Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

likewise cannot propose something for discussion in the different Synods. Such men ought to be reminded of the Apostolic admonition: Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine."-In that part of ministerial duty which Arminius thus recommended to others, how little he was himself deficient, is evident from the circumstance, that, in the space of thirteen years, he not only expounded in public the prophecy of Malachi, but likewise nearly the whole of Mark, the prophecy of Jonah, and St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians; and he finished the exposition of that Apostle's Epistle to the Romans, on the last day of September in the year 1601.

On the 11th of January, 1601, he commenced a course of sermons on the Epistles to the seven Asiatic Churches, which are contained in the second and third chapters of the Revelation. In the course of the same year he approved himself as a pious and diligent pastor of the Church: For at that period, a fiery pestilence, which spared no description of men, raged through all the country, and especially in Amsterdam, the principal city of Holland and the emporium of the whole world. Yet, at that crisis, Arminius considered it a miraculous circumstance, and a most evident proof of the singular providence of God, that, during the prevalence of this destructive plague throughout the city, the infection was not communicated that year to any individual among the Magistrates, the Judges, the Treasurers, the Guardians of orphans, the Ministers of religion, the Elders, the Deacons, the Visitors of the sick, or among the Governors and Teachers of the Schools. In those days of public calamity, Arminius never ceased to pour out ardent prayers to God for the safety of his country, to exhort the people to prayer and serious amendment of life, to elevate the hearts of the pious both in public and in private by consolatory discourse, and to devote every moment of time, which he could spare from the discharge of his ordinary and extraordinary functions, not so much to the acquisition of knowledge, as to imbuing his own mind with solid piety. When this extensive field of pastoral fidelity and godliness offered itself to him, he executed the labour which seemed to be providentially assigned him, with such vigour as to be worthy of having his name recorded among those excellent men whose examples are held forth for the imitation of all the ministers of the Christian Church. He performed the offices of humanity, with equal assiduity, both to the poor and the rich; and never allowed himself to be deterred from the discharge of his duty as a diligent pastor, through the fear of catching the contagion. One day, when Arminius was passing through one

of the meanest precincts of the city, he heard the cries of human voices proceed out of a common dwelling-house. He soon learnt from the neighbours, that the entire family was seized with this contagious disorder, and were tormented with a most dreadful thirst; and he not only offered to the bystanders money with which to purchase drink for the sufferers, but, when no man among them durst enter that infected house of the poor, laying aside all consideration of the danger to which by such an act he would be exposing himself and his family, he intrepidly entered the lowly dwelling, and refreshed each member of the distressed family both in body and in mind.-A very interesting account of his feelings and conduct, when called to the performance of these arduous duties, is given by himself in a long letter, which the reader will find at the commencement of Appendix O.

L.-Page 32.

Although JUNIUS is here placed first in order by Bertius, he died two months after his colleague Trelcatius. As I shall have occasion to make a few remarks on Junius, in the second volume of this Translation, at the commencement of the Epistolary Conference between him and Arminius, I shall there give a few of the most interesting particulars in that good man's Life. He has composed an account of himself, which is prefixed to his Theological Works: In it he relates some strong things against himself, much after the manner of St. Augustine's Confessions, or our pious countryman's (John Bunyan's) Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Such narratives are highly interesting to mature christians, to all who are practically acquainted with the work of grace on the soul of man; but to those who have no relish for divine things, and who are mere "outward-court worshippers," they appear the warm and exaggerated effusions of religious enthusiasts,-though related by some of the wisest men of the different generations in which they lived. But this was the misapprehension of men of perverted minds, with regard to inward christianity, from the beginning: For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. ii. 14.) The following account of Junius, from the pen of the elder Brandt, will suffice to afford the reader a general view of his character and acquirements:

"A few weeks after Trelcatius, on the 23rd of October, 1602, FRANCIS JUNIUS was visited with the plague; and died after an illness of three days, to the great loss of the University and of the Reformed Churches, in the 57th year of his age; for he was

born at Bourges in the Dutchy of Berri, on the first of May, 1555.-In the preceding Books [of the History of the Reformation in the Low Countries] are recorded the zeal and prudence which he displayed, and the dangers which he incurred, in promoting the business of Reformation [from Popery] in this country; for these were the most remarkable parts of his life and

actions.

"After his departure from the Netherlands, he resided some time in the Palatinate, and exercised his ministry about Heidelberg: After which, he went into France, on a visit to his mother and relatives. On his return to the Palatinate, the Elector sent him to the Prince of Orange's camp, at the time of the unfortunate expedition over the Maese in 1568; and on that occasion he remained three days without meat or drink, and could procure nothing better than a few green herbs on the third evening. In Kempen he had a narrow escape from being frozen to death: In Lorraine, his horse was stolen from him; and there was scarcely any kind of trouble which he was not called to endure. He resolved therefore to retire into Germany, though he incurred great danger in making the attempt: But the Prince of Orange detained him, much against his will, for the purpose of enjoying his christian ministrations.

"On his second return to his congregation in the Palatinate, the Elector wished to send him again to the Prince, and refused to listen to any of his excuses; but in consequence of the bite of a dog, (an accident for which he thanked God,) he was detained from the seat of war. He afterwards preached at a place called Schonaw till the year 1573, when the Elector ordered him to remove to Heidelberg, that he might be engaged, in conjunction with Emanuel Tremellius, in translating the Old Testament out of Hebrew into Latin. In 1578, he went to Newburg, where he exercised his ministry fourteen months: In the following year, he was sent to officiate as pastor to the Church of Otterburg : He remained there till 1582, when he was called to the Academy at Nieustadt, and thence, in 1584, to the Professorship of Divinity in the University of Heidelberg. In that situation he continued till 1591, when family affairs required his presence in France: But before his arrival in that kingdom, in his journey through the Netherlands he visited the city of Leyden, in which he met with such a favourable reception, that, in the year 1592, he was chosen Professor of Divinity, and continued there, ten years, to the period of his death, a great luminary of learning and piety.

"The famous Joseph Scaliger preferred him to all other

divines for his accurate judgment. It is recorded of him, that he was a very acute disputant in matters of religion, being able with great dexterity to employ the arguments of his adversaries against themselves, or, so to express myself, to turn upon them their own artillery; though he commonly did this in a very gentle, civil, and friendly manner: For, in his writings, he attacked even the Papists with much more temper, than many of the Protestant sects treat each other in our days, though differing among themselves only in trifles.

"On the subject of Predestination, he endeavoured to defend the opinion of Calvin, by rendering it a little more palatable: For he did not maintain, that the divine Predestination had respect to mankind either antecedent to the decree of their creation, or subsequent to their creation on a foreknowledge of their fall; but that it had respect only to man already created, so far as, being endowed by God with natural gifts, he was called to a supernatural good. On that account, James ARMINIUS, then one of the ministers of the Church at Amsterdam, entered into an epistolary conference with him, and tried to prove, by certain conclusions, that the opinion of Junius, as well as that of Calvin, inferred the Necessity of Sin, beside other absurdities; and that he must therefore have recourse to a third opinion, which supposed man, not only as created, but as fallen, to have been the object of Predestination. Junius answered his first letter with that good temper which was peculiar to him, but seemed to fabricate, out of the various opinions concerning Predestination, one of his own, which, Arminius thought, contradicted all those which it was his endeavour to defend. That answer, being copied by some of Junius's family, was subsequently circulated among the students, though the previous stipulation between him and Arminius had been to a different effect;* and it was even reported that it might probably be printed. This circumstance induced Arminius, who had otherwise intended to break off the correspondence, to compose a Rejoinder to the Answer of Junius, which he transmitted to the Professor, who retained it full six years, to the time of his death, Whether without once attempting to return a word in reply: his silence proceeded from a reluctance to discuss this affair any further, through a fear lest it might occasion quarrels and contentions in such suspicious and uncharitable times: Or, whether it was that he found himself too hardly pressed, and, as the friends of Arminius think, knew not what to say to some of the points in his Rejoinder. In 1608, the Works of Junius were

See, in page 129, a more correct account of this transaction from the pen of Brandt's son.,

published at Heidelberg, in two volumes, folio; but the papers which he exchanged with Arminius are not there; nor are certain answers to several questions delivered by him extempore at his own house, a little before his death, and copied by some of the students.

"Concerning Junius it is likewise related, that he was averse to every method of proving the deep point of the Holy Trinity, except that from the Holy Scriptures. He considered it a fault in Mornay and others, to pretend, by arguments from nature and Platonical testimonies, (which were usually not very appropriate,) to establish a doctrine which ought never to be brought into discussion with Atheists, Heathens, Jews, and Mahometans: For all these people should be referred to the Holy Scriptures, for the purpose of extracting from them such things as, without a Divine Revelation which they contain, they could never of themselves have learned.-In 1593, he wrote that famous Irenicon, entitled, The Peaceable Christian, which, on its first appearance and when some copies of it were delivered to the Deputies of the States, received their high commendation. But above all, it was his greatest praise, that he was himself the very PEACEABLE CHRISTIAN whom he had depicted,-a title which was as justly due to him, as those of the divine, Chrysostom, or the goldenmouthed, the acute, &c. were bestowed on certain eminent divines in former ages, on account of their gifts or learning, which, without a peaceful disposition, are either fruitless or hurtful.-In a company of French divines, of whom Polyander was one, (at that time minister of Dort, and since Professor of Divinity at Leyden,) the following question was asked of Junius, If you "were doomed to lose all your writings, except one, which of them 'would you wish to retain?" He instantly replied, "THE PEACEABLE CHRISTIAN: For I wrote my other books as a Divine, but this as a Christian.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

But the circumstance of greatest interest to "a true-born Englishman," in the life of Junius, is that of his having been the first eminent person in Holland who detected and mildly rebuked the restless and innovating humour of the English Puritans, and advised them to thoughts of peace. But, though they had sought and found an asylum and generous reception in Holland, they replied to this, one of the meekest of men, with all that fierceness of spirit, which some of them or of their immediate successors displayed, forty years afterwards, not merely in speech and writing, but in fearful action. Any Briton who has perused, with some attention, the long correspondence between this most amiable and philanthropic divine, and the headstrong Puritans, will

« AnteriorContinua »