circumstances, and rendered so utterly helpless and inefficient. He neither contributed to defend the cause of the Remonstrants by his writings, nor to instruct the people among whom he dwelt by his personal labours. Without any reference to second causes, which God in his infinite Wisdom could at any time remove or control, and concerning which we must according to the doctrine of Permissive Providence adhere to the principle implied in the words of David, "Let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him ;"-without any reference to these causes, every accurate observer of "the ways of God to man" must view the prolonged silencing of such a highly-gifted individual, as one of those judicial acts of Heaven, some of the reasons for which we can now understand, though others of them will always in this life appear mysterious.

The difference between Arminius and his intended successor with regard to their respective qualifications, must be obvious to every one. A single point of it is well designated in an expression which Vorstius has employed in a preceding note: (Page 205) "The phrases and sentiments of that author whom I have last read, provided they appear true and perspicuous, are used by me with greater familiarity, than others which are employed by other authors." This was neither the language nor the practice of Arminius: He never adopted a single term without duly weighing it, and he was particularly scrupulous in adhering to all ancient and welldefined phrases. Several of the most beloved tenets of Vorstius were mere metaphysical quiddities and nice distinctions, which bore no relation to practical piety; while the peculiar sobriety of the views of Arminius, and his antipathy to the use of metaphysics except in the detection of subtle error, gave him a great advantage in inculcating all that was practically good and excellent. The haste with which Vorstius seems to have changed some of his theological opinions, and the boldness with which he adopted others, bore no resemblance to the caution and hesitancy with which Arminius proceeded, who was seven years before his scruples concerning the foundation of the Divine Prescience were resolved, and who had not at the period of his decease fully satisfied himself on some points connected with the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. (See page 601.) Other proofs of dissimilarity between the two Professors might be easily adduced, but they will suggest themselves to the intelligent reader while perusing several parts of this volume. I do not stop in this place to advert to the injury that was done, to the cause of Arminius, by having his name associated, by King

James in his famous manifesto, with those of Vorstius and Bertius, neither of whom was so pure in doctrine as Arminius. From the same association arose that often-repeated yet unfounded calumny respecting the Remonstrants, "that Toleration was offered to them at the Hague Conference in 1611, provided they would renounce the errors of Socinianism."

How did the Remonstrants acquit themselves when they discovered the imprudence of which Vorstius had been previously guilty, and the consequent reproaches and calumnies to which he had most unaccountably exposed himself? Though too soon aware of the injury which they would themselves sustain by the completion of his call, with a generosity of mind and an elevation of feeling which have seldom been witnessed among the professors of religion, and which seem in every respect worthy of men who were themselves consistent assertors of civil and religious liberty, they rendered all the assistance in their power towards the just defence of his cause,*

as far as it was

• The Remonstrants at first mildly apologized for some of the objectionable dogmas which Vorstius had propagated, while they strenuously defended those points on which they and he were agreed. But after the repeated discoveries of the apparently heterodox leaning of the man, which seemed an inveterate habit, they left him to make his own Apologies, though, like true christians, they performed towards him all the soothing offices of friendship. The following extract of one of Uitenbogaert's letters to Narsius, in 1612, will shew how that good man was affected:

"You say, that you could not undertake the cause of Vorstius with such confidence, not only because it is displeasing to many persons among you, but likewise because you cannot yourself approve of some things in him. This is correct: And I add, not only that I cannot undertake the cause of Vorstius with so much confidence, but that I am unwilling on any account to undertake it at all: For, in reality, I cannot grant my approval to it on every point.-Yet, be you of good courage, and continue to defend Truth and Liberty against that dreadful destroyer of conscience and the impending tyranny: For, God requires this of us at the present time. It is not necessary for us to undertake the cause of Vorstius; let him manage that himself. Yet, he is not in the mean time to be deserted in those things in which he has declared himself to be of the same sentiments with us. But on other points we must be upon our guard, lest that moderate liberty of prophesying which is circumscribed within its own limits, and is attacked through his sides, should be oppressed in his person."

In a subsequent letter to Adrian Van der Borre, dated Nov. 12, 1614, Uitenbogaert says: "I do not suppose that Neranus is wishful to undertake the defence of Vorstius's cause; neither would I advise him. We must restrain ourselves entirely within the affairs of the Remonstrants: For other matters do not belong to us. Thus those brethren who now lie concealed, must be brought out to the light."

In one of the most remarkable letters in that rich collection, Præst. ac Erudit. Virorum Epistolæ, a passage occurs, which explains more fully the feelings and views of the excellent Uitenbogaert, who thus addressed Vorstius, on the 30th of Oct., 1613:-" Believe me, my brother, you will effect nothing by all these your numerous pamphlets, notes, scholia, Anti-Slades, &c. You will never extricate yourself. You will be obliged to choose the one of these two things,-either to engage to revoke certain things that you have written,—or to depart, that is, to abandon your public office. You daily behold new adversaries created against you: You give satis

capable of being defended; and at their first general assembly after the Synod of Dort at the close of the year 1619, when the obloquy from such a measure would be comparatively trifling, at his particular request they admitted him under certain prudent restrictions into their society, of which he had not previously been a member. Nay, they seem to have accommodated their Confession of Faith to the circumstances of such doubting mortals as Vorstius: This accommodation is rendered apparent in that very able production, the Apology for their Confession; and still more so in the Theological Institutes of Episcopius. (Lib. iv. sect. 2, c. 34.) A passage in the latter production+ called

faction to none except to those who are themselves suspected of Socinianism, and scarcely even to them; because you seem to conceal many things, which you dare not avow: Yet you have already disclosed yourself so far, as to render it impossible for you to retract.Grawer, I know, rises to attack, not you alone, but some other men of our Confession. But it will be an easy matter for these to defend themselves; you will scarcely be able to do this: For your errors are more open and numerous, and this is the reason why Grawer produces them generally throughout the whole of that production. These are the thoughts which occasionally occur to me; while my mind is in a state of great serenity, and not beclouded with melancholy humours, as my brethren are sometimes accustomed to object against me. I see the fathers of my country in a state of distress and labouring under great anxiety. I perceive the consciences of the pious to be more and more weakened, and not to know which way to turn themselves. I discern the hatred of the more rigid to be still more excited against us. I behold these Churches daily exposed to the scoffs and ridicule of the Papists and the Lutherans. I have no doubt, that many persons have secretly revolted from the Reformed Church to the Papists. I firmly believe, that Atheism is creeping by degrees into the minds of some individuals. I am filled with horror at the sight of the whole Republic exposed to the impending danger. And cannot these things move us? It is neither three goats, nor the shadow of an ass, that is here at issue; but it is the very essence of the matter. Let us therefore examine the inmost windings of our consciences. If we have erred, let us acknowledge the error, and, for the sake of Christ and his Truth, not care a straw for all the loss of reputation, which could thence arise."

• Deliberating upon all the circumstances, the assembly declared, "that his reverence Conrad Vorstius should be acknowledged as a member of the Society and treated as such, as well as others, provided he would in all points conform himself to the common rules as they were then or should afterwards be established; but not so as that the Society should be understood to take upon themselves to enter into a justification of all his opinions distinct from those which were in litigation between the Remonstrants and the Contra-remonstrants."

+ In reading the above-cited passage in the Works of Episcopius," in which he treats of the necessity of believing the manner of the Divine Generation of Jesus Christ, and puts this question, Whether the fifth (and highest) manner of Christ's 'being the Son of God, be necessary to be known and believed; and whether they 'who deny the same, are to be excommunicated and anathematized ?,' Dr. Bull made some remarks upon it for his own private use, and drew up an answer to the arguments of that learned writer, by which he was himself persuaded, that the primitive Catholics did not refuse communion with those who would not receive the article of the Divine Generation of Jesus Christ, provided they acknowledged him to be the Son of God by his miraculous conception of the Holy Ghost, by virtue of his mediatorial office, by his resurrection from the dead, and by his exaltation to sit at the right hand of God the Father."-BAYLE'S Dictionary.

"The

forth Bishop BULL'S Judicium Ecclesia Catholica, &c.: Judgment of the Catholic Church of the first three Centuries concerning the Necessity of believing, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the true God, asserted against Simon Episcopius and others." Though Episcopius himself was accounted "sound in the faith;" yet this unusual latitude of belief, which was granted as the ample terms of church-communion among the Remonstrants, procured for that great man and his liberal associates the suspicion of being themselves inclined to the Arian or Socinian heresy. Indeed, this is the character of them which is generally given by the most candid of our own writers.* There can be no doubt, that, in this instance as well as in others, "evil communications corrupted good manners." For though the first Remonstrants escaped the doctrinal contagion, yet the effects upon their successors were very lamentable: A regular declension from the orthodox Faith in the important doctrine of the Trinity may be traced, in those who successively filled the Professor's Chair at Amsterdam, after Episcopius; and if Courcelles, Poelenburgh, Limborch, Le Clerc, and Wetstein, be severally considered as the proper index of the Faith of the religious community over which they presided, (and their own documents, as well as the histories of those times confirm this view,) then it must allowed, that an excess of candour and libe

"In the last century, when the narrow notions of the Calvinists, in respect of God's grace and decrees, had provoked the opposition of some persons of a clearer judgment, who, from the Remonstrance presented by them to the States of Holland, bore the name of Remonstrants: This opposition was managed in such manner, that, as it often happens in the warmth of dispute, they seem (some of them at least) not con. tent with correcting the excesses of Calvin, to have leaned too much towards the other extreme, and given in with too little guard and caution to the reasonings of Socinus. And when they were thus far agreed with him, there were some who scrupled not to follow him in other instances. Conradus Vorstius in particular, who had been formerly suspected, did now so fully betray his inclination to heresy, by publishing a noted piece of Socinus, as well as others of his own, that he is generally given up by the orthodox writers, and claimed by the Antitrinitarians.

"The body of the Remonstrants however are not to be charged with this impiety; it must be owned that the generality of them have expressly declared against it. But yet as they were treated not long after by the Synod of Dort with great rigour and severity, the ill usage they received had but too natural a tendency to take off their reverence for Synods, and confirm them in the Socinian sentiments of the unrestrained authority of private judgment. This naturally disposed them to think amiss of articles of faith prescribed as terms of communion; and from hence it came to pass that they who were the most orthodox among them with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, yet thought the errors in that point were such as ought to be indulged, and were willing therefore to maintain communion with Socinians, as with Christian brethren."-BERRIMAN'S Historical Account.-The several errors in this account will be rectified by a refer ence to the preceding part of this Appendix, but more particularly to the notes in the pages 208, 210, and 217.

rality in the terms of communion is as injurious to the special purposes of christian edification, as too much strictness can be. This is a subject on which I have bestowed some attention; and the reader will find a copious dissertation upon it in my Calvinism and Arminianism Compared in their Principles and Tendency, Appendix H. In that portion of my work I have compared the practice of the Dutch Remonstrants with that of the Church of England; and have, I hope, satisfactorily demonstrated to every candid mind the truly liberal and mild constitution of the latter, and the obviously beneficial results of her combined moderation and firmness, in requiring a rigid adherence to those terms of communion against the strictness of which none were ever found to object, except the men whose laxity of principles disqualified them from becoming members of any Christian Community.* In that "Appendix," too, I have had occasion to combat several of the erroneous statements of the late Archdeacon Blackburne, who in relating matters of fact shews himself to have been either culpably ignorant, or guilty of designed perversion.† Had the celebrated

• "They condemned on the one hand the Papists, who asserted the merit of GOOD WORKS, and on the other hand the Antinomians who denied the necessity of them. And again they condemned the Felagians, who denied the necessity of GOD's GRACE; and on the other hand the Anabaptists, and others, who denied all FREE WILL. But they so worded their Articles, as to comprehend all those who thought soberly and moderately on these points, though they differed from one another in the manner of explaining them. Our Reformers here in England in king Edward the Sixth's time went on the same plan, and acted with the like prudence and moderation. They were no disciples of Calvin; but they so drew up their Articles, as to include persons of different persuasions in these points. They went, as a Calvinistical writer (Bishop Hall) observes, a midway between both, guarding against the extremities on each side.

"The principal thing, indeed, which seems to be aimed at by most of these reformers, is the doctrine of the Trinity, so plainly taught both in our Articles and our Liturgy. This has been always, from the very beginning of Christianity, thought an essential Article of Faith; and if any come to us, and bring not this doctrine, we may and ought to shut our gates against him. I cannot but wonder how men of this persuasion should expect or desire to be included in communion with those who believe our blessed Saviour's Divinity. If we believe CHRIST, and the HOLY SPIRIT, to be really and truly GOD, we ought in our public prayers to ascribe to them the titles, the honour, the worship due to God: If we do not believe this, we cannot, I think, pay them such honours without idolatry. How then can there be any communion between persons of sentiments so diametrically opposite? How can they join in worship, who have not the same object of worship ?"-RANDOLPH's Charge.

+ The Archdeacon's palliative remarks on Archbishop Abbot's injurious description of Grotius, (contained in a letter addressed to Winwood, June 1, 1613, which I have quoted in my Calvinism and Arminianism Compared, Introduction, p. cl.,) are a fair specimen of his dashing manner. "Abbot's disaffection to Grotius," says he, "was owing to the endeavours and proposals of the latter, towards a co-alition of the Protestants and Papists, which every wise and consistent Protestant, in every period since the Reformation, as well as Abbot, has considered as a Snare, and treated accordingly." Archdeacon Blackburne is here guilty only of a slight anachronism; for the fac is, Grotius had not then made any "endeavours and proposals towards a co