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spend the little remains of my life, and in some degree sup'port my family.' He then begged their permission to allow his wife and children to come to him without molestation. It is likewise related of him, that he was heard to say after quitting the Reformed Church, I am, in substance, the same man as I formerly was!"

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"When the news of his apostacy arrived in Holland, it excited various emotions in the minds of the contending parties. The most violent Contra-remonstrants seemed to be pleased at his inconstancy, and to seize on that occasion to reproach the Remonstrants with his crime. They exclaimed, that by this event it might plainly be seen what those people intended; that Popery lay concealed in their hearts; that their very doctrines paved the way for its introduction; that Bertius had led the dance, but that Uitenbogaert, Episcopius, Grevinchovius, • and the rest of them, would soon follow."*

"But the Remonstrants themselves did not think, that this apostacy of Bertius ought to be imputed to them, as they were altogether unconcerned in the matter. Uitenbogaert, having been informed, by a letter from some one, that Rosæus, one of the Contra-remonstrant ministers at the Hague, was glad of that opportunity to insult the Remonstrants upon the fall of Bertius, returned this answer: If Rosæus had any true charity in him, he would rather lament than rejoice at the apostacy of Bertius. But it is of no consequence to them how they act, provided 'they can but triumph over their adversaries. And yet he knows 'well enough, that it is more than a year since Bertius forsook

In a letter which Næranus addressed to Vorstius in Aug., 1620, he says:"Bertius will not soon erase or obliterate the stain of ignominy which he has fixed upon us. It would probably have been more excusable, had his foul defection occurred when the resources, by which he might maintain himself and his family, had failed. But he has basked in the beams of good fortune so long, as to make it impossible for him to be thus quickly reduced to a state of destitution. But it is not wonderful, that an avaricious man, as he is generally represented to be, and one who has continued in the enjoyment of a liberal stipend, should be impelled, (not so much by the fear of want, as by a wish for regaining his former condition or one somewhat higher,) to a step which the fear of being accused of wavering and inconstancy will not easily suffer him to retrace. He will regret this action the more, when he hereafter beholds the affair [of the Remonstrants] which he considered desperate, not to be such as he had imagined, and when he sees that those who believed in hope against hope on HIM with whom nothing is impossible, have not had ill success, but have continued and saved themselves for a season of prosperity. In the mean time, Du Moulin will have no cause to upbraid us with the apostacy of Bertius, unless he be desirous of having it retorted on himself, that several evangelical ministers in France have passed over from the Reformed to the Papists, and particularly Ferrers, a man of consummate eloquence, prudence, and authority, who apostatized a few years ago. If Du Moulin should publicly traduce Bertius on this account, he will give Bertius an opportunity of publicly traducing him and Calvinism in return."

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us, and joined himself to the Contra-remonstrants, whose 'churches he daily frequented, and begged to be received into 'their communion. Consequently he was not a Remonstrant, ' but a Contra-remonstrant, when he turned Papist: He did not 6 pass over to Popery from us, but from them. And indeed they are much nearer, than we are, to that religion.* How many Calvinists have in former times turned Papists! Rosæus 'himself has not yet been put to the trial. He sits in his 'mother's lap, and is worshipped like an idol. But if ever the <tables be turned, we shall also see what he has within him.' "In another letter which Uitenbogardt wrote about the same time to the Advocate Nicholas van Sorgen, he says: The pro'ceeding of Bertius cannot fail of giving great offence to many. "But offences must come. The man affected to be one of us; but we found, he was not right. We have not, for several years, had any communication with him: He avoided us, and we him. When the Synod was held at Dort, he pretended to be neuter. As soon as he saw us condemned there, he went ' over to the other side. As long as I have known him, he has

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"Edward Poppius, one of the Remonstrants, published a small treatise with the following title, An Answer to the malicious Slanders of the Contra-remonstrants of the United Netherlands, who, taking Occasion from several frivolous Reasons, and particularly from the shameful Apostacy of Peter Bertius, accuse the Remonstrants of being Papists, or Popishly affected, and endeavour to persuade the Churches of their country that this Charge is true.In this treatise, the author shewed the great difference which subsisted between the Remonstrants and the Papists; and that the circumstance of the Remonstrants' taking shelter among the Papists [in Flanders] was no argument of their holding [the same opinions] with them, since they were forced to seek refuge among them, and did not go of their own accord, but, being conveyed thither by the States, found no habitation for themselves in the neighbouring countries, nor thought proper to go too far off, on account of the care which they took of their flocks; that they abhorred the conduct of Bertius; that the Contra-remonstrants, of all men, ought to make the least noise about his apostacy, since according to their [Predestinarian] principles, he could not avoid falling, neither could his fall prove prejudicial to him; that many others of the [Calvinistic] Clergy had formerly relapsed to Popery, but that it could not thence be inferred that all the rest would follow, neither was it a fair conclusion that, because Bertius had apostatized, other Remonstrants would follow his example. This author also maintained, that the Contraremonstrants followed the example of the Papists; that they had led Bertius by the hand, as it were, into Popery; and that several of their principles and practices agreed with those of the Papists:-As, (1.) That of Predestination, which agreed with the doctrine of the Dominicans:—(2.) The holding human institutions and decrees:-(3.) Their partial condenination of all such as differed from them :--- (4.) Their endeavours to establish a hierarchy, or spiritual dominion :-And (5.) Their attempts to introduce co-ercion of conscience, and the temporal punishment of heretics."-BRANDT.

These animadversions will not be considered unfair, when the Calvinists had avowed persecuting maxims, and when the decrees of the Synod of Dort, as sanctioned by the States General, had carried those principles into effect.

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always consulted flesh and blood: And you know very ‹ Sir, what counsel they give in such extremities. Nothing is more difficult, than to despise all worldly things, and, trusting • in God, to keep the right way.'

Upon a petition presented by some of the friends of Bertius, to the Synod of South Holland, holden at Gouda, in the preceding month of August, it was agreed, that he should not then be censured, but have three months' time allowed him to consider, and that, in the mean while, a letter should be sent from this Synod to the church of Paris, &c. Upon which, the ministers of the Reformed Church of Paris addressed themselves to Bertius, and employed many arguments to induce him to renounce his scandalous apostacy, and to return into the bosom of the Church: But their admonition was in vain; and they signified as much to the brethren in Holland. The Church of Leyden, therefore, proceeded to his excommunication, which they proclaimed and published on Easter-Sunday, in the following year, at the time of the administration of the Lord's Supper, and in the presence of the whole congregation.

"Some time afterwards, Bertius obtained that reward at which, it was thought, he aimed when he changed his religion : He was admitted Professor of Rhetoric, or Eloquence, in the Becodian College; and on the second of October, when he entered on his office, he made a certain oration, in which he gave an account of the reasons of his leaving Leyden and coming to Paris, and of the motives which inclined him to abandon the Protestant religion, and to embrace Popery. The chief arguments which he produced, and which he extolled very much, were, the antiquity of the Romish Church; the succession of Bishops, who had always taught the same doctrine; the conformity of that doctrine with the sacred writings; the autho'rity and sanctity of the Fathers; the novelty of the Reformed religion; the continual use of tradition in the church; the blasphemous doctrines and decrees of the Contra-remonstrants; the lies which the Calvinists spread against the members of the Catholic Church; and his conferences with the 'most learned of that communion.'-Thus did Bertius try to please his new masters."

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In this copious enumeration of the reasons assigned by friends and foes for his desertion, the reader will perceive, that all of them allude to his dread of poverty, which Burman also gives as the principal cause of his change of communions. But this great critic thinks, that Bertius was inclined to go over to the Church of Rome in 1591, when Lipsius shamefully apostatized.

This is, I think, more than a probable conjecture; as will be evident to every one that has perused his correspondence with Lipsius at that period,* and his subsequent letters to Isaac Casaubon, to both of whom he was cloquent in praise of primitive Christianity and the early usages of the Church Universal.

In a letter which Lipsius addressed to Bertius, from Liege in Sept. 1591, he said :—“ My advice is, that you proceed diligently in the Fathers, and that you will devote yourself to their perusal. Believe me, you will derive from them true erudition as well as piety." In the same letter he says, in answer to the representations which Bertius had given of the emptiness of his purse, after a long sickness at Heidelberg, and subsequent want of employment at Strasburgh:-"Are you still at Strasburgh? You have approved yourself and your manners to me: But your circumstances fill me with anxiety, if they are not yet in a flourishing condition. Can I administer my feeble aid? Be assured of my wishes to help you; inform me of your wants: Nay, were I in some degree settled, I would invite you to my abode, to remain with me as long as you chose. Write seriously and soon, and describe exactly the state of your affairs: We will do something to extricate you. If not, even my recommendation will afford you some assistance among the Dutch."-Through his interest with Hauten, Douza, and others, Bertius received his appointment in the University of Leyden, in June 1593. His previous adventures are exceedingly interesting, and afford a fair specimen of the deplorable straits to which many young "scholars of fortune" were in those days reduced. At intervals between 1590 and 1593, he obtained occasional employment, by academical sufferance or courtesy, in the Universities of Mentz, Heidelberg, Strasburgh, and Altorf. He rendered himself exceedingly agreeable to a young Polish nobleman, during his abode at Strasburgh, and, at his particular invitation, accompanied him and his tutor to Altorf, where they remained some time. They afterwards spent several months in a sort of literary tour through some parts of Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Russia, and Prussia; and met with an honourable reception from all the literati in those countries, who, in their correspondence with Lipsius, spoke in rapturous strains of the accomplishments of Bertius.

The equally profuse commendations of Lipsius, one of the greatest critics of that learned age, must have been flattering to the youthful vanity of Bertius, and it is almost a miracle that he escaped from the Popish snares that were then spread for his wandering feet. In January, 1592, Bertius, having given Lipsius a detail of his straitened circumstances, at Strasburgh, adds this expression: "May God not shew himself propitious to me if I have communicated to any one in Holland, except yourself, my designs,-not even to my own father: In such high estimation do I hold the humanity and candour of your mind, and such great things do I promise myself from your benevolence towards me!"- In a subsequent letter, Bertius gives certain reasons why he was desirous to apply himself to Classical pursuits, in preference to Divinity, and adds: "The more earnestly I look into Religion, the less am I pleased with the continual disputes of divines about sacred subjects: Not because I either blame or despise that holy study, for what food can be sweeter to the mind than the knowledge of Truth?,-but because I will avoid that worldly agitations and those unfruitful altercations, which are calculated to excite disturbances, rather than peace in the Churches. But these contentions are now so frequent, that the true worship of God seems to consist in them alone, and without them scarcely any man can profess to be a divine. I have therefore thought, that I shall act properly and usefully, if I follow and do not lead, if I learn Religion and afterwards teach it. I could in the mean time love and honour the Common Parent of mankind. I have chosen you as the perpetual witness and determiner of all my purposes and actions," &c.

The Remonstrants were at that time a dispersed body; and a connection with them would not have suited his pecuniary needs, though agreeable to his religious principles. The Dutch Calvinists had ejected him from their communion; and their French brethren shewed him as little mercy. In the Church of England, moderate as she is in her terms of communion, he could not then have found a place; because Abbot still bore ecclesiastical sway, and had exposed him to the whole world as an abandoned heretic. To a person of his sanguine temperament, therefore, goaded as he was by the reproaches of his wife and her Calvinistic relatives, the change, though a desperate measure, was one which Bertius attempted to justify by the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, and in particular by his high regard for Antiquity. Nothing, however, can be pleaded in extenuation of an enlightened Protestant, who deserts his own Church and enters into that of Rome. How much more noble does the conduct of the suffering Remonstrant Ministers now appear, who, after enduring for seven years all the evils connected with a state of imprisonment or of exile, were restored to their country and friends in 1626, immediately after the death of their grand persecutor, Prince Maurice!

Bertius lived in a state of great obscurity in Paris, and survived this act of shameful apostacy only a few years: He died, in that city of an atrabilious dysentery, in 1629, as the famous Guy Patin informs us, who attended him during his illness and says, that, though Bertius had changed his religion, he was always loud in his commendations of his father-in-law Kuchlinus.

V.-Page 40.

Bertius has well described the charge preferred by the Classis of Dort, respecting some doctrinal disagreement between the different Professors, and the very prudent answer returned by the latter. He then says, that "he would have related the cognizance which the Supreme Court took of these and other reports, had he not thought that all persons then present were well acquainted with the result." The good Dutchmen of that period might be acquainted with all the particulars which preceded the notice that their High Mightinesses took of the affair: To us however, who live two centuries later, the following information from the younger Brandt may be useful:

But some persons, says this able biographer of Arminius, not without just reason wondered by what means Gomarus could bring himself to sign such a testimonial, [as " that no difference existed, among the Professors of Theology, that could be con

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