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from being thought in any refpect derogatory to has generally been regarded as a pleasing proof of h venerable antiquity.

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Many uninformed perfons are led into error by word PROTESTANT. We talk of the PROTESTANT religion and the Proteftant faith, as if the religj and faith of a proteftant were effentially and totap different from thofe of the Roman Catholic. Where p it should be remembered, that in the most effent articles of the Chriftian faith the church of Engla and the church of Rome are agreed. Their di greement respects thofe errors and corruptions whi have been fuperadded by the Romish church to the original doctrines of Christianity, in the rejection of which errors and corruptions the proteftantifm of the church of England confifts. To the quotation from the Bishop of Meaux I readily subscribe, 25 containing what I understand to be found divinity. The doctrine you have oppofed to it is not to be found any where in the Bible. So long as the Spirit dwells in the human heart, the fruits of the Spirit will be produced. But as the Spirit may be quenched, (1 Thess. v. 19) and grieved, (Eph. iv. 30) and in confequence provoked to leave his abode; no man can be faid to be completely juftified, till he shall be

zlly justified. But upon this head more, perhaps, s been already faid than was neceffary. I therere proceed.

In page 60 you fay, that upon the authority of e royal declaration prefixed to the articles, we are intly agreed, that they must be taken in their ain, literal, grammatical fenfe." Granting your remifes, our conclufion will still be different.

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ording to your judgment, the Calvinistic sense of the rticles is their plain, literal, grammatical fenfe. But o far from finding this point established by the declaration in question, there is reafon to think that no fuch point was meant to be established by it.* In the first place, the declaration was made by King JAMES the Firft, who did not himself fee the Seventeenth Article in the Calvinistic fenfe in which you receive it; therefore that fense was not by him understood to be the plain, literal, grammatical sense of the article to which it is prefixed. And fhould I even admit the juftness of the inference drawn by BURNETT from this declaration, that the Seventeenth Article" is conceived in fuch general words, that is

The reader will fee this point fully made out in "Vindicia Ecclefiæ Anglicane," chap. ii. fect. 1.

BURNET'S Expofition, fol. p.8.

can admit of different literal, grammatical fenfes, even when the fenfes given are plainly contrary to each other;" I, as an anti-Calvinift, fhould stand as fully juftified in my fubfcription as you can be in yours. But my position is this; the declaration here referred to, if I understand it, was meant to guard against the abuse that had been made of the fcripture language, in which the Seventeenth Article is compofed, by discountenancing that very sense for which you are fo ftrong an advocate; where, alluding to the unhappy differences that had been raised about the doctrine of abfolute decrees, election, &c. it proceeds thus: "We will, that all further curious fearch be laid aside, and these difputes fhut up in God's promifes, as they are generally set forth to us in the holy fcriptures, and the general meaning of the articles," &c.; which general promifes and general meaning are certainly inconfiftent with what you conceive to be the plain, literal, grammatical sense of the article in queftion. In short, upon the fame principle that you expect me to receive the Calviniftic fenfe, because it is the plain, literal, grammatical sense of the Seventeenth Article, according to your reading; the Roman Catholic may call on you to admit the doctrine of tranfubftantiation, from the authority of the fixth

chapter of ST. JOHN's Gofpel, according to his reading. The only difference I fee between the two cafes is this: whilst you are called on to believe against the testimony of your fenfes, I am expected to do it against the conviction of my understanding, founded upon the general tenour of fcripture.

In page 63, fpeaking of one of God's elect, you fay, "he walks (as concludes the Seventeenth Article) religiously in good works," &c. These words do not constitute the conclufion of the Seventeenth Article, but are to be found in the middle of it; and fubjoined to them, the article contains matter which challenges most serious confideration. But there are three fmall words in the beginning of this article, of which you take no notice, and which to me appear to be of effential importance. These words are "fecret to us. Of God's foreknowledge there can be no doubt, though the word itself does not properly apply to the DEITY. For that Being to whom all things are present, cannot, strictly speaking, be faid to foreknow any thing. But if his purpose to deliver from damnation those whom He hath chofen, “be fecret to us, furely it becomes us to work out our falvation with fear and trembling, rather than prefume to fay or think that we are chofen or predeftinated to be holý,

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and without blame, and that our election is fure, as you give the reader to understand in page 62. Permit me to ask, what can be those tokens which can fhew us what is fecret to us? and whether this confidence of falvation, which even the greatest faints have not poffeffed, does not favour more of spiritual pride, than of that lowlinefs of mind which manifefts itself in an acknowledgment of their own unworthinefs, and a continual fuing for mercy through the merits, and for the fake of, a crucified Redeemer. The Chriftian is directed "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think foberly." Rom. xii. 3.

On what you are pleased to call my novel opinion of a conditional falvation, page 64, I have to add to what has been already said, that this doctrine is at leaft as old as the world. ADAM was placed in a ftate of conditional falvation in Paradise. A fimilar plan cf conditional falvation, though upon more gracious terms, was adopted under the new covenant. Our Saviour's answer to the young man, who en quired what good thing he should do that he might have eternal life, was this; "if thou wilt enter inta life, keep the commandments." MATT. xix. 17. ST. JOHN, as if for the exprefs purpose of prevent

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