monte jactant, ut, cum æterno consilio Deus "vel de salute, vel de interitu aliquid certi con"stituerit, indè latebram suis maleficijs et scele"ribus, et omnis generis perversitati quærant"et-in voluntatem Dei criminum suorum cul

pam conferunt"-and at length-" Duce dia"bolo, vel in desperationem præsentem abjici"untur præcipites; vel in solutam quandam, et "mollem vitæ securitatem, sine aut pænitentiâ, "aut scelerum conscientiâ dilabuntur." The same consequence from this doctrine is expressed, though less explicitly, in the article.

That our reformers intended to lay down a doctrine different from these fatalists, appears from the manner in which they express themselves." Nos verò sacris scripturis eruditi, ta"lem in hac re doctrinam ponimus, quod dili

gens et accurata cogitatio, de prædestinatione "et electione suscepta sit." Whereas the article begins with a definition of predestination expressed nearly in the words of scripture, (the compilers fearing, as Ridley says to Bradford, to speak farther, yea almost none otherwise then the very texte dothe, as it wer, lead them by the hand) the REFORMATIO, in the printed copies, has no definition of it. But that one was inserted in the original, and unfortunately left out at the press,› from the hurry perhaps in which it was printed

off against the meeting of Parliament in April, 1571, when it was offered to the Commons soon after they met, in order to its confirmation by the legislature: that such a definition was in the * original appears from the formal transition they make towards it in the words just now given,"Nos verò, &c."-the sentence breaks off abrupt ly with the word "SUSCEPTA," leaving the sense imperfect. The Editor of the second edition (1641) added SIT after SUSCEPTA, which by no means makes up the deficiency. The parenthesis immediately following expresses the same that the article does in the beginning of the definition, and the next sentence refers to what they had before defined." Hæc itaque diligens, et seria, quam diximus, his de rebus cogitatio."-It then goes on, somewhat more diffusely than the article, to mention the sweet consolation of their doctrine to persons rightly disposed, because it confirmed to them their faith of salvation through Christ; the many happy consequences to those who are in such a condition, and that purity of life it necessarily requires. Our reformers, at the same time they guard us against the popish doc

"We have as yet been disappointed in our researches af ter a MS. copy of the REFORMATIO. Archbishop Parker furnished Mr. Fox with two, from which he published the edition of 1571. The archbishop's MSS. have been consulted at Cambridge, but no copy remains in the collection.

trine of merit and the Pelagian self-sufficiency, lay down one different from these fatalists, whose notions of an absolute irrespective predestination had led them into such horrid conclusions as totally overturned all the pure precepts of the gospel.

Calvin (Institut. lib. iii. cap. 23. sect. 1. quoted above, p. 9.) makes election and reprobation correlates, so that one cannot subsist without the other; concluding thus," Quos

ergo Deus præterit, reprobat: neque aliâ de "causâ nisi quod ab hæreditate quam filijs suis "prædestinat, illos vult excludere." Now the XVIIth Article takes no notice of reprobation; in the REFORMATIO LEGUM our reformers state no doctrine concerning it, as they have done relating to election; but condemn it as pleaded by the Gospellers, whose opinion concerning the doctrine itself could not be stronger than what Calvin had taught.

IV.

UNDER THE FOURTH HEAD IT IS PROPOSED TO PRODUCE THE TESTIMONIES OF THE BISHOPS HOOPER AND LATIMER AGAINST THE RIGID DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPELLERS, AND THE ILL USE THEY TOO NATURALLY MADE OF IT. The first in his preface to his DECLARATION OF THE

TEN

TEN COMMANDMENTS, published 1549, profes sedly encounters their opinions, and answers their arguments.

He lays down "the cause of rejection, or dam"nation to be sinne in man, which will not heare, "neither receive the promise of the gospell, or "else after he hath received it, by accustomed

doing ill, falleth either into a contempt of the "gospell, and will not study to live thereafter,

66

or else hateth the gospell because it condemn"eth his ungodly lyfe, and would there were "neither God nor gospell to punish him for do"ing of ill. This sentence is true, howsoever "man judge of predestination. God is not the "cause of sinne, nor would not have man to ❝ sinne. THOU ART NOT THE GOD THAT WILLETH SIN. (Psal. v. 4.) And it is said,"THY PERDITION O ISRAEL IS OF THYSELF, "AND THY SUCCOR ONELIE OF ME. (Ose. xiii. " 9.)—The cause of our election is the mercy of "God in Christ. Howbeit, he that will be par"taker of this election, must receive the promise "in Christ by faith, for therefore we be elected, "because afterward we are made the members of "Christ. Therefore as in the justification or re"mission of sinne, there is a cause, though no dignitie at all, in the receiver of his justi"fication, and so we judge him by the scrip

"ture

"ture to be justified, and hath remission of his "sinne, because hee received the grace promised "in Christ. So we judge of election by the " event or successe that hapneth in the life of

66

man, those onlie to be elected, that by faith "apprehend the mercy promised in Christ, "otherwise we should not judge of election. "For Paule saith plainly. *THAT THEY THAT "6 BELIEVE BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DOTH TESTIFIE WITH OUR SPIRITS, THAT WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD, being "admonished therefore by scripture, we must "leave sinne, and doo the works commanded of

God, or els it is a carnal opinion, that we have "blinded ourselves withall, of fatall destinye, and

yet will not save us. And in case there fol"lowe not in our knowledge of Christ, amend❝ment of life, it is not lively fayth that wee have, but rather a vaine knowledge, and merę presumption. † John saith, No MAN COMETH "" TO ME, EXCEPT MY FATHER DRAW HIM, "Many men understand these words in a wrong sense, as though God required in a reasonable man no more than in a dead post, and mark"eth not the words that follow, EVERY MAN " THAT HEARETH AND LEARN ETH OF MY FA

* Rom. viii. 14, 16.

+ John vi. 44.

THER