So far indeed is the Article in question from sanctioning the creed of the French Reformer, that, like those already reviewed, it seems to have been framed in perfect conformity with the less abstruse , and more scriptural, opinions of the Lutherans. With them it teaches an election of Christians out of the human race, conceives abundant consolation derivable from such an election, when piously surveyed, and not perverted by a profligate fatalism; and, lastly, represents its position upon the point as consistent with God's universal promises and revealed will, expressly declared to us in the holy Scriptures.
Noting the oft commented upon absence of any reference in the Article to any decree of predestination to reprobation, Laurence draws attention to the concluding paragraph - "we must receive God's promises ... as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture" - as confirming the meaning of the lack of reference to a supposed decree of damnation:
When we consider the preceding parts of the Article, the connexion of the whole, and the sentiments of the Lutherans, whose very style upon the subject seems particularly attended to, is it possible for a moment to imagine, (according to the conception of some,) that the object of this clause is to admit an absolute predestination in theory, but to proscribe it in practice? So far indeed from adopting such a conclusion, we ought rather to be persuaded, that the tendency of it is very different; and that, instead of allowing in one sense, what it disallows in another, it rejects the same in both.
A footnote also points to the particular influence of Melancthon:
The resemblance between the concluding paragraph of this Article, and the constant style of Melancthon upon the same subject, is too great not to be instantly perceived.
Further evidence of an understanding in agreement with the Lutherans is detected in the fact that Prayer Book's Baptismal rite's assertion of the grace of regeneration in the Sacrament. Attempts to redefine this as merely an expression of pastoral charity overlook, Laurence declares, the rite's reliance on Lutheran rather than Reformed sources:
those, who advance this argument in opposition to the plain import of the terms in contemplation, forget, or perhaps do not know, that we find no such general expressions, no such charitable judgment, in the formulary of baptism drawn up and used by Calvin; and that the office of our own Church is principally borrowed from that of the Lutherans, whose well-known sentiments on the subject it is unnecessary to repeat.
Having emphasised Lutheran influences, Laurence then turned to praise Article 17's modesty, "which no less exhibits the moderation of our Church, than her wisdom and piety". The cautious tones of the Article allow it to answer the concerns he had summarised in Sermon VII, which opened his consideration of Article 17:
The doctrine of Predestination, the last subject which I proposed to consider, has been so frequently involved in metaphysical obscurity, and disgraced by enthusiastical conceit, that men of moderate principles have been averse from admitting it in any sense.
The framers of the Article with reverent modesty, avoiding the presumption which claimed to plummet the "abyss of the unrevealed Godhead", set forth a comforting account of doctrine Scriptural doctrine of predestination:
For upon the subject of Predestination, as well as upon every other, which has been alluded to, their prudence was not less conspicuous than their piety. Approaching it with reverence, and treating it with circumspection, they indulged not, like many in the Church of Rome, and like some who were enumerated among the friends of reformation, in abstruse disquisitions upon the nature of the divine will; they boasted not of a philosophy, which affected to soar above vulgar view, and fix its sublime abode in the bosom of God himself. That he, whom the wonders of created being perplex, who knows not half the wisdom displayed in the structure of the meanest insect, should presume to investigate the arcana of the omniscient mind, appeared to them the height of extravagance and crime. Their feelings recoiled at the idea of passing the boundary, which the Scriptures have prescribed, and of exploring without an infallible guide the abyss of the unrevealed Godhead; what no human intellect can comprehend, they were contented in silence to adore. Every attempt therefore to explain the will of the unknown God, as he exists in his native majesty, amid clouds of impenetrable darkness, they utterly disclaimed, and spoke only of that consolatory effect of it, which the sacred volumes disclose to us, and represent as certain, the predestination of Christians to eternal life.
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