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suppression, and who with manifest inconsistency stigmatized Arminianism as POPERY, not only when it was supported by able to maintain themselves, much less their clergy, against the torrents of reproach and calumny with which they were publicly assailed. The very name of "Arminianism" was industriously traduced and rendered so odious to the common people, as to be disclaimed by those who were the greatest admirers of the system itself, but who at the same time knew that it was contained in the formularies of their own church, and was capable of deriving from them most ample confirmation. The subjoined quotation from BAKER'S Chronicle will be explanatory of this matter:-" In his first year, [Charles I.] some differences were revived about the tenets of Arminius, which began in the latter end of his father's reign, and were heightened by the Commons House of the Parliament then newly assembled, the members whereof generally favoured the oppugners of those points: And the controversy was the more remarkable, because it divided the Bishops themselves; but those of that order that were reputed Arminians did not own themselves to be such, but maintained That what they held was ever the doctrine of the Church of Englund, contained in the Seventeenth Article thereof; and the like was asserted by those that opposed those tenets, so tnat both made claim to that article; and about the exposition thereof, and the consequences from thence derived, the peace of the Church was not a little disquieted."-I shall embrace another opportunity to prove, that many of the Arminian clergy of that age and some even of the Bishops themselves derived, immediately from Hollaud, not only their religious opinions with a taint of the infection which had then broken out in Amsterdam, but likewise their relish for civil freedom and an enlarged religious toleration.-The two classes of exemplary Arminian divines, who chose thus for many years to encounter certain reproach without any equivalent accompanying inducements, except such as arose from the highest and most disinterested source, could not be expected to join the ranks of the republican levellers that were trying to subvert not only the Monarchy, but likewise the Episcopal Church, from which the doctrines of General Redemption drew their best sanction. Instead therefore of this circumstance being quoted in disparagement of the Arminian clergy, it is to their perpetual honour and credit that they adhered to the declining interests of the King and the Church; and when the cause of both was utterly ruined, those excellent men presented to the world a magnanimous example of patient suffering for righteousness' sake, which, were it to receive as large and studied an illustration as that of the comparatively small number of Nonconforming ministers who were ejected from the bosom of the Church in the year 1662, would in several particulars transcend all the instances of suffering virtue that have been known since the Christian Religion was first planted in Great Britain. On this subject the following quotation, written by Dr. Gauden a few months prior to the Restoration, is exceedingly just and appropriate :-"The renown and value of Episcopacy is much risen since Englishmen have seen added, to the other excellencies of our English Bishops, the miracle and magnanimity of their Christian patience; who, after their hard and long studies, attended with many meritorious and useful virtues, after they had lawfully obtained and many years peaceably enjoyed such honors and estates as adorned Episcopacy in England,-after they had no way and by no law forfeited these or misused them; yet in the decline of their lives, in the colder and darker winter of their age, these grave and gallant men can bear with Christian patience and heroic composedness of mind the loss of all, and that from their own countrymen, professors of the same Christian (yea and Reformed) Religion: And this without any respect had either to their present and future support, or their pristine dignity. A fate so sad and tragical, as is scarce to be paralleled in any age or history; yet have none of them been heard to charge God foolishly. They say and write either nothing, or only the words of soberness, truth and charity; they still possess their souls in silence and patience, when dispossessed of all things: Wherever they live, their lustre shines through their greatest obscurity and tenuity, as the bright sun through small crevices, far beyond the most sparkling Presbyters or

the powerful influence of the Church, but when the Hierarchy itself was shorn of its strength and deprived of its beauty.

glittering Independents; whose new popular projects for Church government, compared to primitive and old Episcopacy, are like comets or blazing stars compared to the sun and moon. I know some of those Lords and Commons who in the huddle helped to destroy Bishops and their order, now not only pity the undeserved sufferings of such brave men, but repent of their own compliance; and so do many Ministers."-This description is as applicable to the Arminian clergy as to the Bishops, which is obvious from other remarkable passages in Dr. Gauden's work; and the whole of it serves to prove the prepared state of the public mind for the return of Monarchy, Episcopacy, and Arminianism in 1660.

But the remarks in the preceding long paragraph apply to the Arminian clergy, rather than to the laity, whose numbers previous to the overthrow of the monarchy were not so vast as is generally supposed. Indeed, the criterion by which the quality as well as the quantity of both Arminians and Calvinists are usually tried, is exceedingly fallacious; for the persons who composed the two opposing armies in the Civil Wars, are frequently adduced as accurate specimens of those two religious parties,-a mode of calculation which I shall afterwards shew to be manifestly erroneous. It is only necessary in this place to observe, that several good Arminians, both aniong the Clergy and Laity, did not approve of all the measures of government; that some of them expressed their displeasure at the rigorous proceedings of the High Commission Court and the Star Chamber; and yet that all of them considered it better to endure a few temporary, known, and defined evils, than seditiously to rush into others which were unknown to the laws of the realm, and unsanctioned by scripture: For they were well assured, that there existed a constitutional remedy for all those evils, in strong yet respectful petitions and remonstrances from the people to their monarch. Though the Arminian laity were small in number, and though during the days of republican anarchy their influence was feeble and confined, yet this "little leaven" of righteousness diffused itself in an amazing manner among all ranks of the community, and its gracious effects were rendered apparent at the Restoration. It will hereafter be a part of my grateful duty, to demonstrate the existence of that Divine energy, in the establishment of scriptural Arminianism during the inter-regnum, which had been so conspicuously exerted in the original establishment of Christianity itself. For, after all the well-intended labours and arduous efforts of Archbishop Laud and his pious coadjutors, the expression of the Prophet may, not unfitly, be applied to the rapid and extraordinary diffusion of Arminian principles at the period to which I have referred; those principles were then disseminated, "not by [human] might or power, but by the SPIRIT of the Lord of Hosts."

I am quite ready to acknowledge, that, in England, the Calvinists opposed the introduction of new ceremonies into the church, or, more properly, the revival of old ones; and that, both in England and Holland, they strenuously and effectually resisted the toleration, which the Civil Powers were willing to grant to Arminianism, and which was not incompatible with the Confessions of either of the National Churches, though that of the Church of England was, of the two, far the more liberal. (See Works of Arminius, vol. i, p. 665)-I have exposed in the preceding pages (494-543) some of the principles on which their opposition was grounded. I have also shewn, (p. 676) that the encouragement which the House of Commons gave to the English Calvinists, to utter their speculative Predestinarian opinions, and to vent their antipathy to the doctrines of General Redemption," was the real origin of their opposition to the salutary restraints then attempted to be imposed upon their metaphysical and unchristian refinements on the Gospel. This politic encouragement gradually extended itself, till the Parliament ultimately became the avowed patrons of seditious movements, in favour of the ecclesiastical supremacy due to Calvin's dogmas. The establishment of this supremacy was rendered more hopeful and palatable to the Calvinists themselves, (p. 313, 448) and to the irreligious and unprincipled part of the

(Page 677.) Some persons of the same class, in our days, are willing to have it generally believed, that no divine of eminence except Archbishop Laud felt the least hesitation about the posination, by the plausible association effected by the republican statesmen between Calvinism and a Commonwealth. But every one who is acquainted with history, knows that A REPUBLIC is not actually synonymous with CIVIL LIBERTY; and Calvinism is certainly a term which is far from being equivalent to Religious Freedom. It would be singular, indeed, and a circumstance altogether anomalous in the moral history of mankind, were those narrow principles which are peculiar to Calvinism accounted the parents of a liberal toleration, either civil or religious. The mistake which has arisen concerning this alleged Calvinistic love of freedom, will be rendered still more evident by briefly adverting to the model of civil government which the English Calvinists proposed to adopt: It was that of the Dutch Republic, which had recently ejected from its bosom, and banished into foreign countries, some of its most valuable and industrious citizens, in the persons of the pious Arminians: That was one trait of Dutch freedom! A consummation like this against Arminianism, the British Calvinists could not hope to obtain under a Monarchy; but, under a Republic, they did obtain it to a considerable extent, (though far beneath their wishes,) when they procured the suppression of the Bishops, and the ejection of almost every Arminian clergyman in the kingdom. Such were some of the appearances of this Calvinistic love of freedom,-a freedom to exclude, from the benefits of their confined Toleration, all those who professed the sanctifying doctrines of General Redemption. Dr. Hammond has given a good description of the natural incongruity between CALVINISM and CIVIL OBEDIENCE,the latter of which, to whomsoever it may be due, is the foundation of all rational liberty,-in his treatise of Fundamentals, written in 1654, while Cromwell's Committee of Fourteen Predestinarian Divines were sitting in consultation about the nature of Fundamental Truths, or rather about the terms on which Calvinists might tolerate each other. "To these christian and theological considerations," says the Doctor, "it will not be amiss to add what care the writers of Politics have had, to warn us of the noxiousness of this doctrine [Absolute Predestination] to all civil governments; which the Christian religion, rightly understood, is so very far from disturbing, that, beyond all other aphorisms political, beyond the sagest provisions of the profoundest lawyers, it is imcomparably qualified to perpetuate the public weal and peace, would men but live according to the rules of it. But, [as] for the doctrine of those who so mistake the christian religion, as to think it is only a chain of fatal decrees, To deny all liberty of man's choice toward good or evil, and to affix all events to God's predetermination,-This,' say they [the Politicians] is utterly irreconcilable with the nature of civil government, with the foundation thereof laid in laws, or with the punishments and rewards which are thought necessary to the continuance thereof;' and Campanella chooseth to instance in a republic or free state. For when the people, who think their liberty (of which they are very tender and jealous) to be retrenched or impaired by the restraint of laws, can further answer their rulers, though but in heart without proceeding to farther boldness, that they cannot observe the laws, being led by irresistible decrees to the transgressing of them,' the consequence is easy to foresee-the despising and contemning of laws, and hating and detesting of those who are obliged to punish them when they have offended, which two are soon inflamed, beyond the rate of popular discontents, into actual seditions and tumults, as soon as opportunity shall favour, or opinion of their own strength encourage them to it." THE JUSTICE OF THESE REMARKS was felt even by the Republican rulers; and Cromwell himself was compelled to employ measures of severity and co-ercion against many of his once-dear Predestinarian friends, who were the intolerant advocates of that species of liberty which has been described in this paragraph.

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The contrast which is attempted to be established, by comparing the genius and progress of Arminianism in Holland with its genius and progress in this country, is likewise unjust and inapplicable. The case of the early

tive ANTICHRISTIAN character of the Roman Pontiff, wished to conciliate the affections of Papists, or attempted to overcome their objections by mild and gentle methods. But whatever blame Arminians in England has received only a very brief elucidation in this note; but more ample justice will be rendered to it in the second volume. Sufficient evidence, however, has been produced to shew, that they were no such enemies to "civil liberty" as they have been generally represented. The author of the first sentence in this note ought to have known, that the Dutch Arminians are depicted in the Historical Preface to the Synod of Dort as movers of sedition, while the very opposite to this was the fact: They were thus stigmatized, -because, while their own friends were in power, they refused to subscribe to a fresh formulary of faith in the Heidelberg Catechism; and since this Catechism and the Dutch Confession had received from the Calvinists the appellation of "The Little BibLES and the MARROW OF SCRIPTURE," the Arminians were desirous that both these documents should be subjected to a regular canonical revision, and rendered as unexceptiouable as possible, if both of them were afterwards to remain standards of faith for all the Dutch Churches. They could not obtain this reasonable concession for themselves when their patrons were at the head of governmert; and their violent brethren, who had previously intended to alter both the Catechism and Confession and to make them more accordant to their own opinions, succeeded ultimately in their crafty design, by framing the Canons of the Synod of Dort, and imposing them on the churches of the United Provinces and on those of neighbouring nations, as still higher standards of Calvinian orthodoxy. These facts are copiously detailed in the First Volume of the Works of Arminius, pages 514, 644 and 664, and through the whole of his Declaration; and I refer the reader to pages 432, 573, 575, 585, and 594 of the present volume for additional information respecting the mild and tolerant conduct of the Dutch Arminians, which is highly characteristic of that scriptural system wherever sit is permitted freely to develope itself. Such a permission it did not obtain in England in the days of Archbishop Laud, much as has been asserted to the contrary, or even under the boasted rule of Cromwell; but after the Restorcation, its genial influences gradually diffused themselves till the Revolution of 1688, when they communicated an extensive and salutary impulse to the whole nation, which is felt at this day among all denominations of British christians. I have repeatedly admitted in these notes, that the opinions about civil and religious liberty which Grotius and his Arminian friends in Holland defended, were of a purer and more philanthropic description than those which were openly avowed and acted upon by Archbishop Laud, and some of his immediate advisers: This is only tantamount to the admission, which every one acquainted with the affairs of England will be prepared to make, that we then received from Holland the masters who excelled us in painting, engraving, printing, commerce, legislation, &c. But the effects of the rivalry then excited between the two countries were soon afterwards apparent by our rapid march and improvement in all matters connected with intellect, business, navigation, ingenuity, mechanism, legislation, art, science and literature, in which we obtained a striking superiority, and still retain the enviable trophies of those grand national efforts. It is not wonderful therefore if we began to surpass our teachers in religious toleration and civil government, as soon as we received a monarch from Holland in the person of King William the Third. Other curious circumstances both of resemblance and difference between the Arminians in England and those in Holland, might be adduced: In both countries they constituted the minority, while their patrons were the chief members of government; they wished to continue in the Established Churches of England and Holland; both of them offered their Hopponents the most ample toleration in the bosom of that Church from which -they were themselves excluded by the Calvinists; and, to effect their exclusion, a gross outrage was committed on the constitution of each country. To prevent the infliction of that outrage, some of the English Arminians made common cause with Monarchy and Episcopacy, and engaged in a civil war to secure what they deemed their just immunities. In Holland, the Armininians, though better prepared for resistance than their English brethren,

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some of the Calvinists of that age might attach to his Grace for indulging in such enlarged designs and benevolent sentiments, it is declined an appeal to arms, and yielded to their tyrannical conquerors without any other resistance than that of remonstrance and petition, which are the only weapons recognized by true christians. In neither country did the Calvinistic pastors fully succeed in their wishes, though in both they had indulged vast hopes of supreme dictation in Church and State. Those hopes, however, were frustrated by the statesmen in the two nations, who had designs of their own to execute. In Holland the statesmen maintained their authority, not only against the insidious aggressions of the predestinarian ecclesiastics who were elated with their victory over the Arminians, but likewise against those bolder attempts of Prince Maurice who failed in his intention to elevate himself to the rank of a monarch and to render himself absolute. (See pages 524 and .) To the republican statesmen of England I have adjudged their due meed of measured approbation in pages 400, 436 & 448, for the resistance which they gave to the "exorbitant demands of the Calvinistic pastors;" yet those interested legislators allowed themselves and the whole nation to be duped and abused by Cromwell, whose tyrannical conduct became at length disgusting even to his supple dependant, Dr. John Owen. The effects of these Calvinistic movements in both countries may be thus stated Prince Maurice failed in his hazardous and tyrannical enterprize: Cromwell, availing himself of the experience afforded by the failure of the Dutchman, adopted more decisive measures than Maurice had done, for obtaining political supremacy by means of the triumphant Calvinists. The Dutch Arminians opposed in a legal manner the ambitious designs of Prince Maurice; and the English Arminians boldly opposed Cromwell, and censured him for his mal-practices, both in personal interviews and from the press, at the very time when these Calvinists who have been depicted, by their party, as "the grand defenders of English liberty," exhibited the most abject subserviency to the tyrant, flattered his passions, frequented his court, and offered him the grateful incense of fulsome adulation. So that the Dutch and the English Arminians did not differ so much in the kind as in the degree of the civil liberty" which they severally patronized and defended: And if we make allowances for the difference of name between a REPUBLIC and a MONARCHY, and for the relative freedom of the institutions of each of those modifications of civil government, we shall find that the object of the Arminians in both countries was essentially alike, and that their spirited exertions were laudably directed to the preservation of their ancient laws and liberties.

More points of co-incidence and contrast between the Arminians of England and those of Holland might here be added; but those already enumerated will serve to shew, that the Dutch and English Calvinists are not entitled in any sense to the praise which has thus been inconsiderately adjudged. If it be alleged, that the latter were the authors of the Revolution of 1688, all commendation on account of that occurrence must likewise be withheld from them; for Bishop Warburton will afford them some correct information respecting the Inter-regnum, the Restoration, and the Revolution, in the subjoined brief quotation: "This miserable nation, now become the scorn and opprobrium of the whole earth, at length grew tired, rather than ashamed, of its repeated follies. In this temper they hastily recalled the heir of the monarchy: and as the cause of all these miseries had been their insisting on unreasonable conditions from the crown, they did [acted] like men driven out of one extreme, who never take breath till they have plunged themselves into another, they strove to atone for their unjust demands upon the VIRTUOUS father, by the most lavish concessions to his FLAGITIOUS SON; who succeeded to the inheritance, with all those advantages of an undefined prerogative which an ambitious prince could wish for the foundation of an arbitrary system : A sad presage to the friends of liberty, that their generous labours were not yet at an end! Indeed, within less than half a century, the old family-projects, taken up again by the two last princes of this line, revived the public quarrel. But it was conducted under happier auspices, not by the assistance of sectaries, but by the national Church; and concluded in the final establishment of a free constitution."

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