This controverty allo interested many persons, and much was written on both fides of the question. The peculiar opinion of the Semipelagians is expressed in a different manner by different writers, but all the accounts fufficiently agree. Thus fome reprefent them as maintaining that inward grace is not neceffary to the first beginning of repentance, but only to our progress in virtue. Others fay that they acknowledged the power of grace, but faid that faith depends upon ourselves, and good works upon God; and it is agreed upon all hands, that these Semipelagians held that predestination is made upon the forefight of good works, which alfo continued to be the tenet of the Greek church. The Semipelagian doctrine is acknowledged by all writers to have been well received in the monafteries of Gaul, and especially in the neighbourhood of Marseilles; owing in a great meato the popularity of Caffian, which counteracted the authority of Austin, and to the irreproachable lives of those who stood forth in defence of it. Profper writing to Austin about these Semipelagians, fays, "they furpafs us in the merit of their “lives, and are in high stations in the church*." The affiftance of Austin, though he was then far advanced in life, was called in to combat * Sueur, A. D. 429. these thefe Semipelagians, and it was the occafion of his writing more treatises on thefe fubjects. In these he still strenuously maintained that the predestination of the elect was independent of any forefight of their good works, but was according to the good pleasure of God only, and that perfeverance comes from God and not from man. Notwithstanding the popularity of the Semipelagian doctrine, and its being patronized by fome perfons of confiderable rank and influence, the majority of fuch perfons must have been against it; for we find that it was generally condemned whenever any fynod was called upon the fubject. But there were some exceptions. Thus one which was affembled at Arles, about A. D. 475, pronounced an anathema against those who denied that God would have all men to be faved, or that Chrift died for all, or that the heathens might have been faved by the law of nature*. Upon the whole, it cannot be faid that the doctrine of Austin was completely established for fome centuries; nor indeed was it ever generally avowed in all its proper confequences, and without any qualifications, till after the reformation, when the protestants espoused it, in oppofition to the popish doctrine of merit. Voffius, p. 696. Bafnage, Hiftoire des Eglifes Reformeés, vol. i. p. 699. the doctrine of Aquinas as much as he could, were not lefs favourable to the doctrine of merit. Burnet fays*, that Scotus and the Francifcans denied the predetermination of the will, and afferted the proper freedom of it, and that Durandus denied that immediate concourfe of God with the human will, which had been afferted by Aquinas, but that in this he had not many followers except Adola, and a few others. At length the members of the Church of Rome, not only attained to a firm perfuafion concerning the doctrine of merit, notwithstanding the flender ground on which it was built, but imagined that not only Chrift, but also fome men, and especially martyrs, and those who lived a life of great aufterity, had even more merit than themselves had occafion for; fo that there remained fome good works in the balance of their account more than they wanted for their own juftification. These they termed works of fupererogation, and imagined that they might be transferred to the account of other perfons. The whole accumulated stock of this merit was called the treasure of the church, and was thought to be at the disposal of the popes. Clement VI. in his bull for the celebration of the jubilee in 1350, fpeaks of this treasure as compofed of "the blood of Christ, the virtue of which is in Expofition of the Articles, p. 194. "finite, «finite, of the merit of the virgin mother of "God, and of all the faints*." This doctrine was the foundation of those indulgences, of which an account will be given in another place, and the monstrous abuse of which brought about the reformation by Luther. SECTION IV. Of the Doctrines of Grace, Original Sin, and Predeftination, fince the Reformation. As good generally comes out of evil, fo fometimes, and for a season at least, evil arises out of good. This, however, was remarkably the cafe with respect to thefe doctrines in confequence of the reformation by Luther. For the zeal of this great man against the doctrine of indulgences, and that of merit as the foundation of it, unhappily led him and others fo far into the opposite extreme, that from his time the doctrines of grace, original fin, and predestination, have been generally termed the doctrines of the reformation, and every thing that does not agree with them has been termed popish, and branded with other opprobrious epithets. Memoires pour la vie de Petrarch, vol. iii. p. 75. These Thefe doctrines, I obferved, originated with Auftin, and though they never made much progrefs in the Greek church, they infected almoft all the Latin churches. We fee plain traces of them among the Waldenfes, who were the earliest reformers from popery. For, in the confeffion of their faith bearing the date of 1120, they fay*, "We are finners in Adam and by Adam," and in another confeffion, dated 1532, they fay †, that "all who are or fhall "be faved, God has elected from the foundation " of the world, and that whoever maintains free will, denies predeftination, and the grace of "God." Wickliffe alfo believed the neceffity of man's being affifted by divine grace, and without this he could not fee how a human being could make himself acceptable to God. But if we were fufficiently acquainted with all the opinions of the Waldenfes, and other early reformers, we might, perhaps, meet with many things that would qualify the feeming rigour of thefe articles. It is certain, however, that neither among the ancient reformers, nor among the Dominicans, or any others who leaned the most to the doctrine of Auftin in the church of Rome, was the scheme fo connected in all its parts, and rendered fo fyftematical and uniform, * Leger Histoire, p. 87. + P. 95. as |