It may be asked, with such testimonies to the value and importance of Bishop Davenant's writings as were adduced on a former occasion, and the opinion of Bishop Bull,how has it happened that his works have been so little known among us, and not brought before the Church at large till now? The comparative oblivion into which the works of Bishop Davenant had fallen, notwithstanding the high estimation in which they were formerly held, must be imputed to the language in which they are composed; for certainly rich as is our Church in Theologians, she has none, perhaps, who in the union of acute and correct argument, solid judgment, Scriptural depth, and profound Patristic and Scholastic erudition, are to be named with him. It may therefore be doubted, if the following work had existed in the vernacular tongue, whether Bishop Bull would have ventured, by the publication of his Harmonia Apostolica, to re-introduce into the English Church that exploded and unscriptural view of Justification, which had been the fountain, as it is still the mainstay, of the mass of Romish and kindred error; and which our Reformers in the authorised decisions of the Church, and in their private writings, had so plainly and deliberately renounced. The authority of Bishop Bull, established permanently by his eminent defence of the AntiNicene Faith on the Divinity of Christ, gave, in a cold and formal era, a currency to his Harmonia, to which, as an exponent of Scriptural truth and Church doctrine, it is in no respect whatever entitled; but " from the publication of which," to use the language of a very learned and able Theologian of the present day, "may be dated a gradual lowering of the Theology of the Church of England.† Mr. Newman's recent work on Justification is intended as In the writer's Life of Davenant, prefixed to his Translation of the Expositio ad Colossenses. + Professor Garbett's Bampton Lectures. The fourth of the series contains a most searching and powerful statement of the whole controversy. an elaborate vindication of the view solemnly repudiated by the Church of England, but maintained by Bishop Bull; and though the thorough Protestantism, in other respects, of that learned Prelate, would have revolted from the fabric which Mr. Newman has laboured to revive upon this old foundation, still the tendency of the doctrine is obvious, from the facility with which it harmonises with tenets and practices, conformable in spirit at least, with the worst corruptions of the Church of Rome; from which the antagonist doctrine was the main impulse of secession. By each of the above writers the power of Davenant's Treatise, as amongst the most formidable to be assailed, is felt and acknowledged. The testimony which Bishop Bull has borne to the "great" writer whose views it was his object to subvert, we have just placed before the reader. With the veneration due to Bishop Bull on account of his former services in the cause of Christian truth, it is painful to ask, how he could with candour pretend a sympathy of view with a book so diametrically opposed to his own, the opposition between which is ingenuously owned. Mr. Newman, sustaining Bull's view, scarcely refers to any other opponent among the English Divines, than Davenant; but whilst he labours in the unseemly and ineffectual task of upholding the Roman Champion, Cardinal Bellarmine, against the powerful attacks of the learned defender of the doctrine of his own Church, he is compelled to bow to his talent, and acknowledge that the work he would disparage "abounds with noble passages." How far the Translator has succeeded in the objects he had proposed to himself, and in placing Davenant's Treatise fairly before the Public in our own language, others must judge. The same method has been adhered to as in the Translation of the Expositio ad Colossenses. Most of the references have been examined, and more full allusion, in many instances, made to the modern editions of the works or authors quoted. It may be well to observe that Davenant has no notes; for the illustrations and biographical sketches, therefore, interspersed in the work, as in the Exposition, the Translator alone is responsible; and such as he has been enabled to render the work, and that in its more excellent features, as regards his share in it, by the kind and generous advice and assistance of several learned friends (and whose valuable aid is here gratefully acknowledged), he commits it to the broad field of public reception; imploring in conclusion, the blessing of Heaven, to render it serviceable to any enquirer after truth and to the interests of the Church of God. The likeness of the Bishop, appended to the present volume, is taken from an original family portrait of him, which came into the Translator's possession in a somewhat singular manner, a few months after the publication of the former volumes of the Exposition of the Epistle to the Colossians. He conceived it would not be an unacceptable present to his Subscribers, and it would certainly have superseded the first, taken from the portrait in Queen's College, Cambridge, had its existence been discovered in time. J. A. CONTENTS. THE HEADS OF THE SUBSEQUENT DISCUSSION ANNOUNCed. Three primary questions propounded concerning Habitual Righteousness. The First Question-Whether a certain Habitual or Inherent Righteous- The former point confirmed from the Scriptures .... from Arguments The Second Question-Whether this Inherent Righteousness is so perfect as to exclude Original Sin? &c. The Charge of the Heresies of Origenists, Messalians, and others, which the Jesuits bring against us, answered Their Arguments derived from the Scriptures stated and refuted 56 Meets other Testimonies by which they endeavour to show that neither Shows from the Fathers that no one of the Regenerate is free from Sin Testimonies of the Schoolmen showing that Original Sin is not wholly That Concupiscence remaining in the Regenerate, and its first motions, are sins, confirmed by the opinions of Fathers and Schoolmen The Third Question-Whether Inherent Righteousness (whatever it be) formally justifies believers in the sight and judgment of God? 1. The term Justification examined 2. The calumnies of opponents answered. 3. The state of the question and the defence of the Papists described |