That, subsequently to these several addresses, your honourable house was pleased to deem it more expedient to remunerate its future Chaplains by a money payment, than by an address to the Crown for dignities in the church; but your petitioners respectfully submit that such a resolution was in its terms prospective, and could only apply to those whose services had been completed, and in whose favour addresses had been presented, and most graciously answered from the Crown.

That, under these circumstances, your petitioners (trusting that they have in no way forfeited the protection of your honourable house) humbly throw themselves upon its indulgence, praying it to adopt such measures as in its wisdom it may think expedient, for securing to them that preferment in the church which his late Majesty was graciously pleased to promise, in answer to several addresses of your honourable house; and your petitioners, &c. &c.

Having found that several members were unacquainted with the former practice of the house towards its Chaplains, we are anxious that the grounds of this petition should be correctly understood.

For nearly 200 years the dignity conferred upon the Chaplains (with the sole exceptions of the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, to Dr. Wordsworth, and the Deanery of Rochester to Mr. Stevens,) has been a stall either at Canterbury, Oxford, Windsor, or Westminster.

We were appointed Chaplains, each of us with the fullest assurance of a similar dignity; and the subsequent addresses of the House of Commons, assented to by the answer from the Crown in each case, and those answers given by one of the ministers of the Crown upon each occasion, confirmed our assurance that, in our turns, and in due time, the dignity would be conferred upon us.

When the new system was proposed for the pecuniary remuneration of the Chaplains, it was distinctly stated as prospective, and not applicable to those Chaplains whose services had commenced under the old arrangement; for two of whom, the addresses had been presented, and the King's answer received; and for the third, Lord Althorp moved the usual address, the new arrangement being then under consideration ; and to this address Lord Althorp himself presented to the house, the next day, the assent and promise of his Majesty to give effect to it.

Not knowing how our claims might be affected by the proposed alterations in the cathedral appointments, we submitted our case to the church commissioners; and we were told in answer, that "it was not within the province of their inquiries into the duties and revenues of the church to notice a matter that lay entirely between the House of Commons and the Crown." Our case, whatever change may take place in regard to the cathedral stalls, remains altogether untouched by the recommendations of that commission; nevertheless, if those recommendations should be immediately and fully adopted by the proposed suppression of many of the stalls-although the pledge of the Crown might entitle us to look for a preference whenever any disposable vacancy should occur-yet a very long time must elapse before that pledge could be redeemed; such, certainly, as was never contemplated by either party at the commencement or conclusion of our chaplaincies.

A considerable interval has already elapsed since our several recommendations to the Crown for the customary preferment. Should the

legislature deem it necessary that a still longer delay should take place before we may be allowed to receive that remuneration which the House of Commons desired in our behalf, we must submit to wait, should we live so long, till the disposable vacancies may occur: our hope, however, is, that the House of Commons will be inclined to realize the expectations they have themselves guaranteed, by enabling the Crown to provide for our reward agreeably to its promise, out of those stalls now vacant, before an Act of Parliament is passed for the suppression of them. FREDERICK VERNON LOCKWOOD. EDWARD REPTON.

May 8, 1838.

TEMPLE FRERE.

RETURN TO AN ADDRESS OF THE HONOURABLE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DATED MAY 23, 1838, FOR

A Return of the Names of the Chaplains of this House since the Year 1700; and of the Dates of Addresses to the Throne, praying that some Preferment and Dignity in the Church might be conferred upon them; also specifying the Dignities conferred upon them in consequence of such Addresses.

CALVIN'S HORRIBILE DECRETUM.

MR. EDITOR, IN your last number (p. 339,) I doubt not by a typographical error in the above phrase,* the Latin word horribile is changed into the English horrible. It is right to notice this, as those who adopt the system of Calvin, when pressed with the argument that he himself says, "fateor horribile decretum," deny that the Latin word bears the same meaning as its English derivative; and contend that its meaning in the above phrase is awful, terrible, tremendous, whereas horrible would imply something which excites our moral disgust. We cannot for a moment suppose that the acute Reformer of Geneva would ever have spoken in such a sense of his own system; and therefore I doubt not the correctness of this criticism, especially as there are several other words of a similar kind, to which the same caution ought to be applied, and which may be adduced here by way of illustration. One of these words is monarchia, which, as used by Calvin in his exposition of the Book of Daniel, has given rise to a charge, that he was inimical to regal government. Bishop Horsley has shown that such a charge is utterly groundless, for that the word as used by him has no reference to any particular form of civil government, but denotes those great empires founded in conquest, rapine, and injustice, such as the Babylonian, and those others which are the principal subjects of that prophecy; and that the harsh declarations of the Reformer are not levelled against regal government as such, but against empires founded in, and maintained by, military aggression. We have another word, incomprehensible, derived from the Latin, which has evidently lost the meaning it formerly

had in our language. The Latin word immensus, in the Athanasian Creed, is rendered by our reformers incomprehensible, evidently in the sense of infinite, illimitable, that which cannot be measured or circumscribed by any bounds; although it has now lost its original relation to SPACE, and simply means that which cannot be comprehended or embraced by the intellect. The list of words similarly affected by the lapse of time, and their transfer into another language, is very large; but these few are sufficient to show the necessity for caution in any argument affected by them.

I would suggest, as a further example, that some of the misunderstanding which exists against the doctrine of regeneration in Baptism seems to arise from the double meaning of the word grace. It has in the present day almost entirely ceased to be used in any other than the technical sense of the help of the Holy Spirit, and divine influence; but certainly it has, in the English Scriptures, and Prayer Book, a far less definite meaning, viz. that of gratuitous mercy and undeserved favour. Now the opponents of Baptismal Regeneration, attaching to the word grace, more or less, the meaning of the irresistible impulses of the Spirit, and to regeneration, the first commencement of such impulses, naturally enough shrink from the doctrines. As these impulses must always be followed on the Calvinistic hypothesis, sooner or later by such visible effects as man can take cognizance of, they hold themselves justified in confounding the two distinct things, regeneration and conversion, and in denying that the one may have taken place without the other.

The Baptismal Offices, like the Catechism, make a great distinction between the sign, the thing signified, the benefits received, and the obligations under which we are brought by Baptism. There is indeed an omission in the Catechism, which, however, is abundantly supplied by other passages in the Prayer Book; I mean, as to the thing signified by the outward sign of water. In reference to Baptism, the Catechism contains no questions similar to that which asks, "What is the inward part or thing signified" in the Lord's Supper. This omission, which was probably the mere effect of accident, may have contributed to obscure the doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism; yet it is evidently supplied by the Church in other places. The twenty-seventh article declares that by Baptism, "as by an instrument, they that receive it rightly are grafted into the church," &c.; we pray also that God would "wash the child, and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost;" and "that he may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration;" and "may enjoy the everlasting benediction of God's heavenly washing:" And again, "Give thy Holy Spirit to this infant, that he may be born again;" and then the child is pronounced actually "regenerated and grafted into the body of Christ's church." We see then that the Church proclaims the Holy Spirit as the great agent in this heavenly washing, and as "the inward part or thing signified" by the outward visible sign of water; and "the benefits which we receive thereby,"-" the inward and spiritual grace," consist in "a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness,' or in other words-regeneration. But this regeneration has clearly nothing to do with the irresistible grace of the Calvinists, nor even with "the special grace, which we must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer;" for of such grace the article above quoted

supposes the recipient of Baptism may be already a partaker, when it asserts that "faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God." The inward and spiritual grace of Baptism is on the contrary the undeserved and gratuitous favour shown to men in translating them from the state of condemnation in which they were by the natural condition of their birth-" the death unto sin," into the Christian Covenant-" the new birth unto righteousness;" i. e. receiving them into a covenant, wherein they may rise to a state of justification, of adoption, and of hope, "the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God being visibly signed and sealed." It is plain that the Church interprets the death unto sin and the new birth unto righteousness in this, and not in the Calvinistic sense, from the concluding part of the Baptismal Office: "And humbly we beseech thee to grant that this child, being dead unto sin, and living unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in his death," words which cannot be true of children in a moral sense, seeing they are utterly incapable of both faith and repentance, and therefore they can only be taken in a mystical and spiritual meaning, as denoting some invisible blessing and benefit bestowed upon the child as an immortal being. They are, in short, equivalent to the words which just preceded them: "We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy church." And so distinct does the Church regard this invisible grace from those moral effects which ultra-Protestants attribute to their regeneration, that she goes on to pray that the child may so grow up as to live suitably to the Christian Covenant. The corresponding thanksgiving in Adult Baptism, and the office of Confirmation, place this point in a still stronger light; they assert the reception already of a great benefit, and then pray for divine help, that the blessings of it may be secured ("being now born again, they may continue thy servants, and attain thy promises;-thou hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins,-strengthen them with the Holy Ghost, defend them with thy heavenly grace, that they may continue thine for ever," &c.) Bearing these corresponding expressions in mind, we see at once that the Church designs her usual thanksgiving in Baptism to be understood in this sense; "that this child being [now, by this present act of Baptism] dead unto sin, and living unto righteousness [a covenant of justification], and being buried with Christ in his death"-these are the benefits received by this Holy Sacrament-may also acknowledge, and live suitably to the obligations which it brings us under;-" may [henceforth] crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin; and that as he is now made partaker of the death of thy Son, he may also be partaker of his resurrection."

These few observations on the accuracy required in weighing words before we are led away by the heat of controversy, should cause those inconsistent Churchmen who try to explain away the plain declarations not only of the Church, but of Scripture also, on the Baptismal Controversy, to pause and inquire, whether they are not using words in the sense of Calvin in opposition to the meaning which they have borne in