Calvinistic, but had, nevertheless, subscribed the whole, in order to preserve the peace of the church, the evil would have been of minor importance." What! is it to be silently assumed and allowed, that a portion of the Articles is Calvinistic? and that all divines, who subscribe that formulary, holding Arminian principles, are latitudinarians, secretly objecting to one portion of the matter, yet signing an assent in falsehood in order to preserve the peace of the church? Here is a notable begging of the question, and sliding in of an axiom. The calumny implied is as gross as it is artful; the spawn of party spirit.

Again: under latitudinarianism is included, the belief in a partial obliquity from rectitude in the mind of man, rather than a total departure from righteousness. Now if the author only meant, like the ninth Article, " that man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil;" or, like the tenth, "that man cannot turn himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God," he would be right in condemning, as latitudinarians and Pelagians, the impugners of this sound doctrine. But it is clear from his statement, that under the shadow of this truth, he intends to slide in that hypothesis of total and complete depravation, which is the ground-work of the Calvinistic doctrine of God's sole and exclusive agency, in the whole process of conversion, re

pentance, and obedience, within the soul of man. But how is this consistent with the latter part of the tenth Article, which speaks of the grace of God preventing us, that we may have a Goon WILL, and working WITH US when we have that good will? Will is volition, and working wITH our WILL, is not the sole, and exclusive, however it may be the leading, disposing, aiding, and principal operation. We have a WILL, then, to embrace or to reject grace; and if that will in concurrence with the divine Spirit, exerts itself for a good end, what becomes of this memorialist's TOTAL departure from rectitude? It will do him no good to fight (in p. 29) under the banners of Shuckford, Kennicott, and Horne; these defended original sin from a Pelagian native innocence, but they never built a scaffolding for God's arbitrary selection, and exclusive agency, in point of in point of person, time, place, and circumstance, which should reduce men into passive and irresponsible machines.

Pursuing the same views, this Calvinist next. classes among the latitudinarians, all who reject the tenet of justification by faith ALONE; calling the doctrine of imputed righteousness, absurd and unintelligible. Here again, there is something to be allowed, and something to be qualified. When justification by faith is placed in contradistinction and opposition to justification by our own works or deservings, it is true that we DESERVE nothing; and that, in the words of the eleventh Article, jus

tification by faith alone, is a most wholesome doctrine. But here the author would edge in his solifidianism; that is to say, faith without any reference to works: and we cite the twelfth Article to remind him, that the true justifying faith implies works; which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification. That the righteousness of Christ is imputed only to those who hold this faith, comprising works, may be held (saving Mr. Middleton's presence) without latitudinarianism.

A further test of latitudinarianism is discovered, in a ridicule of the notion of experimental evidence in religion. "It is against common sense," said Dr. Trapp, "to talk of feeling the Spirit of God; a sentiment held by all those of the Warburtonian school, who knew not how to distinguish between the fancies of the visionary, and that inward witness which is the blessed privilege of those who truly believe." Who or what is this inward witness? Is it the testimony of a good conscience; is it peace and joy in believing? Shake hands, Mr. Middleton; I understand this, and go along with it. But if you mean any thing of an inward feeling of the Spirit, any thing of a sensible experience, then transfer your whole class of latitudinarians over to your next division of the orthodox; for all those whom you designate as such, know no difference between the fancies of the visionary, and an inward witness of this

latter description. And if you think otherwise, all that can be said for it is, that you are no better than a fanciful visionary yourself. "A spirit hath not flesh and bones:" spirit cannot be an object of sensation.

Lax opinions on the subject of eternal torments, as implying only a qualified punishment, are set forth as the last test of latitudinarianism. Now, altogether to deny eternal torments, and to deride the fear of hell-fire; or even to affirm, with the universalist, that all men will, in the course of ages, be made happy, is to adopt a reprehensible heresy. But surely it may be thought, without heterodoxy, that punishment, though illimitable in duration, may be qualified, according to various demerits, in an infinite scale of degrees; that the fire which is not quenched, and the worm which never dieth, are to be taken as figurative expressions; that there is no necessity for an hypothesis of asbestos bodies, or for the catalogue of Drexelius's torments; that exclusion from the presence of God, envy of the blessed, vain regrets, and everlasting remorses, may constitute the chief hell of the ungodly; accompanied with such privations of animal happiness, or actual penal inflictions, as, though aggravated or mitigated, according to different delinquencies, may yet to all the condemned, render existence not a blessing. In this respect Adams, the Archdeacon of Llandaff, on whom the memorialist has poured

invectives, may have been a latitudinarian only after the "horribilia decreta" of Calvin.

IV. The third class of the English clergy are not precisely the ORTHODOX, but those " usually denominated the orthodox." They were fewer in number than either of the former divisions (were they so indeed?), but men who rendered service to the church by their manly assertion of SOME essential doctrines of the Gospel. Thus far candour, when abatement drags him back. "Some of the orthodox, in treating of church government, left Dissenters in common to the uncovenanted mercies of God." True: because they could not, in their consciences, recognise these Dissenters, as being within the pale of an apostolical church; but they still left them to the MERCIES of God; and that was undoubtedly a better compliment than some of the Dissenters paid to THEM.

But

to proceed. "Their sermons were deficient in that energetic spirituality or affectionate simplicity, which marked the addresses of their evangelical brethren;" nor did they make such forcible appeals to the conscience of the hearers. We presume that this can only mean, they did not descend to the vulgar familiar;" and forbore from those searching and rousing alarms which filled the mad-houses with the victims of despair; for we cannot find, that the sermons of "Sherlock and Wilson, of Horne, Jones, Secker, and Southgate," whom this writer numbers among the orthodox,