moft decifive extracts from thofe of the latter are brought to conclude that fpecies of prefumptive evidence, which the writings of our original Reformers are calculated to furnish, toward afcertaining the fenfe of the Articles they compiled.

From this prefumptive evidence, after having adverted to the ftriking circumftance of ERASMUS's Anti-Calviniftic Commentary being fet up in our Churches, from which an argument is to be drawn against the peculiar tenets of CALVIN, which no Calvinist will fairiy anfwer; I proceed to that pofitive and decided evidence, furnished by the internal teftimony which the Articles and Liturgy mutually furnish to each other; a fpecies of evidence which ftands on the ground of this incontrovertible pofition, contained in the 212th page of the Appendix, in the following words—“That our Church, in the fubfcription to her Articles, does not require a faith from her Clergy different from that which they are taught to preach in the use of the established Liturgy." With this view I tried the 17th Article, both by itself and by the Liturgy; and the judgment which fuch a trial neceffarily drew after it was, that Calvinifm, in the proper fenfe of the word, is not the doctrine of the Church of England, but an unfcriptural doctrine, that has been grafted upon it by injudicious, though well-meaning, divines.

From the foregoing statement I felt myself autho rized to fay, what I ftill maintain, that, by an appeal

to hiftoric fact, I had brought my reader fufficiently acquainted with the circumftances which accompanied the original establishment of our prefent Church doctrines, to qualify him to form a decided judgment on the fubject under confideration. Apa pendix, p. 262.

Such has been my method of treating this fubject. But from Mr. OVERTON's account of it the reader would conclude, that the names of our original Reformers were not to be found in my pages; and that the only evidence produced by me was of that Popish equivocal kind, as to be entitled to little or no credit. My reader will, therefore, judge, to whom the charge of fuppreffing unimpeachable evidence most attaches. My object on this occafion, confidering that I was not writing an History but a Letter, was, to bring forward, not all the producible evidence on the subject, but those parts or portions of it, which might be fufficient to fubftantiate my point. That done, my defign was completed. Suppofing, then, my method of proof did not correfpond with that adopted by Mr. O., ftill a fair statement of it ought to have been laid before his reader. Mr. O., however, apparently with the view of confirming the error into which he had been leading his reader on this occafion, proceeds, with a flippancy of language not well fuited either to his fubject or character, to afk the following questions: Alluding to his opponents, who are faid to imitate my method of treating this fubject,

Mr. O. asks, "Did they never hear of this great ufe of St. AUSTIN?" To which I anfwer; fhould it be admitted that St. AUSTIN's opinions had weight with our original Reformers, what had fuch a circumftance to do with the evidence I was producing from their writings?

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But I have to obferve moreover on this head, that Mr. O. is here begging the queftion, relative to the great ufe made of St. AUSTIN by our original Reformers. In p. 66 Mr. O. informed his readers that," next to the facred fcriptures, our Reformers especially profeffed to refpect the primitive Church, and the works of St. AUSTIN." To me there does not appear fufficient ground for this diftinction in favour of St. AUSTIN's writings. The Act of Parliament, 2 and 3 of EDWARD VI., fpeaking of our Reformers, with immediate relation to the work they had before them, fays only, that "they had an eye, in the first place, to the more pure and fincere Christian religion in the fcriptures; and, in the next place, to the ufages of the primitive Church." When, therefore, it is confidered that St. AUSTIN adopted a new system of explanation, different in fome important refpects from that which had received the general fanction of his predeceffors in the Church; this particular mention of his wri tings, as here introduced by Mr. O., is more calculated to create an undue prejudice in his reader's

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mind, than to do justice to the difcrimination of our Reformers.

It is true, Bishop BURNET, in the preface to his Expofition of the Articles, fays, that it has been fuggefted, that "the Articles feemed to be fo plain a tranfcript of St. AUSTIN's doctrine in thofe muchdifputed points, concerning the decrees of GOD, and the efficacy of grace, that they were not expounded by our Divines for that very reafon; fince the far greater number of them is believed to be now of a different opinion." And this fuggeftion

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the expofitor has no where contradicted; although he has brought no fhadow of proof to establish it. To this fuggeftion, therefore, to which Mr. O.'s question on this occafion appears to conform, I have but to fubjoin, what was fo well faid to it a hun dred years ago by Dr. BiNKS, dean of Litchfield, in his "Prefatory Difcourfe to the Examination of BURNET'S Expofition." But (fays the Dean) "But how does it appear that our divines have acted upon this principle, or have ever been of this opinion? This is what ought to be very clearly made out; or elfe it is laying a thing to the charge of our divines, which is not at all for their credit; and which they will have no reafon to thank my Lord of SARUM for charging them with. How does it appear, that any of our divines, that either understood themselves, or the Articles, as they fhould do, did ever fuppofe thefe Articles (where GoD's de

crees and the efficacy of grace may feem to be concerned) were a transcript of any other doctrine than that of the fcriptures in general, or of St. PAUL in particular, who is very expreffive on these points?"

"True it is, that fome have been apt to imagine, that the compilers of our Articles were a little Calvinistically given; and that though they have worded things cautioufly, yet one may difcern fomething in the feventeenth Article that looks in favour of predestination, in oppofition to the Univerfalifts; (as the generality of our English divines are now fuppofed to be.) But this furmife is nothing but a vulgar error, grounded upon want of history and chronology; not confidering the time when those Articles, which fome would draw thefe inferences from, were penned. There is no body doubts, but that fome confiderable divines that had been driven abroad by means of Queen MARY'S perfecution, did return with a taint of the principles of thofe countries where they had been. And therefore had the Articles really been framed in Queen ELIZABETH's reign, (according to the date of them, as we now fubfcribe them) fomething might be faid for this fuggeftion; not but that, confidering that whatever they prepared was to be agreed upon in a convocation of good English divines, (the majority whereof, in all likelihood, were for downright English divinity) it would even then have been