dying for the whole world, are frequently interpreted of the world of the elect. Dr. Davenant and some of his brethren in

clined to the doctrine of universal redemp

tion: he and Dr. Ward were for a middle way between the two extremes; they maintained the certainty of the salvation of the elect, and that offers of pardon were sent not only to all who should believe and repent, but to all who hear the Gospel; and that grace sufficient to convince and persuade the impenitent (so as to lay the blame of their condemnation upon selves,) went along with these offers: that the redemption of Christ and his merits were applicable to these, and consequently there was a possibility of their salvation. They however complied with the Synod, and agreed to their confession, as in general agreeable to the word of God. But some years after, a report arose that they had deserted the doctrine of the Church of England; upon which Dr. Hall expressed his concern to Dr. Davenant in these words-'I will live and die in the suffrage of that Synod of Dort; and I do confidently avow, that those other opinions (of Arminius) cannot stand with the doctrine of the Church of England.' which Dr. Davenant replied, I know that no man can embrace Arminianism in

To

the doctrines of predestination and grace, but he must desert the articles agreed upon by the Church of England; nor in the point of perseverance, but he must vary from the received opinions of our best approved doctors in the English Church.'" Hall, pp. 90-92.

The Dean having failed in his golden opportunity of making peace abroad, returned to make it, if possible, at home. Very soon, in his quiet retreat at Waltham, and his deanery at Worcester, he finds "the Church of England become sick of the Belgic disease." The transmission and diffusion of this Arminian epidemic through our own ill-fated isle was unfortunately but too easy, The pragmatical airs of James had well prepared the atmosphere of Britain for its reception. His sanction to the violence of the dominant party at the Synod of Dort was too tempting a precedent to be resisted by his courtly divines at home. They forgot his Calvinism, and he himself likewise. Not so the immense Calvinistic party whom he had encouraged by his embassy to Dort: whilst all that he and his own divines remembered was the successful issue of measures to silence

and exterminate religious opponents. Hence the Arminians at home take

up the weapons of the Dort Calvinists abroad. In the mean time, a worthy Jesuit attacks the whole Protestant body, Arminian and Calvinist, with a charge of errors substantially drawn from the tenets of the Synod of Dort, on the subject of predestination. This, which he calls" a new Gag for the Old Gospel," is rebutted by Mr. Montagu's "New Gag for an Old Goose;" where, in Dr. Hall's lively language, which shall supersede our own,

"Mr. Montague's tart and vehement assertions of some positions, near of kin to the Remonstrants of Netherland, gave occasion of raising no small broil in the church. Sides were taken: pulpits every where rang of these opinions: but parliaments took notice of the division, and questioned the occasioner. Now, as one that desired to do all good offices to our dear and common mother, I set my thoughts on work how so dangerous a quarrel might be happily composed: and, finding that mistaking was more guilty of this dissension than misbelieving (since it plainly appeared to me, that Mr. Montague meant to express, not Arminius, but B. Overal, a more moderate and safe author, however he sped in delivery of him,) I wrote a little project of pacification, wherein I desired to rectify the judgment of men conshewing them the true party in this uncerning this misapprehended controversy;

seasonable plea: and, because B. Overal went a midway betwixt the two opinions which he held extreme, and must needs therefore somewhat differ from the commonly received tenet in these points, I gathered out of B. Overal on the one side, and out of our English divines at Dort on the other, such common propositions concerning these five busy articles as wherein being put together, seemed unto me to both of them are fully agreed. All which make up so sufficient a body of accorded truth, that all other questions moved hereabouts appeared merely superfluous; and every moderate Christian might find where to rest himself, without hazard of contradiction. These I made bold, by the hands of Dr. Young, the worthy Dean of Winchester, to present to his excellent Majesty, together with an humble motion of a peaceable silence to be enjoined to both parts, in those other collateral and needless disquisitions: which, if they might benefit the schools of academical disputants, could not certainly sound well from the pulpits of popular auditories. Those reconciliatory papers fell under the eyes of some grave divines on both parts. Mr. Monta

6

was neither author nor abettor; but he, the father of lies, a liar, a murderer from the beginning,' in procuring the fall of man. Sin being entered, and by sin death, and so all mankind in the mass of perdition, God fitted and prepared a Restorer, a Mediator, the man Christ Jesus; that so whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;' out of his mercy both free and mere, because he was not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance,' as 2 Pet. iii. 9, and be saved. So large was his mercy, so enlarged his love, that out of his good pleasure it was his will, all men to be saved, and to come to knowledge of the truth.' Shew a contrary resolution of the Church of England, and gag up my mouth, Sir Goose, for ever: else go gaggle on the green.' R. Montague's New Gagg for an Old Goose, pp. 179,180. 1624.folio. The demon of discord was now let loose; nor was it easy to stay its progress of disaster and blood. It was not in the still small voice of the pacific and well meaning Hall, endeavouring to take the middle course, the "via media," between extremes to accomplish that object. He foresaw the storm which perhaps he had contributed originally, though unintentionally, to raise by the precedents at Dort; but to lay it must have been the work of some higher Prospero. In a tractate published at this period, with the title as above, of "Via Media," he gives the following exquisite passage, deeply affecting as a too true presage of the storm, and yet itself exhibiting, at its close, its very spirit.

"There needs no prophetical spirit to discern by a small cloud that there is a storm coming towards our church: such a one as shall not only drench our plumes, but shake our peace. Already do we see the sky thicken, and hear the winds whistle hollow afar off, and feel all the presages of a tempest, which the late example of our neighbours bids us fear."........ The advice which, in con

sequence, he humbly dedicates to his Majesty is, "not to betake himself to his chariot to outride the shower;" but to interpose "his Majesty's seasonable prevention." Only the powerful breath of your sovereign authority," he adds, " can dispel those clouds, and clear our heaven, and reduce a happy calm." Language such as this echoing on all sides of that servile court, was that which, in fact, hastened and matured the storm. There was, however, something worse than this; for, a little onward in this "Via Media," this "by way of peace," after warning men against controversy, since "never did that Belgic quarrel grow to extremity, till after the solemn conference before the States at the Hague [in 1611] which was intended to appease it,”the good Dean proceeds, "There is no possible redress, but in a severe edict of restraint to charm all tongues and pens, upon the sharpest punishment, from passing those moderate bounds, which the Church of England, guided by the Scriptures, hath expressly set; or which, on both sides, are fully accorded on." p. 827, vol. ii. Hall's Works.-The advice was followed: and, first, by strangling, as he gives us to understand, his own Via Media; next, by silencing all Puritanism, that is, Calvinism, doctrinal or disciplinarian ; lastly, by giving full swing and full preferment to all anti-Calvinism, of whatever class or degree. What opinions the Dean afterwards formed respecting the "charming" proceedings in the Star Chamber, and the Court of High Commission, we find no trace of in his Life or Writings. The terrible retaliation and reaction of the suffering party, he has sufficiently detailed, as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice in his "Hard Measure."

A single word, however, more, before we proceed, respecting the general contents of this important "Via Media," as a go-between, we may call it, of Calvinism and Arminianism and that particularly, in

connexion with Mr. Nichols's Arminian Bishop Overall; whose sentiments, it is moreover suggested by Hall, were those intended to be echoed by the gagging Mr. Montague. It so happens, that for almost every sentiment verging on Calvinism in the Via Media, Dean Hall expressly quotes Bishop Overall; and, putting all together, we seem for a moment to be in a goodly company of harmonious doctrinists, beginning with our somewhat Calvinistic Dean, and thence, through Bishop Overall, clear round to the ambiguous Montague, and thus to our avowed Arminian author, Mr. Nichols. The main point, on which we require far more light than Mr. Nichols has given us, nay, on which we think he has quite outrun his authority, is this, namely, the part actually taken by Bishop Overall in this concerted movement. Mr. Nichols alleges Bishop Overall to his own favourite point of conditionate predestination" ex fide prævisâ."

"In addition to the great divines here enumerated by Dr. Heylin, as favourers and defenders of conditional predestination prior to the time in which Arminius flourished, we may specify the names of Erasmus, Bullinger, Sarcerius, Latimer, Duifhusius, Dr. ÖVERAL, Bishop Andrews, Dr. Clayton, and last, but not least, the two learned professors, (formasi ambo!) Hemmingius of Copenhagen, and Baro of Cambridge." Arminius, p. 89.

Dean Hall as distinctly quotes Overall, for all that we can see to the contrary, as holding with himself unconditional election: and, in terms, we think, very difficult to be mistaken. "It is not the precision of faith, or any other grace or act of man*, where

Non er præscientia humanæ fidei aut voluntatis sed ex proposito divinæ voluntatis

et gratiæ, de his, quos Deus elegit in Christo

liberandis et salvandis. D. Overal de V. Art. in Belgio Controversis.-The history, and character, and opinions of Bishop Overall are most important, as bearing on those times. Coeval in birth with Arminius, but not surviving the Synod of Dort, the friend of Grotius, most learned and most pious, supposed to be the true middle way or stepping stone of the Anglican into Arminian tenets-where,nevertheless, does Mr. Nichols find or ground his assertion,

upon this decree of God [to give special grace to the predestinate] is grounded; but the mere and gra cious good will and pleasure of God from all eternity, appointing to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ, as the head and foundation of the elect. This decree of God's election is absolute, unchangeable, and from everlasting. God doth not either actually damn or appoint any soul to damnation, without the consideration in respect of sin." p. 121. Ibid.

The reconciliation of these counter statements we must leave to Mr. Nichols. For ourselves, if our opinion is demanded respecting the decrees of most writers in this "middle" school, we are ready to avow our feeling of an apparent, and, as to some, a misleading ambiguity in their several statements. In expressing their notions of predestination, so as to meet the views on both sides, they make, for instance, with studied accuracy, the rejection of men from salvation the result of no antecedent decree, but simply of sin foreseen. In this they rebut the charge of reprobating souls simply for

the good pleasure of God." The election of man is, nevertheless, and most simply given to "the good pleasure of God;" and is made the result, not of faith foreseen, but simply a decree. The want of duly appreciating this distinction of the "middle men," gives an ambiguity to all their statements in the view of the real anti-Calvinist, which is the primum mobile of all his mistakes respecting them; and this from Hey!in, down to Mr. Nichols, who closely imitates the views of Heylin. To assert, that man is lost without decree, simply for his sin, leads at once the Heylin of the day to claim the assertor, as maintaining condi tionate election. To assert, on the contrary, election as of grace, without respect to faith foreseen,

that Bishop Overall was among the favourers and defenders of conditionate predestination; and that, too, prior to the time in whieh Arminius flourished?