framed our Articles after the model of Geneva, because they professed to set forth in them not their own view of Christianity, but that exemplified in Scripture as interpreted by the fathers of the first three centuries, in whom nothing like Calvinism will be found; yet no conclusion is less" liable to exception than the one opposite to this, deducible from the converse of this propo- . sition: for Calvinian articles could never be

produced by those who were not themselves Calvinists.

Mr. Overton, indeed, the great champion of Calvinism in this our Church's day of rebuke,does not scruple to allow himself in a little contradiction for the promotion of the good old cause, though at one time he endeavours to wrest the authority of our Reformers to his purpose, yetatanother rejects, it as if they were scarce sufficiently purified from the leaven of popery, and discovers at all times his inclination to remove his foundation from them to the resettlers of our Church after Queen Mary's persecution, and thus to throw into the back ground, as a matter of not much moment, what were their sentiments upon the disputed points. But as Dr. Heylin well re

marks, marks," the five articles touching the doctrine of the Church in those points were left by these resettlers in the same state in which they found them, and being so left are to be taken in the same sense in which they had been understood at the first making of them.” So that this shifting

. of his ground serves Mr. Overton's purpose notat all. The station he has deserted is that in which he must make his stand. Our REFORMERS must be his chief corner stone; he must shew them to have been Calvinists, or the mighty fabric he has reared must totter to its foundations; and in vain will he attempt this, until he has invalidated every particular of that vast body of evidence collected by Dr. Winchester; a work in which it is not apprehended he will have the hardihood to engage, particularly as the learned Dr. Whitaker, that zealous champion of Calvinism in Queen Elizabeth's reign, most explicitly acknowledges in a letter to Archbishop Whitgift, that the points, meaning the Calvinistic points which then began to be so warmly debated at Cambridge,

were not concluded and defined by public authority. Strype's Life of Archbishop Whitgift, App. B. 4. P.199. b

With, With these remarks, designed to arrest and fix the attention of the public on the question investigated in the following Treatise, the Editors conclude, referring their readers to the Biographical Preface for some account of the author, and of his motive for engaging in the work; for which their best acknowledgments are due to the Rev. R. Churton, who obligingly drew

at their request, this interesting memorial, and supplied them moreover with Dr. Winchester's own emendations of the text, by which this edition is corrected.

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE.

THE
HE best introduction, perhaps, to the fol-

lowing Tract, will be a short account of the author. He was born at Farringdon, in the county of Berks, his father being a reputable surgeon of that place. He had an elder brother, John, who was an eminent surgeon in Norfolkstreet, London; but on the accession of a considerable estate in Kent, bequeathed to him for life, he declined business ;.and died, aged 72, at Nethersole. House, near Canterbury, in July 1781.* The younger brother, Thomas, was educated at Magdalen college, Oxford, as a chorister and demy; proceeded M. A. Jan. 14, 1735-6; B. D. Dec. 16, 1747 ; D. D. July 4, 1749. In July 1747 he was elected fellow, having been for some years before, as he was afterwards, a considerable tutor in the college; where, among others, the ingenious Mr. Lovibond was one of his pu. pils. In 1761 he resigned his fellowship, having

a

) been presented by the society to the rectory of Appleton, Berks, at a small distance from his native place; and in the same year, June 10, he married Lucretia Townson, sister of Thomas Townson, rector of Malpas, Cheshire, who had also been fellow of Magdalen college. She died at Appleton, greatly esteemed and lamented, Jan. 26, 1772. Five years afterwards, July 24, 1777, he married Jennett, widow of his fellowcollegian, Richard Lluellyn, B. D. and sister of Thomas Lewis, Esquire, of Frederick's Place, London, one of the Directors (1803) of the Bank of England,

The rude attack made upon the Church of England by the author of the Confessional, and, about the same time, by the author of Pietas Oxoniensis, could not be disregarded by one so steadily attached to that Church as Dr. Winchester; and his remarks on those productions, though he did not publish any thing on the occasion in his own name, were serviceable to his friends, and to the cause of truth. In Dr. Nowell's Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis, 2d edition, 1769, Dr. Winchester is the “

very judicious friend,” mentioned in the note, p. 106, as “ well acquainted with the several editions of the Bible and the occasions of them;" and he there shews, that the “ questions and answers concerning pre

destination,