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mutations, and a universal medicine. We should have books to tell us what planets ruled at our birth, interspersed with appropriate figures of horoscopes, schemes of nativity, and positions of the stars. They might have decreed, that the schoolmen were the only rational metaphysicians, and that every college in the kingdom should make the categories, analytics, topics, and sophistics of Aristotle an essential branch of education.

There would have been just as much propriety in fixing rules of belief on these subjects, as there was in drawing up the thirty-nine articles, and the formularies of the church, and setting them forth as a standard of religious faith. Newton, and Bacon, and Locke, would have been considered meddling dissenters from the established philosophy; but still, the force of truth would have been resistless, and would finally have prevailed. So it must be in religion. Error may be concealed and protected for a long time under the guise of forms, and in the mists of ignorance; but the light of truth will at length penetrate so flimsy a covering, and dissolve the cloud.

It is said, that creeds have a tendency to keep schism out of the church, by causing all its members to think alike. This would be good reasoning, if the church were infallible; but on no other supposition. Unless it were infallible, there could be no certainty of its having the only true faith; and no church should claim authority to keep its members in ignorance and error to prevent schism. Milton, speaking on this subject with particular reference to the doctrines of the church, and the scheme of prelacy, observes, "If to bring a numb and chill stupidity of soul, an un

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active blindness of mind upon the people by their leaden doctrine, or no doctrine at all; if to persecute all knowing and zealous christians by the violence of their courts, be to keep away schism, they keep schism away indeed; and by this kind of discipline, all Italy and Spain is as purely and politically kept from schism, as England hath been by them. With as good plea might the dead palsy boast to a man, 'it is I that free you from stitches and pains, and the troublesome feeling of cold and heat, of wounds and strokes; if I were gone, all these would molest you.' The winter might as well vaunt itself against the spring, 'I destroy all noisome and rank weeds, I keep down all pestilent vapours;' yes, and all wholesome herbs, and all fresh dews, by your violent and hidebound frost; but when the gentle west winds shall open the fruitful bosom of the earth, thus overgirded by your imprisonment, then the flowers put forth and spring, and then the sun shall scatter the mists, and the manuring hand of the tiller shall root up all that burdens the soil, without thanks to your bondage."*

These remarks are but too applicable to fixed formularies of faith of every description. They are made and imposed without authority; and any attempt to force them on the minds of men is an encroachment on the liberty, and an insult to the understanding of christians. The apostles took upon them no such power. St. Paul enjoins the Galatians to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, and not to be entangled again with

*The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty; Prose Works, vol. i. p. 63.

the yoke of bondage." And to the Corinthians he writes, "We have pot dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand." 2 Cor. i. 24. Not by faith in creeds, for this would be giving up our liberty, taking upon us a yoke of bondage, and submitting to the dominion of others; but by faith in the word of God, which all persons are free to consult, and this freedom all must be allowed to enjoy, before they can be required to believe or obey.

LETTER IV.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

THE second part of your discourse is taken up in showing, that you are not a Calvinist, and in attempting to show, that the articles of the church are not calvinistic. I have no wish to go into a controversy, which has been so long agitated by different parties in the episcopal church itself, and which has been already more than exhausted; yet I cannot but think, that your conclusions on this subject are feebly supported by facts, and at the same time so broad and positive, as to dead some of your readers into mistake. I propose to do little more, than to quote certain passages from the Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, and see whether they are not strikingly inconsistent with the sentiments you advance.

After making various selections from the Confession of Faith, to exhibit what you consider the most offensive doctrines of Calvinism, and assuring your readers, that such are not the doctrines of the church, you make the following remarks.

"Explicit as is the language of the articles and services of our church on this head; and strong as is

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the claim, which they make to consistency, nothing is more frequent, notwithstanding, on the part of the advocates of doctrines peculiarly styled 'calvinistic,' than the assertion, that such doctrines are maintained in our ninth and seventeenth articles. Never was there a more groundless charge. Those articles do not in the remotest degree, allude to the fundamental and essential tenets of Calvinism." p. 27.

Let us inquire, in the first place, what are the "fundamental and essential doctrines of Calvinism." I believe Calvinism is usually summed up in what are called the five points, namely, total depravity, election, particular redemption, effectual calling, and Whatever language may perseverance of the saints.

be used in the Confession of Faith, the Institutes of Calvin, or any where else, to express and illustrate these doctrines, and however unscriptural such language may be, I suppose the substance of the whole is contained in these five points. The minor doctrines of Calvinism, such as salvation by grace, justi. fication by faith, special influence of the spirit, are to be referred to these as their original stock.

If we examine these points of Calvinism, we shall find the two first only to be fundamental doctrines, of which the three last are necessary consequences. If all men have originally a corrupt nature, which renders them worthy of divine wrath and condemnation, and if God in his mercy have decreed, according to "his everlasting purpose," that a certain number of his creatures shall be rescued from this deplorable condition and finally be saved; it is a natural and necessary consequence, that all such persons are redeemed by a particular redemption, are effectually called, and

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