and his censure was in all points submitted to. He expressed himself so well pleased with it to myself, and to some others, that I do not think it becomes me to repeat what he said of it. Both the most reverend archbishops, with several of the bishops, and a great many learned divines, have also read it. I must, indeed, on many accounts own, that they may be inclined to favour me too much, and to be too partial to me; yet they looked upon this work as a thing of that importance, that I have reason to believe they read it over severely: and if some small corrections may be taken for an indication that they saw no occasion for greater ones, I had this likewise from several of them.

Yet after all these approbations, and many repeated desires to me to publish it, I do not pretend to impose this upon the reader as the work of authority. For even our most reverend metropolitans read it only as private divines, without so severe a canvassing of all particulars as must have been expected, if this had been intended to pass for an authorized work under a public stamp. Therefore my design in giving this relation. of the motives that led me first to compose, and now to publish this, is only to justify myself, both in the one and in the other, and to shew that I was not led by any presumption of my own, or with any design to dictate to others.

In the next place I will give an account of the method in which I executed this design. When I was a professor of divinity thirty years ago, I was then obliged to run over a great many of the systems and bodies of divinity that were writ by the chief men of the several divisions of Christendom. I found many things among them that I could not like: the stiffness of method, the many dark terms, the niceties of logic, the artificial definitions, the heaviness as well as the sharpness of style, and the diffusive length of them, disgusted me: I thought the whole might well be brought into less compass, and be made shorter and more clear, less laboured, and more simple. I thought many controversies might be cut off, some being only disputes about words, and founded on mistakes; and others being about matters of little consequence, in which errors are less criminal, and so they may be more easily borne with. This set me then on composing a great work in divinity: but I stayed not long enough in that station to go through above the half of it. I entered upon the same design again, but in another method, during my stay at London, in the privacy that I then enjoyed, after I had finished the history of our Reformation. These were advantages which made this performance much the easier to me: and perhaps the late archbishop might, from what he knew of the progress I had made in them, judge me the more proper for this undertaking. For after I have said so much to justify my own engaging in such a work, I think I ought to say all I can to justify, or at least to excuse, his making choice of me for it.

When I had resolved to try what I could do in this method, of following the thread of our Articles, I considered, that as I was to explain the Articles of this church, so I ought to examine the writings of the chief divines that lived either at the time in which they were prepared, or soon after it. When I was about the history of our Reformation, I had laid out for all the books that had been writ within the time comprehended in that period: and I was confirmed in my having succeeded well in that collection, by a printed catalogue, that was put out by one Mansel, in the end of queen Elizabeth's reign, of all the books that had been printed from the time that printingpresses were first set up in England to that year. This I had from the present lord archbishop of York; and I saw by it, that very few books had escaped my search. Those that I had not fallen on were not writ by men of name, nor upon important subjects. I resolved, in order to this work, to bring my inquiry further down.

The first, and indeed the much best writer of queen Elizabeth's time, was bishop Jewel; the lasting honour of the see in which the providence of God has put me, as well as of the age in which he lived; who had so great share in all that was done then, particularly in compiling the second book of Homilies, that I had great reason to look on his works as a very sure commentary on our Articles, as far as they led me. From him I carried down my search through Reynolds, Humphreys, Whitaker, and the other great men of that time.

Our divines were much diverted in the end of that reign from better inquiries, by the disciplinarian controversies; and though what Whitgift and Hooker writ on those heads was much better than all that came after them; yet they neither satisfied those against whom they writ, nor stopped the writings of their own side. But as waters gush in when the banks are once broken, so the breach that these had made proved fruitful. Parties were formed, secular interests were grafted upon them, and new quarrels followed those that first began the dispute. The contests in Holland concerning predestination drew on another scene of contention among us as well as them, which was managed with great heat. Here was matter for angry men to fight it out, till they themselves and the whole nation grew weary of it. The question about the morality of the Fourth Commandment was an unhappy incident that raised a new strife. The controversies with the church of Rome were for a long while much laid down. The archbishop of Spalata's* works had appeared with great pomp in

He

Marcus Antonius De Dominis, first a Jesuit, afterwards archbishop of Spalata. He visited England for the purpose of reconciling the Protestants and papists; to further this end he wrote a book, entitled 'De Republica Ecclesiastica.' embraced the Protestant faith, and afforded,' says Hume, 'great triumph to the nation by their gaining so considerable a proselyte from the papists. But the mortification followed soon after: the archbishop, though advanced to some ecclesiastical preferments, received not enough to gratify his ambition.' He retracted his protest against

king James's time, and they drew the observation of the learned world much after them; though his unhappy relapse, and fatal catastrophe, made them be less read afterwards than they well deserved to have been.

When the progress of the house of Austria began to give their neighbours great apprehensions, so that the Protestant religion seemed to come under a very thick cloud, and upon that jealousies began to arise at home, in king Charles's reign, this gave occasion to two of the best books that we yet have: the one set out by archbishop Laud, writ with great learning, judgment, and exactness; the other by Chillingworth, writ with so clear a thread of reason, and in so lively a style, that it was justly reckoned the best book that had been writ in our language. It was about the nicest point in popery, that by which they had made the most proselytes, and that had once imposed on himself, concerning the infallibility of the church, and the motives of credibility.

Soon after that, we fell into the confusions of civil war, in which our divines suffered so much, that, while they were put on their own defence against those that had broke the peace of the church and state, few books were written, but on those subjects that were then in debate among ourselves, concerning the government of the church, and our liturgy and ceremonies. The disputes about the decrees of God were again managed with a new heat. There were also great abstractions set on foot in those times concerning justification by faith, and these were both so subtile, and did seem to have such a tendency not only to antinomianism, but to a libertine course of life, that many books were writ on those subjects. That noble work of the Polyglot Bible, together with the collection of the critics, set our divines much on the study of the scriptures, and the oriental tongues, in which Dr. Pocock and Dr. Lightfoot were singularly eminent. In all Dr. Hammond's writings, one sees great learning and solid judgment; a just temper in managing controversies; and, above all, a spirit of true and primitive piety, with great application to the right understanding of the scriptures, and the directing of all to practice. Bishop Pearson on the Creed, as far as it goes, is the perfectest work we have. His learning was profound and exact, his method good, and his style clear: he was equally happy both in the force of his arguments, and in the plainness of his expressions.

Upon the restoration of the royal family, and the church, the first scene of writing was naturally laid in the late times,

popery, and returned to Rome. There it appears that his opinions were changed again, for he wrote letters to England expressive of regret at the step he had taken. Some of these were intercepted, and led to his imprisonment by command of Pope Urban VIII. He died in confinement in the year 1625. Hume styles him, the famous Antonio De Dominis, no despicable philosopher;' and according to Cave, he was the author of the first philosophical account of the rainbow.-[ED.]

and with relation to conformity. But we quickly saw that popery was a restless thing, and was the standing enemy of our church: so soon as that shewed itself, then our divines returned to those controversies, in which no man bare a greater share, and succeeded in it with more honour, than bishop Stillingfleet, both in his vindication of archbishop Laud, and in the long continued dispute concerning the idolatry of the church of Rome. When the dangers of popery came nearer us, and became sensible to all persons, then a great number of our divines engaged in those controversies. They writ short and plain, and yet brought together, in a great variety of small tracts, the substance of all that was contained in the large volumes, writ both by our own divines and by foreigners. There was in these a solidity of argument, mixed with an agreeableness in the way of writing, that both pleased and edified the nation; and did very much confound, and at last silence, the few and weak writers that were of the Romish side. The inequality that was in this contest was too visible to be denied; and therefore they, who set it first on foot, let it fall: for they had other methods to which they trusted more, than to that unsuccessful one of writing. In those treatises, the substance of all our former books is so fully contained, and so well delivered, that in them the doctrines of our church, as to all controverted points, are both clearly and copiously set forth.

The perusing of all this was a large field: and yet I thought it became me to examine all with a due measure of exactness. I have taken what pains I could to digest every thing in the clearest method, and in the shortest compass, into which I could possibly bring it. So that in what I have done, I am, as to the far greatest part, rather an historian and a collector of what others have writ, than an author myself. This I have performed faithfully, and I hope with some measure of diligence and exactness; yet if, in such a variety, some important matters are forgot, and if others are mistaken, I am so far from reckoning it an injury to have those discovered, that I will gladly receive any advices of that kind: I will consider them carefully, and make the best use of them I can, for the undeceiving of others, as soon as I am convinced that I have misled them.

If men seek for truth in the meekness of Christ, they will follow this method in those private and brotherly practices recommended to us by our Saviour. But for those that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, I shall very little regard any opposition that may come from them. I had no other design in this work, but first to find out the truth myself, and then to help others to find it out. If I succeed to any degree in this design, I will bless God for it: and if I fail in it, I will bear it with the humility and patience that becomes me. But as soon as I see a better work of this kind,

I shall be among the first of those who shall recommend that, and disparage this.

There is no part of this whole work, in which I have laboured with more care, and have writ in a more uncommon method, than concerning predestination. For, as my small reading had carried me further in that controversy than in any other whatsoever, both with relation to ancients and moderns, and to the most esteemed books in all the different parties; so I weighed the Article with that impartial care that I thought became me; and have taken a method, which is, for aught I know, new, of stating the arguments of all sides with so much fairness, that those, who knew my own opinion in this point, have owned to me, that they could not discover it by any thing that I had written. They were inclined to think that I was of another mind than they took me to be, when they read my arguings of that side. I have not, in the explanation of that Article, told what my own opinion was; yet here I think it may be fitting to own, that I follow the doctrine of the Greek church, from which St. Austin departed, and formed a new system. After this declaration, I may now appeal both to St. Austin's disciples, and to the Calvinists, whether I have not stated both their opinions and arguments, not only with truth and candour, but with all possible advantages.

One reason, among others, that led me to follow the method I have pursued in this controversy, is to offer at the best means I can for bringing men to a better understanding of one another, and to a mutual forbearance in these matters. This is at present the chief point in difference between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. Expedients for bringing them to an union in these heads are projects that can never have any good effect: men whose opinions are so different, can never be brought to an agreement: and the settling on some equivocal formularies, will never lay the contention that has arisen concerning them: the only possible way of a sound. and lasting reconciliation is, to possess both parties with a sense of the force of the arguments that lie on the other side; that they may see they are no way contemptible; but are such as may prevail on wise and good men. Here is a foundation. laid for charity and if to this, men would add a just sense of the difficulties in their own side, and consider that the ill consequences drawn from opinions are not to be charged on all that hold them, unless they do likewise own those consequences; then it would be more easy to agree on some general propositions, by which those ill consequences might be condemned, and the doctrine in general settled; leaving it free to the men of the different systems to adhere to their own opinions; but withal obliging them to judge charitably and favourably of others, and to maintain communion with them, notwithstanding that diversity.