It was another part of Vorstius's misfortune, that he had not only left the various Calvinistic speculators to defend their own unguarded assertions, but by manfully grappling with Bellarmine he had unintentionally intrenched on the province of his Britannic Majesty, who often boasted of his literary and religious prowess against the Jesuits. In admiration of King James's ostensible learning and courage, Conrad Graser, a native of Switzerland and the author of a commentary on the Apocalypse, dedicated his performance to the British Monarch, and, in consequence of the favour with which it was received at the court of England, entitled his work Plaga Regia, "Royal Stripes." The usual topic of that age, the Pope is Antichrist, was treated with much spirit by Graser, who became a great authority with the excellent Joseph Mede, and with the less excellent interpreters of prophecy during the inter-regnum: This work offended the Jesuits, one of whom, the learned and virulent Becan,* wrote a pamphlet against the author, in which, after having recited eleven "aphorisms" as they were maintained by the Calvinists, added other six, and called them "Atheisms" as held by "Conrad Vorstius the Calvinist." Abbot accounted it a great disparagement to Cal Uitenbogaert gives an account of this affair, in a letter to Vorstius, dated Nov. 12, 1610. But the following is from one of Van der Borre's letters to Episcopius, written three days afterwards. After describing two very interesting conferences between Plancius and Vorstius, in which the latter silenced his adversary and frequently confessed that Christ was the eternal Son of God, Borrius says:-"The two conferences seem to have produced some good effects: For if no other good consequence had ensued, undoubtedly the modesty of the man [Vorstius] was of service, since it attracted the minds of the hearers and induced them to have a more favourable opinion of him; especially when they considered the immodesty, malignity, presumption, and bitterness of the adversary with whom he was engaged. But, by the grace of God, he arrived at home in safety, and found all well, as we learn by the letter which he addressed to us from Steinfurt six days ago: He had then heard nothing from Upper Germany which can make a constant man afraid. He is particularly anxious to know what is doing at Leyden, particularly by the hyper-critics. The pamphlet of Becan, of Mentz, in opposition to the Royal Stripes of Graser, seems to have been unknown to him: In it Vorstius is subjected to animadversion, and in a manner sufficiently Jesuitical, yet so as not to spare our hyper-critical brethren. You have probably not yet seen that pamphlet; I will therefore describe in few words what it contains respecting Vorstius, because Gomarus and other zealots triumph greatly on that account. Graser, a native of Switzerland, wrote a commentary on the Revelations which he dedicated to the king of Great Britain, and in which he attempts, and bends his whole attention, to shew that the Pope is Autichrist. The title which he has prefixed to his commentary, is [Plage Regiæ] The Royal Stripes.' This book is displeasing to the Jesuits. Becan attacks it, and in a small pamphlet endeavours to throw discredit on the testimony of the author. Among his arguments this is likewise one, that the author belongs to the Calvinists; and since their doctrine is atrocious, blasphemous, and pestilent, it may easily be understood what credence it deserves.' On this occasion he enumerates certain things, which he calls Aphorisms, as many as eleven in number, which the Calvinists hitherto have openly taught:-(1.) That God is the author of sin.-(2.) That God predestinates men to eternal punishments without vinism to have these additional stigmas cast upon it; and, like a shrewd politician, he instantly engaged the versatile monarch to write a disavowal and refutation of the principles of Vorstius, and in this he artfully screened his beloved predestinarian doctrines from the severe reprehension to which they were justly exposed. The report of his Majesty's promptitude on this occasion, which 'any fault on their part. (3.) That God acts towards mankind with dissimulation and not with sincerity.-(4.) That Christ did not die for all men.-(5.) That the C image of Christ crucified ought by no means to be tolerated in churches.—(6.) That the saints, who are said to reign with Christ, are bugbears, beasts, and hangmen— (7.) That Original Sin is not taken away by baptism.—(8.) That other sins are not taken away in justification, but are only covered or hidden.-—(9.) That all the works of the righteous are nothing less than mortal sins.-(10.) That the grace of God is 'not sufficient for the performance of Good Works.-(11.) That all the children of the 'faithful are holy from the womb of their mothers, and therefore do not require baptism.'-After these Aphorisms, he subjoins what he calls Atheisms, which are in reality extracted from the treatise of Vorstius On God, as the words of the Jesuit declare. The words and their connection are the following:- But the Calvinists, having 'now proceeded still further, are not content with these Aphorisms, but add, besides, "the following Atheisms :-(1.) That God is not infinite.-(2.) That God is not every "where present.-(3.) That it is uncertain whether, with regard to his substance, God ' is present in any place except heaven; and, what follows as a consequence from it, ' that it is uncertain whether Christ, when he sojourned on earth, was very God.— '(4.) That there are in God true accidents really distinct from the Divine substance.— (5.) That the decrees of God are not [ab æterno] eternal,—such as the decree of ' predestination or reprobation, or that of the creation of the world.—(6.) That the 'eternity of God is not both indivisible and entire, but successive. These are the as6 sertions of Conrad Vorstius, a Calvinist, in a treatise on the Divine Attributes which he has lately published. What hopes can now be entertained from GRASER, who is embued with the same Calvinistic spirit, who runs in the same course, that he may ' obtain the victor's wreath for Atheism ?'-Thus far Becan. Before I had seen the book, I thought it contained some great matter for the taste of the hyper-critics; for I heard and perceived that they were generally suffused with gladness. But, now when I have seen it, I make no account of it: For if they can appropriately refute Becan and extricate themselves from the Aphorisms, Vorstius will undoubtedly, with equal case, extricate himself from those Atheisms with which the Jesuit charges him." In Uitenbogaert's letter to Vorstius, he says:-"Becan makes no further mention of you throughout the pamphlet; by which act of forbearance, he shews himself more modest than our [Calvinistic] divines, since he is content with six articles, while they have composed forty and upwards, as you are already aware. Becan's pamphlet at first lay neglected in the booksellers' shops; but as soon as it was generally known to contain something against Vorstius, all the copies were bought up with such eagerness and haste, that, in a short time, not a single copy was to be found, though a great price were offered for it. On my return from Leyden, the honourable Van der Myle made some enquiries concerning this pamphlet. Having been previously advised by you, I had purchased a copy of it at the Hague and had perused the whole. I read this entire passage to Barnevelt and Van der Myle: They were both convulsed with laughter, when they understood from me that our hyper-critics wished to produce against you a Jesuit author, and one who has so bitterly animadverted upon themselves. In the [new] edition of your Exegetical Apology you ought not to spare this Jesuit. Your two books, On God and Anti-Bellarminus, are much sought after, and read here at the Hague by the learned." was industriously circulated and was too complimentary to be officially contradicted, served to flatter the monarch's insufferable vanity, and made him rank at least as a Divine among Kings, if not as a King among Divines. The fact is, the Jesuit Becan had been his majesty's avant courier, and by his animadversions, brief though they were, had considerably abridged the royal labour. The king's first communication to the States of Holland on this subject, which I have quoted in page 455, was also in several passages copied, nearly verbatim, from the letter which the Dean and Faculty of Theology at Heidelberg had addressed to Plancius, in answer to his circular, and of which his Majesty must have been in possession nearly a year prior to the publication of his own document. How exceedingly ill-qualified King James was to animadvert upon Arminius or Vorstius, is evident from the fact which he himself discloses, in his political manifesto respecting Vorstius in 1611, "that it was our hard hap not to hear of this Arminius before he was dead, [about two years before,] and that all the Reformed Churches of Germany had with open mouth complained of him." The king had not then had such experience of high Calvinism as he afterwards had; nor had ny one been so faithful and frank with him on this subject, as that very amiable and independent character, the learned Tilenus.* In pages 411, 455, 496-503, I have related the whole of the harassing process against Vorstius, in consequence of king James's intemperate conduct; concerning which an able writer, whose political prejudices were entirely in favour of Abbot, has justly observed: "Scarcely any thing can set James the First's pedantry and bigotry in a more contemptible light, than his interfering so warmly in such an insignificant concern as the appointment made by a foreign power In an interview with his Majesty, at the palace of St. Theobald's, the year after the conclusion of the Synod of Dort, he said, respecting the Calvinists, who made God the author of sin: "This doctrine is so horrible, that I am persuaded, if there were a council of unclean spirits assembled in hell, and their prince the devil were to put the question either to all of them in general, or to each in particular, to learn their opinion about the most likely means of stirring up the hatred of men against God their Maker; nothing could be invented by them that would be more efficacious for this purpose, or that could put a greater affront upon God's love for mankind, than that infamous decree of the late Synod [of Dort], aud the decision of that detestable formulary, by which the far greater part of the human race are condemned to hell for no other reason, than the mere will of God, without any regard to sin; the necessity of sinning, as well as that of being damned, being fastened on them by that great nail of the decree before-mentioned." Tilenus writes, "that King James approved of what he had said, and that his Majesty's approbation induced him, on his return to France, to consent to publish what he had written in French, On the Cause and Origin of Moral Evil.” to a Professorship of Divinity in one of its own Universities." The true reasons were not known till the year 1725, (when Winwood's Memorials were first published,) why Vorstius was virtually deserted by the States of Holland, and sent into a disreputable sort of exile. In a letter in that collection, the Lord Treasurer Salisbury informs the English Ambassador at the Hague, that his lordship had "entered into thought and conferred with my Lord of Canterbury what expedient might be found out to accommodate things to all parties' contentments, and have at length resolved of this course,-that, seeing the States are resolved to hear Vorstius, as being inforced thereto by the liberty of their countries to yield therein unto him; so the States do suspend any present judgment, until they may have sent the whole process of the cause in writing abroad to the churches of France, Geneva, Switzerland, the Palatinate, and Hessen,* to understand their advices and opinions in it; that so the States may thereby be the better grounded to pass their definitive sentence afterwards, either for or against Vorstius: But with this condition, that after Vorstius shall have been heard,† he be forthwith sent out of the United Provinces, until the States shall resolve (upon knowledge of the opinions of the Churches • Here was the very germ of the Synod of Dort, and these are the principal States and Principalities that sent deputies to that Calvinistic Assembly. Abbot never lost sight of this plan, till he had, by his crooked arts, obtained a complete triumph for Calvinism in Holland. + I subjoin part of the Apology which Vorstius addressed to the Curators of the University, immediately after he had offended the Count of Bentheim, by giving him due notice of his final determination to accept the Divinity Professorship at Leyden, and of which all his subsequent Apologies were mere echoes. I omit the long comments on the intercepted letters of some of his pupils, which are written in a more quibbling and Jesuitical strain than the following: "1. I am not now, nor have I at any time been, a Socinian or an Ebionite, but I am an evangelical christian; and the doctrines which are peculiar to them repecting the Holy Trinity, the person and satisfaction of Christ, &c., I never inculcated on my pupils; but on the contrary, as often as an opportunity occurred, I uniformly refuted them. "2. I do not acknowledge any common cause under which Socinianism shelters itself. Neither do I know any Socinian Church in these regions; but I have always cultivated a true and fraternal communion in religion with all evangelical christians. "3. On the Sacred Trinity I retain the general and perpetual consent of the Catholic Church, which I have not only expressed in my letter from Deventer, but have made a more ample declaration on that doctrine in some Theses which were at the same time exhibited. "4. In the mean time I studiously avoid the dangerous phrases of certain persons on this subject, and those curious decisions of the School-men which have no foundation in scripture: Neither do I promiscuously accommodate to this doctrine such scriptural testimonies as I choose. But I entirely acquiesce in the simplicity of the word of God, and endeavour to refer the mystery itself to a pious use by [œconomicam] a plain and systematic consideration of the Trinity. as aforesaid,) to pass their definitive sentence; for if he be found to be an heretic, we assure ourselves the States will not "5. I have hitherto perused as many of the productions of the Socinians as I could obtain: And because it was with the greatest difficulty that some of them could be procured, I wrote twice or thrice to them about this matter, in a civil and christian strain, for the purpose of gaining a perfect knowledge of their sentiments. In that business, I think, I have done nothing but what the duty of a good theologian requires, neither to condemn nor to approve any thing of which he has not had a previous and accurate knowledge. 6. It is now several years since I discontinued writing to them and broke off the familiar acquaintance which thence arose; but I have done this in such a manner, as still to accustom myself to praise whatever in them seems praiseworthy, and to blame whatever about them appears culpable. "7. I have never incited my pupils to peruse their books. But when a few of them, especially those who were tolerably well founded in the word of God, have asked me of their own accord and became exceedingly urgent, I have occasionally at the time granted them the use of some book or other: And this I did with the design, that, after they had been fully and gravely settled in the sacred ministry, they might be caFor I consider pable not only of confirming the truth, but likewise of refuting error. this to be the course which ought to be pursued, in opposition to the practice of some persons, who utter in the Universities or Churches such declamations against the Socinians, as most effectually to deter their hearers in the mean time from reading their books. 8. I have not imported Socinian publications into these regions: But some members of their own body, many years ago, dispersed them far and wide, as they passed through several provinces. "9. I have not excited young men of curious genius to search these writings; but those, rather, who at Lectures or Disputations have Socinus frequently in their lips, and who, when they are unable sometimes to solve objections, rave with great fury and weakness of mind against their opponents, as though they were Socinians. For, by this means, the juvenile disputants, especially those of them [injuriis affecti] who have had the worst of the argument, are easily impelled to enquiry: For it is a trait in human nature, to attempt what is forbidden. "10. The Socinian pamphlet, entitled The duty of a Christian Man, was clandestinely published, (as God is my witness!) entirely without my privity. I was neither the author nor the encourager of that work; and when I was first informed of the matter, I called into my presence some of those who had been concerned in the publication, and gave them a severe reproof. "11. If there be any validity in this argument,-Some of the pupils of Vorstius have superintended the publication of this pamphlet; therefore Vorstius is the author of it or the encourager; the following will possess much greater validity: Certain pupils of Sybrands Lubbertus, who were never seen or known by Vorstius, and who live at Franeker, where the pamphlet was published, have procured its publication; therefore, Sybrands is the author or the promoter. For his pupils could as easily seduce mine, as mine could seduce his, especially when he has the name of Socinus more frequently in his mouth than I have. "12. If there is any thing which, in opposition to the judgment of some persons, I am desirous of introducing into our churches and universities, it is this, the rejection of the trifling and subtleties of the Schoolmen, which many of our divines urge in association with the opinion about Necessity; and it is my endeavour to persuade all men, that they must rather abide by the pure word of God, and must not adhere so servilely as is common to human writings, not even to those which are publicly reccived: But that the scriptures must be accounted the sole rule of faith; and hat these human compositions must be viewed as formularies of public consent, which |