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THE DUTCH EDITOR'S

ADDRESS

TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.

WE HERE present to thee, Christian Reader, the small treatises of JAMES ARMINIUS, Doctor of Divinity, all comprised in one volume. It was necessary to satisfy the desires of those persons whom the author pleased, as well as those whom he displeased. Of both these descriptions there are some in this country and elsewhere, who, that they may not be thought to have loved or condemned the man without proper consideration, wish to hear him speak in his own works. It is the lot of all writers to be blamed by some men, and to receive commendation from others. The same dainties are not equally relished by all palates; nor have the most dogmatical doctors been able satisfactorily to prove to every one the truth of their sentiments. There are those who, by too great an attachment to their teachers, are so blinded, as to admire nothing but what is dictated by thein, and to regard their opinions with the same veneration as they would look upon a sacred shield sent down from heaven. There are also those in whom prejudices and preconceived opinions pervert a good understanding; and they estimate what is true, not by reason, but by persons, by times, and (may I add?) by their own private interest. The two faults of which I here complain, are not peculiar to our times, but belong to former ages. I dissent from both these classes; and Arminius would himself, while he lived, much sooner have had a hearer divested of all bias, than one who was a violent partizan. The exercise of his own liberty

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is as proper an act in a citizen of the Celestial Republic, as in a member of political society in an earthly commonwealth. In a state of servitude all things are hard and difficult; but wherever there is permission granted to understand and perceive those things which God, reason, and pious antiquity have taught, and to profess and declare them to the glory of God and for the edification of the churches,-there piety without guile, religion unaccompanied by superstition, and truth divested of hypocrisy, make rapid advances towards maturity. Read and consider the sentiments of the author's mind, with a freedom similar to that which inspired him when he taught them. We here present every work which he either published in his life-time, or of which he approved. His remarks on the prophet Malachi, which were delivered with great effect from the chair in the University of Leyden, as public exercises, against Popery and Socinianism, are preserved in various places in the notes of his pupils. Every one would scruple to publish loose papers of this kind; because, being noted down in haste as they proceeded from the mouth of the speaker, they might, by a defect in the hearer or by his carelessness in writing, subject the unconscious professor to a punishment which he had not merited.

Prefixed to the work stands the Funeral Oration of the very learned P. BERTIUS, in which he spoke much in favour of the author, and of those churches which were afterwards the objects of his aversion. The work itself commences with four discourses founded on strong scriptural reasoning, which, to the delight of the auditors, were pronounced as inaugural orations when the author first occupied the chair of Divinity Professor: Their titles are (1) On the priesthood of Christ; (2) The Object of Theology; (3) Its Author and its End; and (4) Its certainty.-To these succeeds a fifth, On

reconciling religious differences among Christians, the mode and theory of which might, he believed, be proposed with much greater ease than the practice could be enforced. To this discourse is appended a Declaration, in which he professes his sentiments on Predestination, the Providence of God, Free-will, the Grace of God, the Divinity of the Son of God, and the Justification of man before God; in which he contends that while he neither confined himself to the opinions of other men nor implicitly adopted their phrases, he was yet removed far from the boundaries of Pelagianism and Socianism. -Next comes his Apology for the thirty-one Articles which were dispersed abroad; and it acts the part of an arbitrator between a pleader and a person accused.-After these follows a compendium of nearly the whole of Theology, comprehended in various Disputations, in which the sacred meaning is defended by passages of scripture, selected with much judgment and inserted in the margin.-To these are subjoined his Private Disputations, which, in a learned and appropriate manner, treat on the economy of our salvation, and complete the series of the divine actions.-We add to these the Friendly Conference on Predestination which he held by letter with that respectable and famous divine, Francis Junius. This production excels in the ingenuity of its interpretations, and the number and weight of its arguments: By it two of the greatest divines, discordant indeed in sentiment but harmonious in spirit, have afforded an example to their followers of the possibility of discussing the maxims of the schools without the least breach of friendship or affection. —The same method of conducting a dispute is taught in his Examination of a Pamphlet by Perkins, than whom Great Britain did not contain a theologian of deeper learning or greater candour.-The Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the

Romans, treats on those high and adorable counsels of God which relate to men's eternal salvation and damnation; and the discriminating marks adduced in that chapter, which some authors have been pleased to apply simply to persons, he teaches us to apply to believers and unbelievers.

At the end of the book stands a Dissertation on the true and genuine sense of the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: in which our author exhibits the appearance of a regenerate and an unrenewed man, and depicts with the greatest. fidelity the degrees through which the former must pass in completing his course. It also shews what a great distance there is between THE LAW and GRACE, between RIGHTEOUSNESS and THE LAW; and how REASON and DESIRE, THE FLESH and THE SPIRIT differ from each other in their dispositions, and pursuits. Indeed, throughout the whole work the reader will soon acknowledge the sentiments propounded, to be those which received the approbation of the ancient Fathers.-The Articles which conelude the volume, contain what cannot be deemed in every instance the fixed opinions of the author, but such conjectural propositions as might perhaps have been discussed with some profit by those who are skilled in sacred subjects.

This is a summary of the whole volume. The copies of these small treatises had been published in detached parts and were all sold off, when I incorporated them into one volume, and thus relieved the purchaser at once of part of the price which he otherwise must have paid, and of the inconvenience of having a number of separate treatises. Whoever thou art, look favourably on my labour. If thou hadst any knowledge of the author, retain the judgment which thou hast formed of him and his opinions; but, if thou hast not had that pleasure, learn, from these his writings, the man, his doctrines, and his purposes.

DEDICATION,

BY THE

NINE ORPHAN CHILDREN

OF

ARMINIUS

TO THE MOST NOBLE THEIR LORDSHIPS THE CURATORS OF THE UNIVERSITY, AND THE HONOURABLE THE MAGIS➡

TRATES OF THE CITY OF LEYDEN.

Most Noble and Honourable Sirs,

As IT ought undoubtedly to be the wish of as many of us as have minds averse to contention and strife, to entertain the same sentiments among ourselves concerning every thing with which any truth has to maintain a contest, (for truth being always at unity with itself, is most simple in its nature,) so, more particularly, is this unanimity desirable in religion and sacred theology; and, in whatever other pursuit or science this concord may be neglected, in these it ought to be an object of constant solicitude and unwearied prosecution. This is an observation self-evident to all, except to those who are quite ignorant of the nature of religion, or of the immense evil introduced into it by means of dissensions, and how greatly they tend to hinder its progress and to wound its interests.

When those who treat on Divinity dispute with each other, they evince far more fierceness and asperity, than is manifested in quarrels among the professors of other arts and sciences. What a lamentable example, when, however the rest of mankind may angrily contend together, this course is pursued, in a manner much more unbecoming, by those whose whole duty, or nearly the whole of it, consists in preaching the glad tidings of peace, in personally cherishing a quiet disposition, instilling the same into others, and inculcating on all men, on peril of their eternal salvation, the cultivation of a peaceable spirit,-as well befits the sons of peace in subordination to Him who is the God of peace! But if a Divine, and a Professor of one of the Arts and Sciences, were each to institute within himself a

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