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wise, God willeth to condemn, if the whole clan of pope, priests, and others, were desirous of saving that man, he still condemned would be.

"If there had never been any pope in the world, they, who are saved, would have been saved notwithstanding.

"They who undertake pilgrimages to Rome, are fools.

"I will not look upon any thing as sinful, which the scripture does not call so.

"I despise the pope, his church and his councils. But I love Christ. Let the word of Christ dwell in us abundantly.

"It is a difficult thing to be a [true] Christian (s).”

The church of Rome took fire at these propositions. The affair was carried before the tribunal of the inquisition. In the course of his examination, another heinous heresy was laid to his charge: viz. that he had given it as his opinion, that St. Paul contributed nothing toward his own conversion by the help of his own free-will (t). A man need but look into the 9th chapter of the Acts, to be

(s) "Deus, ab æterno, condidit librum, in quem scripsit omnes suos electos. Quicunque autem in eo non est scriptus, nunquam inscribetur in ipsum in æternum. Et qui in eo scriptus est, nunquam

ex eo delebitur.

"Sola Dei gratia salvantur electi. Et quem Deus vult salvare, donando sibi gratiam, si omnes sacerdotes vellent illum damnare aut excommunicare, adhuc salvaretur ille. Et quem Deus vult damnare, si omnes Presbyteri, Papa, et alii, vellent hunc salvare, adhuc este damnaretur.

"Si nullus unquam Papa fuisset, adhuc salvati fuissent hi qui salvati sunt.

"Peregrinantes Romam fatui sunt.

66

Quecunque non dicuntur esse peccata in sacra scriptura, ea non pro peccatis habebo.

"Contemno Papam, Ecclesiam, et Consilia.

"Res est difficilis esse Christianum."

Fascic: Rerum, vol. i. p. 325, 326.

(t)" Opinatur quod beatus Paulus, in sua conversione, nihil fecit suo libero arbitrio pro sua conversione." Ibid. p. 331.

fully convinced that Dr. Wesalia was in the right. How exactly by the bye, does Mr. Sellon jump with these Romish inquisitors, who has declared, totidem verbis, that, in converting St. Paul, "The Lord did wait for St. Paul's compliance and improvements!" i. e. at the very time when God struck Saul to the earth, he waited for Saul's consent to fall! Had the Almighty waited for the compliance of him who was breathing out threats and slaughters against the gospel, he might have waited long enough, and waited for nothing at last.

Wesalia, it seems, was extremely old and infirm, when he underwent the above inquisitorial examination. Being, says Mr. Bayle, "broken by age and diseases, he was not able to express his thoughts before such a dreadful tribunal." Hence proceeded the retractation, into which he was trepaned. It is plain, that his retractation was not considered as sincere, from his being condemned to perpetual confinement and penance "in a monastery of the Augustins; where he died soon after (u).'

SECTION X.

The Judgment of several eminent Persons, who flourished in England, antecedently to the Reforma

tion.

FROM

ROM among the ancient worthies, natives of our own land, and remarkable for having been led into an acquaintance with the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel; Bede, Grosthead, Wickliffe, Bradwardin, and lord Cobham, may be selected as none of the least conspicuous. If our island be disgraced with having given birth to Pelagius, she is

(u) Bayle, u. s. p. 542.

also honoured with having been the mother of such sons, as have cut up pelagianism, both root and branch.

I. Beda, or Bede, whom all succeeding ages have concurred to surname The Venerable, was born A. D. 672, or 673, in the county of Durham, somewhere near the mouth of the Tyne (a). Dr. Fuller styles him "the profoundest scholar in that age, for Latin, Greek, Philosophy, History, Divinity, and Mathematics:" and adds, that "homilies of his mak ing were read, during his life-time, in the Christian churches a dignity afforded to him alone (y)." He died A. D. 734 (z). An incident, which occurred in his last moments, is of so singular a nature, that I cannot help giving it to the reader. "One of the last things he did, was the translating of St. John's gospel into English. When death seized on him, one of his devout scholars, whom he used for his secretary or amanuensis, complained, my beloved master, there remains yet one sentence unwritten." Write it then quickly," replied Bede: and summoning all his spirits together (like the last blaze of a candle going out) he indited it, and expired." Thus, adds the historian, "God's children are immortal, while their Father hath any thing for them to do on earth: and death, that beast, cannot overcome and kill them, till they have first finished their testimony, Rev. ii. 7. which done, like silkworms, they willingly die, when their web is ended, and are comfortably entombed in their own endeavours (a)."

I should offer an insult even to the most unknowing reader, were I to observe, that the very name of Arminius was unheard of for many centuries after this early period. But if Arminius himself was

(r) Dupin's Eccles. Writ. vol. vi. p. 89.

(7) Church Hist. cent. viii. p. 98.

(z) Idem. Worthies of England, part i. p. 292. (a) Fuller's Church Hist. u. s. p. 99.

unborn, the doctrines of which that Dutch schismatic was the reviver and the varnisher, had, about the beginning of the fifth century, been broached by Pelagius, who was the Arminius of that age. With what horror and detestation our learned and pious Anglo-Saxon reviewed that heretic and his heresies, appears from what he says of both, in the course of his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (b). He goes even so far, as to style the free-will system, "The Pelagian plague (c)."

Archbishop Usher, in his History of the Predestinarian Controversy, already referred to so often, cites some of Pelagius' propositions, together with Beda's refutations of them, in the very words of each writer. The following extract will enable the reader to form an exact judgment of Beda's Calvinism.

"Whereas Pelagius says, that we are not impelled to evil by the corruption of our nature, seeing we do neither good nor evil without the compliance of our own will; he herein contradicts the apostle, who affirms, I know, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, Rom. vii.Moreover, when Pelagius asserts that we are at liberty to do one thing always" [i. e. to do always what is good, if it be not our own fault,]"seeing we are always able to do both one and the other." [i. e. in Pelagius' opinion, free-will has a power of indifference to good or evil; to either of which it sovereignly inclines, according to its own independent determination: to this Beda replies] "He

(6) Particularly in lib. 1. cap. 10. which chapter is entitled, "Ut, Arcadio regnante, Pelagius, Brito, contra gratiam Dei superba Bella susceperit." And cap. 17. entitled, "Ut Germanus Episcopus, cum Lupo, Britanniam navigans, et primo maris, postmodum Pelagianorum, tempestatem, divina virtute, seda verit."-p. 12. and 18. -Edit. Antverp. 1550.

(e)" Renascentibus virgultis Pelaginæ pestis Germanus cum severo Britanniam reversus, &c. Ibid. lib. 1. cap. 21. p. 25.

herein contradicts the prophet, who, humbly addressing himself to God, saith, I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not his own; it is not in man that walketh, to direct his own steps, Jer. x. 23. Nay, Pelagius maketh himself greater than the apostle, who said, With my mind, I myself serve the law of God; but, with my flesh, the law of sin. Rom. vii. 25 (d)."

On one hand, Pelagius had affirmed, "That, in the expulsion of Adam from paradise, and in the assumption of Enoch into heaven, God himself had given a demonstration of man's free-will: since Adam would not have merited punishment at the hand of a just God, nor would Enoch have deserved to be elected, unless each of them had it in his power to act the reverse of what they did. In the very same manner, adds Pelagius, we must judge concerning the two brothers, Cain and Abel; and concerning the twins, Esau and Jacob." To this Beda opposes the following simple, strong, scriptural answer: Pelagius here runs counter to the apostle, whose decision is, the children being not yet born, neither having done good nor evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said, the elder shall serve the younger as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Rom. ix. 11-13 (e)."

(d) Quod dicit [Pelagius] nos vitio naturæ ad malum non impelli, qui nec bonum, sine voluntate, nec malum, facimus; repugnat apostolo, dicenti, scio quia non habitat in me, hoc est in carne mea, bonum: Rom. vii. 18.—Quod dicit, liberum nobis esse unum semper agere, cum semper utrumque possimus, contradicit prophetæ, qui Deo supplex loquitur, dicens, scio, domine, qui non sit hominis via ejus; nec viri est, ut ambulet et dirigat gressus suos: Jer. x. 23. Sed et apostolo majorem se facit qui dixit, ego igitur ipse mente, servio legi Dei; carne autem, legi peccati: Rom. vii. 25." Beda, apud Usser. Gottesch. p. 6, 7.

(e) "Pelagius: Adam de Paradiso ejicitur; Enoch de mundo rapitur. In utroque, dominus libertatem arbitrii ostendit. Non

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