in the Church of England. But a clear perception of these characteristic traits is absolutely fatal to the argument which labours to exalt the Articles of 1571 into a full and systematic body of theology,-reaching to all topics and sufficient for all times. The Articles may claim to be, and are, an adequate exponent of the Church's mind with reference to the questions which they rule affirmatively; but in cases where they merely censure some obnoxious form of misbelief or of malpractice, without accurately defining truths of which those errors are corruptions, or distortions, or negations, we must seek for the whole teaching of the Church of England on such topics in a somewhat different quarter,-in the Prayer-Book and other writings which have been invested with a like authority'. Such has ever been the language held by those who in the sixteenth century, as well as in all subsequent crises, have stood forward as our champions against error on the right hand and the left. Their judgment as to the true province of the Articles is quite in harmony with memorable words of bishop Pearson, who like older prelates, while encountering the arts and malice of the Church of Rome, had also to do battle with an opposite party who were panting after the more perfect 'reformation of the public doctrine.' He remarks, most truly, that on the Puritan hypothesis, the Book of Articles must always seem irregular and defective, and then adds the following weighty answer to the prevalent mistake. That Book, he says, 'is not, nor is pretended to be, a complete body of divinity, or a comprehension and explication of all Christian doctrines. It is worthy of note that in the year 1675, during the discussions on the Test-Bill, Lord Shaftesbury (the profligate leader of what were then called the 'low churchmen') asked in the house of peers, 'How much is meant by the Protestant Religion? Whereupon several bishops explained, 'that the Protestant Religion is comprehended in the Thirty nine Articles, the Liturgy, the Catechism, the Homilies, and the Canons of the Church of England.' Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, III. 323. Cf. the language of the prolocutor in the Convocation of 1689; Cardwell's Hist. of Conferences, p. 445, Oxf. 1841. 2 No necessity of Reformation: 'Minor Works,' II. 169; ed. Churton. necessary to be taught; but an enumeration of some truths, which upon and since the Reformation have been denied by some persons; who upon their denial are thought unfit to have any cure of souls in this Church or realm; because they might by their opinions either infect their flock with error, or else disturb the Church with schism, or the realm with sedition1.' We shall next endeavour to describe the framing of some kindred documents which serve to throw especial light on the interpretation of the earlier series; and shall then present the reader with some sketches of the efforts made in various schools of misbelief, to alter its contents or to unsettle its authority. 1 Answer to Burges, Ibid. II. 215, H. A. 11 CHAPTER VII. THE LAMBETH ARTICLES. The high repute of St Augustine among the reformers. F all the ancient clerks,' whom leaders of the Reformation-movement had continued to regard with a peculiar deference, none was so conspicuous and commanding as the bishop of Hippo-Regius, the incomparable Augustine. In the writings both of 'Swiss' and 'Saxon' theologians, Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin and Melancthon, the time-honoured name of St Augustine constantly recurs: while the profuse citations from his works which meet us everywhere in studying the productions of our own Reformers', testify how much of confidence they also had reposed in his authority, and their delight in his sacred learning. It is not to be disguised, however, that in spite of this determination to enthrone Augustine as the doctor of the West, some portions of his theological system were at variance with the corresponding statements of other and still earlier Fathers". The portentous controversies which were kindled in all quarters by the zeal of the Pelagian party drove him to reflect more deeply on the nature and necessity of Grace; and the direction of these grand investigations, coinciding with the bias of his natural temperament, conducted him ere long to the ulterior 1 Their reverence for him has been made the ground of animadversion by Bp Horsley, Sermon on 1 St Peter iii. 18-20, who thinks that the change made in the Article on our Lord's descent into Hades (1563) was owing to doubts which had been entertained by St Augustine as to the import of this passage. 2 Faber, Primitive Doctrine of Election, 1. 96-111, Lond. 1836: Blunt, Sketch of the Church, Serm. IV. pp. 167–177, Camb. 1836. This discord or divergence did not escape the criticism of Bp Gardiner, Declaration (against Joye), fol. lxxix. problem, which attempts to reconcile the truth of God's supreme fore-knowledge with the parallel fact of individual freedom, and the consciousness in man of his own moral responsibility. The treasures both of wisdom and experience thus accumulated by Augustine in a long and painful process of inquiry, furnished a most copious stock of theses for the mock-encounters of the schools, as well as ample food for some of the more philosophic spirits of the Middle Ages'; and from thence it was that Calvin, in the second generation of Reformers, had rejoiced to draw materials for the masterly system of theology, which he bequeathed to a succession of disciples and admirers. of Calvin and his school. The extent to which our English Reformation was The influence affected by peculiarities associated with the name of Calvin, has been often made a matter of debate. It may be true, as some have argued, that his first distinct avowal of the doctrines here considered can be traced no further back than 1551; and therefore that the compilation of our 1 'Of predestination and reprobation, it is our part to speak advisedly. But that the only will of God is the cause of reprobation, being taken as it is contrary to predestination, not only St Paul and St Augustine, but the best and learnedest schoolmen have largely and invincibly proved.' Dr Whitaker to the Archbishop, in Strype's Whitgift, App. No. xxv. p. 200. For the interesting disputes on these questions at the Council of Trent, see Sarpi, I. 367, seqq. On the contemporaneous agitation of the same topics among our own Reformers, see above, p. 102; and on Luther's earlier controversy with Erasmus, see Hardwick's Reform. pp. 48 sq. 2 Instit. Lib. III. c. 22, § 8, where, however, he disingenuously affirms that St Augustine claimed the support of the other Fathers; the fact being that Augustine appeals only to three writers of the age before 3 Archbp. Laurence, Serm. II. His system divergent from that tine: Articles and Prayer-Book cannot possibly bear any impress of the Calvinistic' modes of thought: but nevertheless if it be granted that his teaching on Election and the other cognate questions was identical with that of St Augustine, both the Articles and other Formularies of the Church may still have been considerably tinctured with 'Calvinism,' though such admixture was not actually derived from treatises of Calvin. This identity, however, will no longer be maintained. of St Augus- by any one who makes himself familiar with the systems of theology as fabricated in the schools of Hippo and Geneva: for extensively as Calvinists have been indebted to their African predecessor, they have so exaggerated various portions of his teaching, and have so curtailed or contradicted others, that in spite of similarity of language a profound if not a fundamental change is frequently observable on comparing the positions of the ancient and the modern doctor. For example, as one proof of such diversity we may select the doctrine of 'final perseverance,' or the inamissibility of regenerating grace. In both those systems it was equally contended that a remnant only of the human family are made partakers of the special gift, which schoolmen term the grace of perseverance :' yet Augustine uniformly held that other persons, not included in this remnant, may be verily regenerate and actually possessed of living faith in Christ, which notwithstanding they will forfeit altogether; while Calvin, who identified the gifts of perseverance and regeneration, had been driven to deny the possibility of spiritual life, except in those, whom a Divine decree had also irreversibly exempted from the chance of ultimate perdition1. In the him or Farell, although his commen- 1 Cf. the Augustinian Treatise, servable that this distinction was keenly felt at the compiling of the Lambeth Articles; for in the emendations of Whitaker's theses by the archbishop and his colleagues, an important change was made in Art. V.: 'In autographo Whitakeri verba erant "in iis qui semel ejus participes fuerunt," pro quibus a Lam |