the true meaning of the Scripture. For if the most part be damned, the fault is not in God, but in themselves; for it is written, GOD WOULD THAT ALL MEN SHOULD BE SAVED; but they themselves procure their own damnation, and despise the passion of Christ, by their own wicked and inordinate living. Here we may learn to keep us from all curious and dangerous questions. When we hear that some be chosen and some be damned, let us have good hope that we shall be amongst the chosen; and live after this hope, that is, uprightly and godly, and then thou shalt not be deceived. Think that God hath chosen those that believe in Christ, and that Christ is the book of life. If thou believest in him, then thou art written in the book of life, and so shalt be saved. So we need not go about to trouble ourselves with curious questions of the predestination of God but let us rather endeavour, ourselves, that we may be in Christ; for when we be in him, then we be well; and then we may be sure that we are ordained unto everlasting life." (Sermon on Third Sunday after Epiphany, p. 311, 312.)

4

He asserts universal redemption in several of his sermons; and in that for the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity, he acknowledges the same in the following words: "Christ shed as much blood for Judas, as for Peter. Peter believed it, and therefore he was saved; Judas would not believe

it, and therefore he was condemned; the fault being in him only, and in nobody else *."

Once more Latimer writes, "His salvation is sufficient to save all mankind; but we are so wicked of ourselves, that we refuse the same when it is offered to us; and, therefore, he saith, Few are chosen; that is, few have pleasure or delight in it."

Thus it is manifest that Calvinism did not prevail amongst our reformers, the composers of our public formularies, in the reign of Edward, when those formularies were composed.

But further; soon after Edward the Sixth's establishment on the throne, a Paraphrase of the New Testament was ordered, by authority, to be

* On this passage, Toplady, in his Historic Proof, vol. i. p. 315, has penned the following comment: "Not that Christ actually died for Judas (whose death was prior to that of Christ himself), but that the Mediator's blood was as much sufficient (so infinite was its value) to have redeemed even Judas (had it been shed for that purpose), as to have redeemed any other person."

Now, to pass by the doubtful fact, that Judas slew himself antecedently to the crucifixion of Christ, and the inference built upon it, that therefore Christ did not die for Judas, which would equally prove that Christ did not die for the Patriarchs, who, consequently, were saved without a Redeemer; is this interpretation the plain meaning of Latimer's words? If the writer thought so, it is in vain to argue with so blind a prejudice and, if he wrote what he was sure could not possibly be true, he does not deserve an answer, Churton's Life of Winchester.

set up for the benefit of the people in all churches. The Institutes of Calvin had already appeared. But it was the Paraphrase of Erasmus, which our reformers selected, as proper to guide the opinions of the English public; of Erasmus, who had distinguished himself in opposition to the erroneous sentiments entertained by Calvin, on the subjects of enslaved will and absolute decrees.

Now, the advocates for a Calvinistic interpretation of the Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies, finding it impossible to deny the sentiments of the early reformers to have been anti-calvinistic, when these documents were first drawn up, have shifted the untenable ground, and now as strenuously maintain, that alterations in opinion had taken place before the Articles were finally published by Elizabeth, in 1562 *.

This allegation must needs allude to the sentiments either of the original composers themselves, or of those under whose auspices the Articles were Tepublished. The original composers suffered martyrdom in the reign of Mary, 1555. In the preceding year, 1554, a dispute relative to predestination arose among these imprisoned reformers.

* Luther's Commentary on the Galatians, advancing the doctrine of the decrees, had also been published prior to the appearance of the Paraphrase. Luther afterwards changed his sentiments; "Since which time," says Burnet, "the whole stream of the Lutheran churches has run the other way." Hist. Refor. vol. ii. p. 107.

Bradford wrote a Treatise on this subject, which has been lost. A letter of his writing, however, containing a summary of his opinions, and stating the reception which his Treatise had encountered from his fellow-martyrs, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, is still extant amongst the Martyrs' Letters *,

From this letter, and some others, it appears that Bradford was what is now called a moderate Calvinist (although, I confess, that my own reason has never yet been able to annex a clear idea to that term), asserting UNIVERSAL redemption through Christ to Adam, and to ALL HIS POSTERITY who refuse it not finally; and recommending some diligence to be employed by man in the affair of his own salvation (although that were long ago fixed by an irrevocable decree). To me, who, were I a Calvinist, could not avoid being, by deduction of reason, an Antinomian, all this appears inconsistent and contradictory; but, this I only mention by the way. That an assertion of universal redemption, and of election in and by Christ, accompanied with earnest exhortations to labour, is not pure Calvinism, will appear by a reference to the words of Calvin; for, as to both the elect and reprobate, he asserts the decrees to be absolute, and resolved into the sole will of God; and as to the reprobate, that they are predestinated and determined to sin, and so to damnation: "In

* Martyrs' Letters, p. 391, 409, 471, &c

hanc pravitatem addictos, quia justo et inscrutabili Dei judicio suscitati sunt, ad gloriam ejus suậ damnatione illustrandam." Calvini Instit. lib. iii.

cap. 24, § 14. And again; Quos ergo Deus præterit, reprobat ; neque aliâ de causâ, nisi quod ab hæreditate quam filiis suis prædestinat, illos vult excludere." Cap. 23, § 1.

Bradford sent his Treatise to Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, then prisoners at Oxford, accompa nied by a letter addressed to Ridley, requesting their judgment upon the subject: ut veritas doctrinæ maneat apud posteros.

From Ridley's reply, it is clear that a second letter, not published among the martyrs' correspondence, had been written by Bradford, complaining that heresies had been broached among his fellowprisoners, which had not existed, "if the request of the first letter had been granted." Now, since this request was no other than that they should assent to the opinions contained in the Treatise, the words of the lost letter, quoted by Ridley, imply, that the three bishops had not given their sanction to that work; and Ridley himself adds, that he has "great fearfulness in handling the subject, and dares not speak further than the text leads him by the hand*." Bradford, then, first up braided the bishops for not giving his Treatise that sanction which would have patronized its appear

Martyrs' Letters, p. 64. Coverdale, the editor in 1564, says, in a marginal note, "The subject is God's election."0