is not the existence of the phraseology, but its import; not whether Scripture alone is to be received as an authoritative Rule of Faith, but what System of doctrine is really propounded in Scripture.

hitherto unheard of doctrines; but that It only propounded those, which had been held by the Catholic Church, from the very beginning, on the authoritative teaching of the Apostles.

Here we have a distinct and intelligible reason, why we should receive the exposition of the Nicene Fathers.

II. But the Divines of Dort seem to have acted upon a very different principle.

A professed declaration, that they will admit Holy Scripture ALONE to decide the dispute between themselves and the Remonstrants, sounds, no doubt, in the ears of a superficial inquirer, very reasonable and very satisfactory and very protestant: but, when stripped of its decent plausibility, it really means nothing more, than an avowal, that The SOLE judge should be Holy Scripture as gratuitously interpreted by themselves.

Such a compendious plan would certainly make very quick work with controversy. Let the Divines of Dort, by their own mere authority, interpret Scripture as they please; and let them declare, that An appeal to their own arbitrary interpretation ALONE is identical with An appeal to Scripture ALONE: and the Remonstrants, or indeed any other class of Anticalvinists, are incontinently beaten out of the field.

Gravely to swear, that The Synod will abide by the decision of Holy Scripture ALONE; and then, no less gravely, without a shadow of evidence even pretended to be adduced in their favour, gratuitously to INTERPRET Holy Scripture according to their own fancy is, surely, the very perfection of solemn mockery. They seem either to have quite forgotten or most unaccountably to have overlooked, that the true question, between themselves and the Remonstrants, was not The SOLE AUTHORITY of the Bible as a binding Rule of Faith, but The CORRECT INTER

We all know, that the WORD Election is scriptural. This we require not to be told. What, for a legitimate settlement of the question, we want to know, is the MEANING of the word as employed by the inspired writers.

So great is my veneration for the Bible, and so full is my assurance that it is the infallible word of God that I hold myself prepared implicitly to believe any doctrine, which it propounds. But, as for what doctrine it propounds, I must have some tangible and intelligible evidence: and a mere gratuitous assertion thrown out by an individual, that It contains such or such a doctrine, is manifestly no proof to me, that it really does contain such or such a doctrine.

3. Calvin assures us, that his interpretation of the word Election is its true interpretation: and the theologians of Dort strenuously reëcho his assurance.

This may, or may not, be the case. But, without some distinct evidence of the correctness of Calvin's

PRETATION of the phraseology of the Bible as the sense to be received.

But it will be said, that, instead of depending upon their own unaided judgment alone, they did not proceed to give sentence until after they had solemnly invoked the name of God to guide them to a true decision.

Here they doubtless followed the advice of their great original master Augustine. But the delusiveness of prayer for intellectual illumination, in order that we may rightly interpret disputed texts of Scripture, has already been abundantly exposed.

interpretation, we have clearly nothing better than a mere opinion.

Unless a tangible proof be adduced, the whole System, resting as it does upon an exposition, will inevitably rest upon an assumption. Independently of such proof, Calvin could only have said: My interpretation is true, because I myself believe it to be true. To which, still independently of proof on either side, an opponent, with equal cogency, might readily have answered: Your interpretation is false, because I myself believe it to be false.

4. The same remark obviously applies to every Calvinist of the present day.

If he can give no better reason for his interpretation of Scripture, than his own private individual persuasion of its accuracy: however he may succeed in persuading himself; on no intelligible principle, can he reasonably hope to persuade another,

CHAPTER VII.

AUGUSTINE.

Ir the System, denominated Calvinism, do indeed faithfully exhibit the mind of Scripture, it propounds a Scheme of doctrine far too marked and too prominent and too important not to have been well and familiarly known to the Catholic Church from the very beginning.

I mean not to say, that it must have appeared in all the strict formality of a precise and minutely defined set of Articles: for scholastic exactness of this description is produced only by controversy. But thus far I will certainly say, that, if the Calvinistic System were the System universally understood, by the primitive Christians, to have been delivered by the inspired Apostles, as the undoubted and indisputable sense of the phraseology employed in the writings of the New Testament: we must find it, boldly and characteristically prominent, though of course only under a hortatory or practical form, in all the early ecclesiastical documents.

To suppose otherwise, were to suppose, that the

Church in her best and purest day, the Church with the very voice of the Apostles still sounding in her ears, either deliberately suppressed, or contemptuously disregarded, a revealed Scheme of doctrine, which could not but be highly important even under the simple aspect of its being a revelation, and which must be viewed as yet additionally and indeed preëminently important if (as its advocates contend) it be the very pith and marrow of scriptural sincerity.

I. On the reasonable principle that A System ought to bear the name of its author, the term Calvinism is certainly improper.

We cannot justly charge the Genevan Reformer with inventive innovation. He did not, in the sixteenth century, rashly, for the first time, propound any new-fangled results of his own unchastened and unwarranted private judgment. Both within the pale of the Latin Church, and among those who from time to time protested against her growing corruptions, we find, through a long succession of ages, the same general Scheme of doctrine repeatedly advanced and maintained and defended.

II. On this fact of perhaps well nigh unbroken evidence, it is superfluous for me to dwell: I rather hasten to that great man, from whose mighty authority such speculations pervaded the West, while they appear to have made scanty progress in the East.

Calvin, as he does, may justly claim, as his own, Augustine of Hippo. For, to draw any essential