Augustinian system there was left a positive check upon the desolating influence of presumption and the tendency to recklessness and desperation: in the Calvinistic system, where both justifying and regenerating grace were held to be not given excepting to the finally saved, we need not wonder if the feeling of responsibility for human actions had been seriously endangered. many of the exiles; It is probable, indeed, that no forebodings of this kind embraced by had been suggested to the refugees, who, seeking shelter Marian from the Marian persecutions, on the continent beneath the hospitable roofs of 'Calvinistic' reformers, had on their return been chiefly instrumental in the opening of disputes still agitated in the Church of England. In the number of such exiles which was very considerable, we can recognize a large majority of those who from the special nature and emergency of the times had been advanced on the accession of Elizabeth, to some of the most honourable positions in their native country. The effects of their association with the leading Swiss reformers, are especially visible if we contrast their future bearing with the conduct of a smaller band of scholars, such as Alley, Guest and Parker, who had never crossed the seas. These latter were in almost every case untainted by the disciplinary scruples of their brethren, and still more, evinced no tenderness for the extreme opinions on bethanis substituta sunt, "in electis," -sensu planè alio et ad mentem Augustini; cum in autographo sint ad mentem Calvini. Augustinus enim opinatus est, veram fidem quæ per dilectionem operatur, per quam contingit adoptio, justificatio et sanctificatio, posse et intercidi et amitti; fidem vero esse commune donum electis et reprobis, sed perseverantiam electis propriam: Calvinus autem, veram et justificantem fidem solis salvandis et electis contingere.' See Append. No. v. Hutton, Archbishop of York, suggested an alteration in Art. VI., on the ground that as it stood it was opposed to St Augus- yet not ingrafted on the Anglican Formularies: dogmatic points, which not a few of the 'predestinarian zealots' had imbibed from the instruction of their foreign masters1. Parker and his friends were acting as conservative elements amid the heavings of a stormy and most anxious period, when continual struggles were made to throw off the godly orders of the Church' or 'break in pieces those constitutions, on which it was established;' and had no such better elements survived, 'it would in all probability have never been able to have subsisted afterwards?.' The wider introduction of the doctrines of Geneva might have easily paved a way for its 'pretended holy discipline,' and thus the fears expressed at the conclusion of the sixteenth century by men like Hooker might ere long have been accomplished. It is likely that the reverence felt on every side for the authority of St Augustine had continued to facilitate the circulation of strong 'Calvinian' tenets, or at least, disarm the indignation and hostility of some who could not fail to have foreseen the consequences into which those tenets might be pushed by their less scrupulous admirers. It was taxing all the courage and sobriety of Parker, and a few of his more trusty coadjutors, to resist the constant efforts of the Swiss' party, who were anxious to infuse a more distinctively Genevan spirit into all our public Formularies. As early as 1559, when many of the exiles just returning to their homes presented a declaration of their doctrine to Elizabeth, they laid particular stress upon the tenet of Predestination, as 'a thing fruitful and 1 Some of these did not blush to say, that 'all evil springeth of God's ordinance, and that God's predestination was the cause of Adam's fall, and of all wickedness.' See other instances in Heylin, Hist. of the Presbyterians, p. 243, Oxf. 1670. 2 Strype's Observations on Archbp Parker; Life, p. 543. 3 See a curious account of one Richard Kechyn, whom the archbishop preferred, 'charging him not to preach controversial sermons on the Divine Counsels,' in Mr Haweis' Sketches of the Reformation, p. 95. The obedient clerk was afterwards rebuked for his silence by one of the itinerant preachers, who declared that 'Predestination should and ought to be preached in every sermon and in every place, before all congregations, as the only doctrine of salvation,' &c. 4 See above, p. 119, n. 1, and Strype's Annals, 1. 116. They admit, however, that 'in this our cor profitable to be known,' appealing also to the high example of St Augustine; yet the reader will have looked in vain for any mention of that tenet in the Eleven Articles, the test which was, immediately after, put in circulation both in this and in the sister island; and in 1563, on the revision of the Edwardine Formulary, it is noticeable that the language' of the Article on Predestination was in one point softened or restrained, instead of having contracted the more rigorous tone which through the zeal and energy of the exiles was pervading the great body of the Church of England. to increase reign of Yet the controversy, in which that doctrine always continued stood conspicuous, had continued rather to increase than during the to diminish with the lapse of the Elizabethan period; Elizabeth. and indeed it may be confidently affirmed that during an interval of nearly thirty years the more extreme opinions of the school of Calvin, not excluding his theory of irrespective reprobation, were predominant in almost every town and parish. Calvin thus became, if we may use the pointed parallel of Hooker, what the 'Master of the Sentences' had been in the more palmy period of scholasticism; so that the perfectest divines were judged they, which were skilfullest in Calvin's writings.' Even the repulsive dictum3 'which speaks little better of our gracious God than this, that God should design many thousands rupt age,' discreet ministers should speak sparely and circumspectly' of such matters. 1 For instance, one clause, 'although the decrees of predestination are unknown unto us,' was then dropped; and instead of the naked reference to election 'out of mankind,' the Article of 1563 speaks of election in Christ out of mankind.' 2 Pref.' to Eccl. Pol. chap. II. § 8. In a MS. note of Hooker on A Christian Letter, &c. he asks ironically, 'What should the world doe with the old musty doctors? Alleage Scripture, and shew it alleaged in the sense that Calvin alloweth, and 3 Calvin himself says, 'horribile The origin of souls to hell before they were, not in eye to their faults, but to His own absolute will and power,' -was grown, to cite the burning words of Harsnet, in 1584, 'high and monstrous, and like a Goliah, and,' he continues, 'men do shake and tremble at it; yet never a man reacheth to David's sling to cast it down. In the name of the Lord of Hosts, we will encounter it; for it hath reviled not the host of the living God but the Lord of Hosts'.' Such, therefore, was the general aspect of the popular theology, with reference to the dogma of absolute predestination, when the party, then in the ascendant, made a vigorous effort to perpetuate their system, by compiling an important string of definitions which have since been commonly entitled the 'Lambeth Articles.' เ The origin of this new movement may be traced, with more or less exactness, to the rigorous Calvinism' of Dr Whitaker, the foremost of polemics in his time, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Aided by two others, Chadderton and Perkins2, the latter of whom had always been distinguished for his reckless theorizing on these subjects, Whitaker began to publish a crusade for checking the advances of 'Pelagianism and Popery,'-two names, by which it was the fashion to describe all kinds of teaching which was held to vary from the Calvinistic' standard. At the head of the opposing or remonstrant party was the Margaret Professor of Divinity, Baro (Baron), of French extraction, who, as a Reformer, fled for refuge to this country at an early period of his life, and by the favour of Burghley (Cecil) was promoted to a chair at Cambridge, in 1574 or 1575. Although his gentle and retiring spirit indisposed him for this kind of warfare, 1 Quoted in Heylin, Histor. QuinquArticul. Part III. ch. xvii. § 4. There are two theses of Harsnet among the Harleian MSS., No. 3142, pp. 107 sq. The titles are: Nemo necessario damnatur,' and 'Certitudo uniuscujusque salutis non est certitudo fidei.' 2 His Armilla Aurea, containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, was published in 1592, for the use of students, and tended, perhaps, more than the writings of the other party, to damage the character of 'Calvinism' by pushing some of its more startling principles into their logical results. Cambridge. Baro seems to have stood forward manfully in opposition The contest at to extravagancies then advocated by his brother professor, and espoused by a majority of the senior members of the Senate. His lectures, also, had a tendency to lower the exorbitant value which was set upon the writings of the Swiss reformers: and exactly as a generation of students, moulded by his teaching, had been gradually replacing the admirers of Calyin and Bullinger, the 'Institutio,' the 'Decades' and a host of similar text-books were exchanged for volumes of the Fathers and occasionally of the Schoolmen1. Calvinistic Not long after the arrival of Baro at Cambridge he Baro's antihad ventured to maintain distinctly from the history of teaching: the Ninevites, that it is the will of God we should have eternal life, if we believe and persevere in the faith of Christ; but if we do not believe, or believing only for a time, do not persevere, then it is not the will of God we should be saved.' And further expositions of this doctrine are still extant in a concio ad clerum' which he preached in 1595, on the occasion when the Lambeth Articles were first projected. He was ready to uphold these three assertions, (1) That God created all men according to His own likeness in Adam, and so consequently, to eternal life; from which He chased no man, unless because of sin. (2) That Christ died sufficiently for all, shewing that the denial of this doctrine is contrary to the Confession of the Church of England, and the Articles approved by the Parliament of this kingdom, and confirmed by the Queen's authority. (3) That the promises of God made to us, as they are generally propounded to us, were to be generally understood, as it is set down in the seventeenth Article [generaliter propositæ ']. 1 In a report of the Vice-Chancellor and others to Whitgift, who had sanctioned their search into private rooms and studies at Cambridge (Strype's Whitgift, p. 438), it is even mentioned, that things had already come to such a pass, that instead of godly and sound writers, among their stationers, the new writers 2 Prælect. in Jonam Prophetam, 3 Strype's Whitgift, p. 466. See |