharias, and others, are called righteous. We surely must understand from these expressions, that the natural corruption of human nature did not positively preclude all possibility of obtaining some portion of divine favour, by pious and moral conduct.

Again, in our Saviour's invitations to his earliest followers, and