'wood, hay, stubble,'-doctrines which lose all that decidedly gracious aspect which, in conformity with the scriptures, Arminius had communicated to them. These men are therefore much mistaken in the alliance which they have thus preposterously claimed: for it is not the evangelical system of Arminius upon which they have ventured to build, but it is the legal and pharisaic foundation of Pelagius, which, though extremely slight, is sufficiently stable to sustain the lumber of their inventions; and the fabric of their erection has accordingly obtained the very appropriate appellation of Semi-Pelagianism."-The reflection, however, is a pleasant one, that the great majority of our English Divines, and especially of our national clergy, have, as it became the most learned and enlightened body of Theologians in the world, built upon the noble foundation of Arminianism a goodly fabric of gold, silver, and precious stones,'-doctrines which hold "the golden mean" between the extremes of CALVINISM and PELAGIANISM, and between the two intermediate and milder contradictions of SEMI-PELAGIANISM and BAXTERIANISM.Those ministers of the truth as it is in Jesus' who allow to scriptural PRIVILEGES and to scriptural DUTIES their respective provinces, are the only men who can conscientiously delight to propagate Arminian doctrines in their native purity, as they came from the hands of the most eminent Professor that ever adorned the chair of Divinity in the University of Leyden.

The reader will derive much information, about the state of these doctrines previous to the days of Arminius, from the following abridgment of Dr. Heylin's very accurate remarks in his HISTORIA QUINQUARTICULARIS, or A Declaration of the Judg ment of the Western Churches, and more particularly of the Church of England in the controverted Points reproached in these last times by the name of ARMINIANISM.

He observes, in his preface, that if "Tertullian's rule be good, that those opinions have most truth which have most authentic Antiquity, (id verum est, quod primum, as his own words are,) the truth must certainly run most clearly in that part of the controversy which has least in it of the Zuinglian or Calvinian doctrines." About the year 180, Florinus, and some others at home, had expressly affirmed, that God was the Author of sin; which assertion was immediately attacked by St. Irenæus, who published a discourse intitled, "GOD, not the Author of Sin." This doctrine was afterwards proposed in * Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib.v, cap. 20.

another form by the Manichees, and always considered by the Ancients as the most dangerous heresy. Nay St. Augustine himself, notwithstanding all his zeal against Pelagius, asks this question: "Which of us affirms that free-will is perished utterly from mankind by the fall of the first man?" He replies to this: "Freedom indeed is destroyed by sin: but it is that freedom only, which we had in paradise, of having perfect righteousness with immortality." For otherwise, as Dr. Heylin observes, it appears to be his opinion, that man was not merely passive under all the influences of grace, according to that celebrated expression of his, "He, who first made thee without thy help, will not save thee at last without thy concurrence." But if any harsher expressions have escaped his pen, as it often happens in the heat of dispute, they are to be qualified by this last rule, and another of his, in which it is affirmed, that God could not with justice judge and condemn the world, if the sins of all men did not proceed from their own free will, but from some over-ruling Providence which constrained them.§

In the Council of Trent there was a contest between the Dominicans and Franciscans upon the subject of the decrees. The most considerable Divines there inclined to the opinion of the great school Divines, St. Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, and others who affirmed that God before the creation, out of the mass of mankind, did from mere mercy elect some for glory, for whom he hath effectually prepared the means to obtain it; that their number is certain and determined, and none can be added to them. And that others, who are not predestinated to salvation, cannot complain, since God hath afforded them sufficient assistance for this purpose, although none but the elect can be saved. This doctrine they endeavoured to prove from the Epistles of St. Paul and the works of St. Augustine. But the Franciscans represented it as injurious to the attributes of the Deity, since he would act partially, if without any cause he should elect one, and reject another,—and unjustly, if he should damn men for his own will, and not for their faults, and create so great a multitude of men to condemn them. Catarinus, who was in favour of a medium between the two opinions, observed, that the doctrine of St. Augustine was not heard of before his time; and he himself has confessed, that it cannot be found in the works of any preceding writer. He added,

+Lib. i, contra Epist. Pelag. cap. 2.

Hist. Quinq. cap.i. p. 9.

§ Idem, cap. i. p. 9.

that the warmth with which he opposed Pelagius, had transported him too far. *

rest.

It appears upon a general view, that the Franciscans among the Papists, and the followers of Melancthon and of. Arminius among the Protestants, weré on one side with regard to the divine decrees; and the Dominicans, the rigid Lutherans, who followed Flaccius Illyricus, and the Sublapsarian Calvinists on the other; while Catarinus took the middle way, in which he was afterwards followed by Dr. Overal, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and successively Bishop of Litchfield and Norwich. + Calvin found out a way by himself, which neither the Dominicans, nor any other of "the followers of St. Augustine's rigours," as Dr. Heylin expresses it, had previously found out, by making God to have imposed upon Adam an unavoidable necessity of falling into sin and misery, in order that he might shew his mercy in electing some few of his posterity, and his justice in the absolute rejection of all the This scheme appeared very shocking to many of the Papists, and so offensive to the Lutherans in general, that they have professed a greater readiness to return to Popery, than to give their assent to it.|| But by the interest of Calvin it was almost universally received in all churches of his platform, though strongly opposed by Sebastian Castalio in Geneva itself, who met with severe treatment from Calvin and Beza on that account. The terror of this example, and the great reputation which Calvin had gained by his preaching and writing, not only confirmed his power at home, but also made his doctrines the more easily admitted abroad. His system, therefore, was zealously adhered to in all those churches which either had received the discipline of Geneva, or whose divines endeavoured to advance it. By this means, as Mr. Hooker observes § in the preface to his Ecclesiastical Polity, "that of what account the Master of the Sentences was in the Church of Rome, the same and more amongst the preachers of the Reformed Churches Calvin had purchased, so that the perfectest Divines were judged they who were skilfullest in Calvin's writings. His books almost the very Canon, by which to judge of doctrine and discipline. The French Churches, both under others abroad or at home in their own country, all cast according to that mould, which Calvin had made. The Church of Scotland in erecting the fabrick of their Reforma• Idem, cap. ii. + Idem, cap. iv, p. 34, 35. Idem, cap. iv, p.35. § Page 9. Idem, cap. iv, p. 36.

tion took the self-same pattern." This was received not longafter in the Palatine Churches and those of the Netherlands; in all which as his doctrine made way to bring in the discipline, so it was no difficult matter for the discipline to support the doctrine and oppress all those who durst oppose it.*

We may observe, however, that Beza and his followers proceeded to a much greater excess of rigour in fixing the decree of Predestination before the fall, which Calvin had himself placed in massa corruptâ, the corrupted mass of mankind; and which was maintained by the more moderate Calvinists.— But as they agreed with the rest with regard to personal elec tion and reprobation, in restraining the benefit of our Saviour's sufferings to the elect, and asserting the irresistible efficacy of grace, with the impossibility of falling from it, there was hardly any notice taken of their deviation, though they differed in the foundation; and they passed under the general name of Calvinists. Those Divines of the Low Countries, who were of the old Lutheran stock, were more inclined to the sentiments of Melancthon concerning Predestination, than to those of Calvin; yet knowing the prodigious esteem in which the latter was held amongst them, or being unwilling to engage in any disputes, they suffered his opinions to prevail without opposition.

In this manner affairs stood till the year 1592, when Mr. Wm. Perkins, an eminent divine of Cambridge, published his Book, called Armilla Aurea, &c., containing the doctrine of Predestination as it is represented by Beza, but digested into a more distinct and methodical form. This induced our Arminius to oppose the current of those opinions, which appeared to him extremely shocking and injurious to all our natural notions of the Deity. †

But in order to shew that the doctrine of the Remonstrants was more ancient than Calvinism in the Churches of the Low Countries, we may observe, that those Provinces embraced the Reformation at first, according to the Lutheran model. About the year 1530, the Reformed religion was admitted into EastFriesland, under Enno the first, upon the preaching of Hardinbergius, a learned man, and one of the principal reformers of the Church of Embden, a town of the greatest eminence in that Earldom. From him Clemens Martini received those principles, which he afterwards propagated in the Low Countries, where the same doctrine concerning Predestination had been publicly maintained in a Book intitled Hodegus Laicorum or Heylin, Hist. Quinq. cap. iv p. 37., + Idem, cap. iv, pag. 38

The Layman's Guide, published by Anastasius Veluanus in 1554, and highly commended by Henry Antonides, DivinityProfessor in the University of Franeker. But on the other hand, the French Ministers having settled themselves in those parts which either used the French language, or anciently belonged to the Crown of France, and exerting themselves with more vigour than the other party, prevailed so far with William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, that a confession of their own drawing up was presented to the Lady Regent, ratified, as Dr. Heylin says, * in a forcible and tumultuous manner, and afterwards by degrees obtruded upon all the Churches in the Low Countries. However, the Ministers successively in the whole Province of Utrecht adhered to their former doctrines, and were not considered upon that account as less Reformed; nor were there wanting some persons of great distinction among them, who opposed the doctrine of Predestination contained in that confession, which was first published in the year 1567.— Johannes Isbrandi, one of the Preachers of Rotterdam, openly professed himself an Anti-Calvinist, as well as Gellius Snecanus in West-Friesland, who esteemed those of Calvin's judgment as innovators in the doctrine which had been first received among them. We also find the same account of Holman, one of the professors at Leyden, of Cornelius Meinardi, and Cornelius Wiggeri, two persons of great reputation, before the name of Arminius was ever mentioned.t

In addition to the great Divines here enumerated by Dr. Heylin, as favourers and defenders of conditional Predestination prior to the time in which Arminius flourished, we may specify the names of Erasmus, Bullinger, Sarcerius, Latimer, Duifhusius, Dr. Overal, Bishop Andrews, Dr. Clayton, and last, but not least, the two learned Professors, (formosi ambo!) HEMMINGIUS of Copenhagen, and BARO of Cambridge. The following epistle which the latter of these learned

Idem, cap. v, pag. 47.

+ Idem, cap. v. p. 48.

HEMMINGIUS was born in the isle of Laland, a part of the King of Denmark's dominions, in the year 1513; and, after having made considerable progress in learning during his youth, he was sent to the University of Wirtemburgh, where for the space of five years he was one of the most assiduous of Melancthon's auditors. He supported himself at that seat of learning by performing part of the duties of a tutor, and by writing for some of those students who are distinguished in almost every University for their opulence and their idleness. By Melancthon's interest he was admitted into a gentleman's family, as tutor to his daughters. After a faithful and exemplary discharge of his trust in that situation, he received the appointment of Minis