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tution of a christian church; and hence they maintained that those who followed other forms of government and worship, were not, sense, such things as having no express command in the word, yet are found to have authority and warrant from the institution, example, and approbation either of Christ himself or his Apostles; and have (in regard of the importance and usefulness of things themselves) been held, by the consentient judgment of all the Churches of Christ in the primitive and succeeding ages, needful to be continued: such things I say are (though not so properly as the former, yet) usually and interpretative said to be of divine right. Of which sort I take the observation of the Lord's day, the ordering of the keys, the distinction of Presbyters and Deacons, and some other things (not all perhaps of equal conquence) to be. Unto Jus Divinnm, in that former acceptation, is required a DIVINE PRECEPT: In this latter, it sufficeth thereunto that a thing be of APOSTOLICAL INSTITUTION OR PRACTICE. Which ambiguity is the more to be be heeded, for that the observation thereof is of great use for the avoiding of sundry mistakes, that through the ignorance or neglect thereof daily happen to the engaging of men in endless disputes, and entangling their consciences in unnecessary scruples.

"Now, that the government of the Churches of Christ by Bishops, is of Divine right in that first and stricter sense, is an opinion at least of great probability, and such as may more easily and upon better grounds be defended than confuted; especially if in expounding those texts that are alledged for it, we give such deference to the authority of the ancient Fathers and their expositions thereof, as wise and sober men have always thought it fit we should do. Yet because it is both inexpedient to maintain a dispute where it needs not, and needless to contend for more, where less will serve the turn; I find that our divines that have travelled most in this argument, where they purposely treat of it, do rather choose to stand to the tenure of Episcopacy ex Apostolica designatione, than to hold a contest upon the title of Jus Divinum, no necessity requiring the same to be done. They therefore that so speak of this government as established by Divine right, are not all of them necessarily so to be understood, as if they meant it in that first and stricter sense. Suffiand government thereof, that it is (as certainly it is) of divine right in the cient it is for the justification of the Church of England in the constitution latter and larger signification; that is to say, of apostolical institution and approbation; exercised by the Apostles themselves, and by other persons in their times appointed and enabled thereunto by them, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the commission they had received from him."

"The derivation of any power from God doth not necessarily infer the nonsubjection of the persons, in whom that power resideth, to all other men. For doubtless the power that fathers have over their children, husbands over their wives, masters over their servants, is from heaven, of God and not of men. Yet are parents, husbands, masters, in the exercise of their several respective powers, subject to the power, jurisdiction, and laws of their lawful overeigns. And I suppose it would be a very hard matter for any man to find out a clear and satisfactory reason of difference between the ecclesiastical power, and the economical: Why the one, because it claimeth to be of Divine right, should be, therefore, thought to be injurious to regal power, and the other (though claiming in the same manner) not to be injurious. The ministerial power, in that which is common to Bishops with their Fellow-presbyters, viz. the preaching of the word and the administration of the Sacraments, &c. is confessed to be from heaven and of God; and yet no prejudice at all conceived to be done thereby to the regal power; because the ministers who exercise that power, are the King's subjects, and are also in the executing of those very acts that are proper to their ministerial functions to be limited and ordered by the ecclesiastical laws.

"No form of [church] government ever yet used or challenged, but hath claimed to a Jus Divinum as well as Episcopacy: Yea, I may say truly, every one of them with far more noise, though with far less reason, than Episcopacy hath done. And, therefore, of what party soever the objectors are, (PAPISTS, PRESBYTERIANS, or INDEPENDENTS,) they shew themselves

on that account, to be excluded from their communion, or to forfeit the title of brethren. As to the doctrinal part of reli

extremely partial against the honest regular Protestant, in condemning him as an enemy to regal power for holding that in his way, which (if it be justly chargeable with such a crime,) themselves holding the very same in their several ways, are every whit as deeply guilty of as he.

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"The rest when they speak of Jus Divinum, in reference to their several ways of church-government, take it in the highest elevation, in the first and strictest sense. The PAPIST groundeth the Pope's oecumenical supremacy upon Christ's command, to Peter to execute it, and to all the flock of Christ (Princes also as well as others) to submit to him as their universal pastor.The PRESBYTERIAN crieth up his model of government and discipline, (though minted in the last by-gone century,) as the very sceptre of Christ's kingdom, whereunto all Kings are bound to submit theirs; making it as unalterable and inevitably necessary to the being of a church, as the word and sacraments are.-The INDEPENDENT separatist also, upon that grand principle of Puritanism common to him with the Presbyterian, (the very root of almost all the sects in the world,) viz. That nothing is to be ordered in church-matters other or otherwise than Christ hath appointed in his word; holdeth that any company of people gathered together by mutual consent in a church-way is, Jure Divino, free and absolute within itself, to govern itself by such rules as it shall judge agreeable to God's word, without dependence upon any but Christ Jesus alone, or subjection to any Prince, Prelate, or other human person or Consistory whatsoever.' All these, you see, do not only claim to a Jus Divinum, and that of a very high nature; but, in setting down their opinions, weave in some expresses tending to the diminution of the ecclesiastical supremacy of Princes. Whereas the Episcopal party neither meddle with the power of Princes, nor are ordinarily very forward to press the Jus Divinum, but rather purposely decline the mentioning of it, as a term subject to misconstruction (as hath been said) or else so interpret it, as not of necessity to import any more than an Apostolical institution. Yet the Apostles' authority in that institution, being warranted by the example, and (as they doubt not) the direction of their Master Jesus Christ, they worthily esteem to be so reverend and obligatory, as that they would not for a world have any hand in, or willingly and deliberately contribute the least assistance towards, (much less bind themselves by solemn league and covenant to endeavour,) the extirpation of that government; bnt rather, on the contrary, hold themselves in their consciences obliged, to the uttermost of their powers to endeavour the preservation and continuance thereof in these churches, and do heartily wish the restitution. and establishment of the same, wheresoever it is not, or wheresoever it hath been heretofore (under any whatsoever pretence) unhappily laid aside or abolished.

"The rest, not by remote inferences, but by immediate and natural deduction out of their own acknowledged principles, do some way or other deny the King's supremacy in matters ecclesiastical: Either claiming a power of jurisdiction over him, or pleading a privilege of exemption from under him. The PAPISTS do it both ways; in their several doctrines of the Pope's supremacy and of the exemption of the Clergy. The Puritans of both sorts [Presbyterians and Independents,] who think they have sufficiently confuted every thing they have a mind to mislike, if they have once pro nounced it POPISH and ANTICHRISTIAN, do yet herein symbolize with the Papists, (as in very many other things, and some of them of the most dangerous consequence,) and do after a sort divide that branch of Antichristianism wholly between them: The PRESBYTERIANS claiming to their Consistories as full and absolute spiritual jurisdiction over Princes, (with power even to excommunicate them, if they shall see cause for it,) as the PAPISTS challenge to belong to the Pope: And the INDEPENDENTS exempting their congregations from all spiritual subjection to them, in as ample manner as the Papists do their Clergy. Whereas the English Protestant Bishops and Regular Clergy, as becometh good Christians and good subjects, do neither

gion, they took the system of the famous Episcopius for their model; and, like him, reduced the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, (that is, those doctrines, the belief of which is necessary to salvation,) to a few points. By this manner of proceeding they shewed, that neither the Episcopalians, who, generally speaking, embraced the sentiments of the Arminians, nor the Presbyterians and Independents, who as generally adopted the doctrine of Calvin, had any reason to oppose each other with such animosity and bitterness, since the subjects of their debates were matters of an indifferent nature, with respect to salvation, and might be variously explained and understood, without any prejudice to their eternal interests. The chief leaders of these Latitudinarians were HALES and CHILLINGWORTH, whose names are still pronounced in England with that veneration that is due to distinguished wisdom and rational piety. The respectable

pretend to any jurisdiction over the Kings of England, nor withdraw their subjection from them; but acknowledge them to have sovereign power over them, as well as over their other subjects; and that in all matters ecclesiastical as well as temporal. By all which it is clear, that the Jus Divinum of Episcopacy, as it is maintained by those they call (stylo novo) the PRELATICAL PARTY in England, is not an opinion of so dangerous a nature, nor su derogatory to the regal powers, as the adversaries thereof would make the world believe it is: But that rather, of all the forms of church-government that ever yet were endeavoured to be brought into the churches of Christ, it is the most innocent in that behalf."

The pious Bishop was one of those to whom I have alluded in the preceding note. He was aware of the pacific concessions which he had made at the commencement of the Civil Troubles, and at the Restoration gave the following very appropriate reason for his conduct: "Whereas, in my answer to the former of the two objections in the foregoing treatise, 1 have not any where made any clear discovery what my own particular judgment is concerning the Jus Divinum of Episcopacy in the stricter sense, either in the affirmative or negative; and for want of so doing, I may, perhaps, be censured by some to have walked but haltingly, or at leastwise with more caution and mincing than became me to do in a business of that nature; I do hereby declare,

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His Lordship then subjoins three particulars, of which the following is the second: "Leaving other men to the liberty of their own judgment, my opinion is, that Episcopal government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical practice or institution; but that it is originally founded in the person and office of the Messias, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Who being sent by his heavenly Father to be the great Apostle, (Heb. iii, 1,) Bishop and Pastor (1 Pet. ii, 25.) of his church, and anointed to that office, immediately after his baptism by John, with power and the Holy Ghost, (Acts x, 37, 38.) descending then upon him in a bodily shape, (Luke iii, 22.) did afterwards, before his ascension into heaven, send and empower his holy Apostles, (giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father had given him,) in like manner as his Father had before sent him (John xx, 21.) to execute the same Apostolical, Episcopal, and Pastoral office for the ordering and governing of his church until his coming again: And so the same office to continue in them and their successors unto the end of the world. (Matt. xxviii, 18-20.) This I take to be so clear, from these and other like texts of scripture, that if they shall be diligently compared together, both between themselves and with the following practice of all the churches of Christ, as well in the Apostles' times as in the purest and primitive times nearest thereunto, there will be left little cause why any man should doubt thereof."

names of MORE, CUDWORTH, GALE, WHICHCOT, and TILLOTSON, add a high degree of lustre to this eminent list. The undertak

* The very edifying and ingenuous manner in which that great mau, Dr. Henry More, and many of his Arminian cotemporaries in England, relate their conversion from Calvinism, will obtain a separate notice in the second volume. In his case is shewn the horror which a humane and pious mind feels at the bare contemplation of such a distorted picture of the Deity, as it is the study of Calvinism to exhibit: He had never heard any other doctrines from his parents and tutor, than those which were Calvinistic; yet when only fourteen years old, on the mention of these words of Epictetus, "Lead me, O Jupiter, and thou Fate !," he says, "I did, very stoutly and earnestly for my years, dispute with my elder brother against this FATE, or CALVINISTIC PREDESTINATION, as it is usually called. "My uncle, when he came to know it, reproved me severely, adding menaces of correction for my immature forwardness in philosophizing concerning such matters. Besides, I had a deep aversion in iny temper to this opinion, and a firm and unshaken persuasion of the Divine justice and goodness," &c.

As Mosheim has placed Dr. MORE at the head of his list of those eminent Episcopal Divines, most of whom had embraced the mild and liberal principles of Arminianism at a period when no earthly motives could bias their judgments or warp their affections, I have given a translation of one of his letters to Professor Poelenburg, in 1663, which will afford an excellent comment on Fundamental Articles, and will display-the uniformly benign operation, and salutary results, of those principles, by whom, and in what manner soever, they are embraced,-the tolerant views of those who, with observant minds, had gained wisdom even from the errors of the Calvinistic Republicans, and the jealousy of the prevailing influence of Popery, which those great divines evinced so soon after the Restoration. Poelenburg had sent Dr. More a congratulatory letter on the King's restoration, similar to the one quoted in page 806, and received from his accomplished correspondent the subjoined reply: :-

"To the most celebrated and very learned ARNOLD Poelenburg, Professor of Divinity among the Remonstrants.-Very famous man, the earnest congratulations which you present to us on the restoration of his most serene majesty, and on the tranquillity and peace enjoyed by this church and kingdom, are real proofs of an ingenuous and truly christian mind. God grant that we may employ to his glory these immense benefits, which have descended upon us from heaven, and that we may enjoy them to the latest ages! I wish you to know, that I more exceedingly rejoice in the present state of our affairs, on account of the greater hopes which it affords, that at least some part of our felicity will, according to your prognostication, redound likewise to your [the Remonstrants'] advantage. There is undoubtedly A SUFFICIENTLY GREAT AGREEMENT between the doctrines of our church and that of the Remonstrants; but this conformity is probably still greater between the private opinions of a vast number of the sons of the Church of England, and those which you maintain. For our Articles are attempered in such a manner, as to induce both the Calvinists and the Orthodox severally to suppose them favourable to their party. I consider this moderation to have been adopted with the best design; for I always prefer peace and concord, before any truth that is not necessary [to salvation]. Neither would I be abhorrent to a method of this description, if, instead of determining THE FIVE POINTS, any man would substitute the following single conclusion: A christian man shall neither feed himself with vain hopes; nor shall he believe that he will be saved, unless he conform his life with seriousness aud sincerity to the precepts of Cbrist.'-This alone would satisfy me, aud in the profession of the rest of those opinions, I would allow every one to exercise his own right of judgment.-I sincerely deplore the vicissitudes of your condition, that a society of men of such innocence and (if any may claim that character) of truly virgin purity, should still be treated in a most unworthy manner. But you ought to manifest very little wonder at such usage, since it has seemed good to Divine Providence [thus to afflict you]: For God has undoubtedly reserved for the glory and ornament of the latest

ing of these great men was, indeed, bold and perilous; and it drew upon them much opposition, and many bitter reproaches. They received, as the first fruits of their charitable zeal, the odious appellations of Atheists, Deists, and Socinians, both from the Roman Catholics and the more rigid of the contending Protestant parties; but upon the restoration of King Charles II., they were raised to the first dignities of the church, and were ages every thing that is most beautiful, fair, and perfect. Those ages are probably not so distant now as we imagine: Nay, if we give any credence to oracles-Jamdudum illa imminet ætas aurea, &c.

The years approach, by prophets long foretold,
And now by circling time in order roll'd.
The golden age this infant shall restore,

Thy God shall reign, and vice shall be no more.

"Although, in the mean time, we must not conceal the fact, that the Papists, with more than their usual earnestness, aspire after the possession of power; and that some small degree of danger presents itself of our being destroyed by this former plague, and besmeared again with its filth. Such a prodigious mass of evils [as Popery embodies] will be averted by God, and by the approved virtue and fidelity of the best of Princes.

"I desire you to be assured, that I have received with a most grateful mind what you are pleased to call your small presents, and that I view them as very rich and abundant specimens of your erudition and piety, and as most ample testimonies of your unmerited benevolence towards myself. I have perused your Epistolary Dissertation, &c. But the circumstance which chiefly excites ny admiration and astonishes my senses in all these productions, is this: I find among you such a great desire and love for the common peace and for general concord, and you seem to give a manifest preference to brotherly love rather than to difficult and uncertain opinions, and to exclude no man from your communion who embraces that ancient, simple, and truly Apostolical Belief, in conjunction with integrity of conduct. Our University has not yet afforded any ground for hoping, that it will issue such a Decree as the one which is the great object of your desire: Indeed, such a Decree does not appear to me to be very necessary; for I would rather see all differences in opinion subside of their own accord and become obsolete by length of time, than behold the minds of men irritated once more and divided. There is nothing which is higher in my estimation, and for which I feel a more vehement desire than THE UNION, IN ONE ENTIRE BODY, of Arminians and Calvinists, indeed, of the whole Church that is Reformed from Popery,-though this body may still vary, as far as each of its members chooses, in opinions which are not necessary to salvation. It is also my earnest wish, that these divided parties may be firmly conjoined and mutually bound together by that spirit of holy charity, by which alone we are known aud distinguished as Christ's true and living members. On this very account your denomination appears, in my eyes, entitled to the highest commendation above all others, because you have preceded the rest in seizing this palm, or rather this olive-brunch, and you have preferred a virtuous and peaceful life to dogmas the most abstruse and of the greatest subtlety.-Farewell, most learned man! And unite with me in entreaties to God, that the spirit of christian love and charity, which is so vigorous among you, may animate and enliven the remaining members of the church of Christ, and that this heavenly unction may diffuse itself through the whole earth and inundate every part! This is the hearty prayer of "Yours most devotedly,

"CAMBRIDGE, Christ College,

March 18th, 1663."

" HENRY MORE."

The Dutch Arminians have, indeed, borne away from all competitors the prize of priority in religious toleration: They were the first society of Protestants, who, when in possession of power, granted the SAME LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE to others as they claimed for themselves. See the Works of Arminius, vol i, pp. 514, 548, et passim.

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