out beforehand_) to salvation, which are rather startling, and might lead to serious error. But as to this deep and difficult subject, I shall content myself with quoting a few words from our Church's seventeenth Article--"We must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture; and in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to us in the word of God." PART VII. Augustine was still busied in the Pelagian controversy when a fearful calamity burst upon his country. The commander of the troops in Africa, Boniface, had been an intimate friend of his, and had been much under his influence. A rival of Boniface, Aëtius, persuaded the empress, Placidia, who governed in the name of her young son, Valentinian the Third, to recall the general from Africa; and at the same time he persuaded Boniface to disobey the order, telling him that his ruin was intended. Boniface, who was a man of open and generous mind, did not suspect the villany of Aëtius; and, as the only means of saving himself, he rebelled against the emperor, and invited the Vandals from Spain to invade Africa. These Vandals were a savage nation, which had overrun part of Spain about twenty years before. They now gladly accepted Boniface's invitation, and passed in great numbers into Africa, where the Moors joined them, and the Donatists eagerly seized the opportunity of avenging themselves on the Catholics, by assisting the invaders. The country was laid waste, and the Catholic clergy were treated with especial cruelty, both by the Vandals (who were Arians) and by the Donatists. Augustine had urged Boniface to return to his duty as a subject of the empire. Boniface, who was disgusted by the savage doings of the Vandals, and had discovered the tricks by which Aëtius had tempted him to revolt, begged the Vandal leader Genseric to return to Spain; but he found that he had rashly raised a power which he could not manage, and the barbarians laughed at his entreaties. As he could not prevail with them by words, he fought a battle with them; but he was defeated, and he then shut himself up in Augustine's city, Hippo.