the episcopal order: but under the full impression of that sentiment, we know not how even to extenuate such accusations as those before us, otherwise than by supposing a considerable inacquaintance with the objects of them, and adverting to the great misfortune attached to elevated stations of being obliged to see with other people's eyes, and hear with other people's ears. But to return to the subject more immediately before us. The identify. ing of faith and obedience appear to us the most unjustifiable violence, or rather contradiction, to the dec trine of justification, as stated in the epistle to the Romans, where it is properly to be sought, that could easily be invented. It supposes the apostle to be ignorant of the real nature of merit, and leaves, or ra ther establishes, the proudest ground of boasting. It appears to us, there fore, of importance to settle, if pos sible, this matter; and to shew that something more than the exclusion of perfect obedience, or of the ceremonial or Levitical observances, is intended by St. Paul, when he as is saved by faith and obedience." We verily believe that this is the first time that these propositions were held identical. In one view, they pretty accurately express the different doctrines, as they are ge nerally maintained, of being saved by works, being saved by faith, and being saved by both together. We shall give our opinion on this subject more at large, when we have noticed, in a cursory manner, the remaining part of the chapter which contains the personal application, "Certain preachers," are intro duced, p. 165, and doctrines are imputed to them, which we believe not an individual of the persons really intended, acknowledges. At p. 174 occurs the only name with which the work before us favours the reader out of the host of adversaries, against whom the zeal of the author sounds the trumpet of alarm: but he is himself a host Overton. (Without intending to vindicate or adopt (which every one knows we have not done) the whole contents of this writer's celebrated work, we think ourselves bound in justice and duty to say, that the senserts that justification is by faith, tences selected by his opponent are justifiable; and more especially the inference made respecting the teaching not only of Mr. Overton, but of the whole body of evangelical preachers so called, perfectly relieves, in our opinion, both him and them from the necessity of saying a single word in their own defence. Let our readers weigh the following words: "From these censures we might surely be authorised to conclude, that evangelical preachers do not inculcate a regular attendance upon divine ordinances, an uniform practice of religious precepts, repentance, good works, obedience to the moral law, holiness of living, abhorrence of vice, justice, mercy, and humility." pp. 175, 176. These persons will not consider themselves much flattered by the allowance which is soon after made in favour of their intentions. We wish to preserve respect to the dignity of without the deeds of the law. Not cially with this part of Scripture. The inference appears to be irresistible, that the moral law is that of which the apostle is uniformly speaking, and that, therefore, the works excluded from justifying are moral works, of whatever description or degree, perfect or imperfect *. That the argument in the Epistle to the Romans is not concerning Levitical performances, is confirmed, and luminously illustrated, by adverting to another epistle in which it is a principal argument: we mean the Epistle to the Hebrews. How different, at a glance, is the character of these two epistles! With respect to the distinction between a mere historical and a real faith, and the necessary connection of good works with the latter, we are happy in the concurrence of the Bishop of Lincoln with ourselves, and with the evident sense of the Twelfth Article of our church, and of the Homily entitled "A short Declaration of the true, lively, and Christian Faith," against many of the sons of the church, and particularly the Archdeacon of Sarum, whose inexcusable error respecting the homily ought never to be forgotten, till it is acknowledged. wise a correct notion of the distinction between grace, or favour, and works, the following passages of the same Epistle will as decisively determine, viz. iv. 16, and xi. 6. It only remains, then, to be decided, in what sense the apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans, uses the terms law, and works, or works of the law; and it will thence be clear, whether, by making faith and obedience synonimous, he could be guilty of the palpable oversight and self-contradiction, of resting man's justification on a ground the most meritorious, when he intended it to be the most humiliating. By the crimes charged on the heathens, in the first chapter, it is evident that the law by which they are condemned is the law of nature, as it is called, or the moral law. The law of Moses could not apply to them to this purpose. See likewise ii. 14, 15. In the second chapter, where the Jews are likewise con demned, their offences are stated to be, not against the ceremonial of their law, but against its moral code, theft, adultery, sacrilege. The general description which is given of the depravity of the whole world, the two great divisions jointly, and which proves it to be under sin, The three Articles on this subject and excluded thereby from the hope are the eleventh, the twelfth, and of justification by works, specifies the thirteenth; and we are contentmoral transgressions, and is expressed with the plain words, without a ed in terms derived from different single explanation. The homily parts of the Old Testament. In more particularly relating to justifi ch. v. 20, the entrance of the law cation, is that entitled A Sermon that sin might abound, is determined, of the Salvation of Mankind, by by the context, to refer exclusively only Christ our Saviour, from Sin and to moral transgressions. The whole Death everlasting." This is referred of the seventh chapter, from verse to in the Eleventh Article, under the seven to the end, can relate to moral title of the Homily of Justification. injunctions alone, and the eighth To be as sparing as we can in our verse particularly refers to the quotations, we read "justification is tenth commandment of the deca- not the office of man, but of God; logue: in verse twelve, the com- for man cannot make himself righmandment is said to be holy, and just, and good; and in verse fourteen, the law is affirmed to be spiritual. We have been as concise as possible in these references, presuming upon the general acquaintance of our readers, more espeCHRIS T. OBSERV. NO. 117. -- * See this subject most ably and satisfacborne's, on " Justification not attainable by torily discussed in a sermon of Mr. GisActs of Morality," in a volume, entitled «Sermons principally designed to illustrate and enforce Christian Morality," reviewed by us in our vol. for 1809. 4 H teous by his own works, neither in part nor in the whole," &c.-" The true understanding of this doctrine, We be justified freely by faith with out works, or that we be justified by faith in Christ only, is not, that this our own act, to believe in Christ, or this our faith in Christ which is within us, doth justify us, and deserve our justification unto us (for that were to count ourselves justified by some act or virtue that is within ourselves), but, that although we hear God's word, and believe it, although we have faith," &c. "yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues," &c. &c., “trust only in God's mercy, and that sacrifice which our High Priest," &c. "Chapter the Fourth. Of universal Redemption, Election, and Reprobation."We are sorry, that in the first of these articles there should be any disagreement among members of the church of England. Here this church is undoubtedly opposed to the doctrine of Calvin, as as Mr. Overton and others have pointed out. Concerning election, the Bishop has taken his ground on the merely corporate application of the term, as most popularly taught by Dr. Taylor;-for a view, and we think refutation, of whose scheme, the reader is referred to a course of papers in our volume for 1807. Our hearts really sickened at the prospect of a hundred and more pages on the subjects of this chapter; and, like a traveller condemned to pass a desert of the same number of miles, with a dry, withering, east-wind in his face, and no verdure to refresh his eye, we sunk at the thought of labouring through pages of polemics, enlivened by nothing of a practical, or even of a conciliatory, tendency, and with no direction but that of a guide whom, we think, 'we have reason to mistrust. In truth, the subjects here discussed are not to be confided to any mere partizan. The views of the person fit for the employment should be deeply laid, and well matured; they should be large and liberal. Such a person should, above all, so ar range his argument, as to put his reader in the capacity of an inde pendent judge. Scripture is so un. tractable to human systems, that, on many important points, it will appear to favour and oppose two adverse hypotheses; and he alone is likely to arrive at the truth, who is humbly sensible of this fact, and is content to know but in part, that is, as far as is revealed. On the darker subjects of revelation, be will not hastily say, These proposi tions are inconsistent, and, this is a necessary consequence of that; but he will inquire, Is it written, and what is its plain meaning? The Bishop of Lincoln has said, p. 226, that "the very idea of a covenant is inconsistent with the Calvinistic system." Is the Right Reverend writer ignorant of the work entitled "The Economy of the Covenants," by that amiable, holy, and candid Calvinist, Witsius? How widely must these two writers differ in their notion of the meaning of the word covenant! But are two or three sentences sufficient to determine, I am right and you are wrong? Bishop Tomline acknowledges the irrecon cileableness, to his comprehension, of the free agency of man with the prescience of God, p. 249: but he holds them both, because he sees " in them no contradiction to each other," p. 250. No contradiction, when irreconcileable!-But let us read his assertion, p. 252: "I re ject the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, not because it is incom prehensible, but because I think it irreconcileable with the justice and goodness of God."-Irreconcileable! This is a very trite subject; and every reader or thinker knows the geography (if we may so speak) of the whole question at a glance. It is truly a terra incognita, with boun daries which, excepting the few traced by inspiration, we all ought to know that we can never know in this world. With respect to the Seven See also the Westminster Catechism. teenth Article, which would, of We quote with pleasure the fol- We shall have a future occasion of alluding to this passage. On chapter the Fifth, containing "quotations from the ancient fathers of the Christian church, in chronological order, for the purpose of proving that they maintained doctrines in direct opposition to the peculiar tenets of Calvinism," we shall satisfy ourselves with a few general reflections. We confess we have not leisure at present to follow the Right Reverend author through nearly seventy folio volumes (Pref. p. v.); although those who know how volumes of the fathers are generally edited, and the facilities of reference with which they are accompanied, will be less terrified than the generality at such an array. In the first place, then, we observe, that the author, of course, is the judge of what is in direct opposition to Calvinism; and from some of the quotations al leged we must say, that he is not a judge that satisfies us. For we have * little doubt, that many of the pro positions adduced, would, without hesitation, be affirmed both by Calvin and his followers. Again, we contend that the testimonies of the fathers are to be applied to modern controversies with much caution and qualification. It is a very ra tional observation of Augustine somewhere, that the ancients im proved in the accuracy of their creed, in the time and order in which different orthodox doctrines were attacked. The diversity of the adversaries and errors. which the primitive Christians had to contend with, from those which bave agitated modern times, render their testimony perhaps irrelevant. And it deserves peculiarly to be noticed, that, at the commencement of Christianity, and for some time after, the doctrine of fatalism was held and professed by the heathen philoso phers, and by heretical Christians, (a doctrine which wilful injustice alone can impute to Calvinism); and that, in the zeal to oppose this doctrine, and particularly its inju rious consequences, the freedom and power of the human mind were likely to be injudiciously asserted. The aulaario of the fathers, and their reasonings, may often be explained on this supposition. Upon the whole, had the extended collection of ecclesiastical quotations embraced both sides-that is, the entire of the subjects which they concern-it would, we think, have been a va, luable present to the world. As. it is, we have only to regret the necessity of adding the caution, "audi alteram partem," and to refer our readers to a collection of an opposite tendency, subjoined to the "Corpus Confessionum Ecc. Ref.," particularly the sixth article, " De libero Arbitrio," and in it more particularly the quotations from Tertullian, Cyprian, and Ambrose. The next chapter of quotations, "for the purpose of proving that the earliest heretics maintained opinions greatly resembling the peculiar tenets of Calvinism," is, we think. to " " as unfortunate as any in the book. The expression greatly resem bling," at once exposes the fallacy and unfairness which might be ex pected. Who knows not, what a promptuary of sophistical reasoning is resemblance? In the first quotation from Irenæus, concerning the Valentinians, these heretics are said 'affirm that they themselves shall be entirely and completely saved, not by their conduct, but be cause they are spiritual by nature." Spiritual by nature! resembling a peculiar tenet of Calvinism, one of whose peculiar tenets is affirmed to be, and is, that all men are by nature, their present nature, corrupt! Again: "They say that some are by nature good, and some by nature bad," P. 514. An equal resemblance! and, indeed, as accurate a resemblance to our own church. But it will be asserted, that by nature is here intended an absolute fatality, the very thing which we urged on the preceding chapter; and this, Calvinists, if they may be heard, steadily dislaim. We think that this popular mode of exciting odium against a party ought not to have been sanctioned by episcopal authority. The following chapter consists of quotations from the works of Calvin. If this chapter had stood at the head of the work, and been used as a criterion to determine who are, and who are not, Calvinists, it would have answered an useful purpose, not only in saving much trouble both to writer and reader, but more importantly in relieving many respectable individuals from unmerited obloquy. We are little concerned with the peculiarities of Calvinism, except as we wish justice to be done to every sect, and every founder of a sect. And when the Bishop of Lincoln turns Calvin's expression, horribile decretum, respecting the doctrine of reprobation (a doctrine for which we certainly have no particular predilection), against him, we think it proper to suggest, that the word horribile pro perly signifies no more than, awful; or solemn. Certainly the doctrine of everlasting punishment would bear the application of the same epithet with nearly equal propriety. But we proceed in our notice of the note which contains the objection (p. 541), because it likewise con tains the important admission, which we wish our readers to bear in mind: "And yet it must be acknowledged, that Calvin was a man of piety, and of considerable talent and attainment." It appears, from p. 569, that the Bishop of Lincoln adopts the machi nery of Dr. Kipling respecting Cal vinism. We must trust to our past labours and our indexes, on the one hand, and to professed answerers of the Refutation to come, on the other, for what we otherwise might have been tempted to add on this most hopeless and ungrateful subject *. The last chapter, "containing a brief historical Account of what are now called Calvinistic Doctrines," is entitled to little of the praise of im partiality. The unqualified deference to the authority of Peter Heylin is to us a decisive proof to the point. It is remarkable, that an eminently learn ed predecessor of the author in the see of Lincoln, we mean Bishop Barlow, should have characterised the works of this historian as "Peter Hey lin's angry, and (to our church and truth) scandalous writings." Remains, p. 181. This witness is true, A more bigoted, incompetent, secular, and half-papistical writer, we can hardly name in the list of his torians. The conclusion which the Bishop of Lincoln draws, "Such were the origin and progress of what are now called Calvinistic opinions, from the days of the apostles to the æra of the Reformation,-from Simon Magus to the Reformer of Geneva," We have the vanity to believe, that an answer by anticipation, to many parts of the Bishop's book, may be found in our review of Daubeny's Vindiciae Ecclesiæ Anglicane, in our vol. for 1804. This Review may be had in a separate pamphlet, entitled "A candid Examination of Mr. Daubeny's Vindiciæ," &c. and printed for Hatchard. |