Dousa on the same occasion; and in which he proclaims the praises of the very eloquent JOHN UITENBOGAERT: ET sane fateamur hoc necesse est Recens ob meritum, quod Aurasinæ Doctorem ARMINIUM Scholæ dedisti.* But we must not omit to mention, that Uitenbogaert was honoured with a golden cup, on account of his important services in promoting the call of Arminius: This token of gratitude was presented to him, in the name of the Senate of the University, by those most excellent men, C. Neostadius and N. Zeystius. Such is the conclusion of Brandt's account of the election of Arminius to the Theological Professorship at Leyden. The verses on Uitenbogaert, (a name highly unpoetical,) may be thus rendered intelligible to the English reader: ALL those to whom the love of truth, To him, who, with such good success, R.-Page 37. The great design of Arminius was, that which is here stated by Bertius" to recal the ancient, masculine, and hardy method of studying the sacred scriptures; to withdraw the students of Divinity from their wanderings among knotty theorems and difficult problems; and to bring them back to the fountains of salvation, those pure fountains whose pellucid streams refuse to flow in muddy channels." The famous Dr. Twisse, in his operose performance entitled, "A Vindication of the Grace, Power, and Providence of God," reprehends these expressions of Bertius, and tries to induce his readers to believe, that the reason why Arminius did not conduct his students through the intricate and unedifying mazes of Metaphysics, was, because he was totally incompetent through his manifest deficiency in requisite scholastic learning. I have quoted part of the Doctor's amusing tirade in my "CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM COMPARED," (page 479,) in which he labours hard to prove that "Arminius very seldom employed arguments in combat," and that "he used Logic and Scholastic Theology in a manner the most puerile." The old Doctor's frequent recurrence to this topic in his large work, and the asperity which he manifests in the defence of his own curious genus of Metaphysics, are good specimens of the waspishness of that race of Puritans.—In a long note in the same work, (page 482,) I have given the translation of an excellent letter from Professor Poelenburgh, in which that learned man relates the substance of a similar charge preferred against himself by an ignorant Calvinist. At the conclusion of that letter, the Professor says: "Such, I own, is the small esteem in which I hold these Scholastic trifles, that I think our leisure may be much more profitably occupied in investigating and forming an acquaintance with sacred literature. And, on the other hand, I freely acknowledge, I have bestowed some attention on School Divinity, for the sole purpose of understanding the sophistries of our adversaries, which seize upon words and expressions, and that I may be enabled with the greater advantage to refute them, when I feel any fear about their producing false security."-I must beg the reader to acquit me of vanity, though I append my name to the case of these two able (yet dissimilar) defenders of General Redemption, and adopt Poelenburgh's language as an apology for the knowledge of Metaphysics which I have obtained. One of the minor Dissenting Magazines, which displays greater talent than its compeers, has said, in a Review of my CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM COMPARED : "We feel no anxiety to run a tilt with this Don of Leyden, for the honour of Geneva. He has been too long among the Dutch, not to have acquired a thorough contempt for Metaphysics: We suppose, it must be from the mistiness of the atmosphere, and lowness of the country thereabouts."-To this personal charge I can only reply in the words already quoted from Poelenburgh; and in reference to the witticism about "the mistiness of the atmosphere" of Holland, and the hebetude of its inhabitants and of their admirers, which is consequently implied, I must suffer the great men whose names stand in the list at the commencement of my Introduction, and who were natives of that European Bæotia, to answer for themselves to an anonymous scribbler, who is evidently far worse qualified than Dr. Twisse to distinguish between LOGIC and METAPHYSICS.* I could increase the number of these charges, brought against Arminians on account of their avowed dislike to the metaphysical distinctions, which the Calvinists invent to explain away the explicit declarations of scripture: But these are sufficient to shew, that the whole scheme of Calvinism, on all the points on which it is at variance with the Church Universal, is built on the frail foundation of Scholastic niceties. This fact, as I have more fully shewn in a subsequent part of this volume, was avowed by the immediate successors and the early defenders of Calvin and his system of Fatalism. When, therefore, a skilful adversary destroys this slender foundation, a zealous Calvinist must naturally feel alarm for the safety of the superstructure; and we cannot be surprised if, in such a state of mind, he vents his chagrin and vexation by calling foul names, or by depreciating the metaphysical qualifications of the assailant. Viewing these human supports of his Predestinarian notions as a sort of Dii Penates, he may be expected to exclaim, when he sees them unceremoniously removed from their stations, "Ye have taken away my gods which I made: And what have I more?" In order to meet the Calvinists on equal terms, it is necessary for every Arminian writer who is providentially called to discuss the questions in dispute, to be well acquainted with the tactics of his opponents; who, on their part, are prompted to the study of metaphysical subtleties, by the strong motive of preserving their frail system from decay. Calvin, Beza, Zanchy, and Gomar, would have smiled at the vain attempts of some of their professed followers in modern times, to defend high Predestinarian tenets from SCRIPTURE ALONE! Arminius, therefore, who had received a regular Calvinistic education, was exquisitely versed in that species of lore, by which the Genevan doctrines were maintained: His vast attainments in Logic and Metaphysics qualified him, in his very boyhood, to deliver lectures on those sciences in the city of Geneva itself. The letter which he addressed to Grynæus, at Basle, proves how deeply he had thought, at that early age, on some of the difficulties of the Predestinarian controversy: This is further illustrated by the following extract from one of his letters to Uiten By no race of mortals could the following couplet be more justly applied than by Dutchmen to themselves, between the years 1580 and 1680 : MEN are the nobler growth these States supply, And SOULS are ripen'd in our Northern sky.BARBAULD. bogaert, dated Aug. 3, 1604, which relates to Piscator's arguments against the imputation of Christ's active righteousness, and which I have quoted in a succeeding page: (635 :) "I also approve of Piscator's dislike to the threefold imputation and the threefold righteousness of Beza; about which, you know, you and I have had frequent discussions, even at the time when we were resident at Geneva." It will be seen, (pp. 29, 61,) that Arminius was chosen, on account of his eminent scholastic acquirements, to answer the celebrated pamphlet of the Delft brethren. These brief facts, which might easily be multiplied, and even a slight inspection of his Works, will convince any man of competent reading, that Arminius was not deficient in metaphysical knowledge, as Dr. Twisse endeavoured to persuade his Puritanic brethren; but that he conscientiously avoided all displays of it, except when the sinuosities of his opponents' arguments demanded an exposure, and then he was compelled to oppose his own syllogisms and definitions to theirs. But some writers who were competent to form a correct judgment in this matter, have ascribed to him the possession of great scholastic skill. Thus the late Dr. George Campbell is quoted, (p. 56,) as opposing "the metaphysical ratiocinations of Arminius" to "the bold conclusions of Gomarus." Mosheim also, in his Ecclesiastical History, informs us, that "there are in Arminius's manner of reasoning, and also in his phraseology, some little remains of the scholastic jargon of that age; but we find, nevertheless, in his writings, upon the whole, much of that SIMPLICITY and PERSPICUITY which his followers have always looked upon, and still consider, as among the principal qualities of a Christian Minister." An eminent clerical critic who derived from this Church-historian all that he knew about the Dutch Professor, wrote a review in one of our popular Magazines in December 1824, in which the following sentence occurs: "We are persuaded, that higher reason in the correct interpretation of scriptural doctrines has been shewn by our Protestant Divines, from Barrow to Sherlock, than by Calvin or Arminius; because the former have been influenced by Truth and Good Sense alone, and the latter by metaphysical and scholastic quiddities and sophisms." Without animadverting on the laxity of the phraseology here employed, I may be permitted to refer this gentleman to Arminius's "Declaration," his "Orations,” “Letters," "Dissertation on the true and genuine sense of the 7th Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans," and his "Answer to the thirty-one defamatory Articles." I may also remind him, that one of the grand criminations of Dr. Twisse against our author was, in fact, that he had directed the attention of theological students to "the ancient, masculine and hardy method of studying the Sacred Scriptures;" and that the sole cause why he had withdrawn them "from wandering among knotty theorems and difficult problems," was-because he was totally unfit to instruct them either in Logic or Metaphysics! "I can deliver it," says the old Doctor, "as a fact fully proved by particular evidence, that this divine is by no means qualified to adorn the province to which he has aspired, being a man who employs Logic and Scholastic Theology in a manner the most puerile!" In a subsequent passage Dr. Twisse says, "From these specimens the reader may perceive how ill instructed Arminius was in Logic, and what an unfit Theologian he has proved himself to be, and unqualified to rule in the Schools, when he has never yet learnt to frame the bare analysis of a Logical proposition." On this subject, therefore, our modern Critic and Dr. Twisse are completely at issue; and we leave the former to reconcile, with each other, the contradictory and equally unfounded assertions of the Doctor and himself. Any one who examines with care the two opposite doctrinal systems, will find a striking corroboration of the preceding remarks, in the abundance of abstruse and recondite terms which the Calvinistic writers have been compelled to invent and employ for the explanation or the defence of their peculiar tenets: While Arminian authors of repute are seen to employ very few terms, and those in general such as were in use, by the Church Universal, long before high Predestinarian notions were propounded as the only true doctrines of the gospel. To this day, indeed, if any ingenious Calvinist supposes himself to be somewhat wiser than his ancestors, and tries to modify and 1 explain the appalling difficulties of his favourite scheme, he always employs a number of new-fangled terms in addition to the old ones. If, in attempting to reply to him, an Arminian occasionally introduces a few ancient scholastic terms, he may make the same apology for the sparing use of them, as Dr. Berriman has done for some that were employed by the orthodox in the earliest ages of Christianity: "But, These [Arminian] terms, it is alleged, have drawn men off from the simplicity of the Christian doctrine, into fruitless and unedifying speculations. As if the blame of subtlety and vain speculation were chargeable only on the [Arminian] side, and were not rather due to the innovations of the [Calvinists,] who, not content with that simplicity in which the Christian Doctrine was originally proposed, were for inventing such new and |