The true key, indeed, to the right understanding of the articles (as was already observed with regard to the homilies) is not so much the doctrine of Calvin as of the schoolmen; the controversy lying chiefly between the Protestant and Catholic, and in its paramount interest and importance absorbing for a season every other. Thus the article of “Original Sin” is urged with a reference to the scholastic dogma, that original sin was a mere defect of original righteousness, the latter being a quality superinduced, and not “the fault and corruption of the nature of every man;”--the article of “Works before Justification,” with a similar view to another theory of the subtle doctors, that by a certain meritorious meetness, _a priori_, for the reception of God’s grace, the party claimed it as a right _de congruo_, and that having once received it, he then claimed its further extension as a right, _de condigno_.[393] These opinions, so calculated to puff up by making man the originator of his own justification, our Reformers would not tolerate, and framed their confessions accordingly. It would not fall within the plan of a work like the present to enter more minutely into these investigations, which, after all, are as an hedge of thorns; suffice it to have pointed out the general principle which should not be lost sight of in forming our judgment of the articles. Thus considered they will be scarcely thought to determine, or to be intended to determine, the peculiar points of Calvinistic controversy either way: they will be rather thought to be composed simply for the purpose assigned in the title prefixed to the original articles, “for the _avoiding of controversy_ in opinions, and the establishment of a _godly concord_ in certain matters of religion;”[394] an object which was not likely to be obtained by the decided adoption of any party views, be that party what it might; and, therefore, King James, according to his declaration prefixed to the Articles, “took comfort that all clergymen within his realm had always most willingly subscribed to the Articles established, which is an argument (he adds) that they all agree in the true usual literal meaning of the said Articles, and that even in those curious points in which the present differences lie, men of all sorts take the Articles of the church of England to be for them.” Yet nothing can be more certain than that in the time of James the divisions of opinion upon speculative points of theology were both wide and numerous; high and low church principles (as they are called) never having been more violently opposed to each other than then. Here, therefore, as in all other of their measures, did the Reformers make their moderation known unto all men, not hoping or desiring to confine religious opinion so closely as thereby to prejudice religious sincerity, nor expecting that the pyramid of a national Church would stand firm when set upon an apex instead of a base.