Neal - Houston-Packer Collection BX9333 .N4 1754 v1

firf Volume of the HIory of the Puritans. " The name of their chief man was Harry Hart. Trew andAbington " were teachers among them ; Kemp, Gybfon, and Chamberlain, were " Others: THEY RAN THEIR NOTIONS AS HIGH AS PÉLAGIUS DID, t° AND VALUED NOLEA,RNING,ANDTHE WRITINGS AND AUTHORI- " TY OF THE LEARNED, THEY UTTERLY REJECED ANDDESPISED. " I have feen another letter of Bradford to certain of thefe men (lays o Mr. Strype), who are faid to hold the error of the PELAGIANS AND " PAPlszs concerningfree will, and were then prifoners with him in o the king's bench. " Mr. Phi/pot the martyr, in one of his letters to Carele s, calls them fchifmaticks, arrogant, and felt-willed, blinded fcatterers; and Mr. Bradford, in his letter to bifhop Ridley at Oxford Wren'. Cyan: fays, that infreewill they wereplain PAPISTS, yea PELAG I ANS. OtherAPP. N° 83' authorities might eafily be produced; but thefe are fufficient to aquit Mr. N. of partiality, who is as great a friend to the freedom of human aétions, as this author himfelf. 'But it is very furprizing to fee the erudition ofa chriftian man, publifh- L. Parker;; ed in the reign of king HENRYVIII. and fubfcribed by all the bithops, asP. 508. defigned for the fiable doítrine of the church, produced in favour of the anti- calviniftic doctrine of free will, when nothing is more oppofite.. " Free will [lays theerudition] is a certain power of the will joined with reafon, whereby a reafonable creature, without confiraint in things " of reafon, dfcerneth and willeth goodand evil, BUT IT WILLETH " NOT THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD UNLESS IT BE HOLPEN BY " GRACE, BUT THAT WHICH. IS ILL IT WILLETH OF ITSELF, " It follows, " Our wills were perfect in-the frate ofinnocence, but are much impaired by the fall of Adam ;. the high powers of reafon E' and freedom of will being wounded and corrupted, and all men " thereby brought into fuch blindnefs and infirmity, that they cannot avoid fin, except they are made free by fpecial grace, that is, by the °' fupernatural working of the -holy ghoft. The light of reafon is una- ble to conceive the things that appertain to eternal life, though there remains a fufficient freedom of will in things pertaining to the prefent °, life._" Words cannot be found more firong and decifive, againft the arminian doctrine of free will, than are in that paragraph.. It were eafy to Phew the fentiments of the reformers upon the other Of ariginat difiinguifhing points ofcalvinifm. The erudition ofa- chriftran man fags, i òn; &c that all the pofterity of Adam are born in originalfin, and are hereby guilty of everlafing damnation. Does an arminian believe this ? CRANMER was famous for maintaining the do/rine of juftification by faith alone, without the merit of good works; and fo does the-erudi. tion._ Mr. Phi /pot was an admirer of Calvin's inftitutions, and had- a. great 857

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