true and real, and not feigned or fallacious; and that we declare that every precept concerning faith, good works, and perseverance, has an actual binding power in respect to all men. That promises universally made to all men can be true and real in respect of those who are reprobated to damnation from all eternity, that precepts and laws should strictly bind those who, from mere gratuitous grace, are predestinated to eternal life, is, perhaps, an easy thing to say; it is, certainly, a very difficult thing to explain." 1

Suppose, now, to bring the matter to a practical test, that the former preaching of New England had been set to the key-note of these canons, what would have been the result? In all probability, that лрárov feudoç of Calvinism, which forgets "that (there being neither first nor second as to time in God, who seeth what is past, present, and to come, with one view, therefore) there is no such thing as predestination, strictly taken," would have been avoided. At all events, that ingrained idea of unconditional bestowments, which, coupled with the entire confusion of redemption and salvation, has worked itself out into Universalism, could never have made such disastrous outcome. Nor could the substitution of an unconditional decree, touching individuals, in place of a freely gracious, but still conditional offer to all mankind, have prepared the way for those two sore evils which to-day infest New England; that intensely subjective individualism which finally ends in mere emotional sentimentalism, and that toughest and roughest form of infidelity, the infidelity of indifferentism. Instead of this, the wind was sown, and the whirlwind must be reaped.

us.

Returning now, after this analysis of its several parts, to the Article as a whole, we ask our readers' attention to a most remarkable contemporaneous exposition of it, which has been preserved to A contemporaneous exposition of a disputed document must always possess some weight. And in the present instance, as we shall directly see, the circumstances under which, and the persons by whom it was made, invest the one now to be considered with an interest and value that are not merely peculiar, but unique.

As early as the year 1533, the " Act of Submission" had provided for the appointment of thirty-two commissioners to compile a code of ecclesiastical laws, and to give them legal effect under the great seal; a provision twice afterward renewed, in 1535 and 1543. "In conformity with these acts, so much progress was made in the

'Minor Works, vol. i. p. 253.

* Robert Calder, quoted in Harmony of Anglican Doctrine," etc., p. 44.

compilation, that letters patent were prepared before the death of King Henry VIII., for the purpose of issuing the code, and giving it legal effect." They were not, however, issued. In 1549, a new reign having begun, an act was passed empowering the king to appoint thirty-two persons "to compile such ecclesiastical laws as should be thought by him, his council, and them, convenient to be practised in all the spiritual courts of the realm." No appointment having been made under the act, a royal commission was issued, November 11, 1551, intrusting the prosecution of the revision to Archbishop Cranmer and seven other persons; and a transcript of the previous compilation was made for their use. This transcript, with the alterations of Cranmer and Peter Martyr, is still extant. The result of their labors was the work known as the Reformatio Legum. It never became law, for reasons which are of no consequence at present.

What we need to observe here is, that it was put in shape in 1551-52, the very time when the Forty-two Articles of Edward were in process of construction, "and that it was the work of nearly the same hands." We rarely obtain a contemporaneous exposition which so exactly coincides in time with the document to which it is to be applied, or proceeds so entirely from the very persons who framed the document itself.

But this is not all. This Reformatio Legum was revised by Archbishop Parker, and first printed in 1571, the very year in which the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth were finally subscribed by Convocation, and ratified by Parliament. So that, again, this document, under revision at the same time with the Forty-two Articles, and revised by the same persons who had them in hand, becomes a second time a contemporaneous witness to the meaning of the Articles. Never, probably, before or since, has any document had such a history. The value of its testimony, when we are seeking in the exposition of any of the Articles the animus imponentis, can hardly be overrated.

The first title of the work is, "Of the Holy Trinity and the Catholic Faith;" the second title is, "Of Heresies;" and here, in chapter xxii., we find the first, the last, and the only mention of predestination, in these words:

CHAPTER XXII.--OF PREDESTINATION.

Finally, there live in the Church many persons of untamed and ill-regulated character, who, while in point of fact they are xcvi.-3

curious, puffed up with luxury, and altogether alien from the Spirit of Christ, are always in their discourse prating about predestination and rejection (or, as they are wont to call it, reprobation) in such a way that, where God hath in His eternal counsel arranged anything certain, either concerning salvation or concerning destruction, they seek from it a cloak for their evil deeds and crimes, and for perversity of every sort. And when their pastors reprove their careless and disgraceful life, they lay the blame of their crimes on the will of God, and think that, by this defence, the reproaches of those who admonish them are overthrown; and so at last, under the guidance of the devil, they either are cast headlong into present desperation, or else, without either penitence or consciousness of guilt, fall away into a sort of lax and unmanly carelessness of life; which two evils seem to have a diverse nature, but the same end. But we, being learned in the Holy Scriptures, lay down the following teaching in this matter, inasmuch as we have undertaken a diligent and careful consideration of our predestination and election, whereof it was determined by the will of God before the foundations of the world were laid. Now, this diligent and serious consideration of these things, of which we spoke, soothes with a certain sweet and very pleasant consolation the minds of pious men, inspired as they are by the Spirit of Christ, and bringing the flesh and the members into subjection, and tending upward to heavenly things; for it confirms our faith in the eternal salvation which is to come to us through Christ; it lights most fervent flames of love toward God; it wonderfully arouses us to thanksgiving; it leads us far toward good works, and it draws us far away from sins, since we are elected of God and made His sons; which peculiar and excellent condition requireth of us the greatest healthfulness of character and the most excellent perfection of virtue; in fine, it diminisheth our pride, that we may not think that that is done by our strength which is granted by the free kindness of God and by His infinite goodness. Moreover, we judge that no one can draw from this matter any excuse for his faults, because God hath arranged nothing unjustly in any matter, nor doth He, at any time, urge our wills to sin without their consent. Wherefore, all must be warned by us, that in undertaking actions, they should not refer themselves to the decrees of predestination, but should frame the entire manner of their lives according to the laws of God, while they consider both the promises to the good and the threats to the wicked, as they are generally [generaliter] set forth in the Holy Scriptures. For we ought to enter upon the worship of God in those ways, and to

rest in that will of God, which we see laid open before us in the Holy Scriptures.” 1

Apart from all historical testimony, no one, we are sure, can read this document without recognizing at once the identity of its phraseology with that of Article XVII. The same minds must have shaped, the same hands have written both. There is no escape from this conviction. Nor does the conclusion to which the phraseology of the document brings us need any urging or explaining. It is perfectly obvious to any reader. No persons holding Calvin's system, or writing in its interests, could have been content to permit the only mention of predestination to be found under a title treating of heresies. No such persons could speak of predestination, and especially of reprobation, as the writers of the Reformatio Legum do. And yet these very persons drew up the original Articles of 1552; and others of like mind with them, and who adopted their words, were concerned in that revision which was finally settled in 1571.

Coming, therefore, to Article XVII. with the certainty that every point of the system of Calvin, unless it be, possibly, unconditional predestination to life, is either directly contradicted or significantly omitted in the Articles as a whole; finding that this very Article, when fairly analyzed, always refuses, in speaking of predestination to life, to come up to the requirements of Calvinism, in some cases flatly denies them, and imposes two canons for expounding God's Word (and, a fortiori, itself) which are absolutely fatal to their claims; taking into account the important bearing of a contemporaneous exposition, which is, in character and value, absolutely unique; remembering that against all this there is really nothing to allege, but the vague notion that the word predestination must mean Calvinism; we have a right to say, and to be thankful to God that we can say, If this is Calvinism, make the most of it!

There still remains to be considered a most important confirmatory line of argument, derived from a succession of historical facts. This, however, must be reserved, together with something in the way of positive exposition, for another paper.

'Cardwell's edition, p. 21.

THO

both Universities, besides a "Laureat" degree from Louvain, royal orator to Henry VII., and after to his son, tutor to this son, and some time Rector of Disse, in Norfolk, and, above all, a witty, fearless writer of strong, racy, idiomatic English, on subjects that were, if of temporary, yet of absorbing interest, and in every way a notable man in his day,-John Skelton is wellnigh a forgotten worthy. Once, he held responsible office and filled high duties in the second rank of those in public service around the able statesmen who guided the rapid course of events from the Field of Bosworth to the Field of the Cloth of Gold; now, a short notice, a few lines, a sweeping condemnatory epithet, comprise all he gets from our ordinary works on the literature of his day. Consequently, rare copies of single poems, known to have existed not long ago, have irrecoverably perished. His few surviving works even have been carefully collected and collated only in our day. Yet he has not really deserved this treatment. None of the writers of his day could compare with him in facile and ready style. He was no mere rhymnster; as he claimed for himself, he had pith in his manner as well as his matter, and few could do weightier justice to their subjects than himself. But Pope pilloried him with the phrase, BEASTLY SKELTON, and it has been the religious duty of every scribbler since to pelt him with some ugly epithet. It is not