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In taking our leave of the Liturgy, we cannot but regret that it has fallen to our lot to be compelled to violate, in some measure, its holy peacefulness, by involving it in the contentious tumult inseparable from the upholding of contradictory opinions. We fear that the benefits derived to the Church, from the ministerial labours of the Author of the Inquiry, will but ill compensate for the withdrawing of the minds of her children from the purifying influences of her services, to the contemplation of the patronage they afford to contested doctrines. How much more delightful a duty would it be, to exhibit her as the steward of God's mysteries,' opening the stores of his wisdom, and dispensing their treasures, satisfying those who hunger after righteousness with bread, and those who are athirst with pure water. How much more edifying to shew her warning the wicked, comforting the penitent, and animating those who are working out their salvation,' to constancy and perseverance. How much more beneficial to point out how her offices meet the general wants. For, in her Liturgy, what is it we should look for, that we cannot have ? teaches us how we should be humble with our God; she instructs us how we should be comely in our praise; and she informs us how we should acceptably approach the Throne of Grace. Is there any evil which can assault the soul, or any harm which can reach the body, be it present or future, that she doth not acquaint us, both how we should think of it, and in what manner we should speak of it? And in the administration of these great benefits, she has supplied milk for the babes,' while she is procuring meat' for the strong; for all the parts of her service are linked together in so easy and dependent a manner, that they naturally conduct all, the unlearned as well as the learned, into a

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sympathy of pious sentiments, if they have spiritualized dispositions to feel them; and at the same time give an inexpressible pleasure to those of judicious minds, while they perceive and feel this harmony: Humiliation, Praise, the Word of God, Hymns, Confessions of Faith, and Prayer, succeeding to one another, in a rational and instructive order. Charged with this duty, we should hail the eloquence of the Author of the Inquiry, employed in so sacred a cause. We should greet it as a well-directed effort to inspire the careless with a sense of the comfort of devotion; we should follow him with emotion as he delineated this comfort, thought mounting upon thought, till the whole heart swelled with pious gratitude, and the tongue sought for utterance; we would rejoice in the prospect that it opened of convincing the lukewarm that there is a holy joy in worship' which they have yet to feel ;-in rousing the worldling to learn, from the lesson of experience, that, in pursuing sensual gratifications, he has rendered the soul unfeeling to these spiritual delights, and unfairly cheated her of her best, her most natural, most exquisite, and alone lasting enjoyments.

CHAPTER III.

The prevalence of the doctrine of Absolute Decrees in England is to be attributed, not to an unbiassed Investigation of their Merits, but so essentially to the sole Authority of Calvin, that the credit which is apparently derived upon the doctrine, from its general reception during the Reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, should not enhance its title to acceptance.

IT will be in our Readers' recollection, that we declined the private sentiments of the Revisers of the Articles and Liturgy in 1562, as the Interpreters of the public doctrines of our Church :with what justice they have already had some opportunity of judging. Had we no other plea, it were sufficient to observe, that they were the Revisers, and not the Compilers of the Articles; and it is most evident, that an Article could not have received a new sense by merely passing their review, when it underwent no alteration that could. affect its signification. The 17th Article stands now precisely as it did in the Reign of Edward the Sixth, with the exception of reading-"Chosen in Christ out of mankind," for-" Chosen out of mankind"-" Sons of God by adoption," for "Sons of adoption"—"The image of his only.

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begotten," for "the image of the only begotten," and expunging in the last clause, though the decrees of Predestination be unknown to us yet;"(a) probably because this member was thought to be a tautology," secret unto us," having represented it in the first clause.-Manifest it is, therefore, that our liberty remains as unaffected by that Review as if it never had taken place, and, that all considerations of it, and of the Divines who were engaged in it, might, so far as the point at issue is concerned, be passed over without remark. It is due, however, to the interests of truth, and to the received opinion of the most distinguished Doctors of our Church, since the Synod of Dort, to examine what degree of influence the names of our Divines, at the period of the Revision of the Articles and Liturgy, are entitled to have in stamping validity on the doctrine of Absolute Decrees. If it can be shewn that the dazzling effulgence which these Authors shed round this doctrine, is like the concentration of light reflected upon a substance naturally opaque, from mirrors disposed at different angles round a luminous body-then, though the collected flood of light may have, at first, deceivedthe eye into mistaking each reflection for an independent irradiation, yet sober examination will trace the effect to the emanation of a solitary lamp.

Calvin was that lamp. From him this doctrine was diffused. The energy of his character, his zeal for the Reformed religion, his talents, his writings, the reputation of his name, the celebrity of the Academy of Geneva, and the circumstances of the times, all contribute to constitute him that. centre, round which most of our Divines of the age of Elizabeth ranged themselves. Should we

(a) Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England, Part ii. Book 1. Records, No. 55.

succeed in establishing this fact upon unquestionable evidence, the authorities of that age, which are quoted in the second part of the Inquiry, will be equipollent to no more than the mere authority of Calvin.(b)

About the time that Luther raised his voice against Tetzel in Germany, Zuinglius, another Father of the Reformation, opposed with no less zeal a similar iniquitous traffic of Indulgences by Samson in Switzerland. (c) Zuinglius's biblical researches, under the direction of that good Spirit through whom the Scriptures were indited, conducted him to the same solemn conviction of the corruptions of the Roman Church, that Luther, under the same guidance, and a similar pursuit of truth, also entertained. No interchange of sentiments had produced a corresponding similarity of opinion; no communication of designs had excited this simultaneous opposition to the Papal See.(d)

At this period, A. D. 1519, Calvin, a native of Noyon in Picardy, had scarcely attained his tenth year. He was not, however, debtor to their writings for those deep convictions of the Papal corruptions, with which, when but the pupil of Corderius, his mind was impressed. The study of the same sacred Scriptures," which are able to make us wise unto salvation," was rewarded to him by the same decided convictions of the errors and corruptions of the Roman Church, (e) that it was

(b) "Though ten persons be brought to give testimony in any cause, yet, if the knowledge they have of the thing whereunto they come as witnesses, appear to have grown from some one amongst them, and to have spread itself from hand to hand, they all are in force but as one testimony."-Pref. to Ecclés. Polity.

(c) Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. Cent. xvi. Sect. 1. c. ii. § xii, (d) Ibid. Maclaine's Notes, (K) & (L)

(e) Preface to Eccles. Polity.

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