tions. Augustine's eminent character, and the great services which he had rendered to the cause of evangelical truth by maintaining the doctrines of Grace against Pelagius, seems to have withheld the Council of Orange from an express and nominal condemnation of his peculiarities: but a most significant silence, while the members of that Council were professedly exhibiting the received and accredited tenets of the Catholic Church, indicates abundantly, that those peculiarities were not acknowledged to form any part of the Creed which had been handed down to her from Christian Antiquity.

II. Calvin, who followed his great master Augustine after an interval of eleven centuries, was manifestly quite sensible of the vast importance of Antiquity in the due and legitimate settlement of Doctrinal Truth. Yet, as an historical voucher for the universal primitive inculcation of his opinions, he himself, in his own person, ventures not to appeal to any Father more ancient than Augustine *.

With respect to Augustine's own appeal to the testimony of three of his predecessors, Calvin, clearly enough perceiving the utter irrelevancy of Cyprian and Gregory-Nazianzen, totally pretermits them: but, upon the alleged evidence of Ambrose, he dwells, I am sorry to say, with more complacency than fairness.

* See Calvin. Instit. lib. iii. c. 22. § 8. c. 23. § 1, 5 7, 11, 13. c. 24. § 1, 17.

Let the testimony of Augustine, says he, avail with those, who willingly acquiesce in the authority of the Fathers: although, indeed, Augustine does not suffer himself to be disjoined from the rest; but, by clear testimonies, shews, that any such discrepance from them, as that with the odium of which the Pelagians attempted to load him, is altogether false. For, out of Ambrose, he cites: Christ calls him, whom he pities. And also: If he had pleased, he might, from undevout, have made them devout: but God calls those, whom he deigns to call; and him, whom he wills, he makes religious. This likewise he cites from the same author*.

I have rarely met with a more artful misrepresentation of the truth, than that which is contained in the present passage. To complete (as it were) the disingenuousness of Augustine, who, as we have seen, represents Ambrose as holding opinions which he did not hold: Calvin has hazarded two inaccurate statements of his own.

1. If any persons, he tells us, build upon the

* Valeat Augustini testimonium apud eos, qui libenter in Patrum auctoritate acquiescunt: quanquam non patitur Augustinus se a reliquis disjungi; sed, claris testimoniis, divortium hoc, cujus invidia gravabant eum Pelagiani, ostendit falsum esse. Citat enim, ex Ambrosio: Christus, quem miseratur, vocat. Item: Si voluisset, ex indevotis, fecisset devotos. Sed Deus, quos dignatur, vocat: et, quem vult, religiosum facit. Calvin. Instit. lib. iii. c. 22. § 8.

authority of the Fathers, let them know, that Augustine does not suffer himself to be disjoined from the rest.

Now what idea must such language as this inevitably convey to the mind of a reader, who confidently builds upon Calvin's supposed scrupulous accuracy, and who thence had not himself for his own complete satisfaction examined antiquity?

Doubtless a reader of this description will conclude: that ALL ANTIQUITY, quite up to the apostolic age, spoke the language and advocated the ресиliarities of Augustine.

Whereas, in truth, Calvin himself being judge, the only writer, that Augustine with any decent shew of plausibility could produce, was Ambrose, who flourished not till the latter part of the fourth century: and, of this very Ambrose, the sentiments of Augustine, respecting Election and Reprobation, were, all the while, not the sentiments.

2. So again, while he intimates that Augustine by clear testimonies demonstrated the falsehood of the allegation that He differed from his predecessors, he tells us that This allegation was made against him by the Pelagians.

Now, even if the allegation had been made against him by the Pelagians; still, since it was the simple allegation of A FACT, let it have been made by whom it may, no real importance can attach to the doctrinal character of the allegers as allegers: for the allegation of A FACT, by whomsoever it may

be made, can only be met and set aside by distinct and sufficient counter-evidence.

But, in specifically naming the Pelagians as the allegers, the object of Calvin was, I fear, disingenuously to excite, in the minds of his readers, a prejudice against the correctness of the allegation itself.

At all events, his statement is palpably inaccurate. The persons, who made the allegation, conveyed to Augustine by Prosper and Hilary, and in the passage before us referred to by Calvin, were Not, as Calvin would lead us to suppose, the Pelagians with whom Augustine was then engaged in controversy. On the contrary, the allegers were those Christians of Marseilles: who, with Hilary himself at their head, heartily approved of Augustine's general confutation of Pelagianism ; and who, on the openly avowed score of NOVELTY, objected only to his System of Election and Reprobation *. Some, indeed, apparently

because these Gallican Christians rested the divine decree of Predestination upon God's Prevision

* Quibus omnibus enodatis, et multis insuper quæ altiore intuitu ad causam hanc pertinentia magis potes videre discussis, credimus et speramus, non solum tenuitatem nostram disputationum tuarum præsidio roborandam, sed etiam ipsos quoque meritis atque honoribus claros caligo istius opinionis obscurat defecatissimum lumen gratiæ recepturos. Nam UNUM EORUM præcipuæ authoritatis et spiritalium studiorum virum, sanctum HILARIUM ARELATENSEM EPISCOPUM, sciat beatitudo tua, admiratorem sectatoremque, IN ALIIS OMNIBUS, tuæ esse doctrinæ :

of man's future character and not upon God's Absolute Will and Pleasure, have invidiously charged them with Semipelagianism*. But, even by the augustinising Prosper, they are honourably described as The Servants of Christt: while, by Augustine himself, they are acknowledged to have been doctrinally sound on the precise points

et, de hoc quod in querelam trahit, jampridem apud sanctitatem tuam sensum suum per literas velle conferre. Prosper. Epist. ad August. in Oper. August. vol. vii. p. 483.

From Hilary's great attainments and high authority in the Gallican Church, I think it most probable, that he was the person, from whom originated the trying challenge sent by the Massilian Christians to Augustine.

* Retractatis priorum de hac re opinionibus, pene omnium par invenitur et una sententia, qua propositum et prædestinationem Dei secundum præscientiam receperunt: ut, ob hoc, Deus alios vasa honoris, alios contumeliæ, fecerit, quia finem uniuscujusque præviderit, et sub ipso gratiæ adjutorio in qua futurus esset voluntate et actione præsciverit. Prosper. Epist. ad August. in Oper. August. vol. vii. p. 482, 483.

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.

+ Multi ergo SERVORUM CHRISTI, qui in Massiliensi urbe consistunt. Prosper. Epist. ad August. in Oper. August. vol. vii. p. 481.