Against these objections the Protestants had a variety of defences, some of which, it must be owned, had more strength as they were applied to the Papists, than merit in themselves. They said, that "a want of unity was no greater reproach to them from the Papists, than it was to the primitive church from the Jews and Heathens, and that the same apologies would serve in both cases." They

only. By this means many cavils were cut off at once, and many confessions of systematical doctors rendered of no use to the Papists at all; who, being well aware of the advantages the Popish cause would lose by this expedient, were accordingly extremely provoked at it. They called it a novelty, which the Protestants in general would not approve. And it appeared, in the event, that they were not totally mistaken. For the application of this rule by a liberal-spirited English Prelate on a certain occasion, put another English Prelate [bishop Hare] extremely out of humour; a Prelate who, when the force of episcopal prejudice was out of the way, had ridiculed systematical attachments in a much admired irony, which however owed all its beauty and all its force to this very principle of Chillingworth. Mr Desmaizeaux (Chillingworth's biographer) thought it necessary to exculpate Chillingworth from this popish charge of novelty, and, as it seems to me, has succeeded very ill. He says, "All Protestants had declared in their confessions, or articles of religion, that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith by which those confessions themselves are to be tried." But the question was not, what all Protestants had declared, but whether any protestant church had acted conformably to that declaration, and ventured to defend the protestant religion on scripture principles, even at the expense (if so it should fall out) of its own established confession? His answer to bishop Hare's peevishness is much better. Life of Mr Chillingworth, p. 169,

and 198.

might have added, that divisions in the Christian church had been for the most part occasioned and fomented by the peremptory decisions and intoler ant spirit of those particular doctors, who happened to have the lead for the time being. But this, being too much the case of the Protestants themselves, was not to be insisted on. Some advantage, indeed, they had in the way of recrimination; but here the Papists found the means to parry the blow; alleging, what indeed was very true, that the most considerable of the points in dispute among them had never been decided e cathedra, and so were left open to amicable debate without breach of unity; whereas the doctrines controverted among Protestants were solemnly established in their several confessions, and the confessions themselves ratified by oaths, subscriptions, &c. and the belief of them thereby made an indispensable condition of communion.*

* Thus, with respect to the famous five points concerning which the synod of Dort was so untractable, the disputes in the church of Rome were bitter enough; but then, "the council of Trent had drawn up her decrees, on these heads, with a neutrality which pleased all, and disobliged none." Heylin's Quinquarticular Hist. p. 26. Grotius made use of this circumstance in pleading with the magistrates of Amsterdam for a toleration of the Remonstrants. "The doctrines disputed in Holland," said he, "have not been decided by the church of Rome, though she is extremely fond of decisions." Abridgment of Brandt's History of the Reformation, &c. by La Roche, p. 344.

After much mortifying litigation concerning this want of unity among Protestants, it so happened that the Belgic and Gallican churches, in the name of themselves and their orthodox sister churches, thought fit to deny the fact; and, in the year 1581, exhibited what they called A Harmony of the Confessions of no less than eleven protestant churches, which they intended as an ample testimony of the unanimity of Protestants in their principal doctrines, and a full and satisfactory confutation of the popish calumnies on this head.

This work, however, was not equally approved of by all the churches, whose confessions it harmonized. It was even affronted by the church of England ;* for, being translated into English in the year 1586, Archbishop Whitgift, who at that time had the control of the press, would not allow it to be printed in London, and employed his authority likewise to have it suppressed in other places.†

*The English confession, exhibited in this Harmony, consisted of extracts from Bishop Jewel's Apology; a book, in those days, of equal authority with our thirty-nine articles. Strype's Annals, vol. i. chap. xxv.—xxvii. and Life of Parker, p. 179.

The Harmony was, however, printed at Cambridge that year, notwithstanding Whitgift's express prohibition. Strype, u. s. vol. iii. b. ii. ch. 8. Mr Strype has not informed us why the Archbishop disallowed the Harmony; but the Belgic and Gallican churches having expressed notions of church government, ceremonies, &c. in some short observations at the end of the book, not very favourable to Whitgift's principles, his Grace's distaste for the work is not wholly unaccountable.

There were, indeed, some considerations naturally suggested by the manner in which this work was executed, that would greatly obstruct the good effects expected from it, whether with respect to composing differences among Protestants, or obviating the reproaches of the common adversary.

1. In the first place, the compilers made no mention of the confessions or doctrines of any Protestants, who dissented from the public forms, in those countries where the reformed religion had gained an establishment. They were indeed hardly charitable to such dissenters; censuring with particular severity the authors of the Book of Concord, which had appeared about this time.*

* And indeed not without reason, if these censures could have been passed consistently with their design of exemplifying the Harmony subsisting among Protestants. By this Book of Concord, the work of some rigid Lutherans, all those churches were excluded from christian communion, who would not subscribe it. For which schismatical presumption, the reformed divines of the Low Countries expostulated sharply with these authors, alleging the scandal and mischief of such peremptory decisions, seeing that the Lutherans and Calvinists differed only about two articles, the Lord's supper, and the two natures of Christ. Blondel indeed observes, "that they differed about two articles more, viz. "predestination and grace; yet, believing these to be of no importance, they [the Low Country divines] made no mention of them." La Roche, u. s. p. 197. Would these divines have believed a prophet, who should have foretold, that their successors, in the space of forty years, would certainly treat all, who differed from them in these two articles of no importance, just as the authors of the Concord had treated themselves for differing with them on the other two? Mr La Roche has given a pretty long extract of this

2. All the world knew very well, that not one of these eleven churches would allow any man to minister in it, and hardly perhaps to communicate with it, who should refuse to subscribe the confession of that church, even though he should offer to subscribe or swear to every other system in the collection.

3. The short observations at the end of the Harmony, the design of which appears to have been to accommodate the awkward expressions in some of these confessions to the orthodox sense of the Belgic and Gallican churches (a liberty, which the harmonizers seem to have taken without any sort of commission,) plainly show, that some of these churches were at too great a distance from each other to be reconciled by any such equivocal expedients.

If the reader would know what was the reputation of these public confessions in other respects, he may be referred to a Lamentation, which appeared about thirty years after the publication of this Harmony, setting forth, "That these confessions were read by few; that they were hardly to be found in booksellers' shops; that men rather chose to provide themselves with the writings of private doctors, and to determine religious matters by any other testimonies, rather than these public forms."

Remonstrance of the Low Country divines, and says, he inserts it with pleasure, because it is very glorious to those divines. But to have perfectly achieved this glory for them, he should have suppressed his account of their persecuting Hubert Duifhuis, because he and his party refused to subscribe their Book of Concord. See p. 194, 203, 207.