expect and the fact of the collision is proof positive, that Calvinism had been held and taught by the reformed Belgic Churches. So again during the reign of our first James, a most powerful body within the Church of England strenuously maintained the peculiarities of Geneva: and the extent, to which they carried their doctrinal system, is evinced by the official signatures, of the anglican deputies, to all the decisions of the Synod of Dort *. A material change of sentiment, as we well know, took place in the time and under the auspices of Archbishop Laud. And what was the result? Did English Calvinism expire in silence and without a struggle? Nothing of the sort. A controversy immediately commenced, which has continued down to the present day. If, then Calvinism were assuredly the doctrine of the earliest Church Catholic, and if the tide of opinion began to set against it in the age of Justin Martyr: how happened it, that no Synod was called, that no doctrinal canons were propounded, that no controversy arose, that no strenuous Bogerman or Carlton or Scultet or Breytinger or Alsted or * The deputies, who thus subscribed, were George Carlton then Bishop of Llandaff, John Davenant afterward Bishop of Salisbury, Samuel Ward Master of Sidney College, and Thomas Goad Precentor of St. Paul's. Joseph Hall, afterward successively Bishop of Exeter and Bishop of Norwich, refused to subscribe the decisions of the Synod, and subsequently published his Via Media. Trigland sprang up to condemn and to confound the notorious innovators? Had the Primitive Church been careless or slow in the censure and denunciation of heresies, we peradventure might not have marvelled at her supineness and silence. But, when we know her zeal and promptitude, and when we recollect that no heresy appeared without being immediately classed and controverted: we must needs deem it passing strange, that the Calvinistic Scheme, if indeed held universally by the earliest Christians on the full and invincible personal assurance that they had received it direct from the mouths of the Apostles, should have died in the second century, and in death should have made no sign. (2.) The silence of the second century stands curiously and remarkably contrasted with the disputativeness of the fifth century: when the doctrine of Calvinistic Election was, as Mr. Milner would say, after a long sleep, resuscitated; or, as I should rather incline to say, and as Augustine himself incidentally and unwarily says, when it was first discovered by the diligent scriptural researches of that eminent Father. No sooner did the Bishop of Hippo propound his System, than he was, as we have seen, immediately charged with innovation. Simply as a FACT, it was alleged against him; that Neither the Church at large, nor the earlier Fathers who had preceded him, knew any thing of such a Scheme of Doctrine and it was insisted; that, For the purpose of confuting Pelagianism, there was no need to call in the hitherto unheard of speculations of Election and Reprobation, as they were advanced by Augustine. This difference, as might naturally be expected, forthwith produced a controversy: and the controversy finally led to the convocation of a Synod or Council at Orange. Now, as the very existence of such a controversy in the fifth century distinctly proves; that Austinism WAS NOT the received doctrine of the Church when propounded by Augustine: so the occurrence of a similar controversy in the second century, had any such controversy then occurred, would, mutatis mutandis, have similarly proved; that Austinism was the received doctrine of the Church, as the Church subsisted in the age which touched and mingled with the age of the Apostles. But there is no evidence, that any such controversy existed in the second century: and, indeed, Mr. Milner himself tells us, that the language of the Church, in this respect, was changed gradually and silently. Therefore, so far as I can judge, the very absence of such controversy is itself a proof: that The earliest Church knew nothing of the doctrine of Election as understood and expounded by Augustine and Calvin. 2. The observations, which have been made in regard to the absence of all controversy, anterior to the time of Augustine, on what may be briefly styled The Calvinistic Question, clearly apply, with equal force, to the two other Schemes of Arminianism and Nationalism. There is no more evidence of the occurrence of any controversy on account of the rival claims of those two Systems, than there is of any controversy on account of the claims of the Calvinistic System. Yet, if any one of the three Systems had been apostolically received from the beginning, the other two must inevitably be false: and, whenever the primitive Scheme began to be impugned to make way for either of the two others, a controversy would assuredly forthwith commence. But no controversy whatever took place anterior to the time of Augustine: and, when a controversy did then spring up, neither Arminianism nor Nationalism was the System defended, as the ancient System, against nascent Austinism or Calvinism; which clearly must have been the case, had either of those two Systems been the primitive System received from the beginning. On the contrary, the System, alleged against Augustine by the Massilian Christians, on the professed ground of easily traced antiquity, as the notoriously primeval System of the Catholic Church, was, in point of IDEALITY, totally different from either Arminianism or Nationalism: for it was a System, which respected and which was built upon the deep mystery; Why the Gospel was offered to this individual, rather than to that individual; why it was offered at this time, rather than at that time ; why it was preached in this country, rather than in that country; why this individual was elected into the pale of the Church, rather than that individual *. * Cum autem dicitur eis; Quare aliis vel alicubi prædicetur, vel non prædicetur, vel nunc prædicetur quod aliquando pene omnibus sicut nunc aliquibus gentibus non prædicatum sit: dicunt, Id præscientiæ esse divinæ, ut, eo tempore, et ibi, et illis, veritas annunciaretur, vel annuncietur, quando et ubi prænoscebatur esse credenda. Et hoc, non solum aliorum catholicorum testimoniis, sed etiam sanctitatis tuæ disputatione antiquiore, se probare testantur. Hilar. Arelat. Epist. ad August. in Oper. August. vol. vii. p. 483. Jerome's opposition to the whimsical private Scheme of Origen, long after Origen's death, can scarcely, I think, be deemed controversy: it may serve, however, to shew, that innovations upon the ancient System were not suffered to pass unnoticed. Alius vero (scil. Origenes), qui Deum justum conatur ostendere, quod, non ex præjudicio scientiæ suæ, sed ex merito electorum, unumquemque eligat. Priusquam animæ præcipitarentur in mundum, et mundus ex animabus fieret, cum habitatricibus suis in infimum ipse dejectus, elegit Paulum Deus et ei similes coram se, qui erant sancti et immaculati.—In illa dejectione mundi, eos, qui, antequam mundus fieret, electi erant a Deo, missos esse in eruditionem et magisterium animarum peccatricium, ut, ad prædicationem eorum, reverterentur ad eum locum unde corruerant.-Ad quod bifariam est respondendum. Non enim ait Paulus: Elegit nos ante constitutionem mundi, cum essemus sancti et immaculati: sed Elegit nos, ut essemus sancti |