wanted to complete this, into the fyftem taught afterwards by him, was added by Abu Hanîfa, who died in the year of the Hegira 150. If he wrote with the beauty and elegant benignity with which he spoke, he has few rivals. He is confidered by the Sonnites, or orthodox Mahometans, as the chief and firft Imam of the Moflem law; as Calvin was preferred by his followers to all the fathers. One of his works bears the title of the Moallem, or the mafter," the inftruction," or as may be called the inftitutes of Mahometanism *. “ In this he maintains, that as long as a Moslem continues in the faith, he cannot become an enemy to God, though he may fall into enormous fins; that fuch fins cannot deftroy the validity of faith; and that grace+ is by no means incompatible with fin." The last of these points may not be advanced by him in these very terms, but from its analogy to what precedes on the fubject of faith, it appears to be a direct and abfolutely neceffary confequence of what he has laid down. This fyftem is called Hanifiah; but it is not in the power of a proteftation, even of fincere piety, aided by two or three of thofe fubtle paralogifms by which a metaphyfical head often blinds an erroneous confcience, to clear the principles of Hanîfa and Calvin of their direct confequences. One might as well admit a propofition in geometry, and endeavour to reafon away the corollary. Nor do we hold it a reproach to our national Church, that, on fome points relating to predeftination, it has receded less from that of Rome than Calvin did, when he drew fo near to the ftandard of Mahometan orthodoxy; the 17th article declaring, that, after we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given. After this comparifon of the tenets of the three Churches on predeftination, Dr. Laurence comes to the expofition of Modern Univerfal Hiftory, v. 2, p. 125. 141. + That the Mahometans should have any controverfies on the nature of grace, may to fome feem strange: but the followers of Mahomet contend, that he is the very Comforter which our Saviour promifed to fend to his difciples, John xvi. v. 7. "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will fend him to you," therefore among the other titles which they give him in their language, one is Paraclete; which is the Greek word ufed in this text, for the Comforter, made Arabic. (Prideaux Life of Mahomet 123, Eighth edit. from Al Jannabij they undoubtedly afcribe to Mahomet the operations, as well as the title of the Paraclete, (the Holy Ghoft.) that that of our own contained in the 17th Article; which is the fubject of the laft of thefe excellent and learned difcourfes. In the preceding he had shown, that, at the time the Articles were formed, the divines of the Chriftian Church underftood by predeftination a predetermination of God founded on forefight; thofe of a small fect juft rifing into confequence alone excepted: and in that more eftablished fenfe, as we have shown above, it must be here understood; if nothing following in the Article make it neceffary to be otherwife received. In the difcourfe itself we find a full proof, that the Article contains nothing implying an admiffion of the irrefpe&tive predeftination of Calvin; but, on the contrary, many things repugnant to it. Befides, predeftination to life or election, is by the article declared to be the everlasting purpose of God conftantly decreed by his council, fecret to us. Words taken from Melancthon, the great oppofer of abfolute predeftination, who fays, God has revealed (in the Gofpel) his fecret decree for the remiffion of fins through his Son.' Following the German divines, Dr. Laurence here describes the divine election to be of a clafs or collective body. Of a class it is the nature that every individual falls under its general defcription; the agreement of each to which is the ground of his belonging to it. This is totally oppofite to irrefpective predeftination; which felects arbitrarily, and without regard to the defcription of the individuals elected. Of the elect, the tranflation of the Article affirms, that "they be called according to God's purpose, by his Spirit working in due feafon." This is here compared with the original: "they be called, by his Spirit operating at a season (or time) of opportunity, by the purpofe of God." On this it is obferved, that this call is defcribed as taking place according to time and circumftance, which is contrary to the doctrine of its being irrefiftible: for when we fpeak of an opportunity for an act, it implies that at that point of time other circumstances exift and concur to make it effective, as to the end purpofed by it; which, without fuch concurrence, it may fail to be. It alfo appears, from the words of the Article, that this call is not abfolutely irrefpective: for as to time, it is regulated with refpect to opportunity or the concurrence of circumftances. This pofition admits alfo that there are feafons when this opportunity does not exift; or the existence of a power which can and would at fuch times oppofe the divine call; that is the freedom of the will under it. Now it cannot be contended, that the will is able to oppose the motions of grace at one time and not at another. We We hall venture here to make another obfervation, arifing out of the terms of the Article: the godly confideration of our predeftination" fills the minds of men with several heavenly affections there mentioned; and "they walk religioufly in good works." This is the undoubted confequence of the confideration of refpective predeftination, or that founded on divine forefight; but thofe of the belief of a predeftination, which has no respect to the future actions of the individual, must be oppofite, as the grounds of the dif ferent modes of election are different. For he who holds his future beatitude decreed to him without refpect to his future acts, muft hold alfo the degree of that beatitude in like manner irrefpectively predecreed: and that no good work he can perform, no vice he can commit, can increase or diminish it. Now Nature points out to man to pursue the greatest happiness in his power to attain; and Wisdom, that this greateft happiness confifts in the fum of his enjoy. ments here and hereafter; wherefore the abfolute predefti. narian, fuppofing the quantity of his future felicity fixed by irrefiftible decree, and therefore not to be diminished by his actions here, muft, (by the great law of Nature and Wisdom, which ordains us to endeavour to make the fum of our enjoyments throughout our whole exiftence, the greateft) purfue every gratification and advantage of whatever kind, of which the temporal bad confequences probably following fhall not exceed the pleasure expected from them: and by the converfe of the fame argument, the like will be shown to be true of thofe, who may efteem themselves in a state of abfolute reprobation. As our reformers therefore affirm, of the godly confideration of predeftination spoken of in the article, confequences directly contrary to thofe which refult from the predeftination of Calvin, they fo denied his doctrine on that head. If it be afked why this tenet appears to be condemned only by inference and induction? it is anfwered, that it has been feen before, that Melanéthon and Cranmer looked forward to a union of all the reformed churches; to which a declaration, in a full and exprefs form, against the errors of any one of them, would have oppofed ftrong obftacles, if it had not rendered it impoffible. In fome confeffions of faith, drawn up by Bucer, this pacific fyftem was carried to a length equal to this, with no fuch advantage in view. In the laft claufe of the article it is added, that "we must receive the promifes of God in fuch wife as they be generally fet forth to us in holy fcripture; and in our doings, that that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the word of God." The original has it exprefsly revealed." Here again, it is obferved, we find the compofers of the article following the anti-predeftinarian Melanéthon; who fays on the fubject of election," that we are not to judge of the will of God otherwise than as according to his revealed word: (juxta verbum revelatum) words containing no obfcure cenfure of the temerity of that prefumptuous great man, who endeavoured to patch Chrif tianity with one of the worst parts of the philofophy of Zeno; and to lew on the tail of a Stoic's gown for a train to the Christian robe of truth and righteousness. The anti-calviniftic force of this conclufion, we are here likewife informed, has ftruck even the enemies of our church: who contend, that while the preceding part of the article admits abfolute predeftination in theory, this conclufion is a caveat against the admiflion of its confequences in practice. To the fecond part of the antithefis that our church protefts against thofe confequences, we oppofe nothing that it admits the doctrine in theory is in the fulleft manner hiftorically refuted in thefe two laft fermons: but we are forry that pious and good Calvinifts (for notwithstanding the grofs errors of their faith, there are and have been many fuch) when they come to explain themselves upon being preffed with the Antinomian tendency of the whole fyftem, fall directly under this ironical cenfure. Dr. Laurence concludes by obferving, that there are two other kinds of external evidence by which the Anti-calviniftic fenfe of the articles may be proved; the firft is furnished by the liturgy; to this, on certain occafions, he has reforted, and chiefly to the fervice for baptifm; the second is the writings of the English reformers themselves: but these as the evidence of individuals,' he rightly has confidered as lefs decifive, than what the whole body, by public act, collectively avowed as the doctrine of the church, by inferting it in the church fervices. Yet in the notes we have fome extracts of this kind of the moft decifive force; and particularly from Latimer and Hooper. He then gives a fummary of thefe eight difcourfes, and ends them by lamenting the double attack to which these conftructions, falfely put on the articles of our church, expofe her clergy: the Socinian reviling their bigotry in maintaining doctrines fo indefenfible as the fyftem of Calvin; the Calvinift their hypocrify, in teaching what is oppofite to the confeffion they have fubfcribed. These fermons are an excellent refutation of both thefe fevere charges. It remains to give a fummary character of them. The neceffity of laying open the falfe fenfes attempted to be impofed upon the articles, for the purpofe of making way for the errors of Calvin, is apparent. We could have increased the number of modes in which we have faid this could be effected; and fhould rejoice to fee each of them duly treated as a feparate whole. But of these external proofs that the true fenfe of our national confeffion is not Calvinistic, none can be more direct and conclufive, than a demonstration that they were taken from the public confeflions, drawn up by divines who oppofed the doctrines of Calvin; or from fuch of their writings, as were regarded as authentic expofitions of thefe public documents. This demonstration is given in the work before us, for the firft time. That it was not performed when the writings of the German divines were more ftudied, and that the plan is in this age original, is a circumftance of no little fingularity. The works of thefe reformers were following thofe of the fchoolmen into the cave of oblivion, if they had not already gotten somewhat beyond the mouth of it; and thefe fermons of Dr. Laurence required extenfive reading, of a kind now generally laid afide. The felection from thefe writers, which it became neceffary for him to make, required great diligence; a certain felicity of difcernment, which fees the decifion of a contefted point, in what an ordinary examiner would pafs over; and much more folicitude in the choice of authorities bearing with evident and clear force on the conclufion the writer wants to establish, than to the multiplication of them : all these qualifications Dr. Laurence brought with him to this work. The fubject of thefe difcourfes divides itfelf into greater branches; and the unity of the arrangement adopted in all, facilitates the ready conception of them feverally. The faith of the Roman church, that of Geneva, and of Germany, are first flated: and after a due collation of the two former with the laft, they are all compared with fuch of our articles as treat of the fame fubject; and the coincidence of the latter with the German church, and its oppofition to the two others, is shown. The far greater part of the citations are thrown into notes; and their quantity, which is about double that of the fermons, fhows that diligence of the preparation for this work, which we have before mentioned. Great advantages refult from this divifion; every citation which requires it, may, in this mode, be elucidated or critically examined, as a fmall fingle fubject more of the proper form and tone of compofition is preferved to the fermon; and the lofs of force avoided, |