a committee, lest the larger assembly should be divided into parties. Both of them explained their sentiments, and purged themselves from the stain of Arminianism: They were then slightly admonished, not to utter before the people certain unnecessary questions. Thus was the matter passed over, without any more rigid censure agsinst them or wounding of their consciences."

He gives his brother a more complete account on the 8th of August: "In the Synod of Alençon, such was the intemperate fury of certain of Du Moulin's partizans, that they wished all the men who were suspected of Cameronism to be ejected from their situations, and particularly the whole of the ministers that composed the Paris consistory, on account of their dubious purity. It appeared, that a great part of the pastors then began to exhibit a decided leaning towards the sentiments of Cameron. Du Moulin was greatly ridiculed for having said, They who ' ascribe to God a desire to save all men, ascribe to him human affections. Amyraut produced five of Du Moulin's sermons, in which he had uttered the very same sentiment, [that God willed the salvation of all men]: He jocosely added, that he ' himself deserved to be pardoned though he had fallen into 'such an error, because he had not perceived the dreadful consequences which followed! But Du Moulin, who was very certain, that such frightful consequences ensued from that position, and yet in sight of them had spoken exactly in the same Imanner, had thus become at once a critic upon himself and 'a teacher of noxious doctrines.'-The warmth of Rivet✶ was likewise displeasing to many of the members: For after acquitting Amyraut and Testard by letter from all the charges which Du Moulin had preferred against them, with the exception of two articles which were by no means of a capital nature, he had notwithstanding inquisitively asked the opinion of all the Universities, Schools, Churches, and principal persons in the United Provinces, concerning Amyraut and Testard: But several of the answers which he received, were more temperate than he wished. For they say, he does not perfectly under

* Rivet was Du Moulin's brother-in-law; and, according to the laudable rules of affinity, these two relations seemed to have covenanted together to hold similar opinions, and to unite their polemic forces, which were eminently diversified and brawling, against all opposers. This explanation accounts for the rancour which Rivet exhibited towards Grotius, against whose character he invented all kinds of falsehoods for many years. He, at length, accused him of Socinianism. Our countryman, the Rev. Sampson Johnson, was on terms of great intimacy with Grotius, and the latter gratefully acknowledges the benefit which he had derived from his friend's "very learned and pious discourses," while at Hamburgh. At the close of a letter, which Mr. Johnson addressed in 1655 to Dr. Hammond, he says, "For the Socinian opinion, I know he [Grotius] was free; and it was the malice of Rivet to bring him in question, as he did many others, out of pride and supercilium, unfitting such a professor."

stand the French language, and is therefore disqualified from passing a clear and unbiassed judgment. You can form no conception how the followers of Cameron celebrate their triumph."

In a subsequent letter, (22d Aug.) he says: "Since I last wrote to you, I have seen the Acts of the Synod of Alençon, and their contents in reference to Testard and Amyraut. Every thing was transacted in such a manner as to cause them to repeat their approbation of the Synod of Alez and Charenton, the mere echoes of that of Dort, [the Canons of which they were prepared to sign with their blood," &c.

Thus, it appears, that many of these apparently liberal Frenchmen who espoused the doctrine of Universal Grace, were at length dragooned, by the unceasing importunity of their Calvinistical brethren, into an unqualified approbation of the doctrinal vagaries of the Dort Synodists; and, for a long time afterwards, it was an important part of their ingenious occupation to demonstrate the affinity which subsisted between the principles of UNIVERSAL and RESTRICTED GRACE,—an affinity which every man of common understanding will own to have no existence in the nature of the things predicated, but which was attempted to be instituted by means of the most refined Jesuitical equivocations that the mind of man ever invented. The following brief character of the Frenchmen, as delineated by the able hand of Grotius, is equally applicable to Richard Baxter, who, on this point, was one of the warmest of Cameron's disciples: "Testard and Amyraut do nothing more than varnish over bad doctrines with fair words; and they take away with the one hand whatever they have been compelled by the light of the scriptures to deliver with the other."-Some of them were undoubtedly upright and pious individuals, and appear to have been at heart real Arminians. But such was the overwhelming influence of the specious Calvinism which had been fabricated at Dort, that no doctrines could be tolerated in the French Churches except those which could plausibly trace their legal descent from that prolific Synodical parent. As soon as the leaders of Cameron's party, who may be safely complimented for Gallic astuteness, but not for Christian sincerity, had sacrificed the great and immoveable principles on which the more moderate among them wished to

Mosheim styles Louis Le Blanc and Claude Pajon, "the most eminent

of the reconciling Divines in the French Protestant Church."

On this clause, Dr. Maclaine, his learned Commentator, has introduced the following remark: "It is difficult to conceive, what could engage Dr. Mosheim to place Pajon in the class of those who explained the doctrines of Christianity in such a manner, as to diminish the difference between the doctrine of the Reformed and the Romish Churches. Pajon was, indeed, a moderate Divine, and leaned somewhat towards the Arminian system; and this propensity was not uncommon among the French Protestants. But few Doctors of this time wrote with more learning, zeal, and judgment against Popery, than Claude Pajon."

see their system founded, and when they had established the much-desired affinity between their doctrines and those of the Dort Synodists, all further ecclesiastical enmity ceased. To swear eternal hatred against the scriptural doctrines of Arminius, was considered a test in every respect adequate to the establishment of a man's character for Calvinian orthodoxy; and the Cameronists were not at all backward in expressing their abhorrence of every subsequent movement which betokened a closer approximation to the doctrines of General Redemption. They commenced an attack upon Arminianism; but their polemical attempts in that direction were viewed by all parties as a kind of convenient ruse du guerre, which served to ward off from themselves the very semblance of suspicion.*

In this vapid and inefficient manner terminated the struggle, between the high Calvinists and those who had at first evinced a decided-bearing towards the tenets of the Dutch Remon

Stephen de Courcelles, as Reformed minister at Amiens in Picardy, had, at the Provincial Synod of Charenton, in 1621, opposed the imposition of the Canons of Dort on the French Clergy, as a rule of faith, and found many of his brethren in the ministry ready to give support to his opposition. He succeeded Episcopius in the Divinity Professorship at Amsterdam, in 1643; and two years afterwards published the following brief account of one of Amyraut's recent productions, at the commencement of his own Reply

to it:

"When the greatest part of the preceding Examination of the Theses of Gomarus had been printed off under my superintendence, a friend presented me very opportunely with Four Theological Dissertations by Moses Amyraut, Professor of Divinity at Saumur. The Second of them is entitled, The Right and Jurisdiction which God possesses over his Creatures, and is opposed to my opinion and to that of Arminius: After I had perused it with some avidity, I met with a scanty return for my labour; on the contrary, I discovered throughout the production several foul errors. But that which most displeased me, was, the violent manner in which the man is borne along by his passions, being seized with an excessive propensity for contradiction, and even to cavil at those things which are truths the most manifest. On this account, I thought something ought instantly to be written in reply.

"A Treatise on Predestination, which Amyraut published in the French language ten years ago, was the original cause of this dispute. For in that publication he contends, that Christ suffered death equally for all men, and inculcates some other doctrines which seem to be nearly allied to the sentiment of the Remonstrants. This circumstance gave such great umbrage to Peter du Moulin, Professor of Theology in the University of Sedan, that be undertook the task of examining Amyraut's Treatise in a separate pamphlet. Having shortly afterwards obtained a copy of Du Moulin's Examination, I publicly, yet anonymously, delivered my Sentiments on the dogmas in controversy between them; and in that small work I shewed myself addicted to neither of the parties, but freely gave my suffrage first to the one and then to the other. But this I did in such a manner, as more frequently to be opposed to Du Moulin than to Amyraut, the latter of whom had in my estimation the better cause. But since Du Moulin was wishful to leave nothing undiscussed in the book of his adversary, while indulging this disposition he not only carped at those expressions which approached in the slightest degree to the doctrines of the Remonstrants, but likewise at those which were at the greatest possible distance from them, and which were quite of an opposite character. Among other instances of this kind, the following occurs in the Fourth Chapter of

strants; and though the hopes of all lovers of consistency were frustrated in the issue, yet it must not be forgotten that some good effects ensued from the controversy: These beneficial results are judiciously summed up in the following liberal remarks which occur in one of Professor Poelenburgh's letters, dated the 19th of Oct. 1655, and which prove that the writer was intimately acquainted with the genius of Cameronism:

"In the mean time, it is deeply to be regretted that the Popish writers, who much too frequently deviate from the scriptures, by ascribing too great an authority to traditions, occasionally evince a far better knowledge of Divine things, than do our Calvinists who acknowledge the scriptures as the sole rule of their faith. What can be more evident than this

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Amyraut's Treatise: "If immediately after the creation of man, God had plunged him into the bottomless infernal abyss, without having regard either to his good or to his evil actions, but only for the purpose of displaying his supreme right over his creatures, it was maa's duty to acquiesce in such severity without any unwillingness; because he is the creature of his Creator according to an absolute and indefinite right.'-To this reasoning Du Moulin replies: The absolute right of the Creator does not extend itself to unjust things, nor can He employ it in bating his own work, or a just and innocent creature. For, in addition to the injustice of such a 'punishment, God would by this means render man wicked, and would excite him to hatred and murmuring against him: Because it is impossible 'for mau to feel any other disposition towards God, of whose love towards him he would perceive no fruit so long as he was hated by God and eter. 'nally tormented.'

Courcelles then details his own remarks on these two contradictory statements, and adds: "I afterwards retorted Du Moulin's [general] arguments upon himself, and the other patrons of Absolute Reprobation, but principally upon those who are styled Supra-lapsarians; and I'demonstrated, that Amyraut's opinion was more worthy of being tolerated than that which they espoused. For they teach, that God, through the pure good-pleasure of his will, and without any consideration of sin as the moving cause, (or at least without any regard to what deserves really to be called sin,) has destined and created by far the greatest portion of mankind for eternal 'torments.' What they without any obscurity thus ascribe to God, is said by Amyraut to be only possible for God to do; but he plainly denies that God ever in reality acts in any such manner.

"This is a summary of what I then wrote on this topic; and throughout the whole discussion I conducted myself with the greatest possible moderation towards Amyraut. I was therefore much astonished when I saw myself treated with very great asperity in his recent Treatise; in which he not only styles my small production a virulent composition, but he also calls me a calumniator, and charges me with petulance and other faults of the same nature. For after I had defended him, in many articles of doctrine, against Du Moulin's accusations, with such fidelity as could not make him wish to have a better advocate for his cause, it was nothing more than equitable that, if he was unwilling to return me the thanks which I had deserved, (which would only have been the act of au ingenuous mind,) he might at least have refrained from invective and reproach. Was he angry, because I disapproved of his dogmas in some passages, which were in my judgment not agreeable to truth, and because I expressed my concurrence with Du Moulin when he refuted them? Is Amyraut so angry, self-complaisant, and haughty, as not to be able to endure faithful admonitions? Or, rather, did he not suppose, that, by treating me with contumely, he might be able to purge himself from the suspicion of ARMINIANISM, which he has incurred among the men with whom he associates ?"

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truth-Christ died for all men? What doctrine is more frequently propounded in the sacred writings? Yet this truth, plain as it appears, is frittered away by these brethren under the veil of a frivolous distinction. But it is a happy circumstance, that many eminent men have lately arisen in France, who, having imbibed better sentiments, openly profess it to be the will of God that all men be saved, and assert that Christ shed his blood for all men without a single exception. On this subject you are accustomed to dissent from me in our familiar conversations together, when you contend, that from this discussion [between the followers of Cameron and those of Calvin,] we gain nothing in favour of the truth, because those disciples of ⚫ Cameron openly differ from us on other primary articles in the controversy, such as the fixed number of those who are absolutely predestinated, the irresistibility of grace, the damnation of those who die in infancy, &c.' This fact I confess and lament. Yet they seem to assert this last dogma with some degree of hesitancy; and they do not maintain it on the principle of their belief of its truth, so much as on that of being conducted to it by other dogmas which require its assistance. But those other dogmas will, I hope, on this very account be soon discarded, because such dreadful consequences flow from them.

"But it must be granted, that at least a gradual advance has thus been made towards a closer inspection of the truth. This is sufficiently apparent to me at present-(1) From the circumstance of their very accurate exposition, according to our sentiments, of all those passages of scripture by which we contend for Universal Grace.-(2) Because, in arranging the Divine Decrees, they follow nearly the same order as our Divines have adopted.-(3) This fact likewise must not be overlooked -their adversaries the Calvinists openly contend, and press it upon them as a necessary consequence, that, if they wish ALL THEIR SENTIMENTS or writings to be in complete harmony, they ought to entertain opinions similar to ours on the other 'controverted dogmas.'-(4) Lastly, If we gain nothing else by the affair, this advantage at least will accrue to us-it will be conceded, that respecting these and similar discrepancies in the explanation of sentiments and expositions of passages of scripture, A MUTUAL TOLERATION MUST BE EXERCISED. Nay, if I

* The distinction to which Poelenburgh here alludes, seems to be that mentioned with two others, in the preceding examination of Tilenus, page 44 : "The word ALL is to be understood, not for all of every kind, but for some few only of every sort and nation."

+ This clause contains a reason for the retention of one-half of the absurd contradictions of Calvinism and Baxterianism. The followers of these two

discordant predestinarian schemes propound some of their dogmas, not on the principle of a belief in their truth, as separate propositions, but on that of their necessity as supports to other dogmas, which, without them, could not be maintained. There is abundance of materials, in the private correspondence of such men, to prove this fact beyond all controversy.