privileges as advance to the extreme bounds of toleration, and as ought to have fatisfied every wifh. But this is far from being the case, vigilance, therefore, in eftimating their claims, becomes a neceffary duty. From the period of the Reformation, the fpiritual authority of the crown has become a fundamental principle of the conftitution. The king is fworn to maintain it, and the people are bound to support. him. It is recognifed in the bill of rights and the act of fettlement. The obligation of the clergy on this head is still more efpecial and particular. They acknowledge the prin ciple in the 37th article, and by the firft canon are enjoined openly to defend it. Such being the rights of the crown, involving the fecurity of the fubject, we may thus addrefs those who claim the fame power and privileges with our felves.

"We tender them to you on the fame terms and conditions by which we ourselves hold them; if you wish to enjoy the full benefits of the constitution, you must conform to the fundamental principles of it, for you have no right or title, in a proteftant government, to be put into a better ftate than the protestant fubject. With the free exercife of your religion we do not interfere; while we lament your errors, with the pious and christian hope that God may difpofe your hearts to the amendment of them, we respect your confciences.

A direct refufal of compliance with fuch terms, which are those prescribed by the ftate, on grounds of right which are acknowledged and acted upon in other cafes, and therefore will not be difputed in this, would feem to cut the matter fhort, and to leave both parties in their prefent condition. But as reafons are affigned for fuch refufal, it will be proper to confider them, as well because we are bound in candour fo to do, as that a review of them will lead directly to a decifion on the fubject." P. 19.

What are these reasons for refufal? They are bound as by an article of faith in fpiritual matters to another power: yet they avow refpect to the fecurity of our church, and reverence those doctrines againft which the oath of allegiance is prefcribed. But, obferves the bifhop, how can we accede to this plea. Who fhall diftinguifh between civil and religious obedience, who fhall detach things fpiritual from things temporal? A divided and partial fervice is morally impos fible.

"If we apply this axiom, for fuch in truth it is, to the entire allegiance, which by the laws of this country is due to the fovereign from his fubjects, and refect on the other hand, to what fuperior thefe perfons referve a portion of theirs, of what character he is, what pretenfions he affumes, what authority he once ex

ercifed

ercifed in this nation, and ftill exercifes in others, we have a plain and obvious conclufion before us.”

P. 21.

What the right reverend author fays further on this fubje&t muft not be weakened by our abridgment.

"When they offer to us the fulleft pledges of their forbearance to our church, and of their renunciation of the horrible doctrines which have debased their own, we doubt not their fincerity, nor are we inclined to refort to our annals, for the proof of fimilar affurances having heretofore been fpecioufly given, and fcandaloully violated. We do not however hefitate to declare, that we feel it impoffible to accept fuch pledges from them, becaufe they are Roman catholics. As Roman catholics, if they are honeft ones and true to their church, and far be it from us to injure them by a contrary fuppofition, they are not entitled to make the offer; as Roman catholics they have it not in their power, what ever their inclination may be, to abide by it. As Roman ca tholics, they are the fubjects of a power which exacts, rigorously exacts, implicit and univerfal obedience; whofe rule is not confined to outward actions, or exerted only in external difcpline, but includes even the heart and confcience, the very fpirit and foul of man within its controul. The authority of the church is the primary and imperious principle to which they muft bend, to which every action and word and thought must be abfolutely fubjected. While they acknowledge and fubmit to this, no proteftations of individuals, whether laity or clergy, no declarations, even of public bodies and univerfities, however formal and explicit, are of any avail. They have no force, no authority, no fanction. Let the potent mandate iffue for the recall of them, and they are recalled; ready, patient, unrefifting obedience muft follow.

"Little am I inclined, while fpeaking of this mighty authority, to look back into the hiftory of the Church of Chrift, and to retrace the fufferings which during a long fucceffion of ages it experienced all over Europe, and not leaft in this kingdom, from the intolerant exercise of it. Rather let us acknowledge that to thefe fcenes of perfecution and cruelty a better temper has fucceeded, that chriftian people are no longer injured and infulted, the rights of princes invaded, or the allegiance of their fubjects inhibited by the pretenfions of the Roman pontiff. But while we wish to caft a.veil over what is past, and to place the present ftate of things in the fairest point of view, let us not fuffer our minds to be withdrawn from the reflection, that though thefe pretensions are no longer openly afferted, and appear to lie dormant, yet that not one jot or one tittle of them has ever been annulled, or the great principle on which they are founded in the very leaft degree difclaimed. The tremendous decrees of the fourth council of Lateran, thofe of Tholoufe, Lyons and Conftance, are indeed configned to an apparent oblivion among the muniments of the

Vatican,

Vatican, but they ftill exift, uncontroverted and unrepealed; they exift, inclufi in tabulis, tanquam enfis in vaginâ reconditus,” and may be again drawn forth and called into action, to the great injury of the chriftian world." P. 21.

The bifhop proceeds with great energy to draw the attention of his hearers to the Hierarchy, which has of late fo advanced itself in another part of the united kingdom, and to the power which it there exercises. The deduction is, that it exhibits no recommendation for admiffion into the power of the state, nor any collateral fecurity for a proteftant church and conftitution.

Another circumftance is mentioned, which indeed muft have impreffed every member of the proteftant church, and this is the "bolder tone which has been affumed for fome time paft by the clergy, and others of the Roman church, in many of their publications."

From a defence of their claims, they have proceeded to calumniate us, to repeat exploded flanders, to retort the charge of perfecution. The bifhop might have added, and impudently to deny the most fure and certain facts of the English annals. This we ourselves have seen in a recent pub lication, and fhall in due time notice.

The addrefs concludes with the folemn avowal that in the writer's opinion, the relative fituation of our church and the church of Rome, as far as the one is open to danger from the pretenfions of the other, is precifely the fame as when the Prince and Princefs of Orange refufed their affent to the repeal of thofe laws which is now aimed at. Every species of violence, diforder, and uncharitablenefs, is difclaimed, and the wifh is expreffed, that under every difference of religious opinion, all may unite in efforts to preferve bro therly love, peace, good order, and regularity, all join in endeavours to promote the public fecurity at this momentous crifis.

The careful analyfis of this charge, and above all, the high character of the author for every accomplishment which can improve or embellifh life, renders all commendation from us fuperfluous. We cannot however forbear to urge its attentive perufal to every member of that church, the claims and authority of which it is equally our pride and duty to vindicate and fupport.

ART.

ART. V. Primitive Truth, in a Hiftory of the Internal State of the Reformation, expreffed by the early Reformers in their Writings; and in which the Question, concerning the Calvinism of the Church of England, is determined by pofitive Evidence. 8vo. 8vo. 283 pp. Hatchard. 1807.

TO a work of reasoning, the name of the author can add nothing. It may therefore be withheld without injuring, in the fmallest degree, the caufe which his arguments are meant to fupport; but the cafe is very different when a cause is to be fupported by the evidence of history. The hiftorian may indeed refer the reader to the authorities on which his narrative is built; or, as in the work before us, the narrative may confift of little more than extracts from original records; but as the number of readers are comparatively few, who have an opportunity of confulting fuch records, and perhaps fill fewer, who will fubmit to the trouble, every compiler fhould give his name to the public as a pledge for the fidelity of his compilation. In theological controverfies, of fuch general concern as to leave hardly any man wholly exempted from party-prejudice, this pledge is of peculiar importance; more especially if the compilation confift for the greater part of tranflated extracts from dead or foreign languages.

We were therefore not a little difappointed on finding no name, either in the title page of the work before us, or fubfcribed to the dedication of it to the archbishops and bishops of the church of England; and to that difappointment was added a flight fufpicion of the author's competence to the tafk which he had undertaken to perform, when we found him, in the preface, (p. 13), confounding, as it appears to us, the predeftination of Calvin with the question of neceffity, which has fo long been agitated in the fchools of philofophy. We mention these circumftances merely to put others, who from the fame caufes may be apt to entertain fimilar fufpicions, on their guard; for there are very few books indeed, in the controverfy concerning the Calvinifm or Anti-Calvinifm of the Church of England, which we have read with greater fatisfaction than that of which we are now to make our report. We certainly do not agree with the author in every opinion which he incidentally throws out, and to fome of his arguments we may perhaps ftate objections; but to his general conclufion, "that there are many called Calvinifts and others Arminians, who are building all their hopes towards God upon the merits and mediation of JESUS CHRIST, and upon

the

the gracious help of the ALL-SUFFICIENT," we give our hearty affent.

Inthe four firft fections of this work, the author quotes from Strype and Burnet, an account 1. of events in the reign of Queen Mary; 2. of what he calls the circumftances of things. in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth; . of the contention about veftments and ceremonies; and 4. of certain frivolous objections against the government of the church of England, which were anfwered by Jewel, bifhop of Salifbury. On these sections we have no remarks to make, becaufe Burnet and Strype are, with refpect to the question, at iffue between Calvinifts and Anti-Calvinifts, entitled to credit only for what they prove, not for what they barely affert. Their expreffions are not the expreffions of the early reformers; they cannot therefore be admitted among the witneffes whofe pofitive evidence is to determine the question concerning the Calvinifm of the church of England; and one of them is fo well known to have been prejudiced in behalf of King William's favourite comprehenfion, that neither party can place implicit confidence in his narrative, except when he refers to authorities, which every man may confult. The correfpondence between Jewel, Grindal, Horn, Sands, Pilkington, &c, and Peter Martyr, Bullinger, Gualter, and other Swifs reformers, which has been preferved by Burnet, is indeed valuable as original evidence of the fentiments of the Englifh reformers; but we are not sure that it is entitled to all the credit which this author gives to it. Dr. Laurence has proved, with the force of demonftration, that the greater part of our contefted articles were literally transcribed from Lutheran confeffions, or from works of the higheft authority among the German Lutherans; and it feems to be the object of the prefent author to fet afide the inference drawn from this incontrovertible fact, and to prove from the correfpondence in queftion, that the Helvetic divines were the only foreigners to whom our reformers looked up with reverence, and that the Helvetic confeffion is the only foreign creed with which our articles and homilies are in perfect harmony.

It is indeed true, that Hooper, in his letter to Bullinger, dated the 8th of Febr. 1550, fays that "the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bifhops of Rochester, Ely, St. Davids, Lincoln, and Bath, were fincerely fet on advancing the purity of doctrine, AGREEING IN ALL THINGS WITH THE HELVETIC CHURCHES," (p. 37). It is likewife true, that Jewel, in a letter, (28th April, 1559), to Peter Martyr, fays Nos Articulos omnes religionis et doctrinæ exhi