Anabaptist churches, as well as that of Rome, account this to be an erroneous doctrine.

"strict rule, but according to one that is attempered with a certain degree of "clemency: To them, therefore, [to men in the everlasting flames of Hell,] "a certain small portion of that universal efficacy is allotted."

What authority did those learned men adduce for such an assertion? They refer the inquisitive reader to the 13th of the Public Disputations of Arminius, Thesis 5th,-most probably after calculating, that not one in five hundred, of those who perused their lucubrations, would give himself the trouble to verify quotations from two reputed heretics; but that they would receive, as authentic information, whatever was asserted by such Calvinistically orthodox men as the Divines of Heidelberg. The whole Thesis of Arminius is thus expressed: "They [the Law and the Gospel,] differ moreover in the mode of "their remuneration. For, the reward was bestowed, of debt, to him that "worketh, according to the law, (Rom. iv, 4.) and punishment was inflicted "on the transgressor according to the severity of strict justice. But to him "that believeth, the reward is reckoned of grace; while, to him that believeth "not, condemnation is due, according to THE JUSTICE WHICH IN CHRIST "JESUS IS ATTEMPERED WITH CLEMENCY. (John iii, 19; ix, 41; Gen. ii, 17.) "They differ in the special consideration of their subjects. For the law was "imposed on man while in a state of innocence, and at that time standing in "the favour of God: But the gospel was given to man as a sinner who had "to be brought back to the favour of God,-because it is the word of reconcili "ation. (2 Cor. v, 19.)-They differ in the peculiar reference of their ends. For "by the Law are illustrated the wisdom, goodness and strict justice of God "But by the Gospel is afforded a far more illustrious proof of the wisdom of "God, of his goodness joined with gracious mercy, (1 Cor. i, 20-24; Eph. i, "8.) and of his JUSTICE ATTEMPERED IN CHRIST JESUS. (Rom. iii, 24-26.)" How could these holy sentiments have been expressed in terms more scriptural and judicious? The first reference which our author makes to this attempered justice of God, is in the sanction appended to the command which was delivered in Paradise, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Had not the blood of that Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world been efficacious in attempering justice with clemency, the first offence of the first mau would undoubtedly have been instantly visited with temporal death. Though Adam was immediately stricken with spiritual death and fell from the favour of God, yet, through the clemency of Christ, the Second Adam, his animal existence was prolonged, to afford him an opportunity, by penitence and the other appointed recuperative means of his dispensation, to regain the approbation of his Maker, which he had previously forfeited. The second reference of Arminius is to this passage: Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness [or JUSTICE] for the remission of sins that are past, THROUGH THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD; that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Unless this forbearance of God, through the redemption in Christ Jesus, were in constant and gracious operation, no man that ever lived would have had an opportunity of being justified, by believing in Jesus. For, except the justice of God had been attempered with clemency, the sentence against every transgression would now be, as it was in former days, The soul that sinneth shall [instantly] die! In this view of the subject, therefore, we are most appropriately exhorted by St. Peter, to "account that the LONG-SUFFERING of our Lord is salvation."

No one who reads the Thesis can for one moment mistake the meaning of Arminius; and the charge contained in the quotation from the Heidelberg divines, formed no part of the heresies alleged against him by his contemporaries. With as much propriety may such a charge be applied to the reasoning contained in page 572, in which our author thus describes God's love of sinner; : VOL. I. Pr

2. However highly LUTHER and MELANCTHON might at the very commencement of the Reformation have approved of this doctrine, they afterwards deserted it. This change in Melancthon is quite apparent from his latter writings: And those who style themselves "Luther's disciples," make the same statement respecting their master, while they contend that on this subject he made a more distinct and copious declaration of his sentiments, instead of entirely abandoning those which he formerly entertained.—But Philip Melancthon believed that this doctrine did not differ greatly from the Fate of the Stoics: This appears from many of his writings, but more particularly in a certain letter which he addressed to Gasper Peucer, and in which, among other things, he states: "Lælius writes to me and says, that the controversy respecting "the STOICAL FATE is agitated with such uncommon fervour "at Geneva, that one individual is cast into prison because "he happened to differ from Zeno. O unhappy times!, when "the doctrine of salvation is thus obscured by certain strange "disputes!"

3. All the Danish Churches embrace a doctrine quite opposed to this, as is obvious from the writings of NICHOLAS HEMMINGIUS in his Treatise ON UNIVERSAL GRACE, in which he declares, that the contest between him and his adversaries consisted in the determination of these two points: "Do the

"It is that [love] by which he hath required obedience, not according to the "rigour and severity to which he was entitled by his own supreme right, but "according to his grace and clemency, and with the addition of a promise of "the remission of sins, provided fallen mau repent." The Calvinists of that age exhibited so much antipathy to this diffusive clemency, as to prove their own extreme selfishness. Since they were taught to consider themselves safe in the covenant of grace, they paid little regard to the helpless condition of others, but imbibed a portion of that churlish spirit which God reproved in the prophet Jonah, when he most pathetically said, ' Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured neither madest it to grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night: AND SHOULD NOT I SPARE NINEVEH, THAT GREAT CITY, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?'

But, to give some semblance of probability to their base and groundless insinuation, the Synodical calumniators added another reference to the 26th Thesis of the disputations of Vorstius on the covenant. By his own tenets, however, that persecuted individual is left to be judged; they do not concern the object of these remarks, as a subsequent note will evince. (See also page 78 and Appendix P.) The name of Vorstius at that period was undeservedly a sufficient passport to all in Divinity that was daring and unguarded and it was evidently associated with that of the pious and circumspect Arminius, for no other purpose than the common one-to blast the fair reputation of the deceased Professor, and to injure the cause of the Remonstrants that was then in a course of adjudication. Where then is the FAIRNESS of which Mr. Scott has boasted? I confess, that I can find as little of it in his Synodical friends as in their admirer, defender, and commentator!

elect believe?" Or "Are believers the true elect ?" He considers "those persons who maintain the former position, to hold sentiments agreeable to the doctrine of the Manichees and Stoics; and those who maintain the latter point, are in obvious agreement with Moses and the Prophets, with Christ and his Apostles."

4. Besides, by many of the inhabitants of these our own provinces this doctrine is accounted a grievance of such a nature, as to cause several of them to affirm, that on account of it they neither can nor will have any communion with our Church Others of them have united themselves with our Churches, but not without entering a protest, "that they cannot possibly give their consent to this doctrine." But, on account of this kind of Predestination, our Churches have been deserted by not a few individuals, who formerly held the same opinions as ourselves: Others also have threatened to depart from us, unless they be fully assured that the Church holds no opinion of this description.

5. There is likewise no point of doctrine which the Papists, Anabaptists, and Lutherans oppose with greater vehemence than this, and through whose sides they create a worse opinion of our Churches or procure for them a greater portion of hatred, and thus bring into disrepute all the doctrines which we profess. They likewise affirm," that of all the blasphemies against God which the mind of man can conceive or his tongue can express, there is none so foul as not to be deduced by fair consequence from this opinion of our Doctors."

6. Lastly. Of all the difficulties and controversies which have arisen in these our Churches since the time of the Reformation, there is none that has not had its origin in this doctrine, or that has not at least been mixed with it. What I have here said will be found true, if we bring to our recollection the controversies which existed at Leyden in the affair of Koolhaes, at Gouda in that of Herman Herberts, at Horn with respect to Cornelius Wiggertson, and at Mendenblich in the affair of Tako Sybrants. † This consideration was not among the last of those motives which induced me to give my most diligent attention to this head of doctrine, and endeavour to prevent our Churches from suffering any detriment from it;

Arminius states these two questions in another form in the margin, thus: "Do we believe, because we have been elected?" Or, "Are we elected, be cause we believe ?"

+ See the long note, page 538–541.

because, from it, the Papists have derived much of their increase. While all pious teachers ought most heartily to desire the destruction of Popery, as they would that of the kingdom of Antichrist, they ought with the greatest zeal to engage in the attempt, and, as far as it is within their power, to make the most efficient preparations for its overthrow. *

In those days the enemies of Protestantism eyed with malignancy all the motions of its Professors; and the Jesuits had then recently published CREDO CALVINISEQUARUM, a very artful pamphlet, containing the Creed of Calvin's followers, arranged in a scholastic form, and consisting of quotations from their most admired authors. That pamphlet was very injurious to the Protestant Religion, by the attempt made in it to fasten those high Predestinarian peculiarities on the whole of the Reformed Churches. Vorstius, who was at that time Professor of Divinity at Steinfurt, wrote an able reply to this Jesuitical pamphlet. It was in 1607, two years before the death of Arminius, that the acquaintance between him and Vorstius seems to have commenced, when he presented our author with a copy of his reply, entitled APOLOGIA pro Ecclesüs Orthodoxis contra Jesuitas, and requested his friendly strictures: Arminius complied with his request, in a most charming letter, in which he instructed that great genius in some interesting points of doctrine, on which he appeared to have imbibed erroneous ideas. In a subsequent letter, dated March 31, 1609, a few months prior to his own decease, he addressed to Vorstius the following remarks on Popery.

"I never said, that Bellarmine's fourth Volume was incapable of being refuted: But I have said,—and I adhere to the same declaration,-that, according to my judgment no solid refutation has yet been given to those arguments by which Bellarmine shews, that the following consequences flow from the writings of some of our divines,-God is the author of sin, God really sins, God is the only sinner, and sin is no sin at all.-I have read the arguments which you have given in your answer to the [Jesuitical] CReed of the CaLVINISTS; but, requesting you to forgive my freedom, I observe that they do not appear to me to be good and sufficient excuses for our divines. Bellarmine has not tied the knot so tightly, as to prevent its being drawn more closely around them: This fact I consider it very easy to demonstrate. This is one reason why I think it a much safer course, to decline acknowledging the authority of those teachers among us, and openly to profess, that the sentiments of individuals ought not to be charged upon our Churches. It might probably be added as an extenuation of our men, that persons may be found, even among the schoolmen and other Popish divines, from whose writings it is possible to deduce the same consequences."

As this was one of the last letters which Arminius wrote, I cannot resist the inclination to present the reader with the liberal and pious sentiments with which it concludes: "With regard to the judgments which Divines may form about me and my doctrine, my only wish is, that they may partake of moderation and candour, and that all divines will consider me to lie under no stronger obligations to approve my opinions to them, than those by which they are bound to approve their opinions to me. For we live under an equal jurisdiction in the Christian Church and it is the province of no man, to exercise dominion over the faith of another,-because one is our Master, even Christ.Such is the hasty reply which I have thought proper to give to your letter. I beseech you, most learned man, to receive it in a favourable manner, and to admit as an excuse the infirm state of my health, which does not permit me to make further additions.-I pray the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to inspire all of us with a serious and real love of truth, piety and peace. To this Almighty God I commend you and all your concerns, and myself to your prayers. May God shew compassion to his church, by delivering it from tyranny, and mercifully liberating his own word from the bonds of human traditions !"

The preceding views are, in brief, those which I hold respecting this novel doctrine of Predestination. I have propounded it with all good faith from the very expressions of the authors themselves, that I might not seem to invent and attribute to them any thing which I was not able clearly to prove from their writings.

2. A SECOND KIND OF PREDESTINATION.

But some other of our doctors state the subject of God's Predestination in a manner somewhat different. We will cursorily touch upon the two modes which they employ.

Among some of them the following opinion is prevalent: * 1. God determined within himself, by an eternal and immutable decree, to make (according to his own good pleasure,) the smaller portion out of the general mass of mankind partakers of his grace and glory,-to the praise of his own glorious grace. But according to his pleasure he also passed by the greater portion of men, and left them in their own nature, which is incapable of every thing supernatural, [or beyond itself,] and did not communicate to them that saving and supernatural grace by which their nature, (if it still retained its integrity,) might be strengthened, or by which, if it were corrupted, it might be restored, for a demonstration of his own liberty: Yet after God had made these men sinners and guilty of death, he punished them with death eternal-for a demonstration of his own justice.

2. Predestination is to be considered in respect to its end and to the means which tend to it. But these persons employ the word "Predestination" in its special acceptation for election, and oppose it to reprobation.-(1) In respect to its end, (which is salvation, and an illustration of the glorious grace of God,) man is considered in common and absolutely, such as he is in his own nature.-(2) But in respect to the mears, man is considered as perishing from himself and in himself, and as guilty in Adam.

3. In the decree concerning the end, the following gradations are to be regarded: (1) The prescience of God, by which he foreknew those whom he had predestinated. Then (2) the Divine prefinition, [or predetermination,] by which he foreordained the salvation of those persons whom he had foreknown:

* In the animadversions on the preceding scheme of Predestination, I have often called it Supra-lapsarian; but it is more properly styled, in the language of that age, "the Creabilitarian opinion," and that which follows in the text, as the "second kind of Predestination," is a modified Supra-lapsarianism, and the "third kind" is Sub-lapsarianism.