With respect to "the personal instruction and edification" which I might have hoped to derive from such a disclosure, it

' is it that Arminius is agitating and that ought not to be moved?' I will engage, that they really answer nothing: Or, if they do, it will be of such a description as will readily convince every one, that it is not anything immoveable, but rather something the foundations of which are scarcely yet laid down: Or it will be evident, that it has not been moved by me. They appear to me to give a plain proof of this, by agitating with such great vehemence what they call the concerns of immoveable truth! But truth, which is always its own patron, will easily confute falsehood,-especially when the former is defended by those who occupy the highest stations. It would be a work of difficulty, and not at all adviseable, for me to compose propositions on those points about which they regard me as an object of suspicion. Indeed, it would be altogether fruitless; because the very plain Theses which I wrote [against the Romun Pontiff,] were not able to exonerate me from the calumnious charge of attempting to promote the interests of the Papal kingdom. How can I know on what points I am suspected, when no one openly explains them? It is scarcely possible for me to guess what they are; and by the very attempt to divine them,1 shall render myself suspected among men of prudence. I have Thirty One Articles which are charged to my account, and which I have answered in a written Apology that I have delivered to those who first shewed me a copy. But those individuals, although men of the greatest prudence and of high authority, will not, I am persuaded, advise me to publish this Apology, lest, when calumny has been confuted in too open a manner, it should bring down disgrace upon the heads of its authors.

"Ifl have any topics to be discussed, I am resolved to propose them to my brethren in a free Synod, whether National or Provincial, and in the presence of Statesmen, to whom a knowledge of them is of the greatest importance: 1 will not state them in naked propositions, but will add such momentous reasons as will, in my opinion, tend to their complete establishment.

"In the mean time, I will act as I have hitherto done; I will possess my soul in patience, and place my reliance on God, who will defend my good. cause, and who is wont to afford present aid to those who are unjustly oppressed, though the persons that in his place are appointed the assertors of Justice in the world,may overlook or connive at such oppression. This patience of mine, I freely declare, is the only thing which has made those zealots so audacious. Yet I am persuaded, by some who do not hold the lowest situation among the rulers of these Provinces, to continue the exercise of this patience: If to these gentlemen it should appear adviseable, for me publicly to declare what I hold, and if the circumstances of my country would permit it, my enemies would be compelled to devote the labour, which they have till now expended in calumny,to the defence of certain shameful and enormous dogmas,-one of which I will here produce: The creation [of man] in an upright state of original righteousness is the way of reprobation, by which "God determined from all eternity to devote the greatest part of men to eternal 'destruction without any consideration of sin.'-This is a dogma which is neither laid down in the scriptures, in any Council whether General or Particular, nor by any of the Fathers who flourished during the first Six Hundred years after Christ: Nay, it is a proposition abhorrent to the common consent of Protestant Divines, and is not contained in any Confession of the Reformed Churches. Behold here one of their immoveable things!"

This is a very important extract: It evinces the intense desire which Arminius felt for a National Synod, in which to disclose and defend his sentiments. But this desire was repressed by Grotius, Olden Barneveldt, and other principal men in the Commonwealth, who generally intimated, when pressed on this point, that the proper time had not yet arrived. It appears, that Olden Barneveldt, who was one of the most experienced Statesmen in Europe, imagined he could by policy keep both parties quiet; but in the

1

is necessary to consider,-that not only I but many others, and even they themselves, have peculiar views which they have

course of a few years he found himself to be wofully mistaken, and, when it had become too late, he was ready to grant the convention of a National Synod, which he had actually refused more than once to Arminius and his

friends.

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It likewise very ably developes the hopelessness of the Calvinistic cabal: They had no heterodox materials out of which to fabricate a case of heresy and bring it before the Synod,—although the man whom they wished to accuse was (as stated page 545,) daily teaching among them, and taking his allotted part in the divinity exercises of the University. This was most galling to his enemies, who were simple enough to state the circumstance to several foreign Divines as a serious ground of accusation against our author. One of these foreigners (Peter du Moulin) shewed himself so much alarmed, at Arminius not yielding to the importunity of every petty deputation that wished to sound him, as to advise the Protestant Churches of France not to send any pupils to finish their education under him at Leyden.-This remained many years as a kind of unanswerable Calvinistic complaint. Arminius alludes to it in several of his letters, but more particularly in one addressed to Borrius in 1605, in which he says: "I understand, my enemies complain, ⚫ that I do not unfold to them my sentiments and the arguments on which they are founded; and they add this pretence to their lamentation, that it is my intention to rise in the National Synod and make a sudden and unexpected attack upon them, to obtrude on them unknown opinions, aud to confirm them by arguments on the confutation of which they will not have had leisure previously to meditate.'-They think, that the business of this assembly will be transacted in the same manner as that of others has formerly been; and are ignorant, that I rely on the goodness of my couscience and my cause, and am not afraid to encounter any discussion or examination, how early soever it may be instituted, or however rigidly conducted." It was this contemplated attack from Arminius, which was another source of grievous apprehension. Yet he would not take any undue advantage of their panic: But on the contrary when they thought, that, as the principal men in the State were favourable to the doctrines of General Redemption, the approaching National Synod would be one of complete Arminian preponderance,-he nobly declares that it would not in this respect resemble those Synods which had preceded it and in which the Calvinists had held political pre-eminence, and that those who made such an assertion "were ignorant, that on the goodness of his conscience and of his cause," (next to Divine aid,) he placed his chief reliance.

He had tried the effect of personal conferences with Helmichius, Hommius, Plancius, and others; and he relates the effects, page 532. When he proposed to the different deputies, to enter either separately or in a body as private pastors into conference with him, he ascertained, by their refusal, what he had formerly known, that it was any thing rather than their own individual satisfaction which they sought in such a conference. Their refusal amounted to an avowal of their design,-they wished to engage him in conversation on the points in dispute between them, that they might have an opportunity of giving their own version of the arguments and expressions which transpired during the interview. What complexion that version would have carried to the Synod, every one may conjecture who has any knowledge of the metamorphosing powers of Festus Hommius. Well may a follower of Christ, when placed in such circumstances of difficulty, pray to his Heavenly Father for the wisdom of the serpent, though already possessed of the harmlessness of the dove! (Matt. x, 16.)

The FIRST of the Three Fears, therefore, which are mentioned in the text, was not groundless; for the Calvinists invented every artifice to draw from his own lips matter for his personal accusation.-The SECOND of those

formed on religious topics; and, therefore, that such instruction cannot be applied to any useful purpose, except in some place or other where we may all hereafter appear together, and where a definitive sentence, as it is called, both may and must be pronounced. With respect to "the opportune and befitting preparation which my brethren ought in the mean time to be making for a conference,"-I declare that it will at that time be most seasonable and proper when all shall have produced their views, and disclosed them before a whole assembly, that thus an account may be taken of them all at once, and they may be considered together.

Since none of these Objections have any existence in this august Assembly, I proceed to the Declaration of my Sentiments. Having in this manner refuted all those objections which have been made against me, I will now endeavour to fulfil my promise, and to execute those commands which your Lordships have been pleased to lay upon me. I entertain a confident persuasion, that no prejudice will be created against me or my sentiments from this act, however imperfectly I may perform it, because it has its origin in that obedience which is due from me to this noble assembly,-next to God, and according to the Divine pleasure.

I. ON PREDESTINATION.

The first and most important article in Religion on which I have to offer my views, and which for many years past has

Fears was also a just one; for though he had not then given any such public statement of his opinions as he does in this DECLARATION, yet his enemies had been some years occupied in inventing them for him, and occasionally confuting them in sermons from the pulpit, or in the scholastic exercises of the University. What then would they not have done, had they been provided with a greater portion of food for their malevolence?-The THIRD Fear was also very proper; for he had lately realized it in his own experience. Sibrandus Lubbertus had transmitted to the Foreign Universities and Churches a highly-coloured and untrue ex-parte statement of the famous Preparatory Convention, and had imputed motives to Arminius and his friends which they had not felt and arguments which they never used. Indeed, in the accredited transactions of that meeting, which were signed by all the members, it was expressly stated, that each party was prepared to tender, to their High Mightinesses, the reasons for their different opinions on the three points about which they disagreed, whenever they might be required. For a sight of those reasons Sibrandus did not tarry, but shewed the fertility of his genius in devising them for his injured Arminian brethren, and in adding a plentiful sprinkling of infamous slanders on doctrinal subjects, that had not onee come under discussion on that occasion. See page 523.-Arminius therefore had the most unexceptionable reasons for determining, in the language of a preceding extract, "to propose his sentiments to his brethren only in a free Synod, and in the presence of Statesmen; and not to state them in naked propositions, but to add such momentous reasons as would tend to establish them."

engaged my attention, is the PREDESTINATION OF GOD, that is, the Election of men to salvation, and the Reprobation of them to destruction. Commencing with this Article, I will FIRST explain what is taught concerning it, both in discourses and writings, by certain persons in our Churches, and in the University of Leyden. I will AFTERWARDS declare my own views and thoughts on the same subject, while I shew my opinion on what they advance.

On this article there is no uniform and simple opinion among the Teachers of our Churches; but there is some variation in certain parts of it in which they differ from each other.

1. The first opinion, which I reject, but which is espoused by those [Supralapsarians] who assume the very highest ground of this Predestination.

The opinion of those who ascend to the greatest height on this point, as it is generally contained in their writings, is to this effect:

"I. God by an eternal and immutable decree has predestinated, from among men, (whom he did not consider as being then created, much less as being fallen,) certain individuals to everlasting life, and others to eternal destruction, without any regard whatever to righteousness or sin, to obedience or disobedience, but purely of his own good pleasure, to demonstrate the glory of his justice and mercy;-or, (as others assert,) to demonstrate his saving grace, wisdom and free uncontrollable power.

“II. Inaddition to this decree, God has pre-ordained cerlain determinate means which pertain to its execution,—and this by an eternal and immutable decree. These means necessarily follow by virtue of the preceding decree, and necessarily bring him who has been predestinated, to the end which has been fore-ordained for him.-Some of these means belong in common both to the decree of Election and that of Rejection, and others of them are specially restricted to the one decree or to the other.

"III. The means common to both the decrees, are three: The First is, The creation of man in the upright [or erect] state of original righteousness, or after the image and likeness of God in righteousness and true holiness.-The Second is, The permission of the fall of Adam, or the ordination of God that man should sin, and become corrupt or vitiated.The Third is, The loss or the removal of original righteousness and of the image of God, and a being concluded under sin and condemnation.

"IV. For unless God had created some men, he would not have had any upon whom he might either bestow eternal life, or superinduce everlasting death.-Unless he had crcated them in righteousness and true holiness, he would himself have been the author of sin, and would by this means have possessed no right either to punish them to the praise of his justice, or to save them to the praise of his mercy.-Unless they had themselves sinned, and by the demerit of sin had rendered themselves guilty of death, there would have been no room for the demonstration either of justice or of mercy.

"V. The means pre-ordained for the execution of the decree of election, are also these three: The First is, The pre-ordination or the giving of Jesus Christ as a Mediator and a Saviour, who might by his merit deserve, [or purchase,] for all the elect and for them only, the lost righteousness and life, and might communicate them by his own power [or virtue]. -The Second is, the call [or vocation] to faith outwardly by the word, but inwardly by his Spirit, in the mind, affections and will; by an operation of such efficacy that the elect person of necessity yields assent and obedience to the vocation, in so much that it is not possible for him to do otherwise than believe and be obedient to this vocation. From hence arise justification and sanctification through the blood of Christ and his Spirit, and from them the existence of all good works: And all that, manifestly by means of the same force and necessity. -The Third is that which keeps and preserves the elect in faith, holiness, and a zeal for good works; or, it is the gift of perseverance,-the virtue of which is such, that believing and elect persons not only do not sin with a full and entire will, or do not fall away totally from faith and grace, but it likewise is neither possible for them to sin with a full and perfect will, nor to fall away totally or finally from faith and grace.

"VI. The two last of these means [vocation and perseverance,] belong only to the elect who are of adult age. But God employs a shorter way to salvation, by which he conducts those children of believers and saints who depart out of this life before they arrive at years of maturity; that is, provided they belong to the number of the elect, (who are known to God alone,)-for God bestows on them Christ as their Saviour and gives them to Christ, to save them by his blood and Holy Spirit, without actual faith and perseverance in it [faith]; and this he does according to the promise of the covenant of grace, I will be a God unto you, and unto your seed after you.