observed to Cranmer in a correspondence already alluded to, there existed among its advocates stoical disputations respecting fate, offensive in their nature, and noxious in their tendency (21). The duration however of these stoical disputations, it should be remarked, was but short; and the substitution of a more rational as well as practical system, for the space of more than twenty years before the appearance of our Articles, prevented the Founder of our Church from mistaking for the doctrines of the Lutherans those, which they themselves wished to forget, and were anxious to obliterate.

The Articles which I shall discuss, or rather the doctrine of which, as connected with the controversies of the time, I shall endeavour to develop, are those upon Original Sin, upon Works before Grace, and Free Will as allied to the same, upon Justification by faith alone, and lastly upon Predestination and Election. And since on all these topics, on some in part only, but on most of them wholly, the German Reformers were at issue with the Church of Rome; from the compositions of Luther and Melancthon on one side, and from those of the School Divines on

the other, the observations, which I shall have to make, will be principally selected. It may then, perhaps, appear, as well from internal as external evidence, whence Cranmer derived the principles of our national Creed, and according to what system they should be interpreted. It may appear, that from the Lutherans, who had been his masters in Theology, he had learned (one point only excepted) almost every thing, which he deemed great and good in reformation; and that with them he was desirous of preserving not a servile, but a liberal conformity, while turning from the disgustful sophistry of the times, and embracing Gospel simplicity, he fed the flock of Christ committed to his charge with the bread of knowledge and understanding, unmixed with Popish leaven, with that preposterous doctrine of merits, which was at once a reproach to human reason, and a disgrace to Christianity.

SERMON III.

ROM. V. 19.

By one man's disobedience many were made
sinners.

IN the preceding Lectures I have endeavoured to point out the source, from which our Articles were derived, and to prove, that no alterations, however trivial, (at least none which relate to the subject before me,) were admitted after their original publication, unless such, as were borrowed from a similar source, and a composition coæval with them; circumstances, which necessarily limit my proposed enquiry, the former confining it generally to a single object, the latter always to a single period. Instead therefore of attempting to illustrate them by the predominant opinions either of Elizabeth's or any succeeding reign, it seems more correct to compare them with those which prevailed when they were first promulgated.

Avoiding therefore every question not at the time agitated, I shall attend only to the peculiar controversies of the day; to controversies, which were carried on by the Lutherans against the Papists, and which our own Reformers appear to have had in view, when, separating from the Church of Rome, they established a new Creed, not in order to erect a barrier between Protestant and Protestant, but principally to raise a broad and secure boundary against the return of Romish error. subsequent points of difference, by whatsoever party introduced, and to whatsoever object directed, it seems better to omit, than to confuse the enquiry by the discussion of irrelevant topics, and the application of incongruous theories.

All

As we descend to particulars, it will be necessary to keep our eye upon one prominent doctrine, which was eminently conspicuous in all the controversies of the Lutherans; the doctrine of complete Redemption by Christ, which in their idea their adversaries disregarded, who denied in effect the depravity of our nature, believed the favour of Heaven in this life recoverable by what was denominated Merit of Congruity, and in the life to come by that, which was

termed Merit of Condignity, and founded Predestination upon merits of such a description; thus in every instance, while retaining the name of Christians, rendering Christianity itself superfluous. In opposition to opinions so repugnant in many respects to reason, and in almost all so subversive of Scripture, the Lutherans constantly pressed the unsophisticated tenet of the Atonement, not contractedly in a Calvinistical, but comprehensively in a Christian point of view, in one, in which both Calvinists and Arminians alike embrace it. This therefore will be found more or less to pervade every topic, which I propose to examine, in most cases to give it its true, and in some its only direction (1).

The subject, which comes first in order to be considered, is that, which is contained in the Article of Original Sin.

When reformation began to appeal from the fallible judgment of man to the infallible Word of God, an abstruse system of Divinity prevailed, cultivated with enthusiasm by many, and respected by all, which was grounded upon the minute distinctions and subtle deductions of the Schoolmen, whose empire was no less universal in Theology than in Science. Aiming rather to perplex