cluding principles retaliated on their own heads. We trust that they may continue unquestioned, to entertain such opinions on these subjects as their consciences shall approve; but then, let them reflect, that it is only a private indulgence that is compatible with either the orders of the Church, or the peace of society. They transgress both, when they make the pulpit covertly, the social circle openly, and the press publicly, the organs of their sentiments. To the agitated Helvetic Churches the Archbishop suggests: "Let your Ministers, Professors, and Theologians, be prohibited, under any penalty you choose to annex, from maintaining publicly in their Sermons, their writings, theses, and lectures, an opinion in any respect contrary to that Confession; let this only be guarded against, that subscriptions of this sort be not multiplied without necessity, and that too strict an inquisition be not made into the private sentiments of learned men; only let them enjoy their own opinions peaceably; and neither by teaching, nor disputing, nor writing, depart from the public Confession, or publish their errors, (if indeed they be errors) to the offence (scandalum) of any one, much less of the Church, or of the Republic."

"Amongst us," says he, and let it be recollected, he had no interest to serve at home by the statement, "it has been determined and established, as well by the royal commands, (g) as by long observed (and I trust ever to be observed) custom, never to

(g) See Chap. iii. pp. 230, 231. of this Apology. The power of suppressing controversial debates, by silencing the contending parties, has been from the beginning of the Reformation supposed to be inherent in our princes.-Henry VIII. was appealed to by Cranmer, praying him "to put both parts to silence, commanding them neither to preach, dispute, nor openly to talk thereof under pain, &c."-Burnet's Hist. Ref. Part i. Addenda, No. iv.

1

demand from any person what his sentiments on these subjects are. He is only required to subscribe the Articles of Religion, set forth by public authority, and neither in Sermons, nor in any theological disputations, to determine any thing more about them, than what the Articles expressly state, and require to be professed by all who shall be admitted to the Ministerial Office."(h)

Let us hope that, as good and dutiful Members of the Established Church, the Author of the Inquiry, and the others' of the Clergy associated with him in sentiment, will respect the authority of which this highest Prelate of our Church speaks, and, following the praise-worthy example of the Ministers of the Establishment in the reigns of Charles I. and his successors, will obediently suppress all debates upon these perplexing subjects. But if they deny the obligation of the royal commands,' and decline submission to their injunction, they should consider, that a discerning Public will look to facts, more than to words, and will not so readily exonerate them from the censure of observing a conduct, at least, "Sectarian, and opposed to the principles of the Established Church.

(h) Mosheim's Eccl. Hist, Maclaine's Appendix, No. iii. Archbishop Wake's Latin Letters, No. 20, 22, 23, 24,

A

CONCLUSION.

THE Preface to the Inquiry opens with a sum'mary view of the opinions ascribed by that Publication to the Clergy of the Established Church, which it undertakes to combat, and of those sentiments claimed for the party of the Author, which it engages to defend. They are thus presented to the Public.

"There exists, at present, a considerable diversity of sentiment among the Clergy of the Established Church in Ireland, on the important subjects of the ruin and recovery of mankind.

"Many of them regard man as but little injured by the fall of Adam, or, at least, not so much so, as to put it beyond his own exertions, to raise himself above the difficulties into which it had thrown him. His salvation they consider as resulting from his merits and exertions, or so far suspended on them, as that they are necessary to recommend him to the grace of God, and the merits of Christ.

"There are others who think and speak on these subjects in a very different manner. They believe that man is, by nature, dead in trespasses and sins, and unable of himself to think or to do

any thing truly good in the sight of God. Every thing excellent in the Christian they ascribe to the influences of the Holy Spirit, and consider his salvation, from the commencenient to the completion of it, as the result of the unmerited grace of God. They allow him to trust in no merits but those of his Redeemer, in which they regard him as interested, not by any works or excellencies of his own, but solely by that faith which is the gift of God, and of the operation of his Spirit; and while they exclude all works of man from the office of justifying him in whole or in part, they uniformly maintain, and strenuously inculcate them, as the fruits of a genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."(a)

The preceding pages of this Apology have, it is presumed, made our Readers already too familiar with prejudiced representations in the Inquiry, to allow them to feel much surprise, either at finding that character associated with its prefatory statement of the existing differences which it announces, or at our entering a decided dissent from this unauthorised program,

It is hoped, too, that they are prepared for appreciating the justice of this dissent, without the necessity of troubling them with a refutation of the particulars in detail. But to what are we to attribute this statement? To an avarice of doctrinal orthodoxy, shall we say, which was not contented with grasping at the sole property of the doctrinal tenets of the Established Church, without seizing to its exclusive enjoyment the scriptural doctrine of the Redemption also?-or to the policy, which, having suggested the propriety of omitting Calvin's works, because the sentiments ' advocated' by the Inquiry are stigmatized with

(a) Preface to the Inquiry.

the name of Calvinism, (b) intimated the utility of soothing the alarm, which is still justly felt by many at Calvin's doctrine, by suppressing in this schedule even an allusion to Absolute-Predestination? or to that accompanying sign of the Calvinistic times, which has uniformly marked their prevailing influence in the world, by infixing on those who differ from the abettors of the doctrines of unconditional Election, irresistible' Grace, &c. the unfounded and often-refuted charge of Pelagianism;-a charge which is sustained by refusing to the adversaries of the Absolute-Predestination scheme the knowledge of their own sentiments, and indulging to the supporters of that system such constructions of their opponents' opinions, as the perversions of party zeal devised? Is it, we ask, to one, or, as we rather think, to all of these actuating causes, that we are to attribute this preliminary summary, so partial in its statement, and so unjust in its assumption? Had not the subsequent pages of the Inquiry instructed us in the lore in which the tenets acknowledged to be Calvin's, and yet complainingly said to be stigmatized as Calvinism, are wrapped up, we should, for our own part, have supposed that the first member of this distributive arrangement, extracted from the Preface to the Inquiry, was intended to classify individuals of the Clergy, who may have enforced the Law of Sinai, without pointing to the atoning scene on Calvary; and who may have exhorted men to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling," without reminding them, as a motive to gratitude, humility, carefulness, comfort, and assurance of success, that "it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure." But we now find, that there is in

(b) Preface to the Inquiry.